[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[May 11, 1999]
[Pages 738-743]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on New Markets in Atlanta, Georgia
May 11, 1999

    The President. Thank you. Well, first, Mayor Campbell, Mayor Jackson, Mayor 
Young, my friends, it's wonderful to be back in 
Atlanta. I will be very brief because I want to spend most of my time 
listening to our panelists, but I'd like to try to put what the mayor 
has said into the perspective of what we're trying to do with our 
administration. And I have with me our Housing and Urban Development 
Secretary Andrew Cuomo; our Small Business 
Administrator Aida Alvarez; my Deputy Chief of 
Staff Maria Echaveste. We had other members 
of the Cabinet with us earlier today, along with my National Economic 
Adviser, Gene Sperling, who helped to put this 
whole event today together.
    But let me try to tell you why I'm here. When I became President in 
1993 I had traveled around America and I had seen with my own eyes for 
many years, as a Governor and then as a candidate for President, people 
able to start businesses in places that had high unemployment or low 
income or other economic problems, if they just had access to capital 
and they had the right technical support, marketing support, loan 
guarantees, or whatever.
    So when we started our administration we put into our first economic 
plan this whole idea of empowerment zones which would give tax credits, 
loan guarantees, technical assistance, and direct investment, and 
community development financial institutions which would make direct

[[Page 739]]

loans to people who otherwise might not have access to them.
    We've also been greatly aided in this national endeavor by some of 
our own financial institutions, and I think the leading one plainly has 
been NationsBank in terms of what you have done to try to loan money to 
people who couldn't get it otherwise.
    Now, after 6 years, watching these empowerment zones work, we can 
see examples like this. But what I want to say to you now is, I think 
it's important that we try to take this example to the whole Nation. Our 
economy now is in the best shape it's been in at least a generation; 
some people think it's the best economy America has ever had. We have 
the lowest recorded rates of unemployment since we've been keeping 
separate statistics for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans. We 
have record numbers of new small businesses starting in each of the last 
6 years. We've got the lowest peacetime unemployment since 1957.
    Now, that's all good, but we also know that we have neighborhoods in 
big cities, we have small- and medium-sized cities, we have rural areas 
and Native American reservations where there has been almost no new 
investment, almost no new businesses, almost no new jobs. So I am trying 
to highlight, first of all, for the American people, you and people like 
you all over the country, so people will know this can be done.
    Secondly, I'm trying to build support for an initiative I have 
before the Congress now, which is called the new markets initiative, 
designed to give tax credits to people who put equity money, investment 
money, into low per capita income areas, high unemployment areas in our 
country, and to provide loan guarantees, up to two-thirds of the total 
investment for people who will do that, and to increase our community 
development loaning all over the country, not just in the empowerment 
zones, because I believe we ought not to leave anybody behind when we go 
into the 21st century. I think that every American who is willing to 
work ought to have a chance to do it.
    And so, that's why I'm here. I want people to see you and believe it 
can be done in their neighborhoods, in their communities, rural or 
urban. I want to listen to you, and I want to try to build support.
    The last point I want to make is, in July I am going to take 2 or 3 
days and go to places in America that need this help and try to 
highlight for the American people, in the midst of all our prosperity, 
both the obligation and the opportunity we have to do better. And I'm 
going to ask the American business leaders to help me. And a lot of 
these folks came with me today from all over the country. I just want to 
mention who is here. They're all the leaders of their various 
organizations.
    Duane Ackerman from Bell South and Dan 
Amos from AFLAC, both of Georgia; Don 
Carty of American Airlines; Emma 
Chappell of the United Bank of Philadelphia; 
Jon Corzine of Goldman Sachs; Ted 
Gifford of Bank of Boston; Martin 
Grass of Rite Aid; Dan Hesse, AT&T Wireless; Richard Huber, Aetna; Debra Lee of BET; Leo 
Mullin of Delta Airlines, another home base here; 
Frank Newman of Bankers Trust; Maceo 
Sloan of Sloan Financial Group; Sy 
Sternberg of New York Life; and Sandy 
Weill, head of Citigroup. I'd like to ask 
all them to stand. They are giving a day of their lives to try to help 
replicate this elsewhere, and we thank them. [Applause]
    Now, that's enough of our talk. We want to hear from you. Who would 
like to go first? I also want to say, I've got some of this good coffee 
from the Cameroon, and I gave myself a refill on the way out here; I 
hope you'll forgive me. And I had a little of that sweet potato 
cheesecake, and I have lifted things from almost every entrepreneur 
here. This is a beautiful market, and I want to thank all of those who 
had anything to do with it. This is something the entire city can be 
proud of, and especially because of its roots to the rich history of 
20th century Atlanta. So I'm very pleased.
    But I would like to hear from all of you now. Who would like to go 
first and talk about what your experience was, how you got your business 
started, or what progress has been made here? Would you like to start?

