[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 3 (Monday, January 19, 1998)]
[Pages 72-78]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Wall Street Project Conference in New York City

January 15, 1998

    Thank you very, very much, Reverend Jackson. Thank you, ladies and 
gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Grasso and Mr. Jones, and all the other 
sponsors of this event for this historic day. I thank Secretary Herman 
for her leadership and for coming up here with me today, along with our 
SBA Administrator, Aida Alvarez. I don't know if Ambassador Richardson 
is in the audience, but I'll take a chance, because if he's here and I 
don't mention him, I'll live with it from now on--[laughter]--and 
because he cares deeply about these issues. I also see Reverend Suzan 
Cook, a member of our race advisory board, here. I have many other 
friends here, business people, the mayors, and others. I thank the 
Members of the New York congressional delegation for coming, Congressman 
Rangel, Maloney, Owens, Manton, and Representative-elect Meeks. And I 
thank Lieutenant Governor Ross and Comptroller McCall and Speaker 
Silver, and any other State officials who might be here, and Mr. Green 
and Mr. Vallone and any other city officials who are here.
    Let me say that I've looked forward to this, but it occurs to me, on 
Martin Luther King's birthday, that the real danger we have here is that 
Reverend Jackson and I and all the others might be here preaching to the 
saved, that we all agree with what we're here to talk about. But there 
is still some merit in our being here in the hope that we can reach 
beyond those in this room in this very high place to those who are at 
work down below us today here in New York and throughout the country. 
Maybe we should have just let Santita sing to them. That would have 
persuaded them better than anything I could say.
    It is true, Mr. Avant, that I told Jesse that I knew this was a 
historic day, because you've been to the White House a half-dozen times 
and never worn a tie. [Laughter] So I know that we are onto something 
big here. [Laughter]
    Let me tell you--this is not part of my remarks, but I want to 
emphasize on Martin Luther King's birthday, since we're here talking 
about expanding opportunities of American enterprise to all our 
citizens, what I did this morning before I came up here. This day is 
always one of my very favorite days as President. This was the day this 
year that I awarded the Presidential Medals of Freedom. And let me give 
you some--I may not have every name down here, but I think this is 
interesting. If you just listen to the names, it will tell you something 
about your country.
    Arnie Aronson, an 86-year-old Jewish American who founded--cofounded 
the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, worked all the way back with 
A. Philip Randolph in the forties on civil rights; James Farmer, 87 
years old; Fred Korematsu, the Japanese-American who refused to go 
quietly into the internment camp in World War II and fought for years to 
have his conviction overturned--[inaudible]--Mario Obledo, former LULAC 
leader and one of the founders of the Mexican American Legal Defense 
Fund; Justin Dart, the man who probably is more responsible for the 
Americans with Disabilities Act than any other single American citizen; 
Mardy Murie, a 93-year-old conservationist who lives at the foot of the 
Grand Tetons in Wyoming, who has done so much to save the West; the 
distinguished American psychiatrist Robert Coles, who probably has had 
more influence through his academic writings to promote equal 
opportunity for all children and the whole cause of citizen service than 
any other academic in America; Frances Hesselbein, who saved the Girl 
Scouts when they were on the brink of extinction by diversifying the 
Girl Scouts and unifying them; Al Shanker of New York--[applause]--
posthumously.
    My wife said these were just ordinary American citizens, and I said, 
yes, ordinary American citizens like Brooke Astor and

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David Rockefeller--I gave them the Medal of Freedom today. [Laughter] 
And I did it for a very important point that brings us to Wall Street: 
They had other options. They didn't really have to go out and do good 
with their lives, but they did it anyway. Wilma Mankiller, the first 
woman to be chief of the Cherokee Nation; Elliot Richardson, who holds 
more--who's held more Cabinet positions than any other American citizen, 
a distinguished Republican who had a lot to do with saving our 
Constitution. And there were others, Admiral Zumwalt and a couple of 
others.
