[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 30 (Monday, July 31, 1995)]
[Pages 1300-1305]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the White House Community Empowerment Conference

July 26, 1995

    Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President; to all the mayors and other 
distinguished visitors who are here; to the Members of Congress and all 
those who have worked on the empowerment zone program here in our 
administration. And I'd like to say a special word of thanks to the Vice 
President and all of his staff, and to Secretary Cisneros and Andrew 
Cuomo. They have literally worked themselves to exhaustion to make sure 
that this program is a success.
    We told you when we started this that this would not be some one-
shot deal and there would be no followup. And I think it's fair

[[Page 1301]]

to say we have kept our word. And from the looks of this crowd, you have 
kept your word. And I thank you for that.
    I also want to say a special word of thanks to Congressman Rangel 
and to the other Members of Congress here who were very active in 
passing the empowerment zone legislation as a part of the budget plan in 
1993.
    I can't say how much I appreciate the work the Vice President's done 
on this community empowerment board, because it's one thing to talk 
about all this and quite another to do it. And your presence here proves 
that you also are committed to doing it.
    As I have said many times in many places, I think this country has 
two great challenges. The first is to restore the American dream of 
opportunity for all Americans and the American value of responsibility 
from all Americans. And the second is to rebuild our sense of community, 
our sense that we are working together, not at odds with one another, 
toward the same goals. The more I work at this job the more I become 
convinced that we can't achieve solutions to our economic or our social 
problems unless we do a better job of working together and reaching 
across the divides. That is, by definition, what you all had to do to be 
selected to be part of the empowerment zone program in the first place.
    In the past few weeks, I have tried to talk to the American people 
more about how we can find common ground even in very controversial 
issues. I gave a speech at Georgetown laying it out, and then I went to 
the Vice President and Mrs. Gore's Family Conference and talked about 
how we could find common ground on the controversial issue of the role 
of the media in our family lives and community lives. And as if that 
weren't controversial enough, I then went out to James Madison 
University--James Madison High School here and talked about where I 
thought our common ground was on the issue of religion in public 
education in America. And then, of course, I had the opportunity just a 
few days ago to talk at the National Archives on the important subject 
of affirmative action.
    Today, I want to say to you that I think that the empowerment zone 
concept embodies everything we have to do as Americans--everything. To 
make it work, we have to create economic opportunity, solve social 
problems, and pull people together who have been apart. It is the 
embodiment of what we want to do.
    The second point I want to make at the very beginning is, I think it 
is good for the rest of America and is a good model for the rest of 
America, because if you look at it, one of the things that troubles me 
about the debate we are having now on balancing the budget is that the 
congressional majority wants to balance the budget but admits that if 
their plan is implemented, our economy will have anemic growth for 7 
years in a row. I want to balance the budget because I think it will 
explode economic growth. I think it will lower interest rates and free 
up money and cause more people to borrow money and invest in our 
communities.
    And why do we have slow growth? Why is the cover of Business Week 
magazine, the current issue, about how wages aren't going up? Why does 
survey after survey after survey reveal when we tell the American people 
that we have lowered the deficit and provided 7 million new jobs to this 
economy, voters say, ``I don't believe you. Don't bother me with the 
facts, I don't believe you.'' Why is that? Because people think, ``Well, 
if that had happened, I would somehow feel more secure in my own life.''
    So we have to increase the rate of economic activity in America. And 
how can we do that? Well, we can do it by expanding trade, and I've 
tried to do that. But we also can do it by finding underutilized assets 
in America. That's what the empowerment zones are all about. The 
greatest residual economic asset left in the United States, the new 
economic frontier in America, are old-fashioned Americans who've been 
left behind in the rush to the 21st century. And if we can tap into 
that, then all Americans will benefit. All Americans will see increases 
in their incomes as the economy grows more rapidly.
    So this is not just a program for Baltimore or Philadelphia, 
Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, New York, the Kentucky Highlands, South 
Texas, the Mississippi Delta, you name it--Los Angeles, wherever else I 
left out that's here. I'm sorry. [Laughter] You will help--

