Communications to Congress-Continued Libya, message reporting-1231 Romania, message transmitting report on Trinidad and Tobago-U.S. investment treaty, Religious expression in public schools, Interviews With the News Media State Dining Room-1217 See also Appointments and Nominations Older Americans Act-1241 Supplementary Materials Acts approved by the President-1244 Digest of other White House announcements-1241 Nominations submitted to the Senate-1242 WEEKLY COMPILATION OF PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS Published every Monday by the Office of the Federal Reg- The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents is pub- regulations prescribed by the Administrative Committee of the Distribution is made only by the Superintendent of Docu- ments. Week Ending Friday, July 14, 1995 The President's Radio Address Good morning. Last week I spoke to you about the need for Congress to pass reforms to end welfare as we know it. I want Congress to send me a bill that requires work, demands responsibility, and provides the child care people need to move from welfare to work. This issue is now before the U.S. Senate. The truth is, Republicans and Democrats alike know what's needed to get this job done. A majority of Senators in both parties agree with me that welfare reform must require everyone who can work to go to work. We agree on the need for the toughest possible child support enforcement. And we agree that no one who can work should be able to stay on welfare forever. So we are close. Congress could put a bill on my desk, a good bill, within the next few weeks. After a generation of debate, we have a chance, finally, to do what's right for the taxpayers who pay for a failed welfare system and for the people who are trapped by it. But in recent days we've seen unsettling signs that progress could fall to gridlock. This week, Republican leaders said that a threat from the far right in their own party could keep them from passing a welfare reform bill this year. A handful of Senators are threatening to hold welfare reform hostage to their own political views. They're threatening to block a vote on any bill that doesn't cut off all help to children whose mothers are poor, young, and unmarried. I believe their position is wrong. Republican and Democratic Governors also strongly oppose Washington telling them to throw children off the rolls simply because their parents are under 18 and unmarried. And the Catholic Church has taken a very strong position on this, fearing that to cut young people under 18 and their children off welfare would lead to more abortions. This ap proach also would punish the innocent children of unmarried teenagers for the mistakes of their parents. This might cut spending on welfare, but it wouldn't reform welfare to promote work and responsible parenting. That's why so many Republicans and Democrats oppose it. The threat of the Senators to take this extreme position and block this welfare reform effort is just wrong. We've come a long way in the welfare reform debate in the last few years. Not so very long ago, many liberals opposed requiring all welfare recipients who can work to do so. And not so long ago, most conservatives thought the Government shouldn't spend money on child care to give welfare mothers a chance to go to work and still be good parents. Now we have a broad consensus for both. We should do both, and we shouldn't allow welfare reform to be held prisoner to ideological political debates. I ran for President to bring new opportunity to the American people and demand more responsibility in return. That's what I call the New Covenant. And welfare reform is a crucial part of this effort. We are now at an historic moment. The failure to pass welfare reform this year would be a disservice to the American people. It shouldn't become another victim to the politics of gridlock. Republicans and Democrats alike have a real responsibility to bring real change to Washington, and a bipartisan majority in the Senate is prepared to vote for a welfare reform bill with time limits and real work requirements and without moralistic dictates that will do more harm than good. A few days ago, in a speech at Georgetown University, I said our leaders have to stop looking only for political advantage and start looking for common ground. I challenged our leaders to do four things: First, we need more conversation and less combat. So let's settle our differences on welfare reform without resorting to legislative trench warfare designed to stop real reform at any cost. Sec 1209 ond, when we do differ, we ought to offer an alternative. When the vast majority of Americans and Members of Congress agree on an issue like welfare reform, a small minority shouldn't be able to get away with "just say no" politics. Third, we ought to look at our problems with a view toward the longterm. Moving people from welfare to work will save a lot more money in the long run than throwing children off the rolls. They'll be in trouble, and they'll cost us a lot of money in the long run and a lot of our national life as well. We are never going to end welfare unless people have the training and child care to be good workers and good parents. And finally, we shouldn't just berate the worst in America, we ought to spend more time concentrating on the best. That's what I have done, by giving 29 States the freedom from burdensome Federal Government regulations so they can lead the way in helping to find new ways to end welfare. The only way our country can meet the profound challenges of the 21st century and the global economy is if we all pull together and we all look forward. We don't have a person to waste. That's why welfare reform is so critical. We can't afford to filibuster away our future. So I say to those in Congress who have joined me in demanding responsibility from people on welfare, you have a responsibility, too. Don't place pride of partisanship ahead of our national pride. Don't pander to the partisan extremes. Let's not let politics stand in the way of making work and responsibility a way of life for the next generation. Thanks for listening. NOTE: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Oval Office at the White House. Remarks at the Opening of Session I of the Family and Media Conference in Nashville, Tennessee July 10, 1995 Thank you very much. I thought it might be nice to stop by here after having done my primary duty, which was delivering the soup to Mrs. Gore. [Laughter] I'm delighted to be here, Governor, Mayor, Senator, Members of Congress. To Representative Purcell and the other distinguished members of the Tennessee Legislature who are here, Dr. Erickson, and to all of you, let me say that I came here primarily to listen. And I find that I always learn a lot more when I'm listening than when I'm talking, so I will be quite brief. I want to say a few things, however. First, I want to thank Al and Tipper Gore for their lifetime of devotion not only to their family but to the families of this State and this Nation, as manifested by this Family Reunion, the fourth such one, something they have done in a careful and sustained way. It's already been mentioned twice that Tipper has worked on the whole issue that we're here to discuss today for many, many years, never in the context of politics but always in the context of what's good for families and what we can do to move the ball forward for our children and for our future. And I think this country owes them a great debt of gratitude. And I'm glad to be here. Secondly, I'd just like to frame this issue as it appears to me as President and as a parent. I gave a speech at Georgetown a few days ago in which I pointed out that the world in which I grew up, the world after World War II, was basically shaped by two great ideas: the middle class dream, that if you work hard you'll get ahead and your kids can do better than you did; and middle class values, that of family and community and responsibility and trustworthiness, and that both of those things were at some considerable risk today as we move out of the cold war into the global economy and the whole way we live and work is subject to sweeping challenge. The family is the focus of both middle class dreams and middle class values, for it is the center around which we organize child rearing our country's most important responsibility-and work. And how we work determines how we live and what will become of us over the long run. We have seen enormous changes in both work and child rearing in the last several years. We know now that a much higher percentage of our children live in poverty, particularly in the last 10 years, even as we have a percentage of elderly people in poverty going below that of the general population |