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FOIA Number: 2006-0462-F
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
Subgroup/Office of Origin:
Speechwriting
Series/Staff Member:
Terry Edmonds
Subseries:
OA/ID Number:
17509
FolderID:
Folder Title:
Arkansas Delta/New Markets 12/10/99 [1]
Stack:
Row:
Section:
Shelf:
Position:
S
0
0
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Withdrawal/Redaction Sheet
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
AND TYPE
001. email
From Clara J. Shin to Terry Edmonds re: thanks (1 page)
08/31/99
P6/b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Speechwriting
Terry Edmonds
OA/Box Number: 17509
FOLDER TITLE:
Arkansas Delta/New Markets 12/10/99 [1]
2006-0462-F
ry580
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - 144 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - [5 U.S.C. 552(b)]
P1 National Security Classified Information [(a)(1) of the PRAJ
b(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office [(a)(2) of the PRA]
b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute |(a)(3) of the PRA]
an agency |(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information [(a)(4) of the PRA]
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy |(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells [(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
-
THE WHITE HOUSE
State/can
Setting WASHINGTON out of wey do
TO:
FROM: TERRY EDMONDS
ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND
DIRECTOR OF SPEECHWRITING
Being a parentis
in Jadn administration
hardestjol
Las -
of they have charse between
weall lose
goodwirker good - parent
FMLA school invested
bugater million after signed now esterday -were
wins
Final 07/07/99 11:45pm
Jeff Shesol
PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
REMARKS TO THE 15th ANNUAL
NATIONAL ACADEMY FOUNDATION
INSTITUTE FOR STAFF DEVELOPMENT
ANAHEIM HILTON AND TOWERS
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA
July 8, 1999
Acknowledgments: Sec. Daley; Rep. Sanchez; Mayor Tom Daley; Warren Christopher;
Dan Hesse [Hessay], president & CEO of AT&T Wireless; George Vrandburg, AOL; Hazel del
Rosario; and all the business leaders, elected officials, and educators who are here today. I want
to make special mention of Gene Sperling, who worked so hard to make this new markets trip a
reality. And I particularly want to thank Sandy Weill and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose
partnership in the Wall St. Project was the pioneering effort that helped pave the way for the trip.
And thank you for inviting me here to your annual conference. It is appropriate, I think,
that at the close of my new markets trip, I should address a group like this one - a group that's
working to prepare our children, and thereby our nation, to seize the opportunities of the 21st
Century.
Over the last four days, I have traveled across America, shining a spotlight on opportunity
in places not yet blessed by our nation's prosperity. I have been glad to have a number of you
along for the ride. Together, we have seen the power of public-private partnership in Appalachia
and the Delta, and the spark of retail investment in the first shopping center built in decades in
East St. Louis. We have seen that a sound infrastructure can bring opportunity even to the
remote regions of Indian country. In South Phoenix, we have seen the benefits of community
empowerment; and, here in Los Angeles, we have seen the hopes that education and job training
are bringing to the young people of Watts.
For me and for all of us who took this tour, it has been a remarkable four days. We have
seen a face of America that is not often seen -- a face in the shadows. But it is a face that should
no longer remain hidden; because in these blessed times, we can see clearly its considerable
promise and potential. I took this trip because I wanted all of American business to see what
enormous opportunities there are in America's new markets. And I wanted all Americans to see
that by embracing these opportunities, by ensuring that we leave no one behind as we move
forward into the 21st Century, we have a greater chance than at any time in our history to grow
together rather than growing apart.
We have seen and learned much this past week. The CEOs and national leaders I have
traveled with have spoken at every stop about financial capital and its power to transform cities
and rural areas. But today I want to talk to you about a different form of capital -- human capital.
1
Because if we really want to develop these untapped markets I've been talking about, we have to
develop the untapped abilities of the people in distressed communities. If we give business the
right incentives, it might locate there -- but it won't stay -- not without the skilled workers it
needs to thrive and expand.
Today, America has a better opportunity than ever not only to create those jobs in new
markets -- but to fill them with new workers. These are prosperous times for America. Our
economy is strong - the strongest in a generation - and growing stronger, with 19 million new
jobs and the lowest unemployment in 30 years. Now, more than ever, businesses are looking to
expand, looking for new workers, looking for new opportunities. They have never had a greater
incentive to look in the places several exits off the beaten path, and to give a chance to someone
who might otherwise go undiscovered. Now is the time. If we don't seize that opportunity
today, when in the world will we? To anyone for whom these are the best of times, I say we
should seize that opportunity, and we should seize it now.
Everywhere we've gone this week, we've met people eager for opportunity. They don't
want charity. They don't want handouts. What they want is a hand-up -- a good, private-sector
job and the simple pride of a paycheck. The communities I've visited are filled with gifted,
creative, hard-working people. They're eager to work. I say: let's put them to work.
The working world they will enter, as you know, is changing dramatically. The three
fastest-growing careers in America, offering far more than average pay, are all in computer-
related fields. The high-tech industry employs more people today than the auto industry did at its
height in the 1950s. And the very industries you'd think would be mostly unaffected by
technological change -- construction, transport, auto -- are, in fact, being transformed by it. Now,
even the jobs at the Walgreens I just visited in East St. Louis -- retail jobs -- require the use of
computers.
Today, I am releasing a Department of Commerce report that confirms more and more
Americans than ever are connected to the Internet. But it also shows there is a growing "digital
divide" between those who have access to the Internet and the digital economy and those who
don't. That gap exists along lines of education, income, region, and race.
I don't think we have to accept that fate. The very information technology that drives our
new economy is also creating the tools that can ensure no one gets left behind. Millions of
Americans on the margins of the economic mainstream can now join in the enterprise of building
our nation. For the very first time, a child in South Central L.A. or the most remote part of
Indian country can have access to the same world of knowledge, at the same instant, as a child in
the most affluent suburb. Imagine the enormous benefits to business, and to the American
economy, if not just a fraction but all young people entering the workforce have that access and
master those skills.
So our imperative is clear: If we want to tap the potential of new markets, we must
unlock the potential of new workers. And any company smart enough to invest in these new
markets must also be smart enough to invest in the people in those very same neighborhoods. To
2
build a strong workforce for the future.
to make sure that we leave no one out and no one
behind.
we must invest in human capital, and give people the tools it takes to succeed.
That is why my administration has made education America's number one priority --
through HOPE scholarships and Pell Grants, and by reducing class size and hiring 100,000 new
teachers. That is why we are connecting every American classroom to the Internet. And that is
why the $8 million in corporate commitments made today to NAF are so very important; as are
the information technology academies NAF has pledged to create in distressed communities.
Sandy Weill always says that today's students are tomorrow's employees. And he knows as well
as anyone that the best way to expand opportunity, to create jobs, and to renew hope is to do it
together -- private and public, business and government.
So I am pleased that AT&T is committing more than $1.4 million to increase access to
the tools of the high-tech economy; that America Online will provide more than $1 million in
grants to help narrow the digital divide; and that Oxygen Media, on the cable network it will
launch next year, will offer high-tech training on TV. I have often said on this trip that
government works best as a partner to the private sector, as a catalyst that helps create the
climate for opportunity and investment. That is the philosophy behind my New Markets
Initiative: using tax incentives to leverage private-sector investment, to get capital flowing to
people and neighborhoods it might otherwise miss.
I believe this tour has been a significant step toward opening America's new markets.
But as we look ahead, we know that this is not the last day of our new markets initiative; it's just
another step along the journey. The real measure of our success is not whether CEOs joined the
President on a trip to new markets but whether the same CEOs will return to those markets
followed by other CEOs, and other entrepreneurs, and a flow of capital and energy and ideas.
I pledge to do my part in the weeks and months ahead. Next week, I will send our new
markets legislation to Congress; and over the next several weeks we will announce a new
national effort to promote the BusinessLINC partnerships -- pairing big business with smaller,
often disadvantaged companies -- that the Vice President has championed. And this fall, I will
travel to Newark to challenge owners of professional sports teams to follow the fine example of
Ray Chambers and Lewis Katz at the New Jersey Nets, and bring resources and hope to the
children who need it most.
Opening new markets is more than a great business opportunity. It is a way to keep our
economic expansion going with higher growth, higher wages, and low inflation -- but it is more
than that, too. It is a moral and a civic responsibility. I want every business in America that has
been blessed by this new economy to commit itself to seeing that every American is blessed by it
as well. I want every corporate leader to assess whether outdated assumptions are keeping them
from building new business relationships in new markets.
It's hard to believe, after all we've seen, that it was just two days ago that I was standing
on Martin Luther King, Jr. Street in Clarksdale, Mississippi. I've been thinking of one of the
lesser-known passages of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, in which he challenged America
3
"to refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity in this
nation." Today, those vaults of opportunity are more full than at any time in our history. Our
goal, then, must be to open them to more of our people -- from Appalachia to the Delta, from our
cities to the remote regions of Indian Country -- and to give more Americans the chance to live
the dream of Dr. King, and to fulfill our founders' dream of opportunity for all. Thank you and
God bless you.
4
pts.)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Anaheim, California)
For Immediate Release
July 8, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN DISCUSSION ON YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES
Southwest College
Los Angeles, California
12:00 P.M. PDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Please sit down. We're running behind
now. I've got to get to be more businesslike. Since Alexis has been so
fulsome in her kind comments, that was an example of Clinton's second law of
politics - always be introduced by someone you've appointed to a high
position. (Laughter.)
Let me say to, first, our host here in Representative Maxine
Water's district, we're delighted to be here. I want to thank all of you who
made it possible for us to come to this beautiful facility. Let me say I am
doing something today I never thought I would ever do, for those who have been
on the tour with me, I came to Los Angeles to cool off. (Laughter.) It was
100 degrees in Washington when we left; it was 100 degrees in Appalachia; it
was 100 degrees in the Mississippi Delta; it was 100 degrees in East St.
Louis; it was only about 94 on the Indian reservation yesterday; and it was
over 100 in South Phoenix. So I came to Los Angeles to cool off, and I thank
you very much for that.
I want to thank Secretary Daley and Secretary Slater who are here.
And, Reverend Jackson, thank you for making this tour with us, and all the
business leaders who have been with us. I want to thank Congresswoman
Millender-McDonald. We were just over at the transportation academy in her
district, and I enjoyed
that very much. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, thank you for
being here. Congressman Javier Becerra; and Congressman Paul
Kanjorski, who came all the way from Pennsylvania, has been on
1
every step of this tour, and I thank him.
Governor, thank you for making us feel welcome. And,
Devon Burke (phonetic), thank you. And I'd like to thank all the
business leaders and all the leaders from entertainment and
athletics and other things that are here today.
I will be very brief because I want to hear from the
young people here. I have believed from the beginning of my
tenure as President that in order for the American economy to
really work, and in order for the American society to work, every
American should believe that he or she had a chance to be a part
of it. And we've worked on this for some time. And you hear
Alexis talking about the economic statistics: we now have the
longest peacetime expansion in history, the longest minority
unemployment rates ever recorded. But everyone knows that there
are still substantial numbers of people in our distressed urban
and rural areas and on our Indian reservations that basically
have not been part of this recovery.
In Watts, for example, the unemployment rate has
dropped almost 50 percent, but it still is three times above the
national average, just for example. And so it seemed to me
several months ago -- and I talked about this in my State of the
Union address way back in January -- that there was a way to tap
the enormous feeling that a lot of our business leaders have that
they've done very, very well in a stock market that's more than
tripled in six years and a strong economy, and that they ought to
give something back with the idea that it would actually be good
economics to give something back.
Those of you who follow the business news know that
every time the Federal Reserve meets there's all this tense
speculation, will they raise interest rates or not? Well, what
does that mean to these young people here with their yellow
tee-shirts on? It is that most economists believe that there is
a limit to how low the unemployment can go, and a limit to how
high the economic growth can go, before you have so much
inflation that you have to stop it, which kills the economic
recovery.
Now, how can you keep it going? How can we keep this
recovery going -- never mind all these kids we're here to hear
about, just for those of you who have done well in the stock
2
market? How could you keep it going? The easiest way to keep it
going is to go to places where there aren't enough jobs and there
aren't enough consumers, and create more of both -- create more
business owners, create more workers, create more consumers.
That's all growth completely without inflation.
It allows America's economic expansion to continue, so
there's a real sense in which every time we hire a young person
off the street in Watts and give him or her a better future, we
are helping people who live in the ritziest suburb in America to
continue to enjoy a rising stock market. And it proves beyond
any doubt that we are all in this together, that we're all better
off when the least of us do well.
And also, we have a chance here that we've never had
before at least in my lifetime, certainly not since the American
economy began to unravel in the late '60s. We have got a chance
to actually build an economic infrastructure in the inner-cities
and in rural America that will restore something like a normal
economy to places.
There will always be -- some times are pretty good,
some times won't be so good. But what we want for every American
is to live in a community where at least he or she has the same
shot everybody else does.
Now, the first three and a half days, what we spent
focusing on is how to get money into isolated places. That's
basically what we've been focusing on. And we talked a lot about
the things we've been doing since 1993. We've had wonderful
business leaders from all over America -- by the way, on both
parties. This is not a partisan issue anyplace but Washington,
D.C., and I hope it won't be there -- saying, hey, this is a good
business, this is a good deal, we want to be a part of it. And
we talked about this new markets legislation I have proposed
which would give tax credits and government guaranteed loans to
people who would invest to give equity to people to start
businesses in the inner-city and in rural America.
And basically what I've asked the Congress to do is to
give businesspeople the same incentive to invest in America they
get to invest today in poor communities in Latin America or Asia
or Africa or the Caribbean. I don't want to take those
opportunities away; I just want American communities to have the
3
same shot at the future. (Applause.)
So, now, what we're here today to say is that even if
we do all that, in the world we're living in, there is a high
premium in an information society placed on knowledge, skills,
what you know today and what you can continue to learn. One of
the young people I saw today is about to join the United States
Army, once in a gang, was working a computer program in which he
was able to match someone in Russia who wanted to buy tires with
someone in Colombia who wanted to sell them, and he could get a
commission off of it in between. Well, I just give you that as
one example. I saw a lot of other -- I saw two young people who
were designing automobiles that would be less wind-resistant and,
therefore, would operate at higher rates of efficiency.
Another young man who was mixing sound, so that if I --
he told me if I sang a song flat into his microphone he could
tune it up so I'd sound just fine. (Laughter.)
All these things make this point, and that's why we're
here, to finish, in a way, with the most important thing of all
--we can put in place the financial networks, we can create a lot
of jobs, but our young people -- and 60 percent of the young
people, men and women -- young men and women in the most
distressed areas of America are neither in school or at work
still. And so we can do all of these things and provide these
investments, but if our young people don't have the opportunity
to learn and to continue to learn and to continue to get training
for a lifetime, we won't be able to do it.
The first place I went in Appalachia, 57 percent of the
people who live there never finished high school. It's very
remote. But there's a man there that expanded a firm that does
business with all the high-tech companies in the country from 40
to 850 employees by having all of his present employees do a
continuous job training on every new person they try to take out
of the hills and hollows of Appalachia.
So there is no place, even in rural America, that can
escape the reality that we must train and educate our young
people if we really want this to work. So that's what we're here
about.
I thank Secretary Herman for this youth opportunities
4
initiative, and all of you who are participating. So, Alexis,
why don't you take over and let's hear from our folks.
(Applause.)
*****
THE PRESIDENT: Let me just say, Mel Farr, who is a
former all-pro football player from Detroit, is becoming the
largest automobile dealer in America, and it's just worked out.
One of the announcements we made earlier on our tour is that he
has a lot of big financial institutions who've agreed to buy his
car loans in bulk, which will enable him to expand all across
America and put minority-owned dealerships in every community in
this country.
