    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [May 10, 2000]
    [Pages 880-887]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in Arlington, Virginia, to the National Conference on
    Building Prosperity in the Delta
     May 10, 2000

         Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome. Thank
    you for coming here to meet. I know that we're having a reception over
    at the White House later this evening; I hope all of you will come, and
    I look forward to seeing you all there, as well.
         I want to begin by thanking Conn Davis
    for his introduction. He's an impressive young man. In addition to going
    to Boys Nation, you might be interested to know that he's a football
    standout and Eagle Scout, and from my point of view, most important, he
    plays trombone in his school's jazz band. [Laughter]
         I also want to thank all the members of our administration who have
    been part of this. And I can't mention them all, but I especially should

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    note, of course, Secretary Slater is from
    the Delta, from Lee County in Arkansas; Bill Ferris, the head of the National Endowment for the Humanities,
    from Mississippi; our FCC Chairman, Bill Kennard; our Office of Personnel Management Director, Janice
    Lachance, is here. I thank all of them
    and the others who are helping me with the Delta, as well as all the
    people on the White House staff who have worked so hard on this, Lynn
    Cutler, Lisa Kountoupes, and many others.
         Governor Musgrove, we're
    glad to see you here. Thank you for coming, sir. And we appreciate your
    leadership, and we're glad to see you down there. I thank Mayor
    Herenton from Memphis. You know, when I
    was a boy, we used to go over to the Delta, and everybody who lived east
    of Little Rock would say that they were not from Arkansas. They lived in
    the State of Delta, and Memphis was its capital. So I'm glad to see you
    here, sir. Thank you very much.
         I want to thank my Arkansas Congressman from the Delta, Marion
    Berry. I think he's still here. And if any of
    you had any idea how many hours he and Senator Blanche Lambert
    Lincoln have spent literally haranguing
    me about the entire Delta, not just Arkansas, you would all supplement
    their salaries generously. They have been wonderful. I want to thank
    Marion Berry and Blanche Lincoln for what they have done.
         Lieutenant Governor Wood, we're glad to
    have you here. My old friend Jess White,
    we've been working on these issues for more than 15 years together. And
    I'd like to say a special word of appreciation to a former Delta
    Congressman, Mike Espy, who's here--I think,
    plainly, one of the two or three best Agriculture Secretaries this
    country has ever had. And I really thank you very much for being here.
         I won't go into this in great detail today, but I'm going to have
    in the next few months some further proposals on agriculture, which I
    think are important. We should not forget the agriculture component of
    the Delta's future and the fact that, as I warned when it passed, the
    last farm bill we passed basically is bad for family farmers except when
    prices are high. When prices are high, everybody's getting along all
    right. We need to do better in the next farm bill and with agricultural
    policy to recognize the unique characteristics of the family farm
    structure that, thank goodness, is still alive in most of the Delta, and
    we need to do what we can to preserve it. So I thank you, Mike
    Espy. And all the farmers that are here, I thank
    you, and I hope that we will remember that.
         Finally, just by way of introduction, I would like to say a special
    word of appreciation to all of the business leaders who are here, large
    and small. And if I might, I'd like to say one special word of
    appreciation to Wayne Leonard and the folks
    at Entergy. They have been really devoted to this whole idea of our new
    market strategy and rebuilding the Delta. And I've had I don't know how
    many people who have told me in the last couple of months that they've
    had meetings with Wayne or various Entergy executives who have said,
    ``Well, here's what our company's into. Now, let's get past that, and
    let me talk to you about what I really want to talk to you about, which
    is rebuilding the Delta.''
         So, for all of you in the private sector that have that kind of
    commitment--obviously, most of this will be done with and through you,
    and I thank you all very, very much.
         Those of you whom I have had the privilege to know in Arkansas over
    the last several decades, some of you all my life--there's my State
    Senator out there, Bud Canada; thank you for
    being here--and those of you with whom I worked on the Delta Development
    Commission or on the Southern Growth Policies Board know that this is
    more than a political issue to me, even more than a public policy
    problem. I've been interested in the people and the problems and the
    promise of the Delta for 40 years.
