I do hereby proclaim to Dennis Conner and the crew of Stars and Stripes the heartfelt congratulations and appreciation of our Nation for a job well done.

welfare reform is not just important but vital—vital to our economic well-being; vital, indeed, to our self-respect as a nation.

the only true measure of a welfare program's success is how many people it makes independent of welfare.

Our goal instead must be to establish a process that allows states and communities to implement their own anti-poverty ideas based on their own unique circumstances.

We can and must do better.

I applaud those efforts, and want to begin a process to encourage many more of these state and community-based reform efforts.

Together we must persuade Congress to provide you the tools necessary to create a better life for Americans in need.

The sad truth is that, despite our best intentions, the welfare system is failing; the system traps people in a cycle of dependency that robs them of dignity.

I call upon all Americans to join the National Conference of Christians and Jews in celebrating the vibrant, richly diverse society the Constitution has made possible in America.

The principles it embodies are timeless: protection of the individual against the state.

Those prayers, and millions like them, will always keep our country secure and make her a force for good.