And for people who have modest incomes, you know, he
has adapted this sort of car leasing proposal -- you remember,
this started a few years ago when people stopped buying cars and
-
started leasing them and leased them three years. Mel will lease
people cars, give you leases for as short a period as two months.
But if you don't pay, you can't make off with the car, he's got a
device that will turn the car off. (Laughter.) So he soon will
be responsible for the widest distribution of car ownership in
America with the largest number of cars that won't run.
(Laughter and applause.)
This is actually a brilliant thing, because he's giving
people a chance to have cars they never could afford otherwise.
He's recognizing that people who don't have a lot of cash income
have to live from month to month. And he's doing it in a way
that is giving people a chance to run dealerships who never could
have run them before; and they will all train people and hire the
kind of people that Toyota Center is training.
So, thank you, Mel, for a brilliant thing you're doing.
(Applause.)
*****
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Let me just briefly say in
closing, first of all, I want to thank all those who have
participated and those who are here who have not said anything,
but by the power of their example are doing a great thing for our
country. We have advocates here; we have investors; and we have
5
those are examples -- particularly these young people who have
spoken.
To me, this is the best of all endeavors because it is
the morally right thing to do and it is in the self-interest of
every American who participates in it. I believe -- I listen to
these young people, and I read the notes on their lives before I
came here -- you know, things happen to people in life, and the
good things and the bad things, especially to our children, are
not evenly distributed. And yet, among all the poor people in
America, there are people who could help us find a cure for AIDS,
a vaccine; there are people who could help us to -- I talked to
one of the young men earlier who developed composite parts for
cars that would be as strong as steel and weigh a thousand pounds
less and get 80 miles a gallon, or 90. There are people who
could solve every problem out there. The talent and the human
spirit are evenly distributed across racial and income lines.
But things happen to people and things happen to
communities. In our inner-cities and a lot of our rural areas,
the economic bases that once made them organized, thriving and
successful, evaporated -- and we did a lousy job as a country of
replacing that. We were slow off the up-take. And in other
places, like our Indian reservations, arguably, there never was
an economic basis that would be self-sustaining.
So what we do here is to say that this is not something
the government can do alone, but the government should do it's
part. And this is not something the private sector can be
expected to do unless we provide the training and the support for
the young people and provide the framework within which we lower
the risk of these investments as much as is prudent.
But we have to remember the human element in all this.
We were in East St. Louis yesterday, visited a Walmart Store in
one of the most distressed inner city areas -- I mean, Walgreen's
store, this beautiful Walgreen's store -- 30 employees. The
manager of the Walgreen's store was a 24-year-old African
American girl that grew up in that community and got out of
college and was just good at what she did. And that company
believed in her enough to give her a chance at the age of 24 to
run a store with 30 employees. An example. You're an example.
You're an example. You're an example. All of you are examples.
6
The rest of us -- who basically had a lot of luck and
good fortune in live -- you know, we all like to believe we were
born in log cabins we built ourselves, but most of us were helped
along life's way and we had a lot of luck to get where we are.
And most of us, with all the bad things that happened to us, end
life ahead of where we would be if all we got was what we just
deserved. And we should remember that.
And we should think about these children and remember
that it is in the interest of America -- the talent and the gifts
and the richness of their souls and their spirits are evenly
distributed. But things happen to them or things happen to the
place where they happen to be born, or where they happen to live
now -- and we can make it better. If we can't do it now, with
this economy as strong as it is, we'll never get around to doing
it.
So when we leave here we should remember that, and we
should do it. Thank you very much.
END
12:53 P.M PDT
7
June
(talking pts.)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Phoenix, Arizona)
For Immediate Release July 7, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
La Canasta Food Products Factory
Phoenix, Arizona
5:55 P.M. PDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. First, I want to thank Ed Pastor
for making me feel so welcome and for being my friend and doing a wonderful
job for you back in Washington, D.C. He has the respect of every member of
Congress and when he talks, we all listen.
I want to say to all of you that I am honored to be back in Phoenix.
Arizona has been very good to Hillary and to me and to the Vice President and
Mrs. Gore, not only in voting for us in the last election, but in proving that
the philosophy of government and the policies we've followed can bring us
together and make us a stronger country. So I want to begin by saying a
simple "thank you."
I'd like to thank the people who have come here with me today.
Congressman Pastor mentioned Congressman Kanjorski from Pennsylvania,
Congressman Clyburn from South Carolina, our Small Business Administrator Aida
Alvarez, and my Deputy Chief of Staff, Maria Echaveste; they are all here and
others. I thank them. (Applause.)
I'd like to thank the Reverend Jesse Jackson for coming on this tour
with me, along with the business leaders. (Applause.) I know there are some
public officials here. I think Janet Napolitano, your Attorney General, is
here; she met me at the airport. Jim Hill, the State Treasurer of Oregon, is
here. Thank you both. (Applause.)
-
I'd like to thank the business leaders here with me, Leo
Guzman, Mary Ann Spraggins, Gene Humphries of Enron, Stephen Burd
1
of Safeway, John Corella of Corella Electric, Myrna Sonora of
KTVW 33; some of you probably watch that. (Laughter.) Mike
Welburn of Bank One, Andy Gordon of Arizona Multibank, Frank
Ballasteros of MICRO; Leonard Mareno of Mareno Welding; Yolanda
Kaiser of Builder's Book Depot. And, obviously, I'd like to
thank our host, Josie Ippolito, and all the other wonderful women
in this remarkable family that own this. (Applause.)
Ed already said why we're here, and I'm here mostly to
listen to the people here. But I want to make a very important
point. I want you to know why we are here. We are here because
we have the longest peacetime expansion in history, almost 18
million new jobs since I took office, the lowest unemployment
rates among Hispanic Americans and African Americans ever
recorded. Our country has been really blessed by these good
economic times. It has contributed to giving us the lowest crime
rate in 25 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years, declining
rates of teen pregnancy and drug abuse. We have 90 percent of
our little children immunized against serious childhood diseases
for the first time in the history of our country.
But we know as blessed as America has been, not every
American has been blessed by this recovery. All you've got to do
is drive down the streets here in South Phoenix to see that. So
what we are doing is going around the country to say we can do
better, that morally, now that we're doing so well, we have an
obligation to give every American who is willing to work for it a
chance to walk across that bridge into the 21st century with us,
so we go forward together, leaving no one behind.
And not only that, it's good economics. A long way from
South Phoenix, I have to worry every day about how I can keep
creating jobs so you have more people to buy these wonderful
products you are producing. I mean, 840,000 a day -- that's a
lot of people, you know. Of course, not everybody eats as many
at one sitting as I do. (Laughter.) So, I mean, it's a lot of
people. So I think about that.
How can I do that? Well, we can sell more of our products
overseas, which we're trying to do. We can take more people off
welfare, disabled people, and help them get in the work force,
which we're trying to do. But the easiest way to keep America's
economy going strong is to get more investment, create more jobs
and create more consumers in the neighborhoods, in the cities and
in the rural areas and on the Indian reservations which have not
yet felt this recovery. That's what this whole thing is about --
2
how we can do this together.
And I'm here to make three points. Number one -- and I want
to give some specifics in a minute -- we've been working at this
for six and a half years with our empowerment zones and our
enterprise communities and our community development banks -- you
have one here -- with the vigorous support of the Community
Reinvestment Act.
Number two, therefore, American business needs to know that
there are good opportunities right now in inner cities and in
rural America. This is not about charity; this is about how to
make money by helping people who are willing to work for
themselves get the chance to do it, to start those businesses or
become good employees. That's what this is about. (Applause.)
Finally, it's about supporting our New Markets Initiative,
which seeks to make it easier for people to get equity capital to
start or expand their businesses in any poor neighborhood or
underdeveloped area anywhere in the United States of America. So
that's why we're here. And that's the message you're sending out
here in South Phoenix, to every community in America, where there
are good people who need investment and jobs.
Now, let me say that there are a lot of good things that are
happening and I want to thank some of the people who are here. I
want to thank Safeway for the new store at 16th Street and
Southern Avenue, and the new shopping center that it will anchor.
That will create a lot of jobs. And, interestingly ,enough,
we're trying to highlight this everywhere, because in almost
every city in America, even with high unemployment, there are
obviously a lot more people working than not working and there is
more purchasing power in our cities than there are stores to take
it up. So we thank Safeway.
I also want to thank Univison, because they are about to
build a new multimillion-dollar broadcast facility for its local
station, KTBW 33, and they're going to build it right here in
South Phoenix, and that will help your economy to grow. Thank
you. (Applause.) Thank you.
I want to thank the community development institutions like
Arizona Multibank, the microenterprise organizations like MICRO.
That's a fancy way of saying they loan small amounts of money to
3
people to start small businesses who couldn't get the money
anywhere else, and guess what? They usually make good loans and
they make money doing it, by giving people a chance who couldn't
get a chance anywhere else.
I want to thank Arizona Multibank* for launching Magnet
-
Capital, which is a new venture capital fund, backed by the Small
Business Administration that will give lower-income entrepreneurs
the equity they need to grow and expand. So thank you very much,
Mr. Gordon. (Applause.)
Now, there's lots of other things that all you have to say.
Just remember, we came here for three reasons. One is, to show
the business community of this country that we have the kind of
partnership between government and the private sector that makes
it more attractive to invest in places with higher unemployment
and with too few businesses. Two, to make the point that there
is a huge amount of opportunity out here right now. And the more
American business knows about it, and the more they invest in it,
the better they'll do.
And, three, we have a proposal before the Congress to go
nationwide to give big tax breaks to people to help provide
equity capital. And I want you to know what I'm doing. I'm
basically asking the Congress to give investors like those on
this stage with me today the same incentives to invest in South
Phoenix that we give them right now to invest in the developing
countries of Latin America and Africa and the Caribbean. I want
to do that, but you should have the same incentives here.
(Applause.)
So thank you all for coming and, Congressman, the floor is
yours. You want to introduce the folks who are going to talk? I
think maybe you're going next -- our hostess.
*****
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Let's give him a hand;
I thought that was good. (Applause.)
If I could - if I could just make one point. One of the
things that I learned traveling around the country in 1990 and
1991, before I decided to run for President, was that the crime
4
rate was going down in areas where more police were on the
street, and in the communities, and working with their neighbors
-- not just because they were catching people quicker, but
because it was actually preventing crime from occurring in the
first place.
In the last six and a half years, we have funded 100,000
more police officers for our streets -- in small towns and rural
areas as well as big cities. And in the budget I now have before
the Congress, we're trying to get another 50,000 targeted at the
highest crime areas in the country.
So that will help -- that's something that we didn't come
here to talk about today, but if I can persuade the Congress to
do that, that will obviously help you and others like you to
locate more stores and to have more sub-stations. And it will
also bring the police in closer contact with the community, and
increase confidence and good feeling. So I thank you very much
for that.
THE PRESIDENT: I want to thank you for the work that you
have done. You know, we were just together over at Chicano's
Porlacasa. And the work you did to help them set up their micro
lending program. The Vice President, who has supervised all of
our community economic development efforts for the last six years
announced this new SBA initiative with Aida not very long ago.
But I just want to emphasize to you, we were in the
Mississippi Delta yesterday -- it was also 100 degrees there --
and we were in a little factory that makes picture frames, that
had been gone into bankruptcy. And we met a young man that
thought he could turn it around and he had opened the place back
up -- a place with terribly high unemployment.
But one of the people I met there was a woman who had worked
for a small business that was doing okay, but the person running
it in this little town, for family reasons, couldn't go on. And
she was the only person qualified to take over this business,
otherwise it was just going to disappear. But she made very low
wages for a person who owns a business, and she had no money in
the bank.
5
And because she was able to get some equity capital from
someone as farsighted as you, her little business in a year went
from five employees to 11 employees -- instead of five people
losing their jobs -- and a woman that never made more than a few
dollars an hour in her life is now a successful small business
owner. That is that sort of thing we ought to be doing more of.
And if we did more of it in places like South Phoenix, the
unemployment here would not be higher than the national average
and the incomes would not be lower. So I thank you very much for
what you're doing. (Applause.)
*****
I'd just like to make two points if I might, by way of completely
agreeing with what you just said. First of all, for people who
think we don't need these SBA programs anymore because the
-
economy's doing so well, I would remind you that the SBA is a
permanent example of the kind of approach that I believe we
should be taking in the government. The SBA basically gives
people the tools to make the most of their own lives. They make
the market more likely to work in places where it otherwise
wouldn't work. And for people who don't think it matters - you
know how much all these telecommunications companies are worth
now and what's happened to the stock market in the last six years
-- it's more than tripled. Thirty percent of our growth coming
out of high tech.
Intel and America Online - huge companies worth billions
upon billions of dollars - started with SBA loans. And so, 1
think, you know, that's enough to rest our case. The second
thing I would say is, there are not all the business people
that have been on this trip are right here in Phoenix, and not
all the business people who wanted to go on this trip can go.
But there is a phenomenal amount of interest in this, and I must
-- I want to give credit to Reverend Jesse Jackson. His Wall
Street project has been working on this for years.
I mean, there is a much higher level of awareness among
American business leaders that there is money to be made and a
better society to be made at the same time in these
neighborhoods. So I don't think you have to worry. I think when
we can finish this tomorrow afternoon in East LA, you will see a
much higher level of commitment and interest in corporate America
than we had before. Thank you, Mr. Corella. You're great.
6
(Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I want to thank Gene, because,
really, Texas is a classic example -- it's almost exactly like
Arizona and Phoenix. The unemployment rate in Phoenix as a whole
is less than 3 percent. The unemployment rate in this section of
Phoenix is twice the national average, maybe a little more. You
have the same thing in Houston.
I just want to illustrate, use Enron, which is a fabulous
and very large energy company, to illustrate a point that he
made, that I think we should emphasize because it goes back to
something John made. One of the reasons we're taking this trip
here is that one of the -- is that even in business, even with a
market economy, where people are always supposed to act in their
own self-interest, people cannot do what they don't know. And
people cannot have a relationship with people with whom they are
not acquainted.
And one of the things that Enron* did, saying that he worked
through a local community investment group, is to have -- to
literally build networks of relationships between big businesses
and people that they would otherwise never, ever, ever come in
contact with.
And so, I say again, I think -- you heard what Steve said
about Safeway figuring out there was a market here. Once you
begin to establish these networks of relationships, and once they
become a part of the fabric of American life, then we can build
an economic, a normal economic infrastructure in these distressed
areas -- so that the next time a recession comes along, we won't
be hurt so badly here, and then when the pickup comes, everybody
will benefit instead of just a few:
So I can't thank you enough. But I do want to emphasize
what -- Gene Humphries was a little too modest here. We do have
a substantial number of business leaders heading companies more
or less in the size range of Enron*, who are helping. But we are
nowhere near where we need to be. We need hundreds, we need
thousands of people with the kind of commitment that he's
manifested, because without these relationships, the decisions
7
cannot be made to put the money there.
Thank you. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I'd like to ask a question -- thank you.
(Applause.)
I'd like to ask Frank or Andrew a question: what is the
average size of a microenterprise loan that you give?
MR. GORDON: For the last 10 years, Mr. President, it has
been under $2,500. And those $2,500 make a difference. Our
default rate, after lending over $7 million in Arizona, sir, the
default rate is less than 4 percent.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me say that this is -- give him a hand.
(Applause.) This is a fairly typical experience worldwide.
I got interested in this 15 years ago, when I met a man who
was trained in the United States and went home to Bangladesh and
founded -- one of the poorest countries in the world -- founded a
community bank making microenterprise loans to poor village
women, average about -- then -- probably $20. Today, they
average about $50. But that's a lot of money, in American terms,
-
given the size of their economy.
And they had a 96 percent repayment rate. Now he's made
millions of these loans, in a country with 100 million people.