         You know, I loved music when I was a child. I was 15 years old when
    I first went to New Orleans. I still remember everything I did. The
    first place I ever went where hamburgers cost more than a dollar; I was
    horrified. [Laughter] I still remember going to Preservation Hall and
    sitting there as a 15-year-old boy for 4 or 5 hours, listening to these
    old guys play music that I would kill to be able to play like. I still
    remember everything about it. I still remember how the Delta looked and
    the bends in the river.
         And I still remember when I was in college--I used to take several
    days off when I was in college, either during Christmas or summer
    vacation, just to drive over to the Delta and wander around--just me,
    alone. I'd get up on the levee and ride up and down and go into these
    little old towns along the Delta and talk

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    to people, just trying to get a sense of the pulse of the place.
         And I still remember some of the things that weren't very good,
    too. I remember the--it was in the Delta that I last saw segregated
    restrooms marked out. And I remember when we made our campaign comeback
    in 1982, and I ran for Governor with the help of Rodney Slater and my friend Caroll Willis, who may be here today, two sons of the Delta. We told
    the people of the Delta we were never coming to a segregated meeting in
    the Mississippi Delta again, and we were going to have to--it was about
    more than an election--we were going to turn this region around, and we
    were going to have to do it together. And a lot of people thought I was
    nuts. And within 30 days, everybody thought I was a genius.
         And we've all been working together over there ever since, with
    some ups and downs and twists and turns. But I think that I have been
    privileged to be a part of the last 20 years of the history of the
    Delta. And I loved the opportunity I had to do this Delta commission,
    because I got to learn a lot about southern Illinois, for example, which
    is south of Richmond. A lot of people don't know that. I learned a lot
    about western Kentucky and southeastern Missouri, where Conn is from, and places that I otherwise might never have been
    able to become acquainted with.
         And I guess, more than anything else, what I want to say is that
    the pledge we made a decade ago when we issued the Lower Mississippi
    Delta Development Commission report is still what we ought to be working
    on, to make the people of the Delta full partners in America's future.
    That's why we're here today. The report that I have just been given is,
    in a way, a rededication to our continuing mission.
         I guess what I want you to know more than anything else is, we're
    making progress, and we now know more than we did when we started about
    how to do better much more quickly. I want you to know that the Federal
    Government will do our part, and I will personally work on these issues
    until the day I leave office, and then after I do, for the rest of my
    life. This is a big personal issue with me, as I know it is with the
    Vice President and all of our people in our
    administration who come from this region.
         Now, I want to begin with special thanks on the substance of this
    to Secretary Slater. We got 24 agencies
    together to help Secretary Slater run our Federal task force on the
    Delta, and we've put together the report that he has just given me. It's
    given us a chance to look back a decade and to look forward to the
    challenges and opportunities of the decade ahead.
         Since 1990, a great deal has been done. You know that in the
    Nation, we have the longest economic expansion in history and the lowest
    unemployment rate since January of 1970, over 21 million new jobs. But
    the policies we put in place I think had a special impact in the Delta,
    especially the expansion of the earned-income tax credit and the efforts
    we've made that you heard Conn talk about to bring computers and access
    to the Internet to our schools and other public facilities throughout
    the Delta.
         Conn's example is pretty instructive. In
    1995 his school district in East Prairie had 24 computers. We helped
    them get 350 more at a 70 percent discount. Now, thanks to the E-rate
    program that the FCC promulgated, that Vice President Gore did so much to fight for, there's a $2 billion subsidy
    that goes out to the poorest school districts across America every year
    which enables people to make the most of these computers.
         In 1994, when we started this program--I'm sure the Vice
    President went over this--but we had only 3
    percent of our classrooms and 16 percent of our schools connected. This
    year we have over 95 percent of our schools, including 90 percent of the
    poorest schools in America, connected to the Internet, and almost three-
    quarters of our classrooms. And this will make a big difference, both
    educationally and economically, in the Delta in the years ahead.