    But I just give these names to give you a feel for what America is 
really all about. All these incredibly different people from different 
walks of life who made our country what it is. And it's a better 
country. And when it was over today and everybody was filing out of the 
East Room at the White House, they were all thinking, ``Gosh, these 
people are all so different, but they shared something special in their 
citizenship, in their service, in their devotion to the ideals of this 
country. And because they all played their roles, we are a much greater, 
bigger, better country.'' That's really what we're here to talk about 
today.
    From the beginning, this country was set on a mission by the 
Founders--and I quote--``to form a more perfect Union.'' It was a 
brilliant formulation of a national mission, because it recognized that 
our work would never be done and that there is no such thing as 
perfection, so that we would always have something new to do. And they 
wrote this Constitution for us that's full of good basic values, 
recognizing that it would always have to be applied to changing 
circumstances; and that if we kept the values and kept the mission in 
mind, that we were always supposed to be forming a more perfect Union, 
we might have a chance to do better than any other people had in human 
history. Over 220 years later, we're still here, the longest lasting big 
democracy in the history of humanity.
    A generation ago one man's words, wisdom, and work had a lot to do 
with leading us toward a more perfect Union. Toward the end of his life, 
Martin Luther King embarked upon securing what he called the next 
frontier of freedom, economic freedom. He reminded us that when we limit 
economic opportunities for some Americans, we limit the possibilities of 
all Americans.
    We are here today because Wall Street has a critical role to play in 
fulfilling Dr. King's dream of opportunity for all Americans. Whether 
ensuring that companies on the Big Board draw on the talent and 
diversity of all of our people, or investing in communities long 
bypassed by capital but full of potential, businesses can and must help 
us to build the one America we all need for the 21st century. That's 
what I want to talk about today.
    I have been working hard for 5 years so that 3 years from now, when 
I'm gone and a new century is here, we will have an America where the 
American dream really is alive for everybody who is willing to work for 
it, where America is still the world's strongest force for peace and 
freedom and prosperity, where our people have been brought together, 
across all the lines that divide us, into one America. If we are going 
to do that, we must bring more Americans into the winner's circle. We 
must bring more Americans into the winner's circle.
    We know that this time is characterized by globalization and a 
revolution in science, technology, and information. We know that these 
things have changed profoundly the way we live and work, the way we 
relate to each other, the way we relate to the rest of the world. We 
know that, for good or ill, the scope and pace of change are greater 
than ever before. We know that, for good or ill, we are more 
interdependent than ever before.
    Martin Luther King said once that we are all caught in an 
inescapable web of mutuality, and he was preaching to the American 
people and reminding us that we had to reach across racial lines. Today, 
like it or not, around the world we are caught in an inescapable web of 
mutuality. We see it every day on Wall Street, for good or ill.
    We now have all kinds of new challenges because of globalization in 
the information and technology and science revolutions. These are just a 
few of them. How do we get the benefits of new markets and technologies 
to people and places that aren't part

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of our economic growth? How do we maximize the impact of markets and 
still preserve the social contract? How do we give everybody who is 
willing to work a chance to get a job, to get an education, to have 
access to health care, and own a home and save for retirement? How do we 
grow the economy and preserve the environment at a time when climate 
change looms as a big problem, but there are many other environmental 
problems as well? How do we at home balance the demands of work and 
family when more and more people are in the work force but raising 
children is still our most important job? How do we take advantage of 
all the diversity and opportunities for self-expression that are now out 
there in the world, and the pulling back of the cold war, to promote 
community instead of chaos? Is the future of the world an American 
school district with kids from 180 different racial and ethnic groups, 
or is it the darkest days of Bosnia, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, the 
Middle East, and you name it? Is the future of the world the end of the 
nuclear threat and security for our children, or is it the rise of 
terrorists and organized criminals and narcotraffickers carrying around 
small chemical and biological weapons? Will we build community or chaos? 
