He says it would not cost very much, but would be a powerful gesture for Bush to send, because there are many minorities who have fallen through the cracks of a tightened up welfare system. Rivers is not calling for an end to welfare reform. He's calling for a fresh look at it to help the most needy. He would like to see Medicare and pediacare expanded to a degree. He's not looking for grand gestures.
Rivers is a practical man.
He's looking for small gestures in the direction of African-Americans. He would like to see a moratorium on building new prisons until 2005. He feels that would send a message that the Bush administration was interested in ways of dealing with inner city problems other than locking people up at such a phenomenal rate like the past 10 years. He said he was impressed by Bush's seemingly sincere interest of building new bridges to Africa. Rev. Rivers says the Clinton administration talked a lot about Africa, but did virtually nothing concrete to help the continent.