    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [August 10, 1999]
    [Pages 1423-1425]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Discussion on the Partnership With BusinessLINC
    August 10, 1999

        The President. Well, hello, everyone. I have a few remarks, but I
    want to be brief so we can get on to the business at hand. But first,
    I'd like to thank James Powell for making us
    feel welcome in his place of business, and his family and his co-workers
    and the instruction that he gave me on making a mop. I'm always looking
    for new skills since I have to acquire some pretty soon. [Laughter] And
    the Vice President appreciates the fact
    that he buys the cord from Tennessee.
        The Vice President. Humboldt,
    Tennessee.
        The President. And I want to thank the mayor and the two councilpersons and
    Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
    for making us feel welcome up here. We're always glad to be out in DC,
    but this is a special opportunity. And I know that the mayor and
    Councilwoman Charlene Drew Jarvis and Kevin Chavous--Councilman Chavous
    are excited about what's going on here.
        I want to thank Dana Mead; the president
    and CEO of Tenneco; the gentleman to my right who is the chair of the
    Business Roundtable; and Peter Bijur, the
    president and CEO of Texaco, who is going to chair our BusinessLINC
    national coalition, for their willingness to undertake this project with
    gusto; and all the others around here who are proving that this kind of
    thing works and who will be introduced as we go through, including the
    members of the administration who are here: Secretary Summers; Gene Sperling, my
    National Economic Counselor, who has done so much to develop the new
    markets initiative; Aida Alvarez of the SBA;
    and Jack Lew, Director of the Office of
    Management and Budget.

    [[Page 1424]]

        We all know why we're here. We have a record expansion in America,
    the longest peacetime expansion in history. It has finally, in the last
    3 years, given us substantial increases in wages for ordinary workers,
    after 20 years of stagnation, and the lowest minority unemployment rate
    ever recorded. Yet we know that there are still people in places that
    have not been touched by this recovery.
        And it's very interesting to me that what many of us in the business
    community, as well as in the public sector, believe is a moral
    obligation we have to try to give all our people a chance to participate
    in this great economy is also an economic opportunity and perhaps an
    economic imperative. Every day, I promise you, the people here who run
    these big companies have got people scouring the press every day trying
    to divine the intention of the markets: Have we reached the limits of
    this expansion? Can we continue to grow the economy without inflation?
    How can we do it?
        Well, obviously, if we expand economic opportunity and create
    businesses, employees, and consumers in areas where they didn't exist
    before, that is an inflation-free way to expand the economy. So we have
    reached a point in our country's economic development where I think we
    finally have a chance to do something for the places that have been left
    behind, from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to the Native American
    reservations to the inner-city neighborhoods, in ways that will benefit
    all Americans. That's the idea behind the new markets initiative and the
    tour I took of areas that have been left behind, a few weeks ago with a
    lot of CEO's and other people.
        And the idea is simple, that we want a partnership between business
    and Government to make investments more attractive in areas where they
    haven't been made in the past but only on the basis of profit, that this
    has to be a profitable decision. This is not a social program. This is
    free enterprise economics. We are trying to create the conditions in
    which the economic expansion, which has so benefited so many millions of
    Americans, can reach people who have been left behind for decades.
        Mr. Powell's exhibit A. He introduced me to
    someone who moved from welfare to work in his company. He introduced me
    to a man who has eight children that he feels he can now support. He
    introduced me to a man who immigrated to this country 10 years ago from
    Central America, who's proud to be working here.
        And this is a very, very important moment for our country, because
    for at least 30 years, Americans have wanted to do this, not just
    politicians; people in business have wished there was some way to bring
    free enterprise to the people and the places that have been left behind.
    And we believe we have found some ways to do it.
        Now, I said, we have to do this in partnership. And just this last
    week, legislation based on our new markets initiative was introduced in
    both the House and Senate. It's pretty simple. It's basically designed
    to give American investors like those around this table, the same
    incentive to invest in developing markets in America that we give you to
    invest in developing markets in Central America or the Caribbean or Asia
    or Africa. I support those incentives for those countries, but they
    ought to exist in this country as well.
        It builds on the successful approach that the Vice President and I
    have developed over the last 6\1/2\ years, and that he has so very ably headed, of our empowerment zones, our
    enterprise communities, a stronger Community Reinvestment Act, community
    financial institutions. This approach is working where we have applied
    it. What we want is a nationwide framework.
        What we're here today to talk about is what I think is perhaps the
    single most important thing the business community can do to make this
    work: BusinessLINC. Let me tell you how BusinessLINC got started.
        Nearly 2 years ago, Vice President Gore
    met Tom Lazo down there in Dallas, in south Dallas.
    He had a small company that built telecommunications equipment. It was
    doing well, but he told the Vice President that his company couldn't
    grow and thrive without technical assistance and better training,
    without tools and skills his larger competitors already had. He needed a
    corporate mentor. That's why we launched BusinessLINC last summer, under
    the leadership of the Vice President and
    with the support of Secretary Summers,
    Administrator Alvarez, and former Secretary
    Rubin.
        Tom Lazo's idea has a lot of power: large
    companies helping small companies get access to capital, learn the best
    technology and the best management techniques. As many of you can attest
    and will attest this morning, partnerships like this are good for
    investment, good

