And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: Piercing Eyes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> forwarded for informational purposes only..contents have not been verified From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 12:24:44 EDT Subject: Clinton Tours Patches of Poverty Clinton Tours Patches of Poverty .c The Associated Press By SONYA ROSS WASHINGTON (AP) - At a time of prolonged national prosperity, President Clinton embarks this week on an ``opportunity tour'' exploring patches of stubborn and desperate poverty from Appalachia to Watts. The president aims to ``shine the light on opportunity'' on the potential billion-dollar profits he says such places can offer investors while at the same time unshackling millions from the bonds of poverty. ``It's a real dream of mine to show this can be done,'' he said. Clinton will visit places whose emblems are boarded-up stores and unpaved roads, where people live in crowded shacks without plumbing, where health care can fall to Third World levels, where roadside garbage often goes uncollected and where unemployment stands at many times the national average of 4.3 percent. In short, these are communities where the clanging bells of Wall Street's economic boom are seldom heard. ``No matter how good you are with words, you could not describe this. You get a sense of a total lack of hope,'' Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo said, recalling his own visit to Pine Ridge, S.D. - the poorest census tract in the nation - where unemployment is 73 percent and no one has running water. Pine Ridge, the Ogala Sioux reservation, is on Clinton's itinerary. The White House says he will be the first president since Calvin Coolidge to visit an Indian reservation. Seeking support for his ``New Markets'' initiative, Clinton will travel to impoverished communities in Kentucky, Mississippi, Illinois, South Dakota, Arizona and California accompanied by corporate CEOs, local officials and members of Congress. Clinton's trek will take him to Clarksdale, in Mississippi's impoverished Delta region; East St. Louis, Ill. where a new Ace Hardware store is seen as an economic boon; South Phoenix, Ariz., where the Hispanic community needs access to capital and finally to Anaheim, Calif., home of Disneyland, for a conference with CEOs on finding ways to hire disadvantaged young people. The president will take with him a stack of announcements on actions his administration - and corporate America - are ready to take to address poverty conditions and leverage investment. Clinton's pitch: Corporations should treat neglected parts of America as untapped markets and invest in them just as they invest in foreign countries in the developing world.'' ``There's a lot of money to be made out there,'' he said. ``It may be finally something whose time has come,'' the president said in interviews last week in which he asserted there are business opportunities in poor communities that can be measured ``in tens of billions of dollars.'' The challenge is just as imposing. Forty-four of the 49 Appalachian counties in Kentucky, for example, are listed as distressed based on poverty and unemployment rates. In several, a majority of the residents live with inadequate water and sewer disposal systems. It's an area where poverty rates approach close to 50 percent, and fewer than 40 percent of adults have a high school education, Clinton said history shows that the opportunities in such places cannot be forced by government or industry working alone. ``We should have a partnership between government and the private sector that would literally empower people to change the dynamics of their lives in these poor neighborhoods,'' he said. Clinton said it was unimaginable in 1993 that the stock market would triple, that nearly 19 million new jobs would be added, and that millions of people then on welfare would join the workforce. ``I think most Americans genuinely want to see everybody who is willing to work have a chance to participate in this,'' Clinton said. Corporate chiefs accompanying Clinton on all or part of his trip include his travels include Dick Huber from Aetna Insurance, Craig Lynch from Greyhound; Bill Hartman from Bank One Kentucky; and Kathy Bassant from Bank of America. Not everyone is impressed. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who two years ago traveled in many of the same areas Clinton will visit, scoffed at the poverty tour as coming too late in the administration to make any real difference. ``I think the Clinton administration has abandoned many of the most important economic justice concerns,'' Wellstone said in a recent interview. I'd say it's a little late.'' AP-NY-07-04-99 1223EDT Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press. Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
