[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 44 (Monday, November 8, 1999)]
[Pages 2257-2259]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the North End Community in Hartford, Connecticut

November 4, 1999

    Thank you very much, first, to you Dick Huber, for being such a 
faithful member of our new markets team. You started out with us in 
Atlanta; you made the trip to Appalachia and to the Delta and other 
places; and you led me home to Hartford today for you. You know, the 
first time we were talking about this--I should say this about Dick; he 
talks about how cynical he is. That's a front. I'm a politician; I 
recognize a front when I see one. [Laughter]
    He said, ``You know, I'm not sure I'm happy about you taking all 
these other businessmen on this new markets tour. It looks to me like 
there's a great business opportunity here, and I hate for everybody else 
to find it before I do.'' And I want to come back to that, but I thank 
you.
    I thank my longtime friend the president of Trinity College, Evan 
Dobelle, and Heidi Miller from the Citigroup. And thank you, Robert 
Fiondella and all the other business leaders that are here. Thank you, 
Governor. Thank you, Congressman, and also Congressman Kanjorski, who 
has been a faithful member of all of our tours. I thank Speaker Lyons 
and Senator Sullivan and all the other leaders who are here.
    I want to say another word--I'm particularly glad to be in Hartford 
with Congressman Larson, because he's been after me to come here as 
well. And Secretary Slater, thank you for making all these trips. And 
Reverend Jackson, thank you for being such an inspiration for all of 
these efforts.
    I want to thank the Collective founders, Jackie and Dollie McLean. I 
thought of giving up my speaking time and letting Jackie play. 
[Laughter] And I appreciate the ``Hail To The Chief'' with the 
saxophone. And I just heard the jazz band upstairs; they played an old 
Sonny Stipp tune that I knew back when I was a young man. I don't 
believe I'm good enough to play it anymore, but I was astonished at the 
musical quality of the people here. And it's a great gift to your 
community.
    Today you're hearing in words rather than music, another sort of 
serenade for the people of this city. The corporate leaders together are 
pledging--listen to this--well over $200 million to the future of 
Hartford. That's one of the most impressive commitments in any city to 
developing the market potential of people who have not been part of our 
prosperity anywhere in the United States of America. And you should 
applaud them, support them, and be very proud of them. [Applause]
    They're all saying, ``Hartford is our home; Hartford is worth 
working for, worth fighting for, worth believing in.'' And we are 
committed to working with you to succeed.
    Today's announcements are just the latest sign of the renaissance of 
this city. Before I came here to the Artists Collective, I had a chance 
to meet some of the vendors at El Mercado, the Latino marketplace on 
Park Street. I actually had visited there in 1992, and I remarked, first 
of all, how excited I was to go back. I had a wonderful time there in 
'92. At the time I was battling with my weight, and they made it worse. 
[Laughter] I never wanted to leave any of the places. And I loved being 
back there today. And as far as I could see, everything was better than 
it was in '92, except for one thing. There was this picture of me when I 
was there in '92,

[[Page 2258]]

and I look worse. But they look better. Everything else is better. 
[Laughter] So I want to thank the people there for all the work that 
they have done.
    Mr. Mayor, I want to compliment you on falling crime rates, 
dramatically falling crime rates. We have the lowest crime rate in 
America in 30 years, lowest murder rate in 32 years. No single person 
can take credit for this, but every person who has supported community 
policing, responsible law enforcement policies, and working together can 
take a lot of credit for it. So I thank you.
    I also want to compliment everybody here who is responsible for the 
improvements we see in the schools here. I thank you for your commitment 
to the MetroHartford Millennium and Adriaen's Landing projects. I thank 
Trinity College, working with HUD, for Frog Holler, where they are 
turning a once devastated brownfield into a remarkable 16-acre learning 
corridor. I'm pleased to announce that Citigroup has just committed to 
build on the success of the learning corridor by offering more than $7.4 
million in equity and debt capital to help rehabilitate 70 single-family 
homes in the neighborhood, and I appreciate that.
    Let me just say this. One of the biggest problems we have in America 
right now is the product of our prosperity. There is not enough 
affordable housing for all the people who have jobs and have incomes, 
but because of the economy being so strong, they're still being priced 
out of the housing market. Therefore, there is an enormous opportunity, 
if we can get the capital to the right place, to create more jobs for 
people who still need them in rehabilitating existing structures in a 
way that will make them affordable for working people. So this is very 
good thing, and I hope it will be built on, because you can, Governor, 
help people not only in Hartford but in Bridgeport, in New Haven, and 
all the other places that still need help in Connecticut.
    And I want to say, if I might, I appreciate your being here, because 
I don't believe that this issue should be a partisan issue. I think all 
Americans want every American to have a chance to work, and I thank you.
    I guess my message here is this: Number one, this is great; number 
two, let's build on it; number three, every other city in America should 
follow your lead. If we have now the lowest unemployment rate in 29 
years and the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years and the lowest poverty 
rates in 20 years and the lowest minority unemployment rates ever 
recorded since we have been trying for about 30 years to separate them 
out, if we have all this in the longest peacetime expansion in history, 
which come February, will be the longest economic expansion in the 
history of America, if we can't take this opportunity to bring real hope 
to the people in places who have not been touched by this recovery, we 
will never get around to doing it.
    So the first thing I want to say is, because we care about one 
another, it is the right thing to do, and possible. The second thing I 
want to say is, it's the smart thing to do. That's what Dick said the 
first time he talked about it. You would be amazed how much time I spend 
as your President trying to figure out how to keep this economic 
expansion going, you know, because if you read in the paper, about once 
every month or so there will be somebody saying the sky is finally going 
to fall, we can't keep this thing going anymore, inflation's around the 
corner or it's going to run out of steam.
    But the truth is, I always felt if we could get rid of this terrible 
deficit and start bringing down our debt, if we could still have enough 
money to invest in our people and new technologies, and if we could keep 
our borders open so we'd have to be competitive and keep inflation down, 
we could really grow this economy for a long time. I gave that speech 
back in '92, and I didn't know if I was right or not, but you all proved 
that that was right.
    Now, we have to say, how can we keep it going? How can we have 
growth without inflation? The answer is, invest in the people in places 
who still haven't felt the opportunity. They need the jobs. They need 
the businesses. They need the capital. They need the work. And they will 
be new customers. It is an inflation-free strategy to continue the 
growth of America, to find the people in places still not touched.
    So what I want to say to you is, yes, we have a lot of people in the 
clergy here. You

