Hillary Clinton on Welfare & Poverty
Lazio weakened housing standards and limited public housing
LAZIO [to Clinton]: In the House, I’ve been very active on housing issues, on helping the homeless, helping poor people with public housing. Do New Yorkers care about the homeless? I believe they do. The most sweeping reform in public-housing history was
authored by me and signed into law. CLINTON: He fought to weaken the safety standards for manufactured housing and in-home building.
LAZIO: There’s been nobody else in the House who’s stood up for poor people and to provide them with good- quality
housing. I’ve been there for the homeless, I’ve been there to provide housing for people with AIDS. I’ve been there for people who rely on Section 8. I’m boosting homeownership for our young families.
CLINTON: In fact, I’ll be meeting with a group of
public-housing tenants this evening because what their memory of that fight was, Mr. Lazio, is that you were trying to remove the caps from the limits that would in some way prohibit a lot of people from being able to have the public housing.
Source: (X-ref Lazio) NY Senate debate on NBC
Oct 28, 2000
Lazio fought against FHA on low-interest housing loans
CLINTON [to Lazio]: Not only is there a problem with the home builders and the safety standards, but the FHA was trying to increase the limits that would enable a person who wanted to be a homeowner to be able to borrow at low
interest. And my opponent fought that. He did not want those limits raised and around the time of that fight he received significant contributions from the mortgage banking industry. LAZIO: Do you understand that the standards that
you’re talking about were endorsed by the administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development? Do you understand that?
CLINTON: Do you understand that the standards I’m talking about, that you were trying to
weaken, were said by the AARP that they would have put people in danger?
Source: NY Senate debate on NBC
Oct 28, 2000
Equal access to capital and jobs
America faces a capital, educational & digital divide that needs to be bridged, especially to help minorities move forward in the 21st century. The lack of equal opportunity for access to capital and jobs is one of the unfinished pieces of business from
the last century. We should support tax credits & incentives and government guaranteed loans to leverage billions in new private investment and reduce the initial risk for businesses that agree to hang out their shingles in areas of high unemployment.
Source: Paul Hirschkorn, CNN.com
Jan 12, 2000
Working should mean no poverty
No one who takes the responsibility to work hard every day should have to raise their family in poverty, Hillary says. That’s why she supports raising the minimum wage, and equal pay for equal work. She
worked with former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin to increase microcredit programs, which make investment capital available to small businesses.
Source: www.hillary2000.org “About Hillary”
Jan 1, 2000
Community involvement helps, but only in short term
In Hillary’s Wellesley thesis, “Aspect of the War on Poverty,” she observed that, as the black community on Chicago’s South Side began to get organized, the white ethnics, who had already been activated, began to fight for the same poverty dollars.
In reality, Hillary told her thesis adviser, people rise to positions of leadership within the poor community and then clash with one another. Her adviser characterizes her conclusions: “The bottom line of her thinking was that community
action programs [a Kennedy Administration program] could have short-term effects, but to have any long-term impact on the core problems you needed to have structure,
organization, and a middle class willing to get involved. She was able to take a liberal program and analyze it pragmatically to determine whether it worked.“
Source: Hillary’s Choice by Gail Sheehy, p. 67
Dec 9, 1999
Don’t criminalize the homeless
Criminalizing the homeless whose only offense is that they have no home is wrong. Locking people up for a day will not take a single homeless person off the streets for good.
It will not make a mentally ill person who should be in an institution any better. It will not help find a job for a responsible person who is willing to work.
Source: CNN.com’s “Talkback Live”
Dec 2, 1999
Microcredit is an invaluable tool in alleviating poverty.
Microcredit is a macro idea. This is a big idea, an idea with vast potential. Whether we are talking about a rural area in South Asia or an inner-city in the US, microcredit is an invaluable tool in alleviating poverty.
Microcredit projects can create a ripple effect- not only in lifting individuals out of poverty and moving mothers from welfare to work, but in creating jobs, promoting businesses and building capital in depressed areas.
Source: Remarks at Microcredit Summit in Washington D.C.
Feb 3, 1997
Link payments to good parenting behavior
I’ve advocated tying the welfare payment to certain behavior about being a good parent. You couldn’t get your welfare check if your child wasn’t immunized. You couldn’t get your welfare check if you didn’t participate in a parenting program.
You couldn’t get your check if you didn’t show up for student-teacher conferences. I’m a big believer in linking opportunity and rights with responsibility and duties.
Source: Unique Voice, p.200
Feb 3, 1997