         Over the last 7 years, we've had over $2 billion in transportation
    improvements, from ports to highways to airports; over $6 billion in job
    training, welfare-to-work, and youth opportunity initiatives; and again,
    $250 million just to connect the schools that were poor in the Delta to
    the Internet; more than $10 million in direct investment in the
    enterprise zones and the empowerment communities, a program, again,
    which the Vice President has led, which has
    leveraged 10 times that much from private resources.
         I have done what I could to do this in a bipartisan or even a
    nonpartisan manner. And I know Rodney said the Speaker of the
    House was coming to the White House
    tonight, to the reception. If he is there, I want every one of

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    you to go up and shake his hand and thank him for working with me to
    pass the new markets legislation in Congress. I'll say more about that
    in a minute, but I think that is the biggest single thing we could do to
    help the Delta economy in a quick way. And I will say more about it, but
    I want you to thank him for that.
         Just the tours we have taken in the Delta have already led to more
    resources in places like Hermitage, Arkansas, at the tomato co-
    operative, and Clarksdale, Mississippi. And the Private Sector
    Enterprise Corporation of the Delta has created more than 5,200 jobs and
    helped support more than 600 local businesses.
         Since the 1990 Delta report, more than 10,000 Delta residents got
    phone service for the first time. It's hard to talk about the Internet
    if you don't have a telephone line. And lest you get too discouraged,
    let me tell you what a big problem this still is in other places, in
    physically remote areas. I was at the Navajo Reservation in Shiprock,
    New Mexico, which is in northern New Mexico near the Colorado and Utah
    borders, where the unemployment rate is 58 percent, and the percentage
    of people without telephones is 70 percent. I was introduced by a young
    woman like Conn--a little younger than you--a
    brilliant young girl, a Native American girl, who won a contest and got
    a beautiful computer. And she couldn't log on to the Internet because
    she had to take the computer home to a home without a telephone line.
         So this is a big deal, the fact that 10,000 more Delta residents
    have gotten telephone service. The Delta unemployment rate has gone from
    7.5 percent when I took office to 5.1 percent in February. In
    Mississippi, the Delta counties have created jobs at a rate 13 times
    greater than the national average, which is saying something.
         But unemployment is still above the national average. Wages and
    homeownership are still below the national average. Poverty and infant
    mortality have gone down but are still too high. And we know that the
    statistics don't tell the whole story. There are still towns without
    proper sewage systems and children sick from pollution and malnutrition.
    There are still millions of Americans seeking to live their dreams
    without a way to do it in the Delta.
         I'm here because it's a big personal issue with me, but I also am
    here as President because it's in our national interest to do something
    about this. I've said this over and over again, but I want you to
    remember this. One of the most significant debates we have here in
    Washington--and one of the things, by the way, that as American citizens
    you'll be called upon to decide in the coming election--is, how we can
    continue this overall economic expansion? All of us have been there when
    times got bad in America. And when times got bad in America, they were
    always worse in the Delta. When the country got hit hard, we always got
    hit harder.
         When I served as Governor during the decade of the eighties, until
    the year I ran for President there was only one month--one month--in the
    last 10 years I was Governor when our unemployment rate was at or below
    the national average. So we know when times are bad, we suffer more.
         On the other hand, when times are good--you've followed this in the
    press; there is a big debate now. Unemployment is at 3.9 percent. Is
    inflation just around the corner? Should the Federal Reserve raise
    interest rates more? If they raise interest rates more, will it cramp
    credit so much that it will kill the expansion? How long can this thing
    go on? Is this just going to be like a laboratory animal that sooner or
    later just runs out of steam and keels over?
         Well, we had these academic debates up here, and right underneath
    our noses in the Mississippi Delta, in Appalachia, in the inner cities,
    on the Indian reservations, there are people who could start jobs, start
    businesses, grow the economy with no inflation whatever. If people are
    unemployed or underemployed and there are new opportunities out there
    and you create new workers, new employers, new taxpayers, and new
    consumers at the same time, there is no inflation in that growth.