[[Page 1302]]

you will help everybody. If economic activity rises in the Philadelphia-
East Camden, New Jersey area, it will be felt in western Pennsylvania. 
It will also be felt in the Western part of the United States. This is a 
very important issue. And if you prove that this strategy works, then 
other people will do it, and it will spread like wildfire throughout the 
country.
    When I talked the other day about affirmative action, I said that I 
thought we ought to mend it, not end it. I thought that it was important 
but that everybody should realize something. The people who didn't think 
they were for it should understand that if we got rid of it, it wouldn't 
solve the economic problems of America. And the people who were for it 
should realize that if we keep it, it won't solve their economic 
problems either, unless we find ways to grow this economy and bring the 
American people together and deal frankly and forthrightly with our 
challenges. That's what this is all about. It's about bringing 
opportunity back.
    Government has got to become a real meaningful partner again for 
people in urban America and rural America who are trapped in cycles of 
poverty. I know it can be done from my own experience. I was thinking 
today as I was walking over with the Vice President, when I was 
reelected Governor of Arkansas in 1982, we had an unemployment rate that 
was 10 percent or higher in the State. In the Mississippi Delta portion 
of our State, we had several counties with over 20 percent 
unemployment--several, not just one or two.
    The first thing I did as a Governor-elect was go to a town that had 
had a Singer sewing machine plant there since the 1920's and shake hands 
with over 600 people as they walked off the job for the last time. It 
was a very sobering experience. And we tried everything we could to 
restructure our economy and to get it going.
    At length, I noticed something. After working for about 2 years, I 
noticed that in isolated pockets in the poorest part of America, the 
Mississippi Delta, there would be a town here and a town there that for 
reasons no one could explain by economic, social, or racial makeup, had 
lower unemployment rates and higher growth rates, had schools where the 
races went to school together and there was no white flight, no big 
movement toward private schools, had functioning public institutions. No 
one could explain it. So I decided I'd figure out why on my own. And the 
answer wasn't complicated. People found a way to work together in those 
counties. In those communities, people found a way to take advantage of 
the opportunities they had instead of just bellyaching about the 
problems they had.
    One of these little towns was in the middle of a county with an 
astronomical unemployment rate, and they had about a 5 percent 
unemployment rate, because every time a plant closed they sent a team of 
50 people to the State and they used our WATS lines all night long, day-
in and day-out, until they called hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of 
people to come look at their little town and put their people back to 
work.
    That simple experience was the beginning for me of this whole 
empowerment zone idea. And so we set up a process in the 11 poorest 
counties in our State to try to do what we've attempted to do here. 
Today, our State's unemployment rate is just a little above 4 percent. 
It took a long time to turn around, but it happened. And if you have the 
patience and the roots deep enough to make the commitment necessary to 
turn your communities around, you can turn America around by setting an 
example and proving this works. You can do it.
    This sort of locally driven positive approach was not invented by me 
or anybody else. It came out of the grassroots of America. It was 
endorsed when I was a young man by Robert Kennedy when he went into the 
poorest areas of our country and when he supported what became known as 
the Bedford-Stuyvesant Corporation. Republicans have embraced it, who 
have had experience with it. I applaud Jack Kemp for his remarks in the 
last several days, saying that instead of using issues like affirmative 
action to divide us, we should be searching for ways like empowerment 
zones to fight poverty and create opportunity for all Americans. We need 
more of that kind of talk from people without regard to their political 
parties. And I applaud him for doing it.

[[Page 1303]]

