1997 BIPEC Annual Meeting
March 25, 1997
Both of them...and in fact, all of us in this room...share deep convictions on how we can make this state and nation better.
As we stand at the halfway point of this administration, it's time for us to step back and get focused on where we are and what kind of South Carolina we want to build in the new century.
Before we leap ahead, I'd like us to look at a few snapshots from the last century.
It wasn't the pretty picture a lot of us like to recreate. Quite frankly, South Carolina was in turmoil.
Nearly half our people couldn't read and write. Disease and violence was rampant. Restrooms bore the names not male and female...but black and white.
Having lost her glory and an entire generation of young men, this was a state stripped of riches and left in rags.
But look at us just one century later. We are a state reborn, industrialized and modern...a state that captains of industry call one of the best places in the world to do business....a place where families live in health and safety and increasing prosperity.
Horse and buggy has given way to the space station Mir...tin cans on a string to a world on the Web.
If there's anything the 20th century has taught us, it's that impossibility is a myth.
Now is the time to remove the box of impossibility holding back our dreams for South Carolina. Now is the time to imagine and innovate and think big. Because the new millennium is ready to blow the lid off every one of our preconceived notions.
Oliver Wendall Holmes started serving on our nation's highest court just as this century was beginning. He once said that "The great thing is not so much where we stand...as in what direction we are moving."
The question we must answer is this: How do all of us in this room move our state fruitfully, ethically, responsibly, and spiritually into the new century?
If you were to wake up tomorrow in the year 2020, what kind of South Carolina would you dream of waking up to? What would be your new century's resolution?
It's my vision as governor to wake up to a South Carolina filled to overflowing with children who are loved and learning, who are surrounded by beauty, growing up in communities of prosperity, and raised by people of peace.
As a father, my first priority will always be my children...and yours.
Our greatest challenge is to light the fire of potential in each child...to equip them with not just an adequate education, but with an excellent education.
These two years, we've supported the appendages of the educational body...with everything from technology to renovations, college scholarships to early learning.
But at the heart of our children's educational experience must be the strong, steady drumbeat of back to basics learning. We must recruit and grow superior teachers. And we must consistently hold students to a higher standard...the same standards the world will hold them to.
Our PASS Commission is looking at what it will take for each and every one of our schools to reach those standards...how we can prepare students for the transition of 21st century growth...how we can help our children reach their full potential.
PASS will ask the questions. I hope each of you will be vocal with the answers.
If it's charter schools you need, help get them up and running in your town.
If it's school choice, help us develop a plan...one that will have a real chance at survival and benefits all our children.
If you need better employees from our colleges and universities, work with us to bring real-world changes to the curriculum.
Excellence will be unattainable as long as our efforts are uninspired. So let us know what you expect and envision, then hold our feet to the fire.
Because when the light of learning is burning in our school children, we will have built a city on a hill that can't be hidden...one that can never be put out.
My second resolution for a new century is for every child to grow up surrounded by all the beauty we enjoyed as children.
When we think of the future, we typically think of smoke stacks and metallic cities. But I envision a state that's green and growing...where the beauty that brings the world to our door is central to our growth, not counter to it.
These two years, we've shown we can strike that balance between an exploding economy and a secure environment.
We're spending millions on beach renourishment. We're creating a nature trail from the mountains to the sea. We're saving from development some of our most pristine nature reserves, like Sandy Island and the Jocassee Gorges.
We will never betray our places of beauty for a few pieces of silver. But we will do everything we can to grow our businesses in stewardship with the land.
My resolution for the new century is to raise South Carolina's children in an environment of learning and beauty...from communities of new opportunity.
When we talk about breaking down the walls of impossibility, we don't have to look any further than the economic record books we've rewritten.
The cards were stacked against us...with base closure and a shrinking textile industry at the top of the pile. But still we saw back-to-back record-breaking years.
We are in the midst of transforming this economy to reflect the realities and the complexities of international business. And it's one of the biggest challenges we'll face.
But our workforce training is the best in the world. Our incentives are well thought-out and working. Cooperation between government and business has never been stronger.
I'd like to take a moment to recognize the good men and women of the General Assembly for all they've done to create that progressive pro-growth environment. Please stand and let us thank you.
All of us are now taking on the monumental task of fixing our state's highways and bridges...from Greenville to Myrtle Beach, Aiken to Beaufort. The question is no longer if we should meet the needs, but how.
I'm one of six governors chosen to serve on the NGA's Transportation Task Force. We're in regular discussions with the Congressional leadership on how to change the distribution formula to bring more federal highway dollars our way.
And the House and Senate are also at work on our proposal for a state transportation infrastructure bank.
With creative financing to pay for our most pressing projects, with existing resources freed up for smaller projects, with a willingness to be less parochial and more visionary...we will clear the roadblocks between South Carolina and 21st century jobs.
And that's our vision: that every family will bring home a paycheck and sit down to a full table...that every child will grow up seeing opportunity at every turn.
But it starts with a job...when families can provide for their own.
The timing of our welfare reform bill has been perfect, and I'm grateful for the team effort of the General Assembly to make that happen. Now we can help families capitalize on unprecedented growth...instead of being left behind by it.
It was William Faulkner who wrote that only human beings have "a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. I decline to accept the end of man."
The Family Independence Act is our declaration that we, too, decline to accept the end of man. We choose to believe that the poorest families can rebuild. We believe that the unskilled worker can learn and grow. We believe that the cycle of poverty is not made of steel. It can be broken...and broken forever.
But it's up to each and every one of us to push and pull and tug and sacrifice to change the course of the culture.
Here in the South, we have a history for helping each other. And we have a history of telling the government to get out of our way.
Well, the federal government is finally giving us that chance. We asked for it. And we must live up to it.
So we're now entering the next phase of reform, called SC WORKS....where we're challenging every business to hire a welfare recipient into the workplace.
Welfare rolls have already shrunk by 30 percent just since welfare reform passed.
There are more than 16,000 able-bodied Family Independence recipients who need jobs. But compare that number to South Carolina's 95,000 employers.
If just 17 percent of these companies hired from the rolls, we could eliminate the need for welfare within that group.
SC WORKS is all about responsibility...not just from those striving for independence, but from all of us who must help them get there.
Government is bridging the gap through training, transportation, child care. But on the other side, a compassionate community must be waiting.
That spirit of compassion will spell success or failure for welfare reform...and even more importantly, it will spell success or failure for us as a people.
When I dream of my ideal South Carolina, I dream of a place of learning and beauty and prosperity.
But if our children live in that place and still don't know love, if they don't see kindness, if they aren't taught peace, we've left nothing for them but an empty paradise.
South Carolina is filled with people who are good and decent, loyal and proud.
I'm confident that if we lock hands and work toward a common purpose, there's no such thing as impossibility. There's nothing strong enough to divide us. And our children will catch a glimpse of all their new century can be.
I'd like to close with a story of a little girl who was drawing a picture in school. The teacher looked over her shoulder and as usual, didn't know what to make of it.
"It's a picture of God," the girl said.
The teacher laughed to herself, patted the child on the head and said, "No one knows what God looks like."
But the little girl didn't bat an eye. "They will when I get done," she said.
None of us knows what the future will look like. But our children will draw it...and they will pattern it after what we show them.
Today I ask you to seize the vision of all South Carolina can become. Help us put pen to paper. And as one people, let's help our children draw out their new century.