Bill Clinton: “And she's been offered a permanent job with the Social Security Administration after she graduates. Tonya Graham of…”

“And she's been offered a permanent job with the Social Security Administration after she graduates. Tonya Graham of Plainview, Texas, had a child when she was 16, went on welfare while attending college part-time. She found out about a job at the Social Security Administration through one of her professors. She left welfare the very month she was hired, finished her degree, and is now working full-time as a Social Security claims representative. These two women are examples that, not just for the Government but for the private and nonprofit sectors as well, if we give people who are on welfare the opportunity, they will do the rest, helping us to break the cycle of dependence and make responsibility a way of life. The decisions we make in this room today will enable thousands of more American families to remake their lives as Rebecca and Tonya have done. Together, we have already reduced the welfare rolls by 2.8 million; that is the greatest reduction in our history. Now we have to finish the job, and the Federal Government has to do its part by offering jobs to at least 10,000 more welfare recipients over the next 4 years. We can elevate our most fundamental values of family and work and responsibility and make welfare reform work. Now I'd like to ask the Vice President, who has done so much to reinvent our Government and who spearheaded this effort to get all the agencies together around this number, and ask him to say a few words. [At this point, the Vice President made brief remarks.]”