These are some of the big questions we face.
    And here at home, if everything is changing, what happens to your 
Government? What's our role? I have tried to fashion a new approach--not 
an old style top-down bureaucracy that says we can handle all this, 
because, you know, in the global economy that's not true. But I have 
never been much in sympathy with the newly resurgent belief that 
Government is the source of all of our problems.
    My view is that we need a Government that is committed to giving 
people the conditions and tools they need to meet their own challenges, 
to act as a partner and to act as a catalyst, consistent with what I 
think ought to be the guiding philosophy of every American--a simple 
one--opportunity for all, responsibility from all, a community of all 
our citizens.
    The truth is our Federal Government today is smaller and less 
bureaucratic than it used to be, but it's also a lot more active than it 
has been in the recent past. Beginning in 1993 we moved to establish the 
conditions for a growing economy with a plan rooted in the realities of 
the global economy and respecting the role of the financial markets.
    First, we restored fiscal discipline. When I took office in January 
of 1993, we were told that the deficit for this year was going to be 
$357 billion. Instead, it is close to zero, and next year--next month I 
will send to Congress the first balanced budget for the coming year that 
we've had in a generation. This is something that ought to unite 
Americans, progressives and conservatives alike. Conservatives ought to 
like it because it's not profligate. Progressives ought to like it 
because it means we don't have to keep spending tax money paying 
interest on the debt; we can do more to invest in our people and our 
future. And most important, we all ought to like it because in the world 
in which we live, countries with irresponsible economic policies are 
punished in the global marketplace. They don't generate jobs; they don't 
lower unemployment; and, therefore, they don't have the tax revenues 
they need to solve their common problems.
    The second thing we've tried to do is to argue to the American 
people that America must lead in the global economy. A third of our 
economic growth has come from expanded exports, and that relates to the 
point we're making here today. We have to open markets, increase exports 
to make this new economy work for our people.
    One of the things--sometimes I get a little credit for being able to 
communicate, but one of the things that I have not been able to 
communicate very well to a lot of people is that we cannot grow at home 
unless we help others to grow abroad; that with 4 percent of the 
population and 20 percent of the income, we can't keep growing unless we 
can expand the frontiers of our activity. And, therefore, we ought to 
want our neighbors to do well by trading more with us, because they help 
us to do well as they buy more of our products.
    An increasingly interconnected world financial system has helped to 
create this kind of strong economic system, the rising markets to which 
we have to export. But the international capital market is also a stern

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taskmaster, as we have seen in the last several weeks. When investor 
confidence flees, countries first have to put their own houses in order 
through serious and sustained economic reforms, just as we had to in 
1993 so that we were serious about getting our economic house in order 
to get interest rates down, investment up, and to create jobs.
    When severe instability sets in and threatens to spread, there is a 
vital role also, I believe, for international support to restore 
confidence, to provide breathing room. When countries are willing to 
help themselves, I think the United States ought to be a good neighbor 
and do its part to support that kind of endeavor.
    Now, why should struggling Americans, Americans that are out here in 
New York City working hard to make ends meet, want their Government to 
support efforts to restore growth in distant lands? I'll say again, 
because we have 4 percent of the population and 20 percent of the 
income, we've got to have those folks as customers if we're going to 
keep growing our income and if we ever hope to extend opportunity to 
people in places within our borders that have not yet participated in 
the economic recovery. In other words, there is this web of mutuality, 
and it actually pays dividends to be a good neighbor. That's why we've 
taken a leadership role in addressing the current turbulence in Asia and 
in strengthening the institutions of the international financial system.
    But the third point I want to make, and the third part of our 
economic strategy, is that we have done as much as we could, but we have 
to do more to invest in our own people to give them the tools they need 
to succeed and to widen the circle of opportunity. We've put in place 
the most significant investments in education in a generation: 200,000 
more children in Head Start; tens of thousands of volunteers in our 
schools teaching our elementary kids to read well, so that they don't go 
through school not being able to learn; hooking up classrooms and 
libraries to the Internet; lifting academic standards; opening the doors 
of college to everybody who will work for it, with the HOPE scholarship 
and other initiatives. We've extended health care to 5 million more 
kids, helped young people to buy their first homes, done more to enable 
small business people and employees to save for their own pensions.
