[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 19 (Monday, May 15, 2000)]
[Pages 1048-1056]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
 Remarks to the National Conference on Building Prosperity in the Delta 
in Arlington, Virginia

 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.

[[Page 1049]]

     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 
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.

[[Page 1050]]

     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 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--

[[Page 1051]]

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 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

[[Page 1052]]

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 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

[[Page 1053]]

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 a thousand 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 developed 
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 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 punches the--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

[[Page 1054]]

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. Seventy 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 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

[[Page 1055]]

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 said--we passed 
through the Congress in the next couple of years, legislation that said 
all the States had to have standard, 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 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, and 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

[[Page 1056]]

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.; Caroll Willis, director, community service 
division, Democratic National Committee; Arkansas State Senator Bud 
Canada; and student Myra Jodie, Steamboat Navajo Nation.