    [[Page 1425]]

    for consumers, good for the bottom line. You see that at businesses like
    Powell's. And Mr. Powell and his big supporter
    will have a chance to talk here in just a moment.
        Today I am very pleased that the Business Roundtable, a coalition of
    Fortune 500 companies, is stepping up to lead BusinessLINC. This means
    that we'll be able to go national with this idea. This means we'll be
    able to do it in a big way. And this means people who know what they're
    doing will have a stake and a commitment to its success. I cannot thank
    Dana enough. I cannot thank Peter enough. This is a very, very impressive commitment, and
    I'm very grateful to both of you.
        Especially, I want to thank Texaco's Peter Bijur, because since he's going to lead the effort, Dana can look at him and ask for results. [Laughter] I've
    been on both ends of that; I'd rather be asking than answering.
    [Laughter] But this will help the corporate community to meet the
    challenge the Vice President issued a year
    ago to mentor more businesses, especially in the distressed communities.
        Now, I know the Vice President has more
    to say about BusinessLINC, so I'd like to ask him to say a few things,
    and then we'll just start calling on the people around the table. And I
    think the press and those who read about this or see about it on the
    media will quickly understand the great power of this idea.
        Mr. Vice President.

    [At this point, Vice President Gore made
    brief remarks, and the roundtable discussion began.]

        The President. I just want to make one very brief point here,
    because the last two presentations illustrate something that we really
    believe and that basically is the whole reason for the existence of the
    Small Business Administration, which is that, even in the best of times
    there are almost artificial barriers to the success of free markets. We
    are not trying to supplant them; we're trying to take away the barriers
    to them. That's what you're doing, and in so doing you're creating more.
    And this is very impressive to me.

    [The discussion continued.]

        The President. I think this has been wonderful. And let me say we
    are--I think we have a reasonably good chance to get a bipartisan big
    vote for the legislation that would provide some greater tax incentives
    and some eligibility for lower interest loans to go with the equity in
    some of these really distressed areas this year. But none of this is
    going to happen without the kind of partnerships that we've celebrated
    today. This is clearly something that is better done and can only be
    done, really, in the private sector with the Government sort of cheering
    on and then trying to provide the resources that SBA and others have.
        So, again I want to thank Dana and
    Peter and all the rest of you, and those of
    you who are living and doing this every day, and I just can't thank you
    enough. I also would like to say that it means a lot to me personally,
    having been a resident of Washington, DC, the last 6\1/2\ years, that we
    could do this in Washington, highlight this project, and remind people
    that there is another Washington where not everybody does have a good
    job or a good opportunity, and that we believe our Nation's Capital is
    small enough that the economies of scale work in a way that with
    sustained vigorous leadership, we can actually bring economic
    opportunity to all the neighborhoods here.
        So, Mr. Mayor and
    Congresswoman, and to all the rest of
    you, I want to thank you. And if you'd like to say anything in closing,
    we'd be glad to hear from you.

    Note: The discussion began at 12:45 p.m. in the workroom at Powell's
    Manufacturing Industries, Inc. In his remarks, the President referred to
    James Powell, president, Powell's Manufacturing Industries, Inc.; Mayor
    Anthony A. Williams of Washington, DC; and Tom Lazo, president and chief
    executive officer, Custom Programming Services, Inc. The transcript
    released by the Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks
    of Vice President Al Gore.