So I'm -- one of the things I'm quite proud of is that now, under
our administration, we now fund 2 million microenterprise loans
every year in poor, poor villages -- in Africa, in Asia, in Latin
America.
But again I say, if it's good enough for us to do for them
-- which we need to do, so those countries can keep their
democracies alive, and be good citizens, and not cause wars, and
have a decent life -- it's certainly good for America. And my
only regret is that we don't give ten times as many of them every
year. And if we have institutions like Arizona Multibank and
Micro* everywhere -- we have the networks out there, again, to
make the contacts -- I think there's really very little limit to
what we can do in getting more money for micro loans, because
8
they plainly work.
Is the average person, the average size of the business, a
single employee, self-employed? Or is it two?
MR. GORDON: It's a sole proprietor, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Sole proprietor.
MR. GORDON: Sole proprietor. Although they do get help
from their family. It's just - it's a family business. It's
not only that self-employed -- but that's what makes it, it
guarantees its success, because of the support.
THE PRESIDENT: That's why they repay the money back, isn't
it?
MR. GORDON: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
*****
THE PRESIDENT: I'd like to say something about both these
presentations. First of all, the way the New Markets Initiative
works in terms of who gets the tax credits and who qualifies, the
way this works is, people that invest in a business enterprise
can get up to a 25 percent tax credit for the money they put up,
then they qualify for every dollar they put up for $2 in bank
loans that are government-guaranteed. and the government
guarantee dramatically lowers the interest rates on the bank
loan, so that between the tax credit and the lower interest
rates, you reduce the relative risk of investing in these areas
to make it more attractive.
And existing businesses qualify every bit as much as new
businesses do; it is the area -- where do the people live, what
is their per capita income, what is the unemployment rate, how
much do we need the new investment here. So we could never get
into -- it would be a bureaucratic nightmare to try to make
distinctions between existing and new businesses. Everybody's
eligible. It's people we're trying to help and places we're
trying to reach.
9
The only other thing I would like to say is to thank you for
what Univision is doing here and for what Univision doubtless
will do to publicize this meeting to the Hispanic world in
America. As you know, I'm very close to Henry Cisneros and I
think that the American people should know that next to the Vice
President, the two people most responsible for everything we've
done in this community development area over the last six years
are the present HUD Secretary, Andrew Cuomo, and his predecessor,
Henry Cisneros. So this is, indeed, something to celebrate.
(Applause.)
So the only thing I want to say is when you start building
that building down here, hire some of these folks and make sure
it's a good deal. Thank you very much. Thank you all.
(Applause.)
END
6:37 P.M. PDT
10
Lowell
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Pine Ride, South Dakota)
For Immediate Release July 7, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION COMMUNITY
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
12:00 P.M. MDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
President, and thank you to all of you here from Pine Ridge and all the other
tribal leaders who are here for HUD's Shared Vision Conference. I am
profoundly honored to be in Pine Ridge and in the Lakota Nation. In fact, to
try to demonstrate my appreciation and respect, I would like to try -- to try
to say something in Lakota. (Applause.) Mitakuye Oyasin. (Applause.)
My neighbors, my friends, we are all related. (Applause.) Consider
those who have come here today to join hands with you, along with Secretary
Cuomo, Secretary Glickman, your great congressional delegation, our Democratic
leader, Tom Daschle in the United States Senate and Senator Johnson,
Congressman Thune. You don't know this, but we have members of Congress from
all over America who have come here to express their support and their
commitment to join you in building a better tomorrow.
Congressman Ed Pastor from Arizona; Congressman Dale Kildee, from the
state of Michigan; Congressman Jim Clyburn, from South Carolina; and
Congressman Paul Kanjorski, from Pennsylvania, he has come all the way from
Pennsylvania to be here. (Applause.)
I want to thank the other people from the administration, especially
Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Kevin Gover and Lynn Cutler, in the White
House, who work with all of our Native American leaders around America, for
what they do. (Applause.) I want to thank the CEO of Fannie Mae, Frank
Raines; the CEO of Northwest, Mark Omen; the PMI President, Roger Horton;
Mortgage Bankers Association President Don Lang; Champion Homes CEO Walter
Young -- for all the work that they are prepared to do in
1
building a better future and they're here today. (Applause.)
I want to thank my good friend, Jesse Jackson, for never
letting us forget our common obligations. (Applause.) I thank
the other members of our delegation today -- Bart Harvey, from
Enterprise; AI From, from the Democratic Leadership Council. I'd
like to thank the young AmeriCorps volunteers who are here today
for all the work they do. (Applause.)
I would like to finally say a word of appreciation to all
the people who live here on this reservation, who welcomed me
into their homes, who talked to me today as I walked down their
streets. I thank especially Geraldine Bluebird, who Secretary
Cuomo mentioned -- she let me sit on her porch and she told me
how she tries to make ends meet for the 28 people that share her
small home and the house trailer adjoining.
I thank the children who stopped their playing and shook
hands with me and listened to me while I encouraged them to stay
in school and to go onto college and to live out their dreams.
(Applause.) I want to bring you greetings from two people who
are not here -- first, from Vice President Gore, who has headed
our empowerment zone effort that Pine Ridge became a part of
today. (Applause.) And, second, just a little over an hour ago,
I talked to the First Lady, and Hillary has spent more time in
Indian Country than any First Lady in history. She is intensely
committed to this effort, and she asked me to say hello to you.
(Applause.)
President Saulway said today I was the only President ever
to come to an Indian reservation for a nation to nation business
meeting. I remember back in 1994, I invited all the tribal
leaders in America to the White House, and it was the first such
gathering since the presidency of James Monroe in the 1820s.
Now, I know that Calvin Coolidge came to Pine Ridge in the 1920s,
and that President Roosevelt visited another Native American
reservation, but no American President has been anywhere in
Indian Country since Franklin Roosevelt was President. That is
wrong, and we're trying to fix it today. (Applause.)
I was profoundly moved by the pipe ceremony, just as I was
when your congressional delegation took me last night not only to
Mount Rushmore, but to the Crazy Horse Memorial, and to the
museum that is there with it.
But I ask you today, even as we remember the past, to think
2
more about the future. We know well what the failings of the
present and the past are. We know well the imperfect
-
relationship that the United States and its government has
enjoyed with the tribal nations. But I have seen today not only
poverty, but promise.
And I have seen enormous courage. I came here today for
three reasons. First of all, to celebrate the empowerment zone
and the housing projects that are going on here now. Second, to
talk about my New Markets Initiative and what else we can do.
But, third, with the business leaders who are here -- and I've
already introduced them, but I'd like to ask the business leaders
I just mentioned to stand up. We want to send a message to
America that this is a good place to invest. Good people live
here. Good people live in Indian country, they deserve a chance
to go to work. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.)
You've already heard President Saulway and Secretary Cuomo
recite the statistics. It's a hot day out here and I know you're
suffering in the sun. But I want to send a message to America.
So I just want to say a few things, and I want you to think about
this. Think about the irony of this. We are in the longest
period of economic growth in peacetime in our history.
(Applause.)
We have in America almost 19 million new jobs. WE have the
lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for African Americans and
Hispanics. For over two years our country has had an
unemployment rate below 5 percent. But here on this reservation,
the unemployment rate is nearly 75 percent. That is wrong, and
we have to do something to change it, and do it now. (Applause.)
When we are on the verge of a new century and a new
millennium where people are celebrating the miracles of
technology, and the world growing closer and closer together, and
our ability to learn from and with each other and make business
partnerships with each other all across our globe, and there are
still reservations with few phones and no banks, when still three
or four families are forced to share two simple rooms, where
communities where Native Americans live have deadly disease and
infant mortality rates at many times the national rate, when
these things still persist, we cannot rest until we do better.
And trying is not enough; we have to have results. We can do
better. (Applause.)
3
Our nation will never have a better chance. When will we
ever have this kind of opportunity where unemployment is low,
inflation is low, there's a lot of money in our country, the
value of our stock market has tripled and then some. Business
people are looking for new places to invest, and people who have
done well feel a moral obligation to try to help those who are
less fortunate, who have not fully participated.
And we see it from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to
the inner cities of our country, to the Native American
communities. If we can't do this now, we will never get around
to doing it. So let us give ourselves a gift for the 21st
century -- an America where no one is left behind and everyone
has a chance. (Applause.)
We will do our part. You have suffered from neglect, and
you know that doesn't work. You have also suffered from the
tyranny of patronizing inadequately funded government programs,
and you know that doesn't work. We have tried to have a more
respectful, more proper relationship with the tribal governments
of this country to promote more genuine independence, but also to
give more genuine support. And the empowerment zone program, as
the Vice President and I designed it six years ago, is designed
to treat all communities that way. We're not coming from
Washington to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it, we're
coming from Washington to ask you what you want to do, and tell
you we will give you the tools and the support to get done what
you want to do for your children and their future. (Applause.)
President Saulway and a number of tribal leaders came to me
at the White House a couple of months ago. You may have heard in
the national press that I repeatedly referred to this profoundly
emotional meeting. I have given a great deal of thought to what
was said then and what I heard now. We can do better. I would
like to mention just a few specific things, for you have all
heard years of pretty words.
There is no more crucial building block for a strong
community and a promising future than a solid home. Today, I
want to talk about a number of things the government and the
private sector are going to do to increase homeownership. Our
whole team visited those new homes that are being built not far
from here. We talked to the families that are moving into those
homes. I had a little boy take me through every room in the
4
home, tell me exactly where every closet was, tell me what his
sister's room had that he didn't have, and why it was all right,
because she was older and she needed such things.
This is important. So what are we going to do? Private
lenders, like Bank of America, Northwest, Bank One, Washington
Mutual, are going to work with the Mortgage Bankers Association
and HUD, to more than double the number of government-insured or
guaranteed home mortgages in Indian country in each of the next
three years. (Applause.)
Right here in Pine Ridge, Fannie Mae, under Frank Raines'
leadership, has set aside millions of dollars to help you buy
those homes at below-market rates. And they are spending
hundreds of millions of dollars all across this country to help
people just like you become homeowners for the first time.
(Applause.) And Secretary Cuomo's Partnership for Housing is
giving financial incentives and counseling to help families
figure out how to actually get this done, how to buy their own
homes and pay for them.
But, as I heard over and over today, even if we went in and
tried to repair or rebuild or build new homes for every family
here; and in every Indian community throughout the United States,
we must have jobs if we want these communities to work.
(Applause.) Adults need to have something to look forward to
every morning when they get up. And if they want their kids to
stay in school, and stay out of trouble, and look to tomorrow,
their lives have to be evidence that looking to tomorrow pays
off. It is appalling that we have the highest growth rate in
peacetime in our history; that we have an unemployment rate below
5 percent for two years, and the unemployment rate on this
hallowed reservation is almost 75 percent. That is appalling,
and we can do better. (Applause.)
No community in America, can grow, however, without basic
blocks. No community in America should be without safe running
water and sewer systems. So the Department of Agriculture will
put nearly $16 million in water projects throughout Indian
country, including two right here in Pine Ridge, that will also
help you get jobs, as well as improve the quality of life.
(Applause.)
As you can see, in this Big Sky country, it is rather warm
5
and it gets windy from time to time, as the Natives will attest.
The Department of Energy will help you harness the power and
profits of wind and solar energy, to save money and make money.
(Applause.) Owens Corning and North American Steel Framing
Alliance will provide skills training and the promise of quality
jobs. And Citibank and Gateway Computer Company will work with
Oglala Lakota College and other schools to help Native American
students get the computer skills that will allow them to get 21st
century jobs. (Applause.)
And our Federal Communications Commission will work with you
to improve telephone service throughout Indian Country, an
absolute prerequisite for getting any new business in here.
Let me just say that one of the things that we have learned
is that the computer and the Internet make it possible for many
people to do many kinds of work in any community, anywhere in the
United States; indeed, increasingly, anywhere in the world. The
fact that this reservation is a long way from an urban center
would have been an absolute prohibitive barrier to a lot of
economic development just 10 or 15 years ago.
The explosion of computer technology and the Internet, if
you know how to use it and you know how to deliver for others
with it, has literally made the distance barrier almost
insignificant for many kinds of economic activity. So I want to
implore you to use your tribal college and work with these
companies and make the most of the skills they are offering, and
we can get the jobs to come here once you can do them.
(Applause.)
Finally, we must seize the vast potential of tourism right
here in Pine Ridge by building a Lakota Sioux heritage cultural
center. Every year, millions of families travel long, long
distances to see Mt. Rushmore -- 2.7 million last year. The
Crazy Horse Memorial, about a million and a half, even though
only the head has been finished. The Crazy Horse Memorial last
year had 1.5 million visitors; only the head has been finished.
I went there late last night. And the Badlands National Park.
Now, if you look at that, you have to ask yourself: How can
you have -- how many people, if you did everything right down
here, if we built this cultural center, of all the people that go
to see Crazy Horse, of all the people that go to see Mt.
Rushmore, of all the people that go to Badlands National Park,
how many would come here. I'll tell you -- a whole lot. An
6
enormous percentage, if you give them something to come and see.
That is nothing more than the simple, profound, powerful story of
your eloquent past and your present, of your skills and your
heritage and your culture and your faith.
These commitments that we are making today are just the
beginning. Thirty-one years ago this spring, Senator Robert
Kennedy came to Pine Ridge. Many of you probably still remember
that visit. Senator Kennedy, seeking medical care for his child,
lying sick in the back of an abandoned car, refusing to sit and
begin an important meeting until all of the tribal leaders had
their proper seats.
You may remember his message of hope. Let me say that all
across America, people were watching that. I have to say, on a
purely personal note, one of the most touching things about this
day for me is that the wife of our HUD Secretary is Robert
Kennedy's daughter, and she is here today and this is a proud
day. I'd like to ask her to stand. Kerry, please stand. Thank
you. (Applause.)
We lost all those years. There were a lot of reasons, and a
lot of things are better than they were 30 years ago. But this
is the first time since the early 1960s when we had this kind of
strong American economy, and we have no excuse for walking away
from our responsibilities to the new markets of America.
I, have asked the members of Congress to go back and pass
legislation that will give major tax breaks and
government-guaranteed loans to people who will put their money in
Indian Country, to lower the risk of taking this chance.
(Applause.) We are going to do everything we can to make your
empowerment zone work. But remember -- there is nothing that we
can do except to help you to realize your own dreams.
So I say to every tribal leader here: The name of the
conference you are attending is Shared Visions. We must share
the vision, and it must be, fundamentally, yours -- for your
children and their future. If you will give us that vision and
work with us, we will achieve it.
Thank you, and God bless you. (Applause.)
END
12:22 P.M. MDT
7
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Anaheim, California)
For Immediate Release
July 8, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO NATIONAL ACADEMY FOUNDATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Anaheim Hilton and Towers
Anaheim, California
3:00 P.M. PDT
THE PRESIDENT: You know, Hazel, you might consider just skipping
that hotel business and going right into politics. (Laughter.) I want to
thank all of you for your welcome. And I thank Hazel and her fellow winners
behind us for reminding us of why we're here. Mayor Daley, thank you of
making me feel welcome -- and, Secretary Daley, Secretary Slater.
Representative Sanchez, we're delighted to be in your district and to be here
with other members of Congress who are here.
I'd like to say a special word of appreciation to my wonderful
friend, our former Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, who is here with us
today and supporting this endeavor. (Applause.)
Since this is the last event for me in this week-long odyssey
across America to our -- what we called America's new markets, I'd like to say
a special word of thanks to the folks on the White House staff who made it
possible, including my National Economic Advisor, Gene Sperling, without whom
this never would have occurred. (Applause.)