[Jason Slaughter, president and chief 
executive officer, S&W International Food Specialties, thanked the 
President and stated that if people were given opportunities, they would 
do well. He explained how his business had been helped by the 
empowerment zones, the welfare to work program, and the Small Business 
Administration, saying it had grown from a $150,000 company with 12 
employees to a $13 million company with over 60 employees in 3\1/2\ 
years.]

[[Page 740]]

    The President. Give him another hand. 
That was great. [Applause] You were great. Jason, you might be 
interested to know that earlier today when we were meeting in the White 
House, a lot of these business leaders--and many of them have thousands 
and thousands of employees--but they repeatedly said to us, ``Look, what 
we've got to do is to get capital out there to folks. They need that 
more than anything else. If they can get that first investment money--
because you can't borrow it all unless you're able to put something up--
that will make a big difference.''
    And you're living proof of it. The way I 
figure it, if you can keep growing at this rate, by the time I'm ready 
to draw Social Security you will be a billionaire, and you can hire me 
to sort of work in my off hours. [Laughter] I accept right now in 
advance. I'll be here. You get ready. That's great.
    Would you like to talk a little bit about the role of your bank here 
and what you're trying to do?

[NationsBank representative Sally Adams Daniels stated that the bank had opened its community 
development operation in 1993 and had redeveloped over 4,200 units of 
affordable housing in Atlanta through partnerships with local community 
development corporations.]

    The President. Let me say, many years ago, before I ever became 
President, my wife and I had a long talk one night with Hugh 
McColl about investment in low income 
areas in America. And we told him--we talked about the Grameen Bank in 
Bangladesh, which basically was the pioneering bank in the Third World, 
starting very poor people out in businesses and actually making good 
money doing that.
    And both Hillary and I at various times in the last, probably 10 
years, have had other conversations with him about it and then with 
others involved with NationsBank. But I was particularly pleased that 
not long after you announced your merger plans, that the bank's 10-year 
plan for reinvestment in communities, including direct loans to provide 
initial capital to people who otherwise wouldn't have it, was announced.
    And I want to tell you I very much appreciate that. I think it will 
make a huge difference. These people prove that they need a hand up, and 
they do right well if they get it.
    Vivian, would you like to talk about your experience?

[Vivian Reid, owner of the Kaffee Shop, 
described how she and family members had started the business, which 
thrived, in part, because new market initiatives had provided others in 
the area with the means to support each other.]

    The President. Thank you. Let me say, I think you hit on an important point, because I can just say, I 
was really looking forward to coming down here because I've always loved 
Atlanta and I love the history of the place. But when I got here, I saw 
a lot of things I didn't know were here, so I think you do need a 
marketing plan that tells people what it's like now and where you're 
going with it.
    You know, you had so many different kinds of just food 
establishments, just different kinds. And the other thing that impressed 
me--you talked about the family businesses--the other thing that 
impressed me was the diversity of people working here. You have a lot of 
Asian-American families here. You have--there is a lady back there who 
is in a food store who told me she is from Ghana, and she said 
``Akwaaba''--when I saw the Ghana word for welcome, which I first heard 
about a half a million people in Accra--and I think this is something 
that ought to be highlighted, that there are people here from all over 
the world, so that you get the best of Atlanta's past and a picture of 
Atlanta's future here. And I think there is a way for you to market it 
that would even increase the rate of growth that the merchants are 
enjoying.
    That's what I'm going to do when I get out of the White House, go 
around and give people advice like this.
    Go ahead. Ken.

[Kenneth Bleakley, executive director, 
North Yards Business Park, stated that his organization wanted to try to 
create more jobs in the inner city as one of the legacies of the Olympic 
Games. He described how they had been successful with the help of the 
empowerment zone program and environmental funding from the Department 
of Housing and Urban Development.]