    All that is working. That's why we've got over 13 million new jobs, 
the lowest unemployment rate in 24 years. For the first time in the 
history of this country, over 64 percent of the adults are working. For 
the first time in the history of this country, over two-thirds of the 
American people are in their own homes.
    But it is not enough. You and I know there are still people and 
places in this city and in this country that have simply not been 
touched by all this whirlwind of economic activity. And it is holding 
America back.
    Every time the Federal Reserve Board meets, there is all this 
breathless anticipation: Will they have to raise interest rates, because 
the unemployment rate is the lowest in 24 years? How can we put off 
inflation and continue to grow? Well, the answer is twofold. One is, 
technology and open markets are good depressants against the traditional 
forces of inflation. But the other is, if you're moving into an area 
that hasn't enjoyed growth, you can have growth without inflation 
because you're writing on a clean slate. And if it's good argument for 
America to sell more and invest more around the world, it's good 
argument for America to sell more and invest more down the street.
    If it is true--a number of Members of the New York delegation have 
been very good in trying to help me pass the Caribbean Basin Initiative, 
because we want to be good neighbors. There are a lot of people from the 
Caribbean here in New York City. And one of the unintended consequences 
of our trade agreement with Canada and Mexico is that Mexico seemed to 
get a comparative benefit over the Caribbean countries, which we never 
intended to happen.
    I keep telling people--they say, ``Oh, we can't afford to do this in 
the Caribbean.'' We're going to invest in the Caribbean one way or the 
other. We'll either pass the Caribbean Basin Initiative and we'll help 
to trade with them and help to grow their economy, or we'll invest in 
them indirectly. Americans will buy drugs from the South American 
narcotraffickers, and then the narcotraffickers will take our money and 
they will put

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it in the Caribbean so they will have a place to stop on their way to 
America. [Laughter] We will do this one way or the other. I don't know 
about you, but I prefer the direct way. I think the old-fashioned way is 
better. [Laughter]
    You know, I talked to a guy the other day from Central America--we 
were talking about one of the countries down there, and he said, ``It's 
unbelievable, the narcotrafficker is down there building schools in 
nation X''--I don't want to embarrass them. I said, ``They're not 
building those schools, we are.'' [Laughter] America consumes almost 
half the world's drugs. We give those guys the money; they make the 
investment; they get the credit. No politician would ever do that. 
[Laughter] Elect your opponent by giving him the money, and let him give 
it to the electorate? I mean, we're laughing--this is serious business. 
If every one of those arguments you can think of works beyond our 
borders, it works within our borders. If it works down the road, across 
the water, it works down the street.
    The unemployment rate in New York City is about 4 percent higher 
than the national average. The unemployment rate in the Nation's Capital 
is about 3 percent higher than the national average. And there are vast 
opportunities out there.
    We just had a study published last week which said there are 365,000 
jobs in computer-related areas that are going begging in America today 
and that it is a threat to our future economic growth. So you want to 
keep growing the economy and make this the longest peacetime expansion 
in history by a good long ways, keep reaching out to the rest of the 
world and do more to invest in America. Do more to trade with America. 
Do more to train America.
    As far as I can tell, there are no other easy alternatives. And this 
is not only economic good sense, it's morally right. And that's why 
we're all here. That's the message we have to get out.
    What's our role in that? What should the Government do specifically 
to close the opportunity gap? Well, first of all, I think it requires us 
to have, again I say, the right philosophy of Government. My view is 
that the principal role of Government is to provide the conditions and 
the tools to empower people to solve their own problems, and then to 
work as a partner with State and local governments, the private sector, 
and community groups, and a catalyst to take ideas that work someplace 
and make sure they work every place. That's what I think we ought to be 
doing.