And I want to say a special word of thanks to Reverend Jesse
Jackson, who worked with Sandy Weil on the Wall Street Project, went to
Appalachia before it was fashionable, who always believed that poor people
were smart, wanted to work, and had a right -- a moral right -- to be part of America's
future. Thank you, Jesse Jackson. (Applause.)
And, thank you, Sandy Weil, for the Wall Street
Project, which attempts to marry the investment capacity of Wall
Street with the human capacity of all those places we've been
1
visiting. Thank you for the National Academy Foundation. Thank
you for being a good friend to me and to all these young people
and so many others. And thank you for inviting me to this annual
conference.
This is really quite an appropriate place for me and
those who have traveled with me this last week on our new markets
trip to end our journey, reaffirming your commitment and ours to
prepare all our children for the new century. Over the past four
days, as I have traveled across America, we have sought to shine
the spotlight on places still unlit by the sunshine of our
present prosperity. A number of you have been along for what has
truly been a remarkable ride.
We've seen the power of people in public and private
life to work together in the Appalachians and in the Mississippi
Delta. We've seen the spark that retail investment can bring in
the first shopping center built in decades in East St. Louis,
Illinois. We've seen the impact in the most basic infrastructure
and housing opportunities, even in the remote regions of Indian
country in South Dakota, still the most left-behind part of
America.
In South Phoenix yesterday in temperatures exceeding
100 degrees, we saw the enormous benefits of community
reinvestment initiatives. And here, earlier today, we saw what
education and job training can bring to young people in Watts --
people who are normally identified with distressed neighborhoods,
showing me how do design automobiles on a computer, or to conduct
sophisticated business transactions between two different
countries with young Americans 17 years old, picking up a
commission for being the middleman.
I took this trip for three reasons. First, I wanted
every American businessperson, every American investor, to see
that there are enormous opportunities out there today in the
areas that have been left behind by our economic recovery.
Second, because I wanted to highlight the tools that have already
been put in place, to encourage more people to invest in those
communities -- the empowerment zones and the enterprise
communities which Vice President Gore has so ably led for six
years now; the community development financial institutinos that
we have supported; the Community Reinvestment Act, which has led
to billions of dollars of reinvestment in our developing
2
neighborhods; the education and training initiatives desigend to
give all of our people a chance not only to have good, basic
skills, but to keep on learning for a lifetime.
And, third, I wanted to highlight our New Markets
Initiative, a piece of legislation simply designed to give
American investors who are willing to take a chance on new and
expanded businesses in distressed urban and rural communities
access to the same kind of tax credits and loan guarantees, to
lower the relative risk of their investment in America that they
can get to invest in poor communities from Africa to Asia to
Latin America to the Caribbean. I'm for those investments, but I
think America's communities should have access to the same
capital with the same incentives. (Applause.)
The idea behind this, obviously, is that the government
cannot do this alone, but business cannot be expected to go it
alone. When government provides the conditions and tools, acts
as a catalyst to bring the power of the private sector to benefit
all of our citizens, and provides the investment and the
education and training of our young people, this is not only good
economics, it is the right thing to do. We can build one America
where nobody is left behind when we cross that bridge into a new
century. And if we do, we'll all be better off.
The CEOs and national leaders I have traveled with,
we've heard it every stop: look, we just need a chance; our kids
need education, our adults need training, and we need somebody
who believes in us enough to give us a chance.
I'll never forget the woman we met in the Mississippi
Delta, who was working for a very small business in a depressed
community that had five employees. She made a very modest wage,
and the owner of the business just decided to close up. He said
to her she was the only person capable of running the business.
But nobody would give her a loan because she'd never had any
money in her life, she had only worked for modest hourly wages.
Because there was a community investor willing to take
a chance on her, she got investment capital, she bought the
business -- two years later, she went from five to 11 employees
and she has just about paid her loan off. There are thousands of
stories like that waiting to be written in America in every
community that is still depressed.
So we want to encourage that. And that's why so much
3
of this trip is focused on how to get financing. A remarkable
businesswoman from New York, Mary Ann Spraggins*, went on this
trip. She's trying to set up a vision fund with $250 million in
private sector capital to give venture capital to these kinds of
places. If we get our way, the people who invest in that fund
will be eligible for a 25-percent tax credit for putting that
money into high unemployment areas, and they'll be eligible to
borrow $2 for every $1 they put up in that fund and have it
guaranteed by the government so we lower the interest rate.
That's the government's contribution; but somebody still has to
make the investment to put these people to work. (Applause.)
So most of the capital we've been talking about these
last several days has been money. We see in the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota a remarkable grandmother, providing
school clothes for her grandchildren, having to literally buy the
tennis shoes her grandchildren wear to school on the installment
plan all summer long while the shoes are kept in layaway, so the
kids will have them. When there were 11 people living in a house
with about 800 square feet, another 17 in an adjoining house
trailer with about 900 square feet. We need money; those people
need housing.
We also saw American Indians that have been waiting for
nine years moving into their first homes. A little five-year-old
boy, six-year-old boy took me by the hand and led me all through
his new home and showed me his sister's room and explained why it
was okay that she had a bigger room than he did. (Laughter.)
She was a teenager, and teenagers needed things like that.
(Laughter.) The pride that they felt, these people, this mother
who had worked all her life and finally getting a decent home for
her children to live in.
So a lot of this is a money problem. I used to joke
with a lot of my friends -- I still say this -- that I had about
nine or 10 rules of politics that I kept in my mind all during my
career running for office, and rule number two was, when anybody
stands up and tells you it's not a money problem, they're talking
about somebody else's problem, not theirs. (Laughter.)
So money is a big issue here. But there's another kind
of capital that in some ways is even more fundamental -- human
capital, people. When Hazel stood up here and you clapped for
her, you were clapping for the astonishing development of human
capital; of what she has done with her life and the chance that
her mother took in going to Hawaii, the risks and the heartache
4
and the difficulties her family went through -- it made you feel
good.
And what I want to say to you today is that there are
people just like these young people we're honoring back here on
every Indian reservation, in every hill and hollow of Appalachia,
up and down the Mississippi Delta, in every inner city. And they
deserve -- they deserve -- the chance to be whatever they're
willing to work hard to be. And unless we're prepared to do
that, even our best efforts to bring new investment to these
distressed communities will be less than fully successful.
Now, we have a better opportunity and a better reason
to do that now than ever before. As I tell people, I spend a lot
of time in Washington -- Sandy's always saying that I've done a
good job as a Democrat with the economy so more people can live
like Republicans. (Laughter and applause.) And I've done my
best to do that.
But you should know that one of the things that we
seriously debate back in Washington, D.C., a long way from
Anaheim, is, how can we keep this going. We already have the
longest economic expansion in peacetime in our history. We have
the lowest African American and Hispanic unemployment rates ever
recorded. We have almost 19 million new jobs, and we have very
low inflation, and we've had unemployment rate below five percent
for two years. So a big question is, how much longer can this go
on, and how can we keep it going without having inflation build
up, then having interest rates go up and having the recovery
stop.
This is not an academic issue if you're about to get
your first job, of if you're sitting there trying to make up your
mind whether to take out a huge bank loan to expand your
business. You want to know if we can keep this going.
My answer is, we can keep it going if we can find
non-inflationary ways to promote growth. Now, what are those?
Well, we can sell more American goods and services around the
world -- why I hope the Congress will agree to help us expand our
trade with other countries. We can also bring populations that
are outside the work force into the work force. With the welfare
rolls are now the lowest they've been in 30 years and there are a
lot of people still on welfare that are able-bodied, but they
have limited skills, we could bring more people from welfare into
the work force.
5
You can bring hundreds of thousands of disabled people
who are capable of doing more and more kinds of jobs, thanks to
technology now, into the work force. And the Congress, I
believe, will soon send me a bill that will enable those that
have high health care costs that are now being paid by the
government to keep that health care coverage so private employers
can afford to hire them.
But by far, the biggest opportunity -- by far -- in
keeping this economy going without inflation is to get more
investments, more jobs, more new business owners, more new
workers and, therefore, more new consumers, into the rural and
urban areas that have not yet been blessed by this recovery.
That's why every single American actually has a vested
interest in our success here. And more and more businesses are
looking for young people like those we celebrate, because there's
a shortage of skilled workers, even though there are people who
are still looking for jobs. In some job categories, a shortage
of hundreds of thousands. Therefore, if Americans are willing to
look a few exits off the beaten path, we can continue to grow
this economy and we can continue to have more of the kind of
stories we just heard.
Let me also say to you, if we can't do this now, with
the strongest economy we have ever had, when it is manifestly in
the self-interest of every enlightened decision-maker in the
country, when will ever get around to doing it? (Applause.)
Let me tell you some of the things that we saw on the
human capital front. We walked down the dusty streets on an
Indian reservation. We saw the boarded-up storefronts in a town
in the MIssissippi Delta, famous for its role in the civil rights
struggle. We saw desperate living conditions in a little hollow
in Appalachia where everybody had a job and they still couldn't
afford a decent house to live in.
But every place we went, nobody wanted charity, nobody
wanted a handout. What they wanted was a hand up. That's why
this will work. What people want is a good private sector job,
the simple dignity of a paycheck, the ability to house and
educate their children and provide health care for them. And
what you know here, what these young people behind me
6
demonstrate, is that intelligence and ability and drive and
dreams are equally distributed in this country among the poor and
the non-poor. (Applause.)
I've often said, things happen to people that derail
their lives, and then they have to work hard to get them back on
track. Things happen to places like that, too. I know the
Mississippi Delta, which includes a big part of my own home
state, the economy that once sustained that area has been gone a
long time. Nobody was ever able to figure out how to put a new
economy in its place. But there's a new economy out there that
could fit in that place.
There are new economies that could fit in the most
remote villages of the Appalachian Mountains. There are new
economies that could go into the Native American reservations.
How many data processing jobs do American companies ship overseas
on airplanes every night to go to poor countries and other
places? They could be done on Indian reservations, for example.
We have got to think about that.
We all can identify with a human story. If Hazel
stands up here and tells us the story of her family, it grips us
and we pull for her. But what you need to know is, all these
places have stories like that. We got the land and the mineral
rights away from the Indians, and we said, oh, we'll make a deal,
we'll have a nation-to-nation relationship with you, and we will
provide for the education and health care and housing of your
people; but we'll do a poor job of it and we'll spend just as
little as we can get away with. And then, we'll say you must not
really want to do any better.
We have to write new stories for these places. And it
takes a commitment to money capital and the human capital. And
what Sandy and all of you who have been involved in this
magnificent project show, this is Exhibit A that we can do it.
Now, let me say on a very positive note, I'm quite
optimistic that I am quite sure that one answer to this in the
United States and all across the world is better dispersal of
technology. When I went to Africa, I went to these little
villages where people had maps -- these children were in these
little village schools that had maps that still showed the Soviet
Union and other nations that haven't existed in a long time. But
7
if those kids just had one computer for the school and a printer,
they would never have to worry about that. We could change the
map of the world every day, and all those little kids would have
an updated map. Right?
Technology will enable some of these areas to skip a
whole generation of development if it is broadly dispersed.
Secretary Daley referred to the Department of Commerce report
today on technology. Let me tell you what it says. It confirms
what you already know. More and more Americans than ever are
connected to the Internet. It is the fastest-growing method of
human communication in all of history by far.
But it also shows, this report, that there is a growing
digital divide between those who have access to the digital
economy and the Internet and those who don't, and that the divide
exists along the lines of education, income, region and race. It
might have pointed out, of course, that all of us parents are not
as good as our kids. That divide's not so serious, but the real
one is.
And yet, we know -- I will say again -- that the very
information technology driving this new economy gives us the
tools to ensure that no one gets left behind, that gives us the
tools to provide a story for these communities, to literally
provide a self-sustaining economic infrastructure for the 21st
century. Millions of Americans now on the economic margins can
join the mainstream in the enterprise of building our nation.
A child in South Central L.A., in the most remote part
of Indian country, can have access to the same world of knowledge
in an instant as a child in the wealthiest suburban school in
this country. Now, just imagine if not simply a fraction, but
all of our young people entered the work force, had access to the
Internet always, and had mastered the skills of the new
information economy.
So if we want to unlock the potential of our workers,
we have to close that gap. We've done what we could. We have
provide the Hope scholarship and other tax credits so that we've
literally opened the doors of college to all Americans. We have
emphasized higher standards, smaller classes, more teachers.
We're connecting every American classroom to the Internet, and I
think we'll make our goal that the Vice President and I
established here in California in 1994 of having all the
8
classrooms connected by the year 2000.
The $8 million in corporate commitments made today by
this group are so very important, as are the information
technology academies to which Sandy referred earlier. Sandy has
said often that today's students are tomorrow's employees,
today's students are tomorrow's economy. They're not just
somebody else's employees, they are tomorrow's economy.
So, bringing these skills to distressed families in
distressed communities can have more to do with our ability to
restructure the economy in these areas than perhaps anything
else. I also want to thank AT&T, and I think, Ann Hesse*, the
CEO of AT&T Wireless, is here for committing more than $1.4
million to increase access to the tools of the high-tech economy.
I want to thank America Online, George Franberg* of AOL
is here, for providing more than $1 million in grants to help
narrow the digital divide. I want to thank Oxygen Media on the
cable network it will launch next year. They will offer
high-tech training on TV, so more embarrassed adults can learn
what their kids already know. (Laughter.)
This is the kind of thing we have to do. If we have
money capital and human capital, we can bring hope to the places
that have been left behind.
The last thing I want to say to you is this.
7
hope to the places that have been left behind.
The last thing I want to say to you is this: This
tour, this last four days that we have all spent together has
been a significant step toward opening America's new markets.
But it can't be the end of the journey. It has to be, instead,
the opening salvo of a battle to build a real economy in every
community in this country. The real measure of our success is
not whether CEOs join the President on a trip like this which
moved the nation, but whether the same CEOs and others will
return to those markets and move the lives of the people there.
(Applause.)
So I say to you, you have to do that. The real test of
the success is not whether I've got a legislative idea, but
whether Congress will set aside its partisan differences and put
9
that idea into law so we can have more investments in these
communities. (Applause.)
Next week I will send our new markets legislation to
Congress. Over the next several weeks we'll announce a new
national effort to promote the business link partnerships,
pairing big businesses with smaller, often disadvantaged
companies -- an idea the Vice President has so strongly
championed.
And this fall we're going to take another tour. I am
gonig to start in Newark to challenge the owners of professional
sports teams and professional athletes to follow the example set
by the owners of the New Jersey Nets -- Ray Chambers and Lou Katz
-- who set up the ownership of the Nets in a way that 35 percent
of the profits of the franchise are reinvested in downtown
Newark, to give the future to the people there. (Applause.)
You might know that the Nets have now -- those
gentlemen have joined in a joint parntership with the New York
Yankees, they now have a big partnership, and they have dedicated
a significant percentage of the profits of the joint venture to
reinvest in inner city New York, in the Bronx, and in Newark.
(Applause.)
So I'm going to go up there, I'm going to highlight
what they're doing, I'm going to see what we can do to help. And
we're going to make another round here to show people that there
are things that we can do together that are both morally right
and good business.
Often on this trip Reverend Jackson has referred to the
fact that Dr. Martin Luther King, just before he was killed,
thought that he had done about all he could do to get the legal
changes necessary to get rid of the stain of racial segregation;
and that the great disadvantages and discrimination still alive
in America could only be eliminated if there were a new alliance
of people across racial lines to create genuine economic
opportunity for all Americans.
It's hard to believe to somebody like me, anyway, at my
age, that's it has now been more than 30 years since Dr. King was
killed and his dream was put on hold. One of the lesser known
passages in his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial in August
of 1963 involved language in which he challenged America, and I
10
quote -- "to refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds
in the great vaults of opportunity in this nation."
