Bill Clinton: “Thank you. Well, first, Mayor Campbell, Mayor Jackson, Mayor Young, my friends, it's wonderful to be back in Atlanta. I…”

“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 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.]”