         So every person in America ought to be interested in the
    Mississippi Delta. If you're making money on Wall Street today and you'd
    like to keep on making it and you're worried that either high interest
    rates or a coming recession would hurt you, you should want the Delta to
    do well. If you're worried about where you're going to sell your next
    products in Silicon Valley, you should want the Delta to do well.
         This is a huge issue for the Nation because no one knows how to do
    this. And as I say, that will be a big debate in the elections. Are we
    now so prosperous we ought to go back and try what we did in 1981 and
    later and have a great, big tax cut and hope it works? Or should we have
    a smaller tax cut and keep

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    paying the debt down and invest in our people? You know what I prefer,
    but I think that it's important to understand we're going to have this
    debate in the context of, number one, what should we do with our
    prosperity, and number two, how do we keep this economy going? And it's
    already the longest economic expansion in history.
         And right there, before the eyes of every American who knows
    anything about this, is the Delta and every other underdeveloped area in
    our country. And I'm telling you, there are billions upon billions upon
    billions of economic growth potential that are totally noninflationary.
    Because of the problems we've had in the past, it is America's promise
    for the future, not just yours, that we ought to be developing here.
         Now, on the other hand, we know that it won't happen by accident.
    We have to create networks and opportunities and incentives to get this
    done. I have asked Congress, as Secretary Slater said, to create a Delta
    Regional Authority with $30 million to invest in the region's economic
    future. I've asked for another $129 million in targeted assistance for
    the region. And I thank my Senator, Blanche Lambert Lincoln, and Congressman Marion Berry. They sponsored the regional authority bill in
    Congress. I thank Senator Bill Frist for his
    strong bipartisan support. We've got a number of bipartisan cosponsors
    from across the Delta, and I hope we can bring this authority to life.
         And while you're here today, I hope you will ask Senator
    Cochran and Senator Lott, particularly, to give this thing a shove, because I
    think they could sort of shove it out there if they wanted to, and we
    need them.
         I'm sure Jess White has already
    talked about this, but the Appalachian Regional Commission proves that
    these things do make a difference. They make a difference because they
    institutionalize concentration on a specific area and its opportunities.
    And it makes a difference when you've got somebody who is paid to get up
    every day and think about you and what you can do in an organized,
    focused way.
         We also want to announce today new support for the Delta in three
    broad areas: attracting new business and economic development, investing
    in basic infrastructure, and building strong communities.
         I know this morning the Vice President
    presented our new package of $20 million in Delta economic development
    initiatives, loans and grants for small businesses, training, community
    technology centers, community financial institutions, and tourism.
    That's an important issue.
         Let me emphasize one part of that, the community technology
    centers. The congressional majority took that out of my budget, and I'm
    going to try to get it back in. But let me tell you why it counts. The
    computers are great for Conn. And in the
    districts where they can take the computers home and the parents can
    learn to E-mail the teachers, learn to use it, that's great. But most
    places in the Delta, we have a lot of adults who could benefit from what
    they could learn just by learning how to use the computers and learning
    what resources are available to them on the Internet. That's what these
    community computer centers are all about. They are designed to set up
    1,000 more of them and to support the few that are out there now--
    there's the network out there now in the country--so that all the adults
    in the low income places in America can go in and learn to use the
    Internet for their own benefit, both because they develop computer
    skills and to get the information off of it.
         Now, this is a big deal. I'll just give you two examples of the
    potential, because I want all of you to start thinking about this, and I
    want you to help me get these community computer centers. I'll just give
    you two examples. One is an American example, eBay; eBay is a site on
    the web where you can trade things. You get on, you find out somebody's
    got something to sell, and you can buy it. If you've got something that
    you want to sell, somebody else can buy it. There are now 30,000 people
    making a living on eBay--not working for the company, making a living
    trading on eBay--and a significant percentage of them are former welfare
    recipients.
