[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[August 7, 1999]
[Page 1399]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1399]]

Remarks to the Community in Helena, Arkansas
August 7, 1999

    Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you for coming out in the 
heat. Congressman Berry asked me--we were 
standing up here; Congressman Berry said, ``You smell that cotton dust 
that's been in here a hundred years?'' [Laughter]
    I am glad to be back. I want to thank Senator Lambert 
Lincoln who has done such a 
wonderful job; my good friend Congressman Berry. I want to thank Mayor Weaver 
for coming out and Dr. Robert Miller, 
the mayor of Helena, my longtime friend. And I want to thank our 
Secretary of Transportation, Rodney Slater, 
from Lee County.
    Let me say to all of you, I'm about to go down to the Cultural 
Center for a business meeting about the future of the Delta in Arkansas, 
but I just want to say a word or two. And I'll be brief because it's 
hot, and I want to get out and shake hands, and then I want to go to 
work.
    Yesterday in Washington I was able to announce that our country had 
produced 19 million jobs, and then some, since I became President. But 
the unemployment rate in the deep Delta is still twice the national 
average. The income is less than two-thirds the national average. And a 
lot of the things that we have tried to do in the last 6\1/2\ years have 
helped some discrete communities, but not the whole region.
    In my State of the Union Address this year, in an attempt to build 
on the work that we've done with the enterprise zones and the 
empowerment communities, under the leadership of Vice President 
Gore, I proposed that we look at the 
Mississippi Delta, at Appalachia, at the Indian reservations, at the 
small towns and the inner-city communities that have been left behind as 
a big new market for America; that if we had parts of America where we 
hadn't had new investment and new jobs and new opportunity, and we were 
growing like crazy and we had the best economy in a generation, we ought 
to find a way to get people to invest in the areas that have been left 
behind.
    And one of the things that I asked the Congress to do is to give 
people in America with money to invest the same incentives to invest in 
poor communities in America we give them to invest in poor communities 
overseas.
    Now, I just went on a tour. You probably saw the press when I was 
Clarksdale, Mississippi, but I was also in Appalachia; I went up to 
South Dakota to an Indian reservation; I went to Phoenix and East St. 
Louis and Los Angeles. There is an enormous feeling out there in the 
country today that we ought to really make an effort--it's the first 
time I have felt this--there's a great feeling in the Congress, and I 
think in both parties, that we ought to do something for the areas that 
have still not felt the economic recovery of the country. And that's 
what we're here to talk about. That's what I'm going down to the Culture 
Center to discuss.
    So the last thing I want you to know--and I know Secretary 
Slater would echo this--is that you 
couldn't have two better people representing you than Blanche Lambert 
Lincoln and Marion Berry. They wear us out every single week to do something for 
you.
    And finally, let me just say it's good to be back here. All of you 
have been very good to me for more than 20 years now. I probably 
wouldn't be President if it weren't for eastern Arkansas, and I am very 
grateful. And I want you to know that in the year and a half I have left 
on my term, I am going to do everything I can to bring more economic 
opportunity not only to the Delta but to every place in America that is 
not a part of what our country as a whole is enjoying today.
    Thank you, and God bless you. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:50 a.m. in the West Hangar at West Helena 
Municipal Airport. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Johnny Weaver of 
West Helena, AR.