White House Conference on Families Statement on Receiving the Conference's Final Report.

I have received the report of the White House Conference on Families, and I want to thank the 125,000 Americans who helped to produce it. I am determined that their efforts will lead to real improvement in policies and programs to strengthen and support the American family as an institution.

This Conference has reaffirmed the central role that families play in our national life. It has documented the ways in which our major institutions, including government, ignore and even undermine families. With unprecedented openness and broad participation, the Conference has produced a mandate and an agenda for action.

The consensus on the major recommendations is a remarkable achievement and shows how Americans of different backgrounds and beliefs can unite around a specific program. The delegates' principal recommendations lay out a practical, moderate, and sensible agenda to combat the insensitivity that so often characterizes the attitude of our major institutions toward the family.

When I addressed the Conference in Baltimore, I said "I will do all I can to make sure your report does not sit on the shelves." We are already working to implement the recommendations of the White House Conference on Families:

1) We are today bringing into the White House leaders of major corporations to discuss the Conference recommendation dealing with family-oriented personnel policies. This meeting will be followed by an intensive seminar for personnel decisionmakers on how to institute and expand upon policies in the workplace that reduce conflict between work and family responsibilities.

2) I have recently proposed a change in our tax laws to reduce the "marriage tax penalty." Enactment of this deduction will lessen the most obvious form of tax discrimination against families.

3) I have established an Office for Families in the Department of Health and Human Services to help ensure a voice for families and to follow up on these recommendations.

4) I am directing all Federal departments and key agencies to undertake a thorough analysis of their policies and programs in light of the recommendations contained in the final report of the White House Conference on Families and to develop detailed plans for implementing Conference proposals.

5) Within the White House, I am asking the Domestic Policy Staff to make Conference recommendations an invariable criterion for the evaluation of policies and programs.

6) We will continue to work with the National Advisory Committee of the White House Conference on Families, its Chairperson, Jim Guy Tucker, and its Director, John Carr, who have done a superb job in making this Conference a

success.

7) We will also continue to work with the private and voluntary organizations that represent and serve American families. Since many of the recommendations are directed not at government, but at business, labor, religious groups, social services, media, and other private groups, their involvement in implementation is crucial.

These steps are only the beginning of a long-term effort to enhance family strengths and to reverse the neglect of families that characterizes all too many of the decisions and actions undertaken in our society.

I am proud of the way this Conference listened to and involved so many American families, of the way it has put families at the center of national discussion, of the way it has found consensus and agreement where many predicted only conflict. The White House Conference on Families has brought us from rhetoric to action, from principles to programs, from a vision to an actual plan for strengthening and supporting the families of our Nation.