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Winning enactment of the largest deficit-cutting plan in
history with his 1993 economic package. The President's policies have
cut the deficit by more than half, and our growing economy has created
10.5 million new jobs. We have the lowest combined rate of
unemployment, inflation, and mortgage rates since 1968 and the highest
level of home ownership in 15 years. Unemployment among adult African
Americans has dropped to one of the lowest rates in 20 years and
incomes of African-American households are up 5
percent. |
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Providing incentives to create over 100,000 new
African-American businesses. The Clinton Administration has made new
tax cuts available to 90 percent of all small
businesses. |
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Appointing the most diverse Cabinet and Administration in
history. Members of the Clinton Cabinet include two African Americans.
Fourteen percent of all Administration appointees are African
American. More African Americans (45) serve in the White House now
than at any time in history. The President has nominated 42 African
Americans to the federal bench -- over 18 percent of his total federal
bench nominations. |
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Signing the Health Insurance Reform Act (Kassebaum-Kennedy
Bill) to expand and protect access to health insurance by limiting
exclusions for pre-existing conditions and by allowing individuals to
take their health insurance with them when they change or lose their
jobs. |
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Fighting for and signing into law the first increase in
the minimum wage in five years to reward work and
responsibility. |
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Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to provide
tax relief for 15 million working families. In 1994, the EITC lifted
over 350,000 African Americans out of poverty. |
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Increasing Head Start funding by almost $800 million,
providing early education to tens of thousands of additional
children. |
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Reforming the student loan program, making college more
affordable this year for millions of students by giving them access to
flexible repayment options. |
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Creating AmeriCorps, the President's national service
initiative, to give young people the opportunity to earn money for
college by serving their communities -- African Americans comprise
one-third of all participants. |
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Increasing funding for Historically Black Colleges by
nearly 25%. |
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Signing into law the Goals 2000 Act, which supports the
development of standards of excellence for students and encourages
grassroots reforms to improve our schools. |
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Implementing the School-to-Work Act to broaden
educational, career, and economic opportunities for students not
immediately bound for four-year colleges. |
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Helping connect every American classroom to the
Information Superhighway by the year 2000. |
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Ordering a review of the government's affirmative action
programs that concluded that affirmative action remains an effective
and important tool to expand educational and economic
opportunity. |
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Filing more cases in three years to enforce fair housing
laws than ever before -- a record 457 cases. |
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Signing into law the toughest, most comprehensive Crime
Bill ever, putting 100,000 new police on the street and banning 19
different kinds of assault weapons. The Brady Bill has kept more than
60,000 fugitives, felons, and other criminals from buying
guns. |
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Establishing a Childhood Immunization Initiative to ensure
vaccinations and healthier futures for children. |
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Fighting for full funding for the Women, Infants, and
Children Program (WIC). |
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Creating nine Economic Empowerment Zones and 95 Enterprise
Communities. The President has also signed the Community Development
Banking Bill to create community banks in low- and moderate-income
communities. He made permanent the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and
Mortgage Revenue Bond Program. |
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Collecting a record $11 billion in child support through
enforcement in 1995 -- an increase of nearly 40 percent since
1992. |
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Increasing adoption and foster care funds by almost $600
million from 1994 to 1995. |
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Reforming the Community Reinvestment Act, helping increase
the number of mortgage loans to African Americans by 55 percent from
1993 to 1994. |
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Ending welfare as we know it by signing the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. This bill includes
time-limits and work requirements, gives states incentives to create
jobs for welfare recipients, increases funding for child care,
strengthens child support enforcement, and maintains the federal
guarantee of nutrition programs and Medicaid coverage for pregnant
women, children, and the disabled. Even before signing national
welfare reform, the President granted waivers to 43 states to reform
welfare on their own -- making work and responsibility a way of life
for 75 percent of all welfare recipients. |
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Signing the National Voter Registration Act ("Motor-Voter"
Law). This expands voting rights for all, including the poor and the
young, by creating new, more accessible voter registration
locations. |
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Issuing an Executive Order on Environmental Justice,
ensuring that low-income citizens and minorities do not suffer a
disproportionate burden of industrial pollution. |
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Introducing Operation Safe Home to fight crime in public
housing. |
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Restoring democracy to Haiti. |
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Hosting the first ever White House Conference on
Africa. |