Well, my fellow Americans, today those vaults of
opportunity are more full than they have ever been in the entire
history of this country. And we have more evidence than we have
ever had that when children like those that we talked about
today, and when young people like those we celebrate today --
Hazel, and her peers behind me -- do well, we are all
strengthened; that there is a fundamental sense in which our
futures are bound up together, from Appalachia to the Mississippi
Delta to the Native American reservations to the inner cities to
the wealthiest corners of our land.
All our kids need a chance to live their dreams. And
the American Dream needs for all Americans to be blessed by the
opportunity that has given so much to us. Thank you for what you
do to achieve that goal. And God bless you. (Applause.)
END
3:32 P.M. PDT
11
Final 07/04/99 8:00pm
Jeff Shesol
PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
REMARKS ON RETAIL INVESTMENT
EAST ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS
July 6, 1999
Acknowledgments: Secs. Cuomo & Slater; Sen. Durbin; Reps. Jerry Costello, Clyburn,
Kanjorski; Mayor Debra Powell; Jesse Jackson; Jackee Joyner Kersee; Mel Farr; Walgreens
CEO TBD; Bank of America rep. TBD; ICIC rep. TBD
I want to thank the employees of Walgreens for showing me their fine new store. You
know, I almost managed to get some of my shopping done. But more important, you - the
residents of East St. Louis - can get your shopping done at this new center and spend your hard-
earned dollars in your own neighborhood. As the other speakers have said, this is about more
than convenience. It's about creating opportunity here in the heart of a hard-pressed community.
These are prosperous times in America. Our economy is strong and growing stronger;
and, as it expands, its benefits reach more and more of our people. African-American and
Hispanic unemployment are at record lows. Wages are rising. In the past six years, our rising
tide has lifted more than a million children out of poverty.
Still, there are pockets - in cities like this one, and in rural areas like the Delta, which I
visited this morning - where prosperity and progress are mostly a dream. I know the pride East
St. Louis has always taken in its industry, and the hit you took when the packing houses and the
shipping yards shut down. I know of the friends and families who left to seek new lives in new
towns. I know that poverty here is more than three times the national average. And even though
the average income here is up $3,500 since 1993, it is still $4,000 less than the typical American
earns.
I have seen the poverty in East St. Louis; but I also see the promise. Commerce is
coming. Retail is returning. It brings with it new jobs, new residents, new hope. I say it's long
overdue. The gap between purchasing power and actual retail sales here in East St. Louis is 40
percent. So it's a good thing there's 50,000 square feet to fill along these two blocks of State
Street, and it's no wonder businesses like Blockbuster and State Farm Insurance are lining up to
fill it. And these aren't the only bricks and mortar going up in East St. Louis - we're not far
from the hotel, bank, library, and homes being built. And I'm proud that HUD block grants,
along with Bank of America and May Department Stores, are helping you build the Jackee
Joyner Kersee Center. Private investment is indeed a spark that can light a whole community.
Al Gore and I came here in 1992, on the second bus tour of our campaign. We said we
were "On the Road to Change America," and one of the things we were trying to change was the
way Americans thought about creating jobs and opportunity. In the 1960s, some people thought
the government alone could do that. In the 1980s, others argued that the market would do it.
You know and I know that didn't happen. More and more people were succeeding, but more and
1
more people were being left behind. So I came here and said: "All of us [can] take control, take
our lives back, take our neighborhoods back, take our futures back." But for that to happen,
government and business had to work together, as partners. I said then that my administration
would make "a big investment in jobs.
by providing incentives to the private sector."
That is the approach I have pursued as President. And that approach is working -
through Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities, community development banks, a
stronger Community Reinvestment Act - all the means to get capital flowing to people and
neighborhoods it might otherwise miss. The Vice President and I made East St. Louis an
Enterprise Community in our first round, back in 1994, and last year we designated this city,
along with St. Louis, as an Empowerment Zone for our second round. Congress should approve
that funding and help you to take back your city and your future.
Through our New Markets Initiative, we are building on this approach - expanding the
circle of opportunity, highlighting our most promising new markets, creating a better climate for
business. The new investments we've announced today will make a difference: Bank of
America's half a billion dollars, targeted to low-income communities; Inner City Ventures, and
its capital for inner-city companies with great growth potential; and Mel Farr, who extends credit
to minorities who have a hard time getting it, and sells and leases cars to people who would
otherwise have a hard time getting to work.
It is private enterprise that built East St. Louis - built the stockyards and the shipping
yards that made this an "All-American City." [Look magazine gave it this award in 1960.] And
it is private enterprise that is rebuilding East St. Louis. This is an old city with a proud history.
But it is also a new market, one we are only beginning to tap. But we are beginning. Let us, all
of us, get to work, and make East St. Louis an all-American city for the 21st Century.
2
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(East St. Louis, Illinois)
For Immediate Release
July 6, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE EAST ST. LOUIS COMMUNITY
Walgreen's Plaza
East St. Louis, Illinois
5:27 P.M. CDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Ladies and gentlemen, I
used to think that I was reasonably astute at public affairs, but I don't have
any better sense than to get up here and try to speak behind Mayor Powell,
Cathy Bessant and Jesse Jackson. I don't know how smart I am today.
Let me say to all of you, it is wonderful to be here. Madam
Mayor, thank you for making us feel so welcome and for your sterling
leadership. I'm delighted to be here with Jackie, your hero, and my friend
who is all of our heroes. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, Dave Bernauer
fore this wonderful Walgreen's store. I'm going to go in and shop in a
minute, add to the local community.
Thank you, Mel Farr, for bringing jobs and opportunities and cars,
even in two months' installments, to every community in this country. Thank
you. (Applause.) Thank you, Reverend Jackson, for believing that we could
keep hope alive in every city and rural area in this country and it could be
good business to do so. (Applause.)
I want to thank some others who are with us here today -- Joe
Stroud of Jovan Broadcasting; my good friend, AI From, the Democratic
Leadership Council; David Wilhelm, the former Chairman of the Democratic Party
from Illinois, who is here with me today.
I want to thank Senator Durbin and Congressman Costello, two of
the ablest, finest people in the United States Congress.
(Applause.)
1
I want to tell you that they are joined here today by
other members of Congress, including Congressman Jim Clyburn, who
came all the way from South Carolina; Congressman Paul Kanjorski,
from the state of Pennsylvania; and Congressman Dale Kildee from
Michigan, all of whom care about this community and communities
like it all across America. I thank them. (Applause.)
And I want to thank your neighboring Mayor, Clarence
Harman, for coming over from St. Louis, and your former Mayor,
Gordon Bush, for being here with me. (Applause.) And I want to
thank Secretary Cuomo, Secretary Glickman, Secretary Slater and
all the other people from the administration.
We have had a great time these last two days, going
across America. We are going to finish this day, first by
shopping at Walgreen's -- (applause) -- and then we're going to
get in an airplane and fly to South Dakota, where we will begin
tomorrow at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
So from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to East St.
Louis to Pine Ridge. (Applause.) It has been a wonderful trip.
But let me ask you something: If you look around this crowd
today, I have to make -- this is a happy day, a happy day. But I
want to say one serious thing off of this subject today, because
of a remark that was made earlier by Cathy that I believe in
community development; emphasis community.
You have been very good to me, to the First Lady, to
Vice President Gore and Mrs. Gore. You have supported our
initiatives and especially the Vice President's leadership of all
of our community development. But what's the first thing that
makes it work? Look around this crowd today. We have people
from all kinds of backgrounds, all different colors, all
different religions. (Applause.) Everybody -- all different
ages, working for something good.
So this is the first chance, my first stop in Illinois
since the tragic string of shootings in Illinois and Indiana
these last couple of days, that have come to end with the
apparent suicide of the alleged gunman. Now, I don't want to say
a lot, but I think it's important to note that while we have to
wait for all of the details to come in, the early reports
indicated that this shooting spree, against Jews, Orthodox Jews,
2
against the young Asian students, taking the life of a former
basketball coach at Northwestern, an African American, all were
motivated by some blind racial hatred against anybody who didn't
happen to be white.
Isn't it ironic that this occurred during the time we
celebrated the birth of our nation on the 4th of July? That
action was a rebuke to the very ideals that got us started. Also
a stern reminder to us that even as we celebrate this, even as we
stand up against racial and ethnic and religious hatred in
Kosovo, in Northern Ireland and the Middle East and Africa, we've
still got work to do here at home. (Applause.)
So I say to you: I want to get back to the
celebrating, but I issue an appeal here from East St. Louis to
every community and every citizen in this country: We must
search the hearts of our citizens and search the strength of our
communities, that Congress should pass the hate crimes
legislation, but we should rid our hearts of hatred immediately.
(Applause.)
Now, I want to tell you what got us going on this. In
1992, when I ran for President, I came to East St. Louis, and I
said I wanted to create a country in the 21st century where there
was opportunity for every citizen, responsibility from every
citizen and a community of all American citizens. I said that we
ought to have a new role for government, that government couldn't
solve all the problems, but walking away from them did not work
very well, either; and that we had to focus on creating the
conditions and giving people the tools to make the most of their
own lives and to get together across lines that had divided them
for too long.
Goodness knows, in the inner cities and the rural areas
of our country, lines have divided those who worked hard that had
no money and those who had plenty of money, but didn't believe it
could be very well spent in the inner city or in rural areas.
Now, if you look at what has happened since, we see in
this community both poverty and great promise, retail returning,
new jobs, new residents, new hope, Walgreen putting up 400 stores
across America, many of them in inner-city areas. But still,
there are many unmet needs and unmet opportunities.
3
You heard what Cathy said about opportunities. Let me
tell you, the economists talk about something in our inner cities
called the "purchasing power gap." Let me tell you what that
means. That means most people in East St. Louis, even though the
unemployment rate is higher than the national average, most
people get up and go to work every day. (Applause.) And if you
take the money that you earn here as against the money you are
able to spend here because of the jobs that are here and the
stores that are here, in America as a whole, there is 25 percent
more money earned than spent in the inner cities. In Los
Angeles, it's 35 percent; in East St. Louis it is 40 percent. So
you can handle this Walgreen's and a lot more besides, and we
want to see them coming here. (Applause.)
And we thank Bank of America for the library, and we
thank those involved in the hotel, the bank, the homes being
built near here. We also want you to know that we want to do our
part. Secretary Cuomo's Housing and Urban Development block
grants, along with Bank of America, and many department stores
are helping Jackie build the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center near
here. (Applause.)
So this is what Vice President Gore and I have tried to
do with our empowerment zones and our community banks and our
vigorous enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act. It says
you're supposed to loan money everywhere in America. That law
has been on the books for 22 years, but over 95 percent of the
money loaned under it, billions of dollars has been loaned since
the Clinton-Gore administration has been in office. And I am
proud of that. (Applause.)
We made East St. Louis an enterprise community in our
first round of empowerment zones and enterprise communities way
back in 1994, and because you have done so well, East St. Louis
is designated as an empowerment zone for our second round, which
means more money being spent here by the government, more tax
incentives for the private sector to put businesses here, and to
hire the people from East St. Louis and give them good jobs.
(Applause.)
Senator Durbin, Congressman Costello and every member
of the Congress here is committed to creating that second round
of empowerment zones and funding them this year. We need help
from Republicans and Democrats alike. This is not a party issue.
4
All Americans benefit when all Americans work. (Applause.)
Now, let me tell you why else we came here today. We
want to make two points which all the previous speakers have
made. I just want to be very explicit. Starting with what the
Mayor said about, location, location, location, accessibility --
boy, that was a good rap, wasn't it? I liked that. That was
good. (Laughter.) The first point we want to make is, when the
Wallgreen President comes, or when an executive from Bank of
America comes, or when Mel Farr comes, and comes to places like
this, or the Mississippi Delta, or Appalachia, the other places
we're going, is, hey, there are business opportunities out here.
If you've got people who want to go to work and people with money
to spend, and they're both in the same place, it's a good place
to invest. (Applause.)
The second thing we're doing is promoting what you have
heard referred to as the New Markets Initiative. Now, let me
just tell you what that is. That's a bill we're going to put
before the Congress that says that if people invest in any high
unemployment, high poverty area, anywhere in America, inside or
outside one of our empowerment communities, they can get a tax
credit for the money they put up, and they can go to the bank and
borrow money and have it guaranteed -- a guaranteed loan by the
federal government, which will lower the interest rates, which
will mean it will be much cheaper for people to invest in
communities like East St. Louis than it otherwise would be.
(Applause.)
Now, the government is not going to do it. Nobody is
going to put any money here if they think they're going to lose
it. If you put up $100 and you invest it and I give you a
25-percent tax credit, if it's a bad investment, you still lose
$75. But it makes it more likely that people will do it. It
makes it more likely that they will take a look. It makes it
more likely
that you will build the kind of relationships which will make
people know you, and trust you, and want to build a common future
with you. And that is what we're trying to do. It is not a
handout, but it is darn sure a hand up, and you are entitled to
it. (Applause.)
And let me say to all of you, it is something that is
good for the rest of America. We've had almost 19 million new
5
jobs; the longest peacetime expansion in history; the lowest
African American and Hispanic unemployment rates ever recorded in
this country to date -- but the unemployment rates are still
higher than they are for the rest of the country. Incomes are
rising, but they're still lower than they are for the rest of the
country. There is room to grow and to learn.
Look, we're all going to have to work hard at this.
Nobody's got all the answers. There is no magic wand. But we
know one thing: people make these investments one at a time,
just like Mel Farr sells his cars: one at a time. You can only
build one Walgreens on this spot. And somebody had to come up
with the money. Somebody had to make the decision. Somebody's
got to hire all the people that work here. Somebody's got to
train them. Somebody's got to make all these decisions.
But what we can do is to create an environment in which
more people will want to hold hands with you and walk into the
21st century, so that nobody is left behind, and we all go
forward together. (Applause.)
You know, in 1960, Look Magazine said East St. Louis
was an all-American city. It was because of stockyards and
shipping yards. It was because of private enterprise. The
government can help, but private enterprise will make East St.
Louis that all-American city again, if we go forward together.
(Applause.)
And I just want to make one last point to everybody
else in America who's looking at this. I spent a lot of time as
your President, now, trying to figure out, how can I keep this
economic good time going? When we started, nobody believed we
could have an economic expansion that would go on this long.
When we started, no conventional economist believed you could
have unemployment rates under four and a half percent nationwide
without having inflation and high interest rates, which would
wreck everything. When we started, no one thought so.
But, you know, all of these young, technological
geniuses are figuring out all this new computer technology, and
it's rifling through what we all do, and it's making us more
productive. And we're doing a good job.
6
But now I say to myself every day when I get up, now
what can I do to keep this going? The only way to keep it going
-- more growth with no inflation; more jobs and higher wages
without bringing it to a halt -- is to have new people working,
and new people buying. New people producing.
Where are those people? Those are the people you move
from welfare to work. Those are the people who are disabled --
and we're going to let them keep their health insurance when they
go into the workplace, so they can move into the workplace.
(Applause.) And most important of all, those are the people in
the inner cities and the rural areas, on the Native American
reservations that have been passed by by this recovery.
America has been blessed by this economic recovery.
Now we are determined to see that all Americans are blessed by it
as we move into the 21st century.
Thank you, and God bless you. (Applause.)
END
5:45 P.M. CDT
7
THE WHITE HOUSE 8/25
WASHINGTON
Tessy
By my count, there were
seven sets of remarks on the
New markets tour - 4
speeches, 3 roundtables. eive
enclosed the transcripts of all
7, and The final drafts for my
2 speeches and one roundtable.
live indicated who wrote the
other speeches in case you'd
like to look at their original
drafts - lowell's Hazard &
Pine Ridge remails were
beautifully written, if largely
disregarded
Hope this is helpful.