    The President. Give him a hand. That 
was great. [Applause] I would like to emphasize just one of the points 
that Ken made. And that is the funds the Federal Government put into 
environmental cleanup. Most people don't ever

[[Page 741]]

think about this as an economic development issue. But one of the things 
that has retarded the comeback of many areas in our cities are so-called 
brownfields, areas that have been subject to some measure of 
environmental pollution and areas, therefore, that can't get new 
investment and new support and can't even very often get permits to do 
what people want to do unless the cleanup is done.
    But if the people who want to put the plan in or the business in 
have to bear the cleanup costs, then the financing doesn't work out. 
There's no reasonable way they can make the economics of their business 
work in the early years. So this is something the Vice President pointed out to me fairly early on in our work 
together, because he was heading this empowerment task force that we 
had. And we've spent a lot of time and effort trying to give communities 
funds to clean up the brownfields, because--and it's just breathtaking 
what we've found happens, the way it sort of cascades on itself--the 
money. And I appreciate what you're doing.
    Mr. Bleakley. Thank you.
    The President. And congratulations to you, too. That's great.
    Now, this is my cheesecake lady who 
destroyed my diet today, and I loved every bite of it. Do you want to 
tell us a little about your experience here and how you got started and 
what you're doing?

[Sonya Jones, owner of the Sweet Auburn Bread 
Co., stated that the empowerment zone agencies were very aggressive in 
helping clients get projects off the ground. She described her problems 
getting qualified employees, citing the need to offer benefits to 
attract them.]

    The President. Let me ask you this: Are the 
principal needs you have, to attract and keep good employees, child care 
and health care?
    Ms. Jones. Definitely.
    The President. Those are the principal ones?
    Ms. Jones. Yes.
    The President. One more than the other?
    Ms. Jones. They're right together, actually, 
I would say.
    The President. I do believe this year, at the end of the year when 
Congress has to pass the budget, I still think we have quite a good 
chance to pass our health care initiative--I mean our child care 
initiative, which would provide more tax credits and more direct 
subsidies for people with modest incomes to afford quality child care. 
And one of the things--there must be a child care center very close to 
this market with all these people down here. If there's not, that's 
something that ought to be looked at. But when you get a certain number 
of employees in the market and then people near here, you may be able to 
quite economically establish something for the neighborhood if there's 
not.
    But if we pass this program, people like the people who would get a 
job working for you will have access to a lot more financial help to pay 
for that child care.
    On the health care side, I really believe the only places that I 
know that have been really, really successful at this are people that 
have offered pool coverage to small businesses so, in effect, both the 
employers and the employees can buy health care at the same cost, more 
or less, per person that some of these large employers can. I don't 
think there is presently available another alternative to that, and so I 
think it's--except for when some States allow people who make relatively 
low incomes to buy into the Medicare/Medicaid program for--you know, 
they pay something but not the full range.
    Those are the only two options that I'm aware of. But if there's not 
such a pooled arrangement here in this area, that's the next thing you 
ought to try to get the empowerment zone to organize. They can't do it 
until they have a certain number of employees, because it doesn't work 
economically. But once you cross a certain threshold with a certain 
profile for the employees, and a lot of them are young restaurant 
workers and healthy--you know, for example, you can do this and make the 
economics work. So that's something I think the empowerment zone can do.
    Mr. Aderhold, do you want to say something there?

[Mr. John E. Aderhold, chairman, Aderhold 
Properties, Inc., pointed out that the community did have a day care 
center, but that it operated on a small scale and needed to be 
expanded.]

    The President. You know, it's very interesting. One of the things 
that--I saw a study of Georgia about--oh, this was 6-8 months ago, we 
were looking at the impact of the welfare reform law. And at the time, 
one of the big problems was that Georgia was growing jobs like crazy, 
but most of them were growing in the suburbs. And

[[Page 742]]

most of the people who were losing their welfare benefits lived in the 
cities, and there wasn't an adequate transportation link.
    Here's something that's been done here that has the potential to 
grow where are all of you are working folks in the urban areas. And 
there may be some way that the State's welfare reform program--and I 
think the person who ran it at least for Governor Miller is here--I 
don't know if the commissioner is here 
or not, but he was out at the airport. But there may be some way that 
they can use some of the money that they still have from welfare reform 
to subsidize child care centers in the city of Atlanta around here.
    Because when we--when I signed the welfare reform bill, one of the 
things we did was we gave every State the amount of money they were 
receiving in February of 1994, when welfare caseloads were at an all-
time high. Now, they have dropped more than at any period in history. 
They're almost 50 percent lower than they were in February of '94. The 
State still has that dollar amount. So they've got the same amount of 
money they had then, minus inflation, which hasn't been very much. So it 
may be that you could go there and try to get them to help the 
empowerment zone locate child care here for you.
    Mr. Aderhold?

[Mr. Aderhold described how the Fulton 
Cotton Mill project had progressed, renovating 12 acres of dilapidated 
territory and converting it into an area which was helping to draw 
people back into the city.]

    The President. Well, thank you for 
taking a chance on it. And I think that, if someone like you is willing 
to take a chance of that magnitude, at least the modest amounts of money 
that the Government put up is the least we can do to share the early 
risk.