    There is not enough Government money in America to put everybody to 
work in New York City, much less in every city and every rural area that 
has been left behind. We have to create the conditions, the environment 
that will enable us to be good partners. And that's what we have tried 
to do. Pretty soon we'll have 125 empowerment zones and enterprise 
communities around America that basically say, if local communities--
government, business, and community leaders--will pull together with a 
plan for revitalization, we will provide flexible funding and tax cuts 
to help make the plan work.
    Has it worked everywhere? No. Has it worked some places? You bet it 
has. There are neighborhoods all over this country now that are much 
stronger because of those empowerment zones. In Detroit alone, the 
empowerment zone along with the stunning commitment of the automobile 
industry and the leadership of the mayor have helped to cut the 
unemployment rate in half in a city which some people thought once could 
not be saved.
    We have created a network of what we call community development 
financial institutions--the CDFI's, in the jargon of the folks that deal 
with them. These are small community banks that can make loans in places 
and to people that ordinary commercial banks normally won't touch. So 
far, these banks have an extremely high repayment rate. And I might say, 
this is one case where we took something we were doing around the world 
and said, if it's good enough for American aid programs to finance these 
things around the world, why shouldn't we be doing this at home?
    We've worked to dramatically strengthen the Community Reinvestment 
Act. The Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977, over 20 years 
ago. Eighty-five percent of the financial commitments made under the 
Community Reinvestment Act have been

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made in the last 5 years of our administration. I'm very proud of that. 
That's $270 billion for our hardest pressed communities.
    We're helping cities to clean up and redevelop their brownfields, 
environmentally contaminated, otherwise attractive business sites. We've 
more than doubled the number of Small Business Administration loans to 
minority and women-owned businesses. We've tried to reinvent the Housing 
and Urban Development Department so that it stands for empowerment and 
opportunity. We're finding innovative ways to build more affordable 
housing. When families move into homes they call their own, they can 
transform communities.
    I had a wonderful time in the Bronx the other day. Some of you 
remember the pictures that were in the newspaper. I went to that place 
that President Reagan said looked like London during the Blitz. And it 
looks like a neighborhood we'd all be proud to live in today. The local 
people did that. They had empowerment support from others, 
partnerships--that's what we need everywhere in America.
    But we have to do more, and so do you. In 1999 these are some of the 
things--but not all, I've got to save a little bit for the State of the 
Union--[laughter]--some of the things that we intend to do. The balanced 
budget in 1999 will contain the most significant new community 
development and economic empowerment initiatives in years. It will 
expand the number of empowerment zones. It will increase funding for the 
community development financial institutions by 50 percent. It will 
expand eligibility for the low-income housing credit to create between 
150,000 and 180,000 new rental units. It will help families with good 
histories of paying their rent to move into homes of their own.
    I've asked Secretary Cuomo to do more with the private sector to 
also increase access to capital, create jobs, and fuel entrepreneurs, 
and I'll have more to say about that in the days ahead. But New York can 
be proud of him. He's doing a good job.
    I also want to say that Secretary Herman and Secretary Daley and I 
have worked on a special project, which I hope will work, and I hope 
some of you will help us make work. When I read that we had 365,000 
computer-related jobs going begging in America, that some people said 
this is threatening our growth, when I read another article in our local 
paper back in Washington--New York is probably the only city I can come 
to and say Washington has a local paper--[laughter]--but anyway I read 
an article which said that there was a dramatic employment shortage--not 
unemployment problem, employment shortage--in all the suburban counties 
surrounding Washington and that we had something like 25,000 computer-
related jobs going begging in the Washington, DC, area. And I look at an 
8 percent unemployment rate in our city; in some neighborhoods it's much 
higher. I asked Secretary Herman and Secretary Daley to come up with a 
program--we've never done this before--they've set aside millions of 
dollars to train people only to do these kinds of jobs and to try to 
focus them in the areas where they can be hired.
