Remarks in a roundtable discussion on small business development in Phoenix, Arizona

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, July 12, 1999

July 7, 1999

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, DC. 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.

I'd like to thank the Reverend Jesse Jackson for coming on this tour with me, along with the business leaders; thank you. 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.

I'd like to thank the business leaders here with me: Leo Guzman, Marianne Spraggins, Gene Humphrey of Enron, Steven Burd of Safeway, John Corella of Corella Electric, Myrna Sonora of KTVW 33 - some of you probably watch that - [laughter] - Mike Welborn of Bank One, Andy Gordon of Arizona Multibank, Frank Ballasteros of MICRO, Leonard Moreno of Mareno Welding, Yolanda Kaizer 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 group.

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 or 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 - 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 6 1/2 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.

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.