Bill Clinton 1996 On The Issues
Community Empowerment
"We need a new partnership between Washington and the
communities and the individuals of this country, and we need a way of doing
business in which we try to create the conditions in which people can seize
opportunities.”
—President Bill Clinton
President Clinton is working to
empower our nation’s distressed urban and rural communities and create greater
opportunity for all Americans. The President is creating jobs
and revitalizing neighborhoods, not with top-down, big-government solutions,
but by encouraging partnerships between the government and private sector. He
recognizes that the private sector is the driver of economic opportunity,
creating bottom-up, community-driven solutions that bring people together.
The Clinton Administration is investing in communities by:
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Challenging communities to develop their own strategies
for revitalizing their neighborhoods. By fostering the involvement of
community leaders and providing tax incentives and other tools, this
Administration has already designated 105 communities in 42 states for
revitalization. |
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Creating a network of community development banks and
financial institutions in low- and moderate-income communities. The
Community Development Banks and Financial Institutions Fund (CDBFI)
leverages $10 of private investment for every federal dollar invested.
It is also creating and expanding community development banks and
financial institutions by providing matching capital and other
assistance. |
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Revising regulations under the Community Reinvestment Act
(CRA) to require financial institutions to lend in their host
communities. Under the CRA, banks are now judged on performance—actual
lending, investments, and basic banking services. For the first time,
banks will have the opportunity to receive CRA credit for loans made
for redeveloping old industrial waste sites (“Brownfields”). CRA
reform will unleash billions of dollars in new credit to distressed
communities. |
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Cleaning up old industrial-waste sites and returning them
to productive use. A new $2 billion Brownfields tax incentive is
expected to leverage some $10 billion in private cleanups nationwide
and return to productive use as many as 30,000 properties in America’s
distressed communities. |
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Working to distribute millions in loans and investment for
small and minority-owned businesses over the next five years. One-stop
capital shops are being opened in a number of cities—all in accessible
neighborhood locations. To encourage capital investment in small and
minority-owned businesses, the President signed legislation to provide
capital gains tax relief for investments in certain venture capital
companies. |
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Creating the White House Community Empowerment Board to
help ensure coordination and responsiveness to communities in
implementing these
initiatives. |
Building on Our Progress
President Clinton is giving people the tools to rebuild distressed
communities and providing economic opportunity to all Americans. He is helping
to create working partnerships between the private and public sectors and to
ensure that working families do not have to raise their children in poverty.
President Clinton is helping people help themselves by:
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Proposing in his 1997 budget that Congress designate a
second round of Empowerment Zones and Enterprise
Communities. |
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Announcing a bold commitment to accelerate Superfund toxic
waste cleanup, nearly doubling the pace of cleanup so that
approximately two-thirds of priority sites will be cleaned by
2000. |
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Calling for measures to expand the Brownfields initiative
to cleanup and redevelop approximately 5,000 contaminated and
abandoned urban properties by 2000, strengthen penalties for the worst
criminal polluters, expand right-to-know laws about toxics in our
communities, and make our nation’s drinking water safer and
cleaner. |
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Continuing to stimulate private-sector investment and
economic opportunity in America’s urban and rural communities. The
President continues to challenge Americans to develop their own plans
for revitalizing their communities. The Administration will provide
tax incentives and grants to those communities that develop the most
innovative plans and get significant local and private-sector
commitments. |
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Offering special incentives for government contract awards
to businesses in distressed communities through President Clinton’s
new Empowerment Contracting Program. |
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Announcing that every school in every Empowerment Zone in
the country will be connected to the Information Superhighway so that
at all children -- rich and poor, urban and rural -- will have access
to the benefits of the communications revolution.
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Source: Bill Clinton for President 1996 Web Site |
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