***** Reformatted. Please distribute. CLINTON/GORE ON REWARDING WORK For twelve years the Republicans in Washington have praised the virtue of hard work, but they have hurt hard-working Americans. They have talked about family values, but their policies show they don't really value families. They have pledged to reform welfare, but they have no plan to put people back to work. They have put their elections first and people last. Millions of Americans have paid the price. Wages are flat, good jobs are scarce, and poverty has exploded. Today almost one of every five people who works full-time doesn't earn enough to keep his or her family above the poverty level. Almost one of every five children lives in poverty -- a million more than ten years ago. And because of deadbeat spouses, more than one of every five single parents doesn't get adequate child support. It is time to honor and reward people who work hard and play by the rules. That means ending welfare as we know it -- not by punishing the poor or preaching to them, but by empowering Americans to take care of their children and improve their lives. No one who works full-time and has children at home should be poor any more. No one who can work should be able to stay on welfare forever. We can provide opportunity, demand responsibility, and end welfare as we know it. We can give every American hope for the future. End welfare as we know it * Empower people with the education, training and child care they need for up to two years so they can break the cycle of dependency: expand programs to help people learn to read, get their high school diplomas or equivalency degrees, and acquire specific job skills; and ensure that their children are cared for while they learn. * After two years, require those who can work to go to work, either in the private sector or in community service: provide placement assistance to help everyone find a job, and give the people who can't find one a dignified and meaningful community service job. * Actively promote state models that work, like Arkansas Project Success. * Guarantee affordable, quality health care to every American so nobody is forced to stay on welfare because going back to work would mean losing their medical insurance. * Sign into law the Family and Medical Leave Act, which President Bush has vetoed, to give workers the right to take twelve weeks of unpaid leave to care for newborn children or sick family members a right enjoyed by workers in every other advanced industrial nation. Guarantee a working wage * Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit so that no one with a family who works full-time has to raise their children in poverty; make up the difference between a families' earnings and the poverty level. * Increase the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation and enforce the prevailing wage protections contained in the Davis-Bacon Act. * Create a national apprenticeship program by bringing business, labor and education leaders together to offer non college-bound students valuable skills training, with the promise of good jobs when they graduate. * Require every employer to spend 1.5 percent of payroll for continuing education and training and provide training to all workers, not just executives. Help low-income Americans build savings * Enable low-income Americans to set up Individual Development Accounts to save for specific purposes such as post-secondary education, home ownership, retirement and small business start-ups. * Eliminate foolish regulations that discourage people receiving income maintenance from saving. Its a travesty that people on welfare who want to do right by themselves and their families can't because the government won't let them. Stimulate investment in inner city and rural areas * Establish a nationwide network of community development banks, modeled on the successful South Shore Bank in Chicago and Southern Development Bancorporation in Arkansas, to provide loans to low-income entrepreneurs and homeowners in the inner cities. These banks will also provide advice and assistance to entrepreneurs, invest in affordable housing, and help mobilize private lenders. * Create urban enterprise zones in stagnant inner cities, but only for companies willing to take responsibility: minimize business taxes and federal regulations to provide incentives to set up shop and in return, require companies to make jobs for local residents a top priority. * Ease the credit crunch in our inner cities by passing a more progressive Community Reinvestment Act to prevent redlining, and requiring financial institutions to invest in their communities. Educate our children * Expand innovative parenting programs like Arkansas Home Instructional Program for Pre-School Youngsters, which helps disadvantaged parents work with their children to build an ethic of learning at home that benefits both. * Fully fund Head Start, WIC, and other initiatives recommended by the National Commission on Children that will help send our children to school ready to learn programs that save the government several dollars for every one it spends. * Make educational opportunity a reality by increasing Chapter One funding for schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods, setting tough standards, and helping communities open Youth Opportunity Centers for dropouts who need a second chance. * Give every American the right to borrow money for college by scrapping the existing student loan program and establishing a National Service Trust Fund. Those who borrow from the fund will be able to choose how to repay the balance: either as a small percentage of their earnings over time, or by serving their communities for one or two years doing work their country needs. Crack down on deadbeat parents * Report them to credit agencies, so they cant borrow money for themselves when they're not taking care of their children. * Use the Internal Revenue Service to help collect child support. * Start a national deadbeat databank to enable law enforcement officers track down negligent parents more easily. * Make it a felony to cross state lines to avoid paying child support. The Record * Governor Clinton was a driving force in writing the Family Support Act of 1988, for which Al Gore voted, and which emphasizes work, child support and family benefits, and encourages and assists needy children and parents in obtaining the education, training and employment they need to avoid long-term welfare dependence. * Instituted a welfare-to-work program, Project Success, which was one of the first three such programs to be implemented. * Lifted people out of poverty by removing more than 370,000 low- and lower-middle income Arkansans from the tax rolls. * Eliminated taxes for 252,000 low-income taxpayers, and reduced taxes for another 120,000 lower middle-income Arkansans. More than one-third of all Arkansas tax payers got tax relief from this measure. * Secured private support for the establishment of the Southern Development Bancorporation now widely cited as a model in rural economic development. Through affiliate companies, the SDB provides development capital and marketing and management training for small businesses and low-income people. * Established the first statewide Home Instructional Program for Pre-School Youngsters (HIPPY) in the nation. HIPPY teaches parents how to teach their children to read and similar programs have been established in other states around the nation. * Raised standards for licensing child care centers, hired more state inspectors to insure that those standards are enforced, established a training fund to train child care workers, and created a loan guarantee fund to support the development of additional child care centers. * Sharply increased funding for education and reformed schools by requiring students, teachers, and schools to meet tough standards; establishing a tough new curriculum; improving parental involvement and raising teacher salaries. Under a new program, students who drop out of school for no good reason lose their drivers licenses. * Guided Arkansas to the highest high school graduation rate in the region; increased the college-going rate from 38.2 in 1982 to 51.3 in 1991; and increased scoring on standardized tests. * Led Arkansas Child Support Enforcement Unit in sharply increased collections from deadbeat parents -- $41 million in 1991. The Unit has received national recognition. * Senator Gore cosponsored the Family and Medical Leave Act. * Voted to expand appropriations for Head Start, child support enforcement, family violence prevention, and Pell Grants. * Voted for the Workplace Fairness Act to ban permanent replacement of striking workers and preserve the collective bargaining process. * Voted for Unemployment Compensation which provides an additional 13 weeks of extended benefits to unemployed workers. * Cosponsored the Child Welfare and Preventive Services Act which amends the titles of the Social Security Act to establish innovative child welfare and family support services in order to strengthen families.