         Now, that's an amazing thing. Why? This is a big deal. What does
    the Internet do that's different, that's important for the Delta? It
    collapses time and space, the physical isolation that you feel. Conn
    talked about all the wonders of smalltown life, which I share, but being
    physically isolated. The Internet can collapse time and space. It can
    bring any subject to his school. It can bring any piece of information
    in the Library of Congress. The whole Encyclopedia Britannica's on the
    net now. And the same thing is true for the economy. So that's one
    example.
         Second example: I was in India recently, as you may remember. I
    went to one of the poorer

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    states in India, Rajasthan, to a little village where the village women
    met me and showed me their dairy cooperative, and the local government
    people showed me how they were governing. And then they took me to the
    town's public building, which was an old building, but inside the public
    building was a brand-spanking-new computer.
         And this lady came in with a newborn baby, and she wanted to learn
    how she could best take care of her child. And there was someone there
    to assist her, and the program was done in English and Hindi, modified
    in other languages when they need them, in other parts of the country.
    And this lady--every piece of information on the Federal and State
    government that they had already was on the net--everything--it was on
    their website there.
         So she calls up the Health Department website, and she clicks the
    mouse for ``Early Childhood Care,'' and a couple of pages come up with
    great visuals, so that if you're virtually illiterate you can still
    figure out what it says. She punches the printer; she gets this
    unbelievable information--spits right out. And this woman, in a country
    with a per capita income of $450, takes home with her newborn
    information just as good as you could get from the best suburban medical
    center in this area.
         Now, this is why we need the community computer centers. And I hope
    you will help me get them all over the Delta. And I thank the Vice
    President for the work he's done on that.
         We also have some basic infrastructure needs. There are still
    communities in the Delta that don't have safe drinking water, that don't
    have adequate sewage systems, that basically have--their basic public
    health infrastructure is inadequate to support any new industrial
    investment of any size.
         I remember when I first went to the Delta, running for Governor in
    '78. I'd go in these little old towns, and there was sewage open in the
    streets. I gave every penny of Federal money I could beg, borrow, or
    steal to little places that didn't have any political clout, because
    there was 150 people here and 250 there, to clean it up, and it changed
    the lives of a lot of these communities. A lot of those places are doing
    much better 20 years later just because we gave them basic
    infrastructure.
         So today we're going to give $30 million more to 19 communities
    like that, to improve the water supply.
        This is going to be a big issue for the whole world for the next 50
    years, you mark my words--clean water and adequate sewage, things that
    most of us take for granted--huge issue around the world. Most people
    believe that AIDS is the biggest public health problem in the world. It
    is in Africa; 70 percent of the cases are there. Malaria and TB, they're
    the big problems. But we still have more children every day die in poor
    places in the world because of dysentery and other problems--diarrhea--
    directly related to dehydration, because they don't have safe water. So
    we shouldn't forget that. So I'm making this commitment today to $30
    million more as a symbolic one, but I ask you to continue to support
    these initiatives as well.
         This is about more than bricks and mortar. We also have to make
    communities strong and healthy. We also want to do more on safety. You
    know, I said this a couple of days ago when we got the last crime
    report: With crime now down 8 years in a row, we know we can lower the
    crime rate, but no one believes we're as safe as we ought to be. And I'm
    trying to put another 50,000 police officers out there. Today we're
    going to put some more in Helena and Greenwood, Louisiana, and I hope
    you will continue to support that.
         We're also supporting environmental education and environmentally
    sound farming, helping more Delta residents to buy and build their own
    homes, and funding a new public/private partnership to provide regional
    planning support that much of the Delta has never had.
         And let me just say this about the housing issue. Again, we now
    know things we didn't know 15 years ago. A couple of years ago I went
    out to California, to the Inland Empire, which is east of L.A. It's the
    industrial area east of L.A., San Bernardino area. And on the rail line
    that runs out of L.A., I met with HUD and the Energy Department and the
    Home Builders at this joint effort to build a low income housing project
    for low income working people. And the deal they made these folks was:
    If you'll live here, even if you have to go to Los Angeles to work, we
    pledge to you that we will build you a home where your power bills will
    be 40 percent lower, at least, than

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    they would be in a home of this size anywhere else in California.