[[Page 2259]]

can say, and you'd be right, that it is the morally responsible thing to 
do for the business leaders of this community and this State and this 
Nation to invest in these places. But you also should say, it is the 
economically smart thing to do, because it's one of the clearest ways we 
can continue to have this economic expansion with no inflation. It is a 
magic moment, and we dare not let it pass us by.
    Now, what I'm trying to do at the Federal level is to build a 
bipartisan coalition for giving the kind of tools you need to maximize 
the number of businesspeople and investors who can participate. The 
Congress has already, on a bipartisan basis, passed a bill which 
appropriates some of the money we need to start our national effort. And 
now, I'm trying to secure agreement to pass a set of tax incentives and 
loan guarantees, basically tax credits and loan guarantees, which would, 
for example, give--let's just take Aetna or any other business--the same 
financial incentives to invest in the inner city in Hartford, in a 
developing market in Hartford, or any other place in Connecticut, that 
they can get already to invest in a developing market in Central 
America, in South America, in Asia, in Africa.
    Now, I don't want to stop investing in those countries, but I do 
think that people in America with money ought to get the same tax breaks 
to invest in poor communities, in poor people in America, we give them 
to invest around the world.
    So I say to you, I am very grateful to Hartford for setting an 
example. I'm grateful for this vast and broad-based crowd of people for 
being here. But this is good business, as well as good social policy. We 
can be good citizens and actually improve the economy. And if enough of 
us believe that, then we can pass the laws we need to pass in Congress 
and get more people to follow the lead of the business investments we've 
seen here today. This is the right thing to do.
    One hundred and thirty years ago, Mark Twain came here for the first 
time--I like Mark Twain--we ought to all laugh, and besides, he was the 
first guy who said that reports of his death had been greatly 
exaggerated, something I came to appreciate more and more as I stayed in 
this business. [Laughter] Here's what he said about Hartford, ``Of all 
the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see, this is the chief. 
You do not know what beauty is if you have not been here.''
    Thanks to your commitment, your pride, your faith in your city, the 
beauty is shining through again in new and different ways, with all 
kinds of different people, from all different countries, and all 
different cultural backgrounds, contributing to a 21st century beauty 
for Hartford. You can see it in the beautiful children I saw dancing 
upstairs and all the work done here in the Artists Collective new home. 
You can see it in the pride of El Mercado and all those beautiful stores 
I saw up and down the avenue. You can see it in the brownfields 
transformed and the boarded homes make habitable again. This is what it 
means to develop America's new markets, and we ought to give the same 
chance to every hard-working American in every community in this 
country.
    Thank you very much. Thank you.
    I want to bring up here a man who was making this speech to me years 
ago and whose Wall Street project pioneered the partnerships we want 
everywhere in America between business and Government, to give people a 
chance and keep hope alive. Reverend Jesse Jackson.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:40 p.m. in the performance studio at the 
Artists Collective. In his remarks, he referred to Richard L. Huber, 
chairman and chief executive officer, Aetna, Inc., who introduced the 
President; Heidi Miller, chief financial officer, Citigroup, Inc.; 
Robert W. Fiondella, chairman, president, and chief executive officer, 
Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Company; Gov. John G. Rowland of 
Connecticut; State Representative Moira K. Lyons; State Senator Kevin B. 
Sullivan; and Mayor Michael P. Peters of Hartford.