For
-
remarls:
lowell
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Hazard, Kentucky)
For Immediate Release
July 5, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE PEOPLE OF APPALACHIA
Main Street
Hazard, Kentucky
4:10 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Well, the Governor always
told me if I would only come to Appalachia I would get a very warm welcome.
(Applause.) I want to thank the good people of Hazard and Perry County for
giving me that warm welcome. I want to thank all the people of Eastern
Kentucky who have made me and my party feel so welcome today -- Paul and Judy
Patton. I thank Mayor Gorman and Judge Noble. I thank those who have come
with me today -- our Agriculture Secretary -- you heard from Secretary
Glickman -- our HUD Secretary, Secretary Cuomo; SBA Administrator Alvarez. We
have two Congressmen here -- Jim Clyburn from South Carolina and Paul
Kanjorski, who came all the way from Pennsylvania, because they have places
like Appalachia there, and they wanted to come down here to be with you.
(Applause.)
I want to thank Duane Ackerman and the other CEOs who are here,
including Dick Huber of Aetna; the One Central Bank Kentucky CEO, Kip Stolen;
Sarah Gould from the MS Foundation; John Sykes from Sykes Enterprises -- I'll
mention him in a moment.
I want to thank the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who keeps hope alive.
(Applause.) And the others in our group, including AI From, the leader of the
Democratic Leadership Council; and David Wilhelm, who is from nearby in Ohio
and was my first Democratic National Committee Chairman. I'd like to thank
the
-
young people here in AmeriCorps -- (applause) -- and I would like
to say a special word of thanks to Cawood Ledford. Boy, he is --
1
(applause) -- I was thinking that if old Cawood had been a
political announcer instead of a basketball announcer and I could
-
have kept him with me these last 25 years, I'd have never lost an
election. (Applause.)
You know, Kentucky has been good to me and Hillary and
to the Vice President. It has been brought to my attention that,
in addition to the economy, we've been pretty good for Kentucky.
Since I've been in office, UK basketball has had the most
successful six years since Adolph Rupp was the coach.
(Applause.) And Tim Couch hasn't done badly, either.
(Applause.)
You know, yesterday we celebrated the last 4th of July
of this century -- the last 4th of July of this century. Think
of it -- 223 Independence Days. I want you all to drink plenty
of water and l'll make this quick, but you need to know why we
came here. I wanted to come to the heart of America and
Appalachia to talk about whether we're all going forward into the
21st century; whether we really can build a bridge over which we
can all walk together.
I'll bet you some of you here are actually the
descendants of those people Governor Patton talked about, the
Revolutionary War heroes who helped to settle this state. But,
you know, whether our parents and their parents came here on the
Mayflower or slave ships, whether they landed on Ellis Island in
the 1890s or came to Los Angeles Airport in the 1990s, around the
4th of July we're supposed to celebrate what we have in common as
Americans, to reaffirm that what unites us is more important than
what divides us. Well, if we believe that, we have a shared
stake in one another's success.
I came here to say to you I believe at this time of
prosperity, if we can't find a way to give every single
hardworking American family the chance to participate in the
future we're trying to build for our country, we'll never get
around to do it. Now is the time to move forward. (Applause.)
Our country is the world's leading force for peace and
freedom and human rights. We have the lowest crime rate in 25
years, the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years, 90 percent of our
little children are immunized against serious childhood diseases
for the first time in history. We have the longest peacetime
2
expansion we've ever had -- almost 19 million new jobs. Wages
are rising for the first time in 20 years for ordinary people.
We have a million kids lifted out of poverty, the lowest minority
unemployment rate ever recorded.
And yet, even though this is a blessed time for
America, not all Americans have been blessed by it. And you know
that as well as I do. (Applause.)
So I came here to show America who you are.
(Applause.) And when I leave here I'm going on to the
Mississippi Delta, to my home country. Then I'm going up into
the Middle West, and then over to Phoenix, Arizona, and up to the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and then ending
this tour in East Los Angeles to make a simple point -- that this
is a time to bring more jobs and investment and hope to the areas
of our country that have not fully participated in this economic
recovery. We have an obligation to do it. (Applause.)
I started out the morning in the town of Tyner, a
little village, with a wonderful woman who took me to see her
69-year-old father that just lost his wife after 51 years of
marriage. And I saw four generations of that family. And I
walked in the neighborhoods and I listened to the people tell me
they needed better housing and better transportation.
And then I went on to Mid-South Electronics, a place
that had 40 employees 10 years ago, and has 850 today and about
to expand some more, to make the point that any work that can be
done by anybody in America can be done here in Appalachia -- and
throughout the other places in this country where they're not
fulfilling their promise. (Applause.)
I came here in the hope that with the help of the
business leaders here, we could say to every corporate leader in
America: Take a look at investing in rural and inner-city
America. It's good for business, good for America's growth, and
it's the right thing to do. If we, with the most prosperous
economy in our lifetimes, cannot make a commitment to take every
person along with us into the 21st century, we will have failed
to meet a moral obligation and we also will have failed to make
the most of America's promise.
You know, these economists in Washington and New York
3
used to tell me that if the unemployment rate ever dropped below
6 percent in America we'd have inflation out of control. Well,
it's been under 5 percent for two years now and inflation is
still low. (Applause.) And I'm telling you, it can go lower.
We can hire more people, we can have more jobs -- (applause) --
but we've got to go to the places where there have not been
enough new jobs and there has not been enough new investments and
we have to provide incentives for people to go there.
(Applause.)
I asked these business and political leaders to join me
because we wanted to send a signal to America that we know that
government can't solve these problems alone. But we know that
we'll never get anywhere by leaving people alone, either --
you've tried it that way here in the hills and hollows of
Kentucky and West Virginia and Ohio and Virginia and Appalachia,
for years; that didn't work out very well -- that what works is
when we go forward together.
I came here to say that I believe the government's part
is to create the conditions of a strong economy, to give
individuals the tools they need to succeed, including education
and training, and to give incentives to businesses to take a
second look at the places that they have overlooked. And then
the job of the private sector is to give you a chance to make the
most of your God-given ability. That is what we are trying to
do. (Applause.)
With the help of Vice President Gore, we've had 135
empowerment zones and enterprise communities -- I was in one
earlier today. They've helped to create tens of thousands of
jobs. But we have to do better nationwide. We've worked with
people like the Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation. But
we have to do better nationwide.
So that's why I'm going around here. I want to do two
things -- well, really three. Number one, I want people to know
a lot of good things are going on here now. (Applause.) Number
two, I want them to understand that more good things can go on,
and number three, I want us to do more. I want us to pass a law
in Congress to create new markets in America, to say we're going
to give a businessperson the same incentives to invest in new
markets in America we give them today to invest in new markets
overseas. (Applause.)
4
Now, meanwhile, I want to thank the companies
represented here -- companies like Bell South, ready to help
provide jobs and training for your people. The MS Foundation.
The Appalachian Regional Commission, with my friend, Jesse White,
here, will help Appalachian entrepreneurs create new small
businesses. Sykes Enterprises is making a major commitment --
listen to this -- to construct two information technology centers
in Eastern Kentucky that will bring hundreds of new jobs to Pike
and Perry Counties. Thank you, Mr. Sykes. (Applause.)
Across our nation, banks like Bank One, City Group,
Bank of America, First Union, will invest hundreds of millions of
dollars to finance new small businesses and other promising
enterprises. I want to thank all these companies for their
support.
But again, I say: Look here, America. We've got
people working out here and doing fine and doing marvelous
things. Look here, business community. Take another look.
There are great opportunities here. But I also want to say to
the Congress: Just simply give me one more tool for them, give
people the same incentives to invest in Appalachia or the Native
American reservations of the Mississippi Delta or the inner
cities we give them today to invest in poor countries overseas,
and let the American people show what they can do. (Applause.)
Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a hot day -- but when
I'm gone, I hope you'll remember more than that the President
came and you were hot. I hope you will remember that it was the
beginning of a new sense of renewal for this region and for all
the people in our country to go forward together. (Applause.)
Thank you and God bless you. (Applause.)
END
4:21 P.M. EDT
5
Final 07/04/99 8:00pm
Jeff Shesol
PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
TALKING POINTS FOR BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE
WATERFIELD CABINET COMPANY
CLARKSDALE, MISSISSIPPI
July 6, 1999
Acknowledgments: Sec. Slater, who worked with me on the Delta Commission; Sec.
Herman; SBA Admin. Alvarez; Reps. Bennie Thompson, Ronnie Shows, James Clyburn,
Paul Kanjorski; Rev. Jesse Jackson; panelists TBD; employees of Waterfield & people of
Clarksdale
Thank you for inviting me so close to home and even closer to the Crossroads, the
Home of the Blues.
Since 1967, when Robert Kennedy came here to Clarksdale, lives in the Delta have been
steadily improving. Still, as Robert Kennedy so often said, we can do better. And as he
said that same year: "We must turn the power and resources of our private enterprise system
to the underdeveloped nation within our midst." That is what we are doing on this tour; and
that is much of what I mean when I say this should be a season of progress for America.
Today, the American economy is expanding as never before. Because our growth has
been so strong and sustained, its benefits have flowed to millions of people once cut off from
the economic mainstream. African-American and Hispanic unemployment are the lowest on
record. Wages are rising. In the past six years, our rising tide has lifted more than a million
children out of poverty.
Still, there are too many places in America where opportunity is too scarce. In the Delta,
the poverty rate is 1½ times the national average; and here in Coahoma [Co-a-homa] County,
it's 2½ times greater. The typical resident of this region earns only $17,000 a year. That's
up nearly $3,000 since 1993; though compared to the nation as a whole, it's still only 67
cents on the dollar. And this morning, we saw the shut-down storefronts that tell the story as
powerfully as any statistic.
But I see more than poverty here; I see great promise. The success of businesses like
Waterfield signals a brighter future not just for Clarksdale, but for the whole of this vast
region I call home. On this factory floor, and in the paychecks and pride these workers bring
home, we feel the power of private investment and of a strong public commitment to create
jobs, attract capital, and expand opportunity.
As Governor, when I chaired the Lower Mississippi Delta Development Commission
with Govs. Mabus and Roemer, I said that government and business had to work
together in a new way - as partners for progress. That was the only way, as I said back in
1988, "to make the millions of people who live in the Delta area full partners in America for
the first time in history." That is the approach I have pursued as President. And that is the
1
approach that is working - through EZs and ECs, a stronger CRA, and CDFIs.
The Enterprise Corporation of the Delta (ECD), a private, tax-exempt business
development group, is one of those CDFIs, and a real success story. Since 1994, ECD
has given financial or technical assistance to more than 600 companies - like Delta Laundry
and Computers, Inc. here in Clarksdale. Overall, ECD has helped generate more than 5,000
jobs and $200m in annual sales. Bill Bynum, thanks for coming today. As CEO and
President of ECD, you're doing great and vital work.
Today, on behalf of the corporations represented here, I am pleased to announce $14m
in new private investments in ECD. And today, across America, other companies are
announcing more than $60m in new investments in CDFIs. With these new resources and
the power of private enterprise, the Delta and places like it can truly become centers of
commerce - and of hope.
2
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Clarksdale, Mississippi)
For Immediate Release
July 6, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON
INVESTMENT IN THE DELTA REGION
Waterfield Cabinet Company
Clarksdale, Mississippi
10:25 A.M. CDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Please be seated. Well, it's hot as a
fire cracker in here. (Laughter.) So I feel right at home. (Laughter.) I
don't know whether Bob Koerber and the people at Waterfield are insured
against heat stroke by strangers happening in along the way, but let me say
that I am delighted to be here today. I've had a good day already.
And I've got a large group with me, and I can't mention them all,
but I'd like to mention a few of them. First I want to thank Secretary
Slater, who is, as all of you know, also from Arkansas and worked with me on
the Delta Commission. I want to thank our Secretary of Agriculture, Dan
Glickman; our Secretary of Labor, Alexis Herman, who is here with me; our SBA
Administrator Aida Alvarez. Reverend Jackson, thank you for being here.
I'd like to thank David Brosczek from Fed Ex; Jack Hugsland from
Greyhound. We'll introduce our panelists later. I'd also like to say a
special word of thanks to Lt. Governor Ronnie Musgrove and his family.
They're here -- (applause) -- and we thank him for his interest in the
development of the Delta. (Applause.)
-
Our Congressmen, Bennie Thompson, from this district --
(applause) -- thank you. And I understand Congressman Ronnie
Shows from Mississippi is also here -- Ronnie is standing up
there -- thank you. (Applause.) And we have two visitors who
have come from a long way away to be with us -- Congressman Jim
Clyburn from South Carolina, and Congressman Paul Kanjorski, all
1
the way from Pennsylvania, down here. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
And we thank Attorney General Mike Moore for being
here, and all the other people from Mississippi who are here.
(Applause.)
Let me say again to Bob Koerber and all the folks here
at Waterfield, we thank you for giving us a chance to both tour
this plant and to camp out in some of your space.
And I would like to be very brief. I've learned to
attenuate these remarks of mine. Yesterday, it was 100 degrees
in Hazard, Kentucky; we had 10,000 or 15,000 people outside. And
I said, I don't believe I better give this speech I was going to
give.
Hello, Governor Mavis. It's nice to see you. Welcome.
Thank you very much for being here. (Applause.) And I think my
friend, William Winter, is here. Governor Winter, are you here
somewhere? He met me at the airport. (Applause.) So, anyway, I
talked for about five minutes, and I'd like to do that.
I just want to tell you exactly why we're here. First
of all, the people in the Delta know better than anybody else
that while this country has had an unbelievable run -- we've had
the longest peacetime expansion in our history, nearly 19 million
jobs since the day I took the Oath of Office. (Applause.) We
have the lowest recorded rates ever of unemployment among African
Americans and Hispanics. We have the highest rate of home
ownership ever. We have a million kids lifted out of poverty.
Now, having said all that, in the Delta, the poverty
rate is much higher than the country as a whole; in this county,
it's over twice as high. The unemployment rate is higher than
the national average, and the investment rate is lower.
Now, a lot of you -- I remember when I was out on a
barge in the Mississippi River outside Rosedale with Ray Mavis
back in the mid-'80s, and we signed this agreement with the
then-Governor of Louisiana about all the things we wanted to do
with the Delta. And then we worked on the Delta Commission for
all those years. A lot of good things have happened here, and I
want to talk a little about some of them. But I want you to
know, I am making this tour of America for one simple reason: I
2
want everybody in America to know that while our country has been
blessed with this economic recovery, not all Americans have been
blessed by it, that it hasn't reached everyplace. (Applause.)
I want our country to know that there are great
opportunities out here for investment for jobs in America. I
want them to know what we have done already to make it easier for
people to make the most of those opportunities, and what we're
still trying to do.
Now, let me say, ever since I became President, I have
done what I could to increase investment in undeveloped areas
through the empowerment zones, which give tax credits and put tax
money into distressed areas; through the enterprise communities;
through getting banks to more vigorously approach the Community
Reinvestment Act; and setting up community development financial
institutions, or supporting those that are already in business,
like the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta. It's a private,
tax-exempt business group. It is a real success story. Just
since 1994, it's given financial or technical assistance to more
than 600 companies, including Delta Laundry and Computers here in
Clarksdale.
Now, we set these operations up all over the country.
Overall, the ECD here has helped to generate more than 5,000 jobs
and $200 million in annual sales. Bill Bynum, the CEO and
President of ECD is here. We thank him for being here today.
(Applause.)
Today corporations represented here with me are going
to invest $14 million more in the ECD, so they'll have more money
to loan out to people here to create more jobs. Today, around
the country, there will be about $150 million more announced to
be invested in organizations like this.