         And what did they do? They had the basic insulation. They used
    these new windows that cost a little more money, but they keep out a lot
    more heat and cold, and they let in a lot more light. And they used
    light bulbs that cost about twice as much, but they last 3 or 4 times as
    long and, therefore, they're energy efficient. And they had solar panels
    that looked just like ordinary tar shingles you put on a roof. You can't
    tell the difference, except they're slightly wider now. And I can report
    to you that after a couple of years those working people--a lot of these
    people were working for $25,000 a year. Their average fuel bills are 65
    percent below the State average for the same square footage in
    California.
         Now, we could build housing like that all over the Delta. It would
    put people to work building the houses. You would probably get the
    financing worked out for some of the energy conservation stuff, working
    with the utilities. It would enable them to manage their power load
    better, and it's like a huge tax cut. Can you imagine what it would be
    like if your power bill was two-thirds lower every month? So there are
    real opportunities here I think you ought to look at for economic
    development and improving the quality of life.
         Now, we want to do more, but I need your help on three things that
    we're trying to do here. First, the new markets initiative; we're
    working with the Democrats and the Republicans in the Congress--and the
    Speaker has taken a big personal interest in this because he's from
    rural Illinois--and we're trying to take the ideas that some of the
    Republican House Members have who are interested in this, and ours, and
    put it together. But when we get all finished, whatever it's called and
    whatever it looks like, the bottom line is, here's what we're trying to
    do: We're trying to give people with money in America the same
    incentives to invest in poor areas in America that they can get today,
    in terms of tax credits, loan guarantees, and other incentives, to
    invest in poor areas in Latin America or Africa or Asia or anywhere
    else. I think it's a very important thing.
         And again, I favor the foreign investment incentives. You know, we
    just passed through the House, and I think we're going to pass today or
    tomorrow in the Senate, the Africa/Caribbean Basin Initiative. I want to
    be a good neighbor; I like this. But we ought to understand that our
    biggest markets are those that are right here before us. So I need your
    help in that.
         The second thing is, I want you to help us pass this Delta
    commission legislation. I want you to talk to all the Senators and all
    the Representatives from all the States from the Delta. This is a
    totally nonpolitical deal. I don't care whose name goes on it. I don't
    care what happens. I just want to know that when we're not here anymore
    and our stewardship is over, that there is an institutional focus where
    somebody gets up every day and thinks about this region. And I want you
    to help us pass it.
         Last thing I want you to help us do is to pass our educational
    initiatives that are necessary to turn around these schools. And I want
    to close with this because it's really important. You know as well as I
    do, if you want more outside investments, you want people to come in,
    you've got to be able to prove you've got good schools, that you're
    educating people that have good skills and that people who come in from
    the outside, their kids will be in good schools.
         So I'm going to close with this story. I just got back from one of
    my education tours. And I was in Owensboro, Kentucky, which is in
    western Kentucky; therefore, it's in our region. So--is somebody from
    over there? [Applause] So I'll tell you this story. Now, in 1989 before
    I became President, I worked with President Bush and the Bush
    administration to define these national education goals. And then in
    1993 we passed this program called Goals 2000 to help States and school
    districts meet the goals.
         Then, we realized that we needed to do more, so we passed through
    the Congress in the next couple of years legislation that said all the
    States had to have standards, and they had to identify schools that were
    low performing and come up with strategies to turn them around. Now I'm
    trying to pass legislation that goes further, but let's just focus on
    that. And what I tried to do is to say that we ought to give States
    funds to help these low-performing schools work, to train the teachers
    better, to support the principals. We also ought to end the practice of
    social promotion, but not call kids failures when the system fails them.
    So we ought to give every school district that needs it after-school,
    summer school programs, and all of that. And we've been working on that.
