Remarks at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 4, 1996

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to ask right here at the beginning that we give another round of applause not only to Irma Elder but to Juanita Bycraft Walker and to Gail Davis. The three of them represent the whole range of women's businesses in America today. Let's give them a hand. They were great. Thank you. [Applause]

Thank you. Let me say I am delighted to be back at Eastern Michigan, where I prepared for one of my debates in 1992. I had a great time here then, and I'm glad to be back now. I want to thank both the marching band and the concert band for playing for us today. Thank you very much.

And just on a purely personal point, I first heard of Eastern Michigan University a long time ago when I hired a young man from one of the poorest counties in America out of the Mississippi Delta, right on the river of the Mississippi in my home State, to work for me in the attorney general's office and later in the Governor's office, who told me he had been given his start in life when he got a football scholarship to Eastern Michigan University. And that young man, Rodney Slater, is now the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, investing billions of dollars in growing the American economy through infrastructure. So you can always be proud of your mission here and what you're doing and the opportunity you've given to people.

I'd like to thank Vice President Juanita Reid for making me feel so welcome today, and Michelle Vasquez, the executive director of the Ann Arbor Community Development Corporation. Senator and Mrs. Riegle, thank you for coming. Congressman Ford, thank you for coming. I'd like to acknowledge the presence here of the Director of the Small Business Administration, Phil Lader, and the head of the White House Office on Women's Affairs, Betsy Myers, who have both done a wonderful job for the women business owners of America. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator Carl Levin, for your speech and for your service to Michigan. And I have a great deal of confidence that you're going to get your service extended in 6 more days.

And I was looking at Lynn Rivers give her speech, and I thought, I wish everybody in America could see this woman give her talk, could hear her story. I wish everybody in America could meet her husband who's working down at the UAW - Ford plant down the road here and can't be here today. That represents what America is all about. The story that Irma told of her life represents what America's all about. The stories that Juanita and Gail told of their lives represent what America's all about.

I especially want to thank Lynn Rivers for not forgetting where she came from when she went to Congress and for voting to give every other person in America the same chance to make the most of his or her own life that she did.

I ran for this office 4 years ago with a vision of what our country should look like when we start the 21st century, a simple but profound one. I want every person in America, without regard to their background, to have a chance to live out their dreams if they're responsible enough to work for it. I want our country to keep leading the world for peace and freedom and prosperity. And I want us - and as I look around this room today I feel good about it - I want us to defy the trend that is bedeviling the rest of the world and say, we are not going to be consumed by our differences; we're going to celebrate our diversity and go forward together in an America where everybody has a chance to make it.

As Senator Levin said, we've had a good run of success in trying to turn the economy around. We have cut the deficit by 63 percent. We have seen America produce 10 1/2 million more jobs. We have seen an income increase of $1,600 for the typical family in the last 2 years. We know we have the lowest combined rates of unemployment, inflation, and home mortgages in 28 years, the biggest drop in inequality of incomes among working people in 27 years, the biggest drop in poverty among female-headed households in 30 years, the biggest drop in childhood poverty in 20 years. We're moving in the right direction, and that's a good thing. We know that small business has a lot to do with that.

One of the things that I'm proudest of is that this has happened while we have reduced the size of the Federal Government and increased the percentage of new jobs in America being created by the private sector. In each of the last 3 years, the number of new businesses started has reached record levels. This has included a surge in businesses owned by all kinds of Americans: more than 220,000 new Hispanic businesses, more than 100,000 new African-American businesses, the highest rate of business ownership in both minority groups ever recorded, and a record number of new small businesses owned by women.

Women are establishing businesses and creating new jobs at twice the national rate of business and job growth. One-third of all the businesses in our country, about 8 million companies now, are owned by women. They employ one in five of American workers. Here in Michigan, over a quarter of a million women-owned businesses employ over a half-million people. In 1992, women-owned businesses contributed $1.6 trillion to our economy. Today, in only 4 years, that number has grown to $2.3 trillion. I might say, there are a very, very few countries in the world that have an annual output of more than $2.3 trillion.