In addition to that, I'm trying to get Congress to pass
a bill which will give tax incentives, tax credits and loan
guarantees to people to invest in the Delta and other poor areas
of America, just like they get today to invest in poor areas
around the world. I think that it's a good thing that we
encourage people to invest in Africa, Latin America and the
Caribbean, but they ought to have the same incentives to invest
in the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia and the Native American
reservations and the inner cities. (Applause.) That is what
3
we're trying to do here. We're trying to close what Reverend
Jackson calls the "resource gap."
Now, let me say, we've got a lot of other challenges in
the Delta. We have a terrible crisis in American agriculture
today. Last year we came up with billions of dollars to try to
keep our farmers going. This year we're going to have to do it
all over again. And we've got a lot of other problems. But,
fundamentally, what I want America to know is that every place in
the country, and today this place, is full of good people,
capable of doing good work, who can be trained to do any kind of
work. And we are going to do everything we can in the government
to give the financial incentives necessary for people to invest
here.
And I want to make the same point I made yesterday:
Everybody in America has a selfish interest now in developing the
Delta. Why? Because most economists believe that if we're going
to keep our economic recovery going without inflation, the only
way we can possibly do it is to find more customers for our
products and then add more workers at home. If you come here,
you get both in the same place. You get more workers and more
consumers. So it's good for the rest of America as well.
(Applause.)
So, again, I say I am delighted to be here. I had a
wonderful time in Memphis last night, but I ate too much. I'm
sorry it's so hot, but I hope nobody passes out. And I want to
-
give Secretary Slater now a chance to talk to our panelists, and
then I want all of you to think about when we leave here, what we
can do to show people the opportunity that's here now, and what
you could do to help me pass on a bipartisan basis the necessary
tax incentives and loan guarantees to say to any investor,
anywhere in America, if you come to the Mississippi Delta, you
can get at least a good a deal as you could investing anywhere
else in the world, and we're right here at home and we need you.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
4
THE PRESIDENT: I just want to emphasize for everybody
who is here listening, because a lot of you may be able to come
to Bill with a good idea there are it's not just that there
4
is not enough money available in this area for good investments.
Someone has to decide what's a good investment. And what he has
done is to basically go out and get money from other people who,
on their own, would never have the time or effort or maybe even
the inclination to make these investments, but they trust them to
do it -- including our Community Development Fund, which, as you
heard, has given him $4.5 million.
Hillary and I, when we were in Arkansas, helped to set
up the Southern Development Bank in Arkansas, as you know, so we
believe in this. In addition to that, I want to emphasize one
other thing. In the empowerment zone program that the Vice
President has run for us over the last six years, people who
invest there can get substantial tax benefits for investing, and
then they get tax benefits for hiring people. But they don't get
them if they're outside of these zones.
One of the reasons that I'm trying so hard to pass this
legislation is not everyplace in America can be in an empowerment
zone, even if we keep increasing them every year. So what I want
to do is to make every area in America that needs an investor
equally eligible to get the investors' attention by being able to
get these kinds of tax benefits, so we can get more money into
these development corporations and then have equal tax incentives
for investors to go into high unemployment areas -- those two
things, if we have enough people like you who are as good as it
as you have been, I think will make a huge difference. I think
it will really, in the next five or six years, would make a
breathtaking difference, because people are out here looking at
these markets now. And I want to thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me say this very briefly. I was
there when you started, and I was delighted when I heard you were
going to be on the program. I wish we'd had time today -- we
don't -- to tell everybody the fascinating story of how you got
started, how you found the equipment to do the brown rice in the
first place. And someday you ought to write it up, because no
one who understands what was going on in America at the time
would believe it. And it's a real tribute to your initiative.
And I'm glad you're still doing well, and glad you're still
growing. Thank you for being here today. Thank you.
(Applause.)
5
*****
THE PRESIDENT: Let me say, I'm delighted that you've
done so well over these years since you began in Arkansas. I
remember when you planted roots in Pine Bluff. I just think it's
worth pointing out that the South Shore Bank of Chicago, which
financed you, was really the first great community development
bank in the United States. And they were inspired, among others,
by a man named Mohamad Yunus from Bangladesh, who has now made
millions of loans to poor, poor village people in Bangladesh
through the bank you set up.
Hillary and I had some contact with him; that's what
led to the establishment of the bank in Arkadelphia and to my
belief that we in the national government ought to do more to
support people like Bill. I think -- again, you've just heard
now three stories, and two of them involve people who have had to
get credit. A lot -- I always say one of Clinton's laws of
politics is, when somebody tells you that a problem is not a
money problem, they're almost always talking about someone else's
problem, not their own. To a great extent, this is a money
problem. You have all these talented people and all these good
ideas; there is a pretty even distribution of human resources and
ability in this whole world, but there is not an even
distribution of access to capital. And that's what it is we're
trying to fix. So I thank you. (Applause.)
*****
THE PRESIDENT: You have an announcement, right? Okay.
You're being way too modest. Now, you know, this lady is the
assistant plant manager here. According to my notes, she also is
the mother of five children. (Applause.) When this place was in
bankruptcy, they took it out and they've turned it around.
They're doing good business, they're expanding their work force.
And 1 think what we need, frankly, are more people that have this
particular expertise, particularly in the Delta, because there's
-
more than one place like this.
Our host was telling us there's another place across
the river in Arkansas that he's been looking at now. If we had a
core of people who had this skill to go with what our local
venture capitalist and banker here is doing for us, we could
6
really do some good.
But I think we ought to recognize that what these
people have done here and the jobs that they've given folks the
opportunity to hold is quite important and could be a good model
for others in the Delta. So I thank you for what you've done.
(Applause.)
*****
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I know we've got to wrap up. If
you don't remember anything else when you leave, remember what
Cathy said -- not just the $500 million, although that's real
money even in 1999; that's very impressive. This is a good
business opportunity here. If we cannot fully develop the Delta
now when we have the strongest economy in our lifetime, when will
we ever get around to it?
And remember - put yourself in my position. I sit in
Washington all the time, trying to think about how can we keep
this economic recovery going, adding more jobs, raising incomes,
without having inflation? If we get inflation, then the Federal
Reserve will have to raise interest rates so much the economic
recovery will slow down.
The only way to do it -- I will say again to all of
America the only way to do it is more customers which then
makes possible more employees, when you can do that with higher
productivity and no inflation. The best place in America to do
that is a place which has not yet felt the recovery. This is a
big deal.
And I want to thank all of our business leaders for
coming, and all of our great entrepreneurs here in the Delta. I
want to thank you I know we could stay here until tomorrow if
we could all keep breathing.
I do want to point out that except for the occasional
reverend of the cloth and the odd politician, the head of the
electric utility is the only guy still wearing his coat because
he wants you to use more juice. (Laughter.) And I think that is
very impressive. I want to thank our friend from Greyhound
because we may always need some people to be able to get to and
-
from jobs that aren't in the small towns of rural America, but
7
who want to live in rural America. That's been one of the big
challenges Secretary Slater has tried to face with welfare
reform, even; trying to make sure people who live in the inner
cities can at least get to the suburbs, or who live in small
towns and get to a big city so they can take a job without having
to undermine their ability to be good parents.
And I want to thank my friend, Bob Cabe from Blue
Cross. You need to know that in our former lives, we were both
lawyers. And he's a very special economic development expert for
me, because in 1981, I was the youngest ex-governor in the
history of America with very limited future prospects, and he and
his firm offered me a job. So I am living proof that economic
development works, thanks to Bob Cabe -- and I thank you very
much. (Applause.) And I want to thank, again, all these people
for their wonderful work.
The story needs to go out across America: This is a
good investment. This is a good deal. We will help you. We
will help you. We have institutions to help you. We have tax
relief to help you. And more and more, our financial
institutions are coming up with the money. But America needs to
wake up and recognize that the best new market for American
products and for new American investment is right here in the
U.S. of A.
Thank you very much and God bless you. (Applause.)
END
11:10 A.M. CDT
8
fore Back
kg
PART III: THE OPPORTUNITY WE DESERVE
2.
COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT AND JOBS: HARNESSING MARKETS FOR
DISTRESSED COMMUNITIES
A.
INTRODUCTION
In December of 1997, I paid a visit to an area of the South Bronx that had once been close to
the economic equivalent of a third world country: the people living there were under-employed and
under-housed and the financial community had traditionally under-invested in them. When
President Reagan visited the area in the 1980s, he compared it to London in the Blitz. For many it
seemed like a community beyond hope or repair.
The transformation I saw two years ago was remarkable. The South Bronx had gone from
decay and chaos to development and pride; from a fragmented collection of individuals struggling to
survive to a cohesive community of citizens, working to build a better life for everyone. It was the
kind of meeting that made me proud to be President and even prouder to be an American.
How did this transformation happen? In addition to the hard work and commitment of the
people of the South Bronx - who simply shattered the conventional wisdom about the poor - we
worked to develop a new approach to the issues of community empowerment that did not rely on
older, preconceived notions.
B.
A THIRD WAY
When I took office in 1993, our cities - including the South Bronx -- were reeling from
failures of two opposing policy frameworks. On the one hand, there was a sense that government
had failed over the years through well-intentioned but misguided programs that focused on the
amount of government dollars spent rather than on incentives and results. On the other side were
those who brought further neglect and economic decline to inner cities by a laissez-faire approach
that called only for government retreat.
Recognizing that the solution to our pressing urban social and economic problems was not
"more of the same," I proposed a third way to tackle the problems of our distressed communities -
an approach that was rooted in the lessons of what works and what does not.
This third way acknowledged that government can't solve all of our problems, but it can't
leave people to sink or swim on their own, either. That we have an obligation, all of us, to give
every single person the tools to make the most of his or her life. That we have a duty, together, to
create opportunity for those who have been forgotten; to take responsibility for the welfare of not
only ourselves and our families, but of our whole community; and to build that community out of
every single American, excluding no one because of their background, their race, their religion or
any other trait that has nothing to do with undermining our common humanity.
My Administration's community empowerment agenda rejected both the laissez-faire
approach and the more of the same approach, and instead focused on a strategy designed to empower
people with the skills, opportunity, and capital they needed to take responsibility for rebuilding their
communities. This approach is based on four key principles:
1.
A radical expansion of individual opportunity and responsibility empowering every American with
a chance to improve their own lives. This included policies to reward work, such as
expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the enactment of welfare reform and
welfare-to-work initiatives.
2.
Spurring private investment and expanding access to capital and credit in our distressed communities
by providing incentives for community lending and community empowerment strategies and
by challenging the private sector to seek out untapped markets.
3.
Securing safer communities by signing the Omnibus Crime Bill and Brady Law, and putting 100,000
police officers on the beat.
4.
Focusing on bottom-up, community-based solutions to the problems in distressed
neighborhoods and towns instead of federal mandates, by reinventing government, providing
more flexibility and designing challenge grant programs that spur all elements of
communities to pull together.
C.
AN AGGRESSIVE AGENDA FROM DAY ONE
In Putting People First, Vice President Gore and I outlined a comprehensive empowerment
agenda to tackle the problems of distressed communities - and to do so in a way that rewarded work,
ensured greater access to capital, and created safer neighborhoods. This included: the creation of the
first-ever federal Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities; establishment of a network of
Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and reform of the Community
Reinvestment Act (CRA) to provide greater access to capital, credit, and basic banking services to
more Americans; expanding the nation's affordable housing stock by making the Low-Income
Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) permanent and the Mortgage Revenue Bond (MRB) program,
reinventing the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and increasing the number of
housing vouchers; encouraging entrepreneurism by expanding the number of microenterprises, and
making available Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) to low-income persons who want to save
for their education, a first home, or their retirement.
From day one, Vice President Gore and I pursued this agenda aggressively and, remarkably,
we achieved all these policy goals. And while we as a nation still have much further to go, for the
first time in 30 years, the structural changes are placing distressed communities on the winning side
of new development trends. In our cities, jobs, incomes, and homeownership are going ùp, while
crime and welfare rolls are going down. The poverty rate is at its lowest level in nine years, wages
are rising faster than in the nation as a whole, employment has risen 11 percent since 1992, and for
the first time in history more than half of central city households are homeowners.
Several factors have contributed to these positive developments: the longest peacetime
expansion in American history; public-private partnerships spearheaded by a new generation of
innovative mayors, local leaders, private entrepreneurs, and community-based organizations; and our
empowerment agenda.
On the other hand, even though we have the lowest peacetime unemployment rate since
1957, there are still 37 cities -- 37 -- where unemployment is double the national average. There are
lots of smaller communities where children still have to go past abandoned storefronts to get to a
grocery store to buy a carton of milk. There are rural areas and very small towns which have had
almost no new investment in the last six years. And, of course, in many, many of our Native
American areas and communities there is still a great deal of economic distress and uncertainty.
While we have taken important steps together and made real progress, we need to do more.
Many minorities are still being left behind. And it isn't because they don't want to or don't try. In
addition, the markets still fail to draw needed investment capital to fuel businesses and job creation,
and they fail to provide the personal financial services-from checking accounts to insurance to
micro-lending for entrepreneurs-that can be the gateways to economic mobility and security.
I believe as we go into the 21st century that no one should be left behind. We should
genuinely create opportunity for every responsible citizen. And because we've got the strongest
economy in at least a generation, we have been given an opportunity to prove that we can bring the
benefits of free enterprise to every neighborhood in America.
We need to help all Americans share in America's prosperity. Since so many of these
distressed communities are communities of color, we must overcome the fears and stereotypes about
race and poverty which have kept lenders and investors from giving these communities a hand up.
We must face the challenge of harnessing the full power of markets to bring development and
opportunity to our neediest communities.
D. BRINGING OPPORTUNITY TO MORE AMERICANS
I have always believed that if we give people the opportunity to improve their lives, they will
meet the challenge. Ensuring access to capital, credit, and basic financial services has been the
cornerstone of my empowerment strategy, and we have seen the results. The private sector has
become re-engaged in our cities and distressed communities. Our six year campaign to highlight the
untapped potential of America's underserved communities and helping them to find their
competitive niche in the marketplace has brought hope and opportunity back to places long-forgotten
or cast aside. Looking ahead, we need to build upon what we have achieved and promote new ideas
and policies that expand community empowerment and bring the economic mainstream flowing to
neighborhoods that have been left high and dry behind long-standing dams of segregation,
discrimination and even hopelessness. The dams have been crumbling, but the years ahead must
bring them completely down. The markets of the economic mainstream, if harnessed effectively, can
bring a flood of empowerment, entrepreneurialism, and jobs. I think this is a crucial component of
our workplan to build One America.
As Robert Kennedy once said, "To ignore the potential contribution of private enterprise is to
fight the war on poverty with a single platoon while great armies are left to stand aside." We need to
unleash the power of mainstream financial markets, linked to effective non-profit partners, so that
people in distressed communities have a chance to get loans that will allow them to start good
businesses, build and buy decent homes, and raise their families in dignity. As I have said many
times, there needs to be a new partnership between Washington and communities and individuals of
this country-there needs to be a way of doing business at all levels of government that creates the
conditions for people to seize opportunities for themselves. We have embarked on an empowerment
strategy to help restore the American Dream in distressed areas by focusing on helping people help
themselves and by combining existing ideas and resources with new initiatives to spur growth and
investment.
Building Upon a Solid Foundation
When I traveled throughout around America during the 1992 campaign people would come
up to me in places that had high unemployment or low-income or other economic problems, and say
that they could start their own businesses, become entrepreneurs, and be self sufficient if they just
had access to capital and credit, if they had they right technical support, marketing support, loan
guarantees. They weren't asking for a handout, only a hand up.
I have always believed that we cannot repair the basic fabric of society until people who are
willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life. It gives a
role model to children. We cannot repair the American Community and restore the American family
until we provide the structure, the value, the discipline, and the reward that work gives.