[Mr. Aderhold then added that the way the 
city cooperated in dispensing the funds was key to the project's 
success, and he thanked Mayor Bill Campbell of 
Atlanta for his assistance.]

    The President. Thank you. [Applause] Yes, give them a hand. That's 
great.
    I didn't mention this earlier, but we are having, 2 weeks from 
today--maybe, and maybe it starts 2 weeks from yesterday; but either 2 
weeks from yesterday or today, we're having our annual empowerment zone 
and enterprise community national convention that the Vice President 
hosts, and we're doing it in south Texas 
this year, in a small town, rural empowerment zone area we had down 
there. I think it's in McAllen. And it's a great place to go if you've 
never been there.
    And we're going to all gather down there, and, Mayor, if either you're going, or whoever is going from Atlanta 
representing you--I'm sure you'll be represented there--I think the 
point that John just made is one that ought to be made there. Because we 
have now had enough experience with these empowerment zones that we can 
see differences in the rate of effectiveness. And I think this is a 
point that ought to be hammered home.
    So if either you go, or if you will instruct whoever is going on 
behalf of Atlanta to make that point, I'd appreciate it.
    Tricia?
    Tricia Donegan. Hi, welcome. Thanks for 
coming to Atlanta. You're the first guy to get me off a day of work so--
[laughter]--since we've opened.
    The President. Glad to do it.

[Tricia Donegan, owner of the Eureka 
Restaurant, described how she had started her restaurant business in 
1995, with assistance from Federal funds to help get it off the ground, 
and how it was expanding into other empowerment zones in the city.]

    The President. Thank you, that was great. 
I said this morning when I was meeting with all the CEO's, I don't think 
any of us ever conceived this as a charitable operation. We thought that 
if we could build a community where everybody had a chance to make a 
living, that it would help all the rest of us, that we would all be 
stronger if people who were willing to work and had skills and had gifts 
to give to the community had a chance to do it and be paid an 
appropriate amount for it.
    I think that this is a--it is really--America is very good at 
creating jobs. And compared to almost every other country in the world 
with an advanced economy, we've got a very low unemployment rate. But we 
still have a problem when places have been down for a long time, going 
back and getting that economic opportunity there and bringing people 
into the circle of success.
    And if we can't do it now when the economy is good, we'll never get 
around to doing it. So

[[Page 743]]

that's why I wanted people to see and hear all of your stories and your 
philosophy and see how this can work, because this is what we would like 
to do in every community in America where it is not now being done.
    Mr. Mayor?

[Mayor Campbell thanked the President for 
bringing the business leaders to see how the inner city was flourishing. 
He stated that the President's urban policy, whether the COPS program or 
the empowerment zones, had effectively contributed to the city's growth 
and well-being.]

    The President. Let's give all our participants a hand here. They're 
great. Thank you. Great job.

Note: The discussion began at 2:55 p.m. at the Sweet Auburn Market. In 
his remarks, the President referred to Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young, 
former mayors of Atlanta; F. Duane Ackerman, chairman and chief 
executive officer, Bell South; Daniel P. Amos, president and chief 
executive officer, AFLAC, Inc.; Donald J. Carty, chairman, president, 
and chief executive officer, American Airlines; Emma Chappell, chairman, 
president, and chief executive officer, United Bank of Philadelphia; Jon 
Stevens Corzine, chairman, Goldman Sachs; Charles K. Gifford, chairman 
and chief executive officer, Bank of Boston; Martin Grass, chairman and 
chief executive officer, Rite Aid Corp.; Dan Hesse, president and chief 
executive officer, AT&T Wireless; Richard L. Huber, chairman, president, 
and chief executive officer, Aetna, Inc.; Debra Lee, president and chief 
operating officer, BET Holdings; Leo Mullin, president, chairman, and 
chief executive officer, Delta Airlines; Frank Newman, chairman and 
chief executive officer, Bankers Trust; Maceo Sloan, chairman, 
president, and chief executive officer, Sloan Financial Group; Sy 
Sternberg, chairman, president, and chief executive officer, New York 
Life; Sanford I. Weill, chairman and co-chief executive officer, 
Citigroup, Inc.; Hugh L. McColl, Jr., chairman and chief executive 
officer, Bank of America Corp.; and Georgia Commissioner of Labor 
Michael L. Thurmond, who had been director, Division of Family and 
Children Services, Georgia Department of Human Resources, under former 
Gov. Zell Miller. The transcript released by the Office of the Press 
Secretary also included the remarks of the roundtable participants.