    So I would like to ask you to look around New York. How many jobs 
are going begging here today? Can people be trained for them? Even if 
people in the inner cities don't have enough education to do them, are 
there people in lower level jobs now who could be trained for those, 
opening up those jobs for the people in the inner city? Shouldn't there 
be a plan to do that here? And shouldn't there be a plan everywhere? And 
if so, call Secretary Herman, and we'll participate.
    A lot of you have done a lot, or you wouldn't be here today. But we 
have got to do more. We have got to do more. One study estimates that 
inner-city residents control $85 billion in purchasing power. That's 
more than the entire retail market in Mexico. Thirty percent of their 
demand for retail goods goes unmet. Shall I say that again? Thirty 
percent of their demand for retail goods goes unmet. We need more 
investment in these areas of high unemployment. Even in areas of high 
unemployment, most people are working. And a lot of people are working 
hard and being good citizens, and paying their taxes, and obeying the 
law against odds that some of us could not stand up to. So I think we 
need to think about that.
    We need more businesses to form partnerships with neighborhood 
schools. Major Owens and I were talking on the way

up

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here. If you want all of our kids to have a good education, then those of 
us who believe in the public schools have to be for high standards, for 
flexibility, for accountability, and for involvement by people that can 
help to save these kids. And you need to be involved in it.

    We need businesses committed to make sure welfare reform succeeds. 
We've reduced welfare rolls by 3.8 million, but the easy work has been 
done. The people that are left on the welfare rolls are people, by and 
large, who came from very difficult backgrounds; many of them came from 
abusive home backgrounds; many of them don't have a lot of education. We 
have training funds; we have child care funds. The mechanisms are in 
place, but somebody's got to believe in them and give them a chance.
    We need you to help us in all these ways, we have to bring the world 
of the gleaming office tower and the dark shadow together because the 
people who live in both places are all Americans and because we need 
each other. We need each other. We've got to develop the skills and 
potential of our people. We have to dramatically increase capital 
investment. We have to continue to build public-private partnerships. We 
have to open the doors of the executive suites, the sales floors, and 
the factories to talented people of all backgrounds. If we want our best 
people sitting in the boardrooms, our savviest clerks minding the 
stores, our hardest workers on the assembly lines, we've got to somehow 
have the talents of all of our people.
    And we know from study after study after study that there are smart 
people, there are people who can organize, there are people who can 
lead, there are people who can innovate, there are people who can create 
in areas in America where there is no economic activity. Very often they 
wind up showing their leadership in less constructive ways. But they 
need to have an alternative. You can lead in creating that alternative.
    We're going to do everything we can to put more on the table, to be 
a better partner, to give you more options, to support the city, to 
support the State, to support the private sector, to support these 
community groups. But you know as well as I do, just as no government 
can follow irresponsible policies and stand up against the winds of the 
global marketplace, no government alone can bring opportunity to the 
people and the places that have been left behind. We'll do our part, but 
you have to do yours.
    I thank Reverend Jackson for his insight, that he has said for years 
and years and years you are missing a market here. This is America's 
opportunity to close the opportunity gap. Let's seize it.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 3 p.m. in the Windows on the World 
restaurant at the World Trade Center. In his remarks, he referred to 
civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and his daughter Santita; Richard 
Grasso, chairman and chief executive officer, New York Stock Exchange; 
Tom Jones, vice chair, The Travelers Group, Inc.; U.N. Ambassador Bill 
Richardson; New York State Assemblyman Gregory Meeks; Lt. Gov. Betsy 
McCaughey Ross of New York; H. Carl McCall, State comptroller; Sheldon 
Silver, State assembly speaker; Mark Green, New York City public 
advocate; Peter F. Vallone, New York City council speaker; and Clarence 
Avant, chairman, Motown Records. The President also referred to the 
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).