Bill Clinton: “If I could just make one point on that. Next to education and child care, the thing we hear most all around the country…”

“If I could just make one point on that. Next to education and child care, the thing we hear most all around the country from people who seek to move from welfare to work or very often even to go to college is whether they have adequate transportation. And this ISTEA act that Lew just mentioned, which is--it took me a long time to remember what all those little letters were for. But the bottom line is, I asked the new Secretary of Transportation, Rodney Slater, to look at that to see that we were allocating enough money in here not only for mass transit but also for the appropriate subsidies to make sure that poor people could have access to this. Otherwise they won't be able to get to work. And this is an interesting opportunity for New York to make an alliance with smaller cities. For example, there was just a study on Atlanta, which said that in--something like 80 percent of the entry- level jobs in the city of Atlanta were filled by people who lived in low-income neighborhoods in Atlanta. In the suburban towns outside, just that touch Atlanta, only 55 percent were. And it was clearly the result of the inadequate ability of low-income people to access transportation to get there. So this is a huge issue, Lou. It's a huge issue for welfare reform and basically for the integrity of poor families to be able to sort of aspire and move and do things. Senator, were you going to say something about this? Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Yes. We very much appreciate your endorsing the existing formula, Mr. President. [Laughter]”