    I was interested the other day in a comment that Speaker Gingrich 
made about affirmative action, which was encouraging to me. As you know, 
there are those who say that we should get rid of affirmative action 
because they think there's no need for it or it's inevitably biased. I 
don't agree with that. I think that we have to continue with these 
efforts, even though we have to improve them until there is no more need 
for them. But I also was encouraged, even though I didn't agree with 
what the Speaker said about affirmative action--because he said he 
didn't like it--he also admitted that just getting rid of it was no 
answer. And I thought that was hopeful. He said that he didn't want to 
end affirmative action until they found something to replace it.
    Well, I don't think we should end it until we don't need it anymore. 
But I do think we should do some more things. Discrimination is, as I 
said before, only one of the things that traps people. The general 
conditions of the economy, the terrible social problems we face, they 
take away more American dreams every day. And that is something 
Americans share in common.
    When Mr. Gingrich said that he thought we ought to design a program 
to lend a helping hand, I say that's exactly what we're trying to do 
with the empowerment zones, with the Community Development Act, with the 
improvements for the community reinvestment program, with the community 
development financial institutions, with all the other empowerment 
initiatives of this administration. So I say, based on what Jack Kemp 
said and based on what the Speaker said, I want to invite the leaders of 
the Republican Party to join me in a comprehensive approach to solving 
these problems, because every Republican in America will be better off 
if we can revitalize our inner cities and our forgotten rural areas and 
so will every Democrat and so will every independent.
    This should not be a partisan issue. If you look at the problems 
that have plagued us, whatever our race or gender or background, urban 
or rural, north, south, east, or west, if we could address them, this 
country would have about half the problems we've got today. You know it, 
and I know it. So I hope that this conference, this gathering, and these 
hopeful comments that have been made by two different Republicans in the 
last couple of weeks means that we may have a chance to come together 
here and work together at the national level the way I see Republicans 
and Democrats working together at the city level and in the urban areas 
where these empowerment zones have prevailed because of the partnerships 
we've created. I wish we could follow your example here in Washington, 
and I'm going to do my best to get that done.
    Now, let me say that when you look at where we ought to go beyond 
affirmative action and beyond what we're doing with the empowerment 
zones, as a part of our affirmative action review, it occurred to me 
that while we shouldn't replace affirmative action, we should reform it, 
and we should also supplement it, because it was clear that no amount of 
affirmative action could create economic opportunity where there was 
none. We give everybody an equal opportunity at a shrinking pie, that's 
not a nice prospect. What we want is for everybody to have an equal 
opportunity at an expanding pie.
    And that is why I have proposed to set aside Government contracts 
for businesses that lay down roots in poor communities, to locate there 
and hire people there. I think we ought to have contracts that can bring 
money and opportunities to poor neighborhoods every day. Businesses make 
profits; employees get paychecks; workers take their paychecks home to 
their families and lift their children out of poverty, buy groceries 
from local merchants, support their local community organizations and 
stronger community police forces to make the streets safer, to make the 
schools better. Opportunities that can go to people without regard to 
their race or gender if they meet a simple condition: they live in a 
place with genuine need.
    I believe this can make a real difference to America, not to get rid 
of affirmative action but to create real opportunity for all Americans. 
And I hope you will support this. I have asked the Vice President to 
examine this challenge and to take it on, as he has so many others, and 
to come up with what I have to do to get this done, whether I have

[[Page 1304]]

to send a bill to Congress or fashion an Executive order or do a 
combination of both.
    But I think this can make a real difference. And it is utterly 
consistent with the empowerment zone strategy. It emphasizes the three 
things that make the empowerment zone work: the values of family and 
work and responsibility, a sense of investment in our people and our 
opportunities, and a partnership across all the lines that too often 
divide us.
    I am very, very hopeful about that, and I believe it can reinforce 
some of the other things we're doing. If you look at this values issue, 
I think we need some values incentives that are tough. That's why we 
think that people on welfare who can work ought to be required to work. 
That's why we're trying to get the toughest possible child support 
enforcement. That's why the crime bill had tougher penalties.
    But I also think if you want to promote values, empowerment works 
there. People ought to have the incentives. That's what the Family and 
Medical Leave Act was all about. That's what child care and a welfare 
reform program is all about. That's what the crime prevention aspects of 
the crime bill were all about. And I think it's interesting to point 
out, as they're under assault today, that it was the law enforcement 
communities of America, the people in uniform and the prosecutors and 
the former prosecutors, like Mayor Rendell, who told us that we had to 
have crime prevention programs and something for our children to say yes 
to as well as to say no to. I have walked the streets of Baltimore with 
Mayor Schmoke, who was a former prosecutor, and seen examples of that.
    So if we're going to promote values, let's think of empowerment as 
well as restraint. We need to do both. When we think of investment, we 
ought to think of empowerment. Head Start is an empowerment program. The 
college loan program is an empowerment program. The national service 
program is an empowerment program. The Goals 2000 program, no matter 
what the attacks on it, is the biggest piece of local incentive, local 
reform legislation for public schools passed by the Federal Congress in 
the 30 years we've been acting in the education area.
    We need to think of these things as empowerment, not Federal 
prescriptions. If you think about our community investments, the crime 
bill was about community empowerment. That's what 100,000 police 
officers does. That's what the whole community policing program is 
about.
    So I hope that you can help us to develop a language and an attitude 
and a frame of mind for discussing our common problems as a country so 
that Americans, even Americans who don't live within your jurisdiction 
and have the particular benefits of the empowerment zone, will see this 
as a way of not only solving our economic problems, dealing with our 
social problems, but empowering people and bringing them together. That 
is the issue for America at this point in our history. That is the 
issue.
    We cannot maintain the American dream if we go another 20 years when 
we are very successful by some measures. I mean, consider the last 2\1/
2\ years. I came to this job committed to restoring the middle class, 
and I did everything I knew to do. We lowered the deficit. We increased 
investment in education, in technology, in research and development. We 
expanded trade frontiers. We have 7 million more jobs. We have a record 
number of millionaires. We have an all-time high stock market. We have 
more new businesses than ever before in the history of the country in 
each of the last 2 years. And most people are still working harder for 
lower pay than they were making the day I was sworn in as President.
    We have to change that. And the only way we can change it is if we 
realize that we have to get beyond these big ideological debates and 
roll up our sleeves and reach out to each other and create opportunity 
for everybody just like you're trying to do. And we should talk about 
all of these initiatives in terms of what it does to enable people and 
families and communities to solve their own problems and make the most 
of their own lives.
    That could be the enduring legacy of this administration and very 
much worth all the efforts that the Vice President and Secretary 
Cisneros and others have put into this and very much worth the very 
heated fight that