         Now, here's my exhibit A for the Delta: western Kentucky,
    Owensboro. In 1996 Kentucky

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    said, okay, we're going to identify all our failing schools, and here
    they are, 170 of them. Within 2 years of just being identified and
    supported and focused on, 91 percent of those schools were off the list.
    Now--[applause]--no, no it gets better. So here's Owensboro, exhibit A;
    two-thirds of the kids in Owensboro are eligible for free or reduced
    lunches--not your rich, suburban school, right?--two-thirds of the kids.
    Now, in 4 years since they were identified in this school, this
    elementary school I was in, as a school that was low performing, here's
    what has happened.
         Four years ago there were 12 percent of the kids reading at or
    above grade level; today, 57 percent are. Four years ago there were 5
    percent doing math at or above grade level; today, 70 percent are. Four
    years ago there were zero kids in this school doing science at or above
    grade level; today, 64 percent are. This school is now the 18th best
    grade school in Kentucky, even though two-thirds of the kids are at or
    below--are eligible for school lunches--two-thirds.
         Now, here's the other thing. In Kentucky, 10 of the 20 highest
    performing grade schools--10 of the 20--have half or more of the kids
    eligible for free or reduced lunches. Race, economics, and location are
    not destiny if you've got a good education system and you give these
    kids a chance to learn.
         So again I say, I need your help. Ask the Congress to help us with
    the new markets. Ask the Congress to help us with the Delta commission.
    Ask the Congress to give enough money to give every school in the
    country that's not performing well a chance to give their kids summer
    school and after-school programs, teacher training programs, the things
    necessary to make these schools work.
         I'd give anything if when I had been Governor we knew as much about
    what to do in the schools, in the economy as we now know. And that's the
    last point I want to make. When I took office here, even a lot of people
    that helped me in '92 were not really sure that anything could get
    better. And if I had told you in 1992, ``I want you to vote for me, and
    I'll get rid of this $300-billion-a-year deficit, and, oh, by the way,
    we'll be running surpluses 3 years in a row, and when I leave office
    we'll pay off $350 billion of the national debt,'' you would have said,
    ``You know, he seems like a nice young fellow, but he's slightly
    deranged. We better send him home.'' [Laughter]
         So we know now, so we don't have an excuse. We know we can make the
    economy better. We know that we can have schools that are very poor
    perform at a very high level. We know we can lower the crime rate. We
    know we can grow the economy and improve the environment. We know we can
    cut the welfare rolls in half and still support low income people who
    are working and trying to do right by their kids, if you give them the
    right child care and transportation and other support they need. It's
    not like we don't know we can do better now.
         And I would argue that when you know you can do better, when you're
    not just living on hope but you've got evidence, you have a heavier
    responsibility. So I'm glad you're here. I want you to tell us more of
    what we can do. I want you to give me every chance you can to do
    everything I can while I'm in office. I want you to help me pass this
    legislation.
         But when you leave here, more than anything else, I want you to
    believe we can do this. We can do this. This is not a wing and a prayer.
    This is not hope. This is evidence. We can do it. It's just a question
    of whether we're prepared to pay the price of time and effort and
    organization and passion.
         Everybody loves the Delta. It's about time we all did something
    about it.
         Thank you, and God bless you.

      Note:  The President spoke at 12:20 p.m. in the Arlington Ballroom at
    the Crystal Gateway Marriott. In his remarks, he referred to student
    Conn Q. Davis, who introduced the President; Gov. David R. (Ronnie)
    Musgrove of Mississippi; Mayor Willie W. Herenton of Memphis, TN; Lt.
    Gov. Corinne Wood of Illinois; Jesse L. White, Jr., Federal cochair,
    Appalachian Regional Commission; J. Wayne Leonard, chief executive
    officer, Entergy Corp.; Arkansas State Senator Bud Canada; Caroll
    Willis, director, community service division, Democratic National
    Committee; and student Myra Jodie, Steamboat Navajo Nation.