So at the start of my administration we put into our first economic plan a proposal to create
Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities which would provide tax credits, direct
investment, technical assistance to communities that had been left behind.
But Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities were about more than just economic
incentives. It was a challenge to communities to work together. I knew from my days as Governor
of Arkansas that top down, one size fits all programs don't work anywhere except on paper. I
wanted a different kind of program. I wanted to reinvent how the federal government did business
by providing the flexibility communities needed to plan more strategically through a community-
driven process.
As the Vice President has noted, one of the great success stories surrounding the
Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities initiative is that the application process itself has
been highly beneficial to communities. Even communities that were not designated as EZs or ECs
gained from the application process because it brought together all the different parts of the
community and got people to think differently about what would make these places better.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE EMPOWERMENT ZONE AND ENTERPRISE
COMMUNITY STRATEGY
The EZ/EC Initiative
135 Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities have been designated
Federal seed monev has leveraging over $14 billion in additional nublic and private sector investment in
The Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community Initiative is also a key element of this
Administration's job creation strategy for America. Its purpose is to create jobs and business
opportunities in the most economically distressed areas of inner cities and the rural heartland through a
combination of tax incentives and performance grants. It also focuses on activities to support people
looking for work, such as job training, child-care, and transportation.
Since its inception in 1994, the EZ/EC Initiative has produced outstanding results by
empowering people to create business opportunities and jobs, leverage public and private partnerships,
provide affordable housing and make communities safer and better places to live. There are tangible
signs that the Empowerment Zone strategy is working in communities around the country.
When I was Governor of Arkansas I heard about a man named Muhammad Yunus in
Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, who had set up small, community-based
banks to make very small loans to rural village women to start small businesses. When I met him in
the mid-'80s, the Grameen Bank had made had made 400,000 loans at market interest rates to groups
of people. Yet, they had a higher repayment rate than the commercial banks did at traditional
interest rate levels. Now the Grameen Bank has made about 2 million loans.
I knew we had to replicate this program in the United Sates and in my first year in office I
proposed to create a network of community development banks and financial institutions to work
alongside mainstream institutions in expanding access to capital to low-income communities.
Today, that vision is turning into a reality, with the Treasury Department's CDFI Fund.
The Fund has invested $125 million thus far in community development banks, thrifts, credit
unions, loan funds, micro-funds, and venture capital firms whose primary mission is serving low and
moderate income communities. These locally-based financial institutions, in turn, use their superior
local knowledge and community development expertise to make profitable loans in inner-city and
rural small businesses, affordable home ownership strategies, and community infrastructure -
bringing mainstream financial institutions into these communities along the way. The Fund has also
made $58 million in awards to mainstream banks, leveraging ten times that amount in private sector
investment. We are going to expand funding for CDFI, and give it new tools to grow micro-
businesses in these communities.
We have also worked very hard to streamline and strengthen the Community Reinvestment
Act to make it focus more on performance than paperwork and process. Now CRA focuses on what
counts, how much banks lend, invest, and what level of basic banking services, such as checking and
savings accounts, ATM machines, tellers, they provide in underserved places. Although CRA has
been on the books for twenty years, ninety five percent of all the financial commitments made under
the law have been made in the last five years.
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) encourages mainstream financial institutions to
help meet the needs of their communities, consistent with safe and sound banking practices. CRA is
helping to restore healthy markets in distressed communities, helping to build homes, create jobs,
and restore hope all across the country. In 1993, large commercial banks alone made $18.6 billion in
community development investments. And lending to minority and low-income borrowers is on the
rise. Since 1993, home mortgage lending to African Americans has increased by 58 percent, to
Hispanics by 52 percent, and to low- to moderate- income borrowers by 38 percent, well above
increases in the overall market.
Since 1992, nonprofit community groups estimate that the private sector has pledged over $1
trillion in loans going forward for affordable home ownership and community development. While
it is very difficult to say how much of this activity would never have occurred without the CRA, the
structure of accountability is a modest regulatory imposition in comparison with the dividends. The
CRA is an invaluable tool.
Tax Incentives. We have also harnessed the power of the private sector through targeted tax
incentives. We made permanent the low income housing tax credit, which creates nearly 90,000 units of
affordable housing each year. And we have proposed expanding it by 40 percent, to help create another
180,000 units of affordable housing over the next five years. Such tax credit investments typically
qualify as CRA loans and can constitute a major basis for linking resources and incentives into a
comprehensive system which acknowledges the enormous help which financial institutions have, and
can, play in rebuilding distressed communities. Also, with Vice President Gore's leadership, we have
enacted two rounds of Empowerment Zones, which are helping to bring growth and opportunity to some
of the most economically distressed communities in our nation. We have also passed a Brownfields Tax
Incentive to help clean up nearly 11,000 environmentally contaminated sites in our inner cities and rural
areas, and bring them back to life-and I have proposed to Congress that this incentive be a permanent
part of our tax code.
E.
NEW DIRECTION
We now must take more direct action to harness the power of the private market to provide
equity capital to businesses often left out of the mainstream.
For years our government has worked to give Americans incentives to invest in emerging
markets around the world. But we now know, as we look forward to how we can continue to create jobs
and have economic growth without inflation, that our greatest untapped markets are here at home --
at the least $85 billion in untapped markets. (GREENSPAN QUOTE: LISA OR SARAH PLEASE
IDENTIFY)
They are up in Harlem and the South Bronx, Watts, Roxbury, or in any of the other countless
number of cities around the country where every morning working parents have to go all the way out to
the suburbs to get a job.
So how are we going to do this? First, the business leaders of our country have to help us. We
have to mobilize the private sector to bring new jobs and opportunities. We know that, since
the government, the federal government is the smallest it has been since 1962, what we can do is to do
what we have been doing. We can find a new way to create the conditions and give the private sector
the tools to bring investment to these areas to put people to work.
Now, how can we do that? More empowerment zones, more community development banks, but
also our New Markets Initiative. If we want more investments in the inner-cities, more investment in the
medium-sized cities and small towns, more investments in rural areas, you've got to have more equity
investment. So in the State of the Union I proposed this New Markets Initiative, to leverage billions of
dollars in that kind of investment by providing tax credits of up to 25 percent of the equity placed in
untapped markets.
I also proposed to create American private investment companies and new market venture capital
firms to bring more equity capital to investors who develop or expand in these areas
with loan guarantees that would cover up to two-thirds of the investment. If you have 25 percent tax
credit for what's at risk, and a loan guarantee of two-thirds of the rest, and a plain market there, and we
can actually get this out in simple terms that people can understand, I think we have a chance to spark an
enormous amount of economic development in America before this administration's work is done.
We should not be thinking of our success without an equal determination to give every one of
our fellow citizens a chance to be a part of it as we go into a new century. We don't have to
leave anyone behind. And if we can't do this now, when in the wide world will we ever get around to it?
NEW MARKETS INITIATIVE.
Communities that are more livable are more likely to be places of hope and economic opportunity.
Under the leadership of the Vice President, our Livability Agenda integrates the commitments of more than
a dozen Federal agencies. As part of this Agenda, the Administration will continue to work with and learn
from states, communities, and other stakeholders, and to develop new strategies to provide them with
additional tools and resources. The Livability Agenda also supplements the various programs that make up
the Administration's Community Empowerment Agenda, which is designed to encourage reinvestment in
existing communities and provide greater opportunity for their residents.
Look To GSEs to do more. We also need to examine other new ideas. For example, banks that
make business and other job-creating loans in distressed areas may need help akin to that we have long
given to mortgage lenders-the kind of assistance that helped build the middle-class, the suburbs and
our modern American dream of home ownership.
That means various tools to provide credit enhancement or subsidies for such lending. For
example, to increase dramatically the levels of community development lending, lenders must be able to
take the borrower's commitment to pay off the loan and turn around and sell that commitment to
investors on a secondary market in the same way that banks can sell home mortgages on a secondary
market. It is that secondary market that allows the lending bank to replenish its resources and make still
more loans. The lending risk can be divided up - shared between the lender, the investors from the
government, and various levels of government. Another thing to explore is using state and federal tax
incentives to draw more debt and equity capital into community development. Our proposal for a New
Markets Tax Credit is a step in that direction, and additional flexible incentives will be needed. All of
this should be considered in relation to the current set of housing-related institutions and incentives,
including FHA, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System. We
must ask ourselves, what reforms are necessary to better focus these institutions on meeting the
continuing need for housing capital in underserved communities? Should the role of these institutions
be expanded to meet the community development challenge or our distressed urban and rural
communities? Or, should we create or help the private sector create parallel institutions to focus
exclusively on the unique challenges presented in building a finance system for community
development?
First and foremost, we must recognize that public, democratically defined incentives, leadership
and vision can be important, but only private resources and energy, tied to personal initiative and drive,
can give us the widespread and enduring success every community deserves.
Complementing that private engagement, local community growth strategies have to be linked to
regional growth opportunities, since it is regional economies that are the major engines of our prosperity.
Local communities-both the public and private actors-need information and technical expertise to
analyze and harness economic growth throughout their regions. Regional transportation planning is one
of the building blocks for this cooperation but even more can be done to include housing, jobs, and
community reinvestment as well.
Regional leadership must work with the private sector and with non-profit agencies to provide
technical assistance and mentoring to small businesses to overcome barriers to entering the mainstream
economy. And we need national and regional institutions that can help local community-based
organizations provide low-income families with the necessary skills and to connect them to available
jobs throughout their local economy, as we are trying to do, for example, in the Welfare-to-Work
Partnership.
I believe that to continue and improve our prosperity in the 21st century, we need to bring all
American communities into the economic mainstream. The workplan I have outlined here will help
bring growth and opportunity to America's economically distressed communities. Now, while the
economy is so strong, is the right time to act. We cannot afford to miss this chance to invest in the
opportunity we deserve.
As Dr. King said on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, America must "refuse to believe that
there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity I this nation." Those vaults of opportunity
today are richer and fuller than they have ever been. Now what we need to do is to open those vaults up
so they'll fill up even more for all of you.
THE CLINTON GORE ADMINISTRATION'S
COMMUNI TY DEVEI OPMENT AGENDA ANDRECORD
August 11, 1999
PRESIDENT CLINTON AND VICE PRESIDENT GORE ARE BUILDING ON THEIR RECORD
OF ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH A NUMBER OF NEW COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
INITIATIVES THIS YEAR. While Americans are enjoying the fruits of our strong economy, we still
need to do more to improve conditions in underserved urban and rural communities and connect these
communities to the economic mainstream. To address this need, President Clinton and Vice President
Gore are working on several fronts:
The New Markets Initiative. President Clinton's FY 2000 balanced budget provides a new initiative
designed to create the conditions for economic success by prompting approximately $15 billion in new
investment in urban and rural areas through:
trade (Pange)
The New Markets Tax Credit. To help spur $6 billion in new equity capital, this tax credit is worth up
to 25 percent for investments in a wide range of vehicles serving these communities, including
community development banks, venture funds, and the new investment company programs created by
this initiative (see below). A wide-range of businesses could be financed by these investment funds,
including small technology firms, inner-city shopping centers, manufacturers with hundreds of
employees, and retail stores.
America's Private Investment Companies (APICs). Just as America's support for the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation helps promote growth in emerging markets abroad, APICs will encourage
introduced
private investment in America's untapped markets, by leveraging up to $1.5 billion in investment in
new development projects and businesses that are expanding or relocating in inner city and rural areas. Surbane
SBIC's Targeted to New Markets. For over 40 years, SBA's Small Business Investment Company
(SBIC) program has provided roughly $20 billion in equity and debt financing to more than 85,000
different companies, helping them to grow from small businesses to household names, like AOL and
Staples. However, too little of the capital invested has benefited our cities and rural distressed
communities. SBA now will be offering more flexibility and new financing terms for Small Business
Investment Companies (SBICs) that invest in underserved areas.
pope introded
New Markets Venture Capital (NMVC) Firms. NMVC firms will make both capital and expert
guidance available to small business entrepreneurs in inner-city and rural areas. Ten to twenty NMVC
firms are planned. SBA will match the equity and technical assistance of private investors.
(Valezquez)
Kerry
BusinessLINC. The President's FY 2000 budget includes seed money to expand Business LINC an
innovative public-private partnership launched by Vice President Gore in economically distressed
communities. BusinessLINC (Learning, Investment, Networking and Collaboration) is designed to
encourage large businesses to mentor small business owners and entrepreneurs.
Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. The budget proposes to expand
funding for the CDFI Fund to $125 million--a $30 million increase from 1999. The Fund increases
the availability of credit, investment capital, financial services, and other development services in
distressed communities.
Mreneyterinvestain not business
incentive for investment
New Markets Lending Companies (NMLC). For the first time in many years, SBA will approve
approximately 10 new non-bank lenders firms authorized to originate loans under SBA's largest
loan program - the 7(a) General Business Loan Guaranty program. Firms must have a strategy to
target lending to underserved areas.
Microenterprise Lending and Technical Assistance. Microenterprise initiatives in the FY 2000 budget
include the proposed PRIME Act, under which the CDFI Fund will provide microenterprise technical
assistance through competitive grants to microenterprise development organizations that focus on
low-income entrepreneurs. President Clinton's and Vice President Gore's proposal also includes a
doubling of support for technical assistance in SBA's Microloan Program and a doubling of support
for SBA lending to leverage over $75 million in new microlending.
Additional Initiatives Designed to Improve Conditions In Underserved Rural & Urban
Communities. President Clinton and Vice-President Gore have proposed the expansion or establishment
of the following additional initiatives designed to create the conditions for economic success by
encouraging new investment in urban and rural areas:
Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities. The FY 2000 budget proposes full funding for
ten years for the Second Round of Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities, which were
designated in January, 1999. This includes $100 million over ten years for urban EZs; $40 million
over ten years for rural EZs; and $3 million for rural ECs. The FY 2000 budget also includes $50
million to create a new Regional Empowerment Zone Program to assist 1st and 2nd urban EZ and ECs
in linking their economic development strategies to their broader regional economies.
Regional Connections. Regional Connections will provide competitive funding to States and
partnerships of local governments to develop and implement new, locally driven "smarter growth"
strategies that create more livable communities by addressing economic and community development
needs across jurisdictional lines. Regional Connections, will complement federal programs that
respond to growth and investment patterns. The budget proposes funding at $50 million in FY 2000.
The Economic Development Initiative and Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program. This program
supports economic development in distressed communities in conjunction with the Section 108 loan
guarantee program. In FY 2000 many projects will be eligible to participate in the Community
Empowerment Fund Trust, a pilot program, which will enable the pooling of loans and the creation of
a private sector secondary market for economic development loans. The CEF specifically targets
Welfare-to-Work and City-Suburb Business Connections.
Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. Since its creation in 1986, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit
(LIHTC) has given states tax credits of $1.25 per capita to allocate to affordable housing projects.
While building costs have increased 40 percent in the last decade, the credit has not been adjusted for
inflation. President Clinton and Vice President Gore propose to increase the cap on the LIHTC from
$1.25 per capita to $1.75 per capita
Helping America's Communities Redevelop Abandoned Buildings. Redevelopment of Abandoned
Buildings, would attack one of the primary causes of blight in urban neighborhoods: abandoned
apartment buildings, single-family homes, warehouses, office buildings, and commercial centers.
Under the proposal, HUD will provide $50 million in competitive grant funds in FY2000 to local
governments to support the demolition or deconstruction of blighted, abandoned buildings.
Withdrawal/Redaction Marker
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
AND TYPE
001. email
From Clara J. Shin to Terry Edmonds re: thanks (1 page)
08/31/99
P6/b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Speechwriting
Terry Edmonds
OA/Box Number: 17509
FOLDER TITLE:
Arkansas Delta/New Markets 12/10/99 [1]
2006-0462-F
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