For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 31, 2001
Remarks by the President at Meeting with Catholic Charities
Indian Treaty Room
1:55 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Listen, thank you
all for coming. It has been my honor and that of members of
my staff and of my Cabinet to have received leaders from the Catholic
Church. During my travels around the country, I have been
most impressed by not only the quality of leadership of the men and
women who make up the great strength of the Catholic hierarchy, but
also the unwavering commitment to the poor and to the disadvantaged,
and to those who are unable to defend themselves.
America is a loving and compassionate country,
and the leaders here reflect that compassion and that
love. Here are folks that have heard the call from the Lord
to love their neighbor and have fostered and nourished and led
programs, all intended to help people, to help people help themselves.
There is no way that government can create
love. Love comes from a higher calling. Love is
inspirational. But what government can do is fund and
welcome programs whose sole intent is to change lives in a positive
way.
For the last couple of days I've talked about
my office's commitment to faith-based programs, I've talked about
initiatives, particularly mentoring initiatives and after-school
programs that will welcome faith-based programs. Today, I do
want to talk about one other component of making sure the initiative is
full, and that is that we must reform the tax code, not in the way that
I'm going to be talking to a lot of members of Congress about, but in
an additional way. And that is to allow non-itemizers to
deduct charitable giving off their income.
This is a reform of the tax code that will
encourage giving from people who have received no incentive to do
so. There is an independent study out today that will show
that giving in America will increase significantly when Congress passes
this reform and I have the opportunity to sign it.
Our mission in the White House is to say we
welcome you; we welcome your love, we welcome your finances, we welcome
your compassion. And to those heroes who live in the
neighborhoods all around America who are literally transforming our
country in a positive way, we say thank you from the bottom of our
hearts.
I'm so honored the leadership came, many of
whom I have seen before. I've now met new friends, and we welcome you
here to Washington, D.C. Thank you for coming. (Applause.)
END
2:00 P.M. EST
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