    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [August 14, 1993]
    [Pages 1379-1380]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    August 14, 1993

        Good morning. This week we took a big step toward restoring
    opportunity and prosperity to the people of our Nation when I signed
    into law our economic growth plan. It puts our house in order with the
    largest deficit reduction measure in our history, mandating more than
    $250 billion in spending cuts, with substantial cuts in more than 200
    specific spending programs. It makes over 90 percent of our small
    businesses eligible for tax cuts if they invest to spur job creation.
    And it provides new incentives to lift people who work full time and
    have children in their homes but still live in poverty above the poverty
    line. That's a real incentive for the working poor to stay at work and a
    downpayment on our plan to end the welfare system as we know it.
        With this economic plan in place, private analysts believe more than
    8 million jobs will be created over the next 4 years. Already the plan
    has brought interest rates to historic lows and the stock market to
    historic highs. People are refinancing home loans and business loans,
    saving a lot of money, money that can be invested to grow this economy.
    And we've had about a million new jobs come into the economy in the last
    6\1/2\ months. This plan will help us to restore the economy and revive
    the American dream.
        But there's another threat to our security, to our economic revival,
    and to our most basic values. It's the crime that's ravaging our
    neighborhoods and communities. There were 90,000 murders in America in
    the last 4 years and a startling upsurge in gang activity, drive-by
    shootings, and bloody car- jackings. There's a virtual war on many of
    our streets, and crime has become a national security issue to millions
    of Americans. I've worked to fight crime as an attorney general and a
    Governor. I've worked with law enforcement officers, community leaders,
    victims groups. I know we can make our streets safer and our children's
    future more secure.
        This week I announced my administration's anticrime plan, and law
    enforcement officers from all over America came to support it. People
    from Massachusetts to Mississippi spoke up. William O'Malley, a district
    attorney in Massachusetts, said the murder rate in Plymouth County had
    doubled, and the age of defendants in court is getting younger. One of
    the law enforcement officers said that in his area the average age of a
    killer was now under 16 years of age. Police commissioner Bill Bratton
    of Boston spoke of the fear that grips his city where homicides have
    gone up 60 percent this year because of gangs and domestic violence. The
    attorney general of Mississippi pointed out that the crime wave has now
    reached small towns and rural areas, and we can't leave them out of our
    solution.
        These facts could be repeated by any prosecutor, any police officer
    in the United States. We have to give these people the help they need to
    seize the control of our streets. And that's precisely what I'm
    determined to do.
        Our new crime initiative goes back to basics: toughening criminal
    laws and disarming criminals, putting more police on patrol, protecting

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    students, restoring order to our streets. It also emphasizes some good
    ideas that do work: community policing, working with citizens to prevent
    crime and catch criminals, and boot camps for youthful offenders to give
    them a second chance to develop self-discipline and other skills to live
    lawful, successful lives.
        Society has the right to impose the most severe penalty on the
    hardened criminals who commit the most heinous crimes. I support capital
    punishment, especially against those who kill our police officers. This
    legislation expands the Federal death penalty and limits the time
    available to criminals to appeal their sentences. The plan cracks down
    on the easy availability of guns. I'm eager to sign the Brady bill,
    which requires a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun. And
    I've signed a directive ordering the Treasury Department to suspend the
    importation of foreign-made assault pistols, the weapons of choice for
    many gangs and drug dealers.
        Our crime bill will fund the hiring of up to 50,000 new police
    officers to walk the beat. It will also create a police corps to allow
    young people to pay for college and then ask them to return to their
    communities as police officers in exchange for the educational benefit.
    The plan expands the cop on the beat program to help pay to put more
    police on the street, to hire more security guards to keep our schools
    safe, to beef up patrol in public housing and communities where small
    businesses are vulnerable to crime. We ask for new Federal boot camps to
    provide wayward young people the discipline, the education, the training
    they need for a chance to avoid a lifetime of crime.
        And we put these new tools into the hands of the toughest and most
    talented trio of crimefighters ever assembled at the Federal level: the
    Attorney General, Janet Reno, a seasoned prosecutor from Miami; the FBI
    Director, Louis Freeh, a streetwise former prosecutor and tough Federal
    judge with a nationally acclaimed record of crimefighting; and Lee
    Brown, the former police chief of New York, Houston, and Atlanta, the
    father of community policing, who now serves as our Director of Drug
    Control Policy.
        But these law enforcement leaders cannot and must not wage this war
    alone. We in Government can start by ensuring that the criminal justice
    system reflects our values and restores people's confidence in the
    Government's ability to prevent and punish crime. But the power of every
    individual to influence those around them is also very strong, and it's
    also a power we must turn to if we're going to turn the crime problem
    around. Too many of our fellow citizens simply reject values like
    decency, order, and the respect for the rule of law. Often we can yank
    people like that back to what is right and what is true.
        Every one of us needs to speak up and provide better role models for
    our young people before we lose them to the meanness of the streets. We
    can take simple but effective actions like taking car keys away from
    teenagers and adults who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs
    before they get behind the wheels of their cars and risk great damage to
    themselves and to others. We can urge broadcasters and advertisers to
    tone down the violence we see on television and in theaters every day
    and persuade them that there is a market for programs and movies that
    reflect and reinforce our values. We can remind people of the
    opportunities they have for community service so that they can express
    their patriotism and caring by giving something back to the country
    which gives us so much and helps people in need at the same time.
        In short, we can work together as partners. And when we do, when the
    Government works with us and not against us, there is nothing the
    American people can't do.
        With the economic plan in hand and a very tough anticrime bill on
    the way, we can truly say our country is headed in a new direction: more
    responsibility, more opportunity, a deeper sense of community, and
    restoring the American dream.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 4:40 p.m. on August 13 at the Park
    Oakland Hotel in Oakland, CA, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on August 14.