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these Members of Congress here present waged for this program over 2 
years ago.
    So I ask you to think about all that. I want this to work in your 
community. I know you do, too. I know you will evaluate these 
empowerment zones based on whether they do bring people together and 
they create jobs and opportunity for your people. But I want you never 
to forget that you may be creating the way that we do business as 
Americans in the 21st century. And if you can do it, if you can bring 
people together across all the lines that divide them around the concept 
of commitment to opportunity for everybody, we'll be a long way down the 
road toward ensuring the viability of the American dream in the 21st 
century.
    So I ask you to think about that. And when we have these debates up 
here in Washington about what to fund and what to cut, about how to 
balance the budget--not whether to balance the budget--you ask yourself: 
Are they funding the empowerment programs where there's very little 
bureaucracy in Washington and a whole lot of things happening out in the 
country? Don't we need some more of the community development banks like 
we established in Los Angeles? Don't we need to protect a sensible 
community reinvestment act when we know that credit still does not go 
evenhandedly to all who are qualified? Don't we need to keep the Small 
Business Administration functioning when they proved they could double 
the loan output and lower their budget and increase dramatically loans 
to women and minorities without lowering their quality standards? Don't 
we need, in short, to continue on the empowerment agenda when we make 
our decisions about what to cut and what to fund?
    We need to be in a position to help you not just now, but next year 
and the year after that and the year after that, long into the future. 
So I ask you to think about that as well.
    And again, I say this need not be a partisan issue. You have to ask 
yourself--we've been pretty successful as a country in identifying the 
things on which our security hinged and building a consensus for them. I 
mean, for 50 years we maintained a remarkable--almost 50 years--a 
remarkable bipartisan consensus that we would spend more than any other 
country in the world on maintaining a strong national defense, not only 
for ourselves but for others, so that communism would not prevail and 
there would never be an incentive to launch a nuclear war. And we fought 
like crazy about other things, but we created this umbrella that 
permitted us to grow and go forward as a country. We had a general 
national consensus created almost 50 years ago that we would be an 
engine of expanding opportunity throughout the world because that would 
help us to grow here at home and it would stabilize people throughout 
the world, to give them hope and help them promote democracy.
    So what is it that threatens our security as Americans today? The 
kids that are being lost every day on our street, the schools that 
aren't functioning, the number of the people who work hard and are never 
rewarded, rising levels of anxiety among our families. We ought to be 
able to find ways to have the kind of consensus on that reflected by the 
process that brought you here.
    So I tell you, you want to do something for your country? Make your 
empowerment zone work. And make sure everybody in America knows it and 
knows that's the way we ought to do America's business, not just where 
you live but here where the American people all have a stake in the 
future.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 12:23 p.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Edward Rendell of 
Philadelphia, PA, and Mayor Kurt Schmoke of Baltimore, MD.