    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [September 6, 1993]
    [Pages 1441-1444]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Community in Cutler Ridge, Florida
    September 6, 1993

        The President. Thank you so much. I want to thank Marty Urra and my
    longtime friends Governor Chiles and Senator Graham, Secretary Reich and
    Secretary Cisneros, who have done such a fine job coordinating our
    National Government's response to Hurricane Andrew over the long run
    down here. I'd also like to introduce a few people even on this hot day.
    First of all, the First Lady's here; my wife, Hillary, is down there.
    There she is. In addition to Sen-

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    ator Graham, we have four other members of your congressional delegation
    here: Representative Carrie Meek--five, five--Representative Peter
    Deutsch, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Representative Lincoln
    Diaz-Balart, and Representative Alcee Hastings. Let's get them all up
    here. Your Lieutenant Governor Buddy MacKay's been with me all day. I
    think he's back in the crowd again. We also have a large number of State
    legislators, Dade County commissioners, and other local leaders here.
    Let's give them all a hand, all the ones that are over here. [Applause]
    All the legislators and commissioners who want to come up, come on up.
    You've got some----
        Audience member. Where's Chelsea?
        The President. Chelsea's playing today. We have legislators and
    commissioners who lost their homes in the hurricane; they deserve to be
    up here, I think. Bring Larry Hawkins up here. He lost his house; he
    deserves to be here. That's good.
        Ladies and gentlemen, one year ago this week I came here to south
    Dade County to see what Hurricane Andrew had wrought. A year later I
    come back as President, honored to see much of the work done that I ran
    for President to do, honored to see that people here are working
    together to make Government work on the real problems of real people. I
    want to thank again Henry Cisneros for taking the lead in coordinating
    our response. And I want to thank Otis Pitts from Miami for representing
    the administration so well and helping people overcome the impact of the
    flood. [Applause] Thank you.
        You know, Dade County has done a lot for the Clinton administration.
    I got the EPA Director, Carol Browner, from Dade County. I got Jeff
    Watson, who used to work for the Mayor of Miami. There are a number of
    other people, but I guess the most famous Dade County citizen I now have
    is Janet Reno, your Attorney General. I want to tell you that you can be
    very proud of the work that she has done, and all the others. And you
    need to know that about three times a day, when Janet Reno says
    something that makes real good sense, she says that she learned it from
    the people of Dade County that she represented for so long.
        One of the things that I wanted very much to do as President was to
    reestablish a partnership among business and labor and Government. I
    thought we had been divided for too long. I think in order to rebuild
    America, we have got to reunite America. We've got to reach across the
    barriers of race and region and income and party, and we've got to prove
    that we can work together on the things that we all have to deal with,
    if we're going to make this country what it ought to be.
        I am proud of the work that has been done by the Department of
    Housing and Urban Development and the AFL-CIO in creating a partnership
    to invest in our communities. Now, you heard Secretary Cisneros mention
    it, but I want to talk a little bit more about that.
        This new partnership between Government and labor will make possible
    the building of 102 moderate and low income housing units here in Cutler
    Ridge. And let me tell you how this is going to work. We'll also make it
    possible for a lot of people to be trained to learn the jobs of today
    and tomorrow, because the Labor Department is going to give the AFL-CIO
    some money to subsidize apprenticeship programs at this site so that we
    can give skill training and meaningful jobs to people who live here and
    need work, too.
        All across the country, the AFL-CIO, supported by two Government
    Agencies with the funny names that many of you probably never heard of
    before of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are going to establish a housing
    investment trust fund that will provide an additional $600 million to
    rebuild and create affordable housing across this country, with a
    significant percentage of that money going to regions like this one
    which have been struck by hurricanes or the middle western communities
    devastated by the floods.
        This is the kind of thing that we ought to be doing together. The
    Government can guarantee the security of the pension funds. The unions
    can put up those pension funds to invest in houses. The Labor Department
    can help to provide the funds to train people. We'll have more houses,
    more investment, more jobs, and a better America starting right here in
    this community. That's the sort of thing we ought to be doing.
        You know, this is a day of rest and relaxation for most Americans,
    looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, and many of our young
    people are going back to school. Well, tomorrow when you return to work,
    you can know that in this year over one million jobs have been added to
    our economy. That's about as many as were added during the previous 4
    years in

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    America. We've still got a long way to go, but it's a pretty good
    beginning, and it's something we can build on.
        President Harry Truman, who came from a State that neighbors mine,
    in Missouri, once said this: If the working people of our country are
    well off, whether they work in factories or on the farms, in offices or
    in stores, this country will get along all right. The reverse is also
    true. When the working people of our country are not all right, the rest
    of the country is in deep trouble.
        We have got to make sure that we have policies in this Government
    that reward work and family for hard-working middle class people that
    are doing everything they can to raise their kids and make this country
    a better place. Since you gave me this job, that's what I've tried to
    do. You heard someone mention earlier the Family and Medical Leave Act.
    What that means is that for a change--since that law became in effect,
    now if somebody has a baby born or a sick parent or a child gets sick,
    you can take a little time off from your job without losing it. It's
    high time we provided for that sort of protection in America.
        In the economic program that Congress just passed, we see not only
    the biggest reduction in the Federal deficit in the history of this
    country, something that will lift a burden off the children in this
    audience and the grandchildren, something that will make us freer to
    invest in our future and take control of our destiny, something that has
    brought us the lowest interest rates in 25 years, that is enabling young
    people all across America for the first time to even think about buying
    a home. That economic program also actually did something that, from
    your point of view, may be more important. It lifted the working poor
    out of poverty by saying: If you work 40 hours a week and you have
    children in the home, we will not tax you into poverty; we will use the
    tax system to lift you out of poverty even if it requires a refund. I
    haven't looked at all the figures, but I can tell you that in Carrie
    Meek's congressional district, for example, that means over one-third of
    the working families in that congressional district will be eligible for
    a tax reduction under the economic program that the Congress passed to
    promote work and family.
        Over 90 percent of the small businesses in the entire United States
    of America are eligible for a tax cut to encourage them to hire more
    people, because most of the new jobs are being created by small business
    people. That is pro-work; it is pro-family; it is not bureaucratic. It
    is the sort of thing that we need to be doing in this country.
        Now, my fellow Americans, on this Labor Day I want to ask you, as we
    move ahead to other challenges, to recognize that this is a new and
    different world. We have here in this county people from all over the
    world coming here to live, trying to make a new life for themselves in
    an America trying to move into the 21st century. We are doing it against
    a backdrop where all the wealthy countries in the world are having
    trouble creating new jobs and raising people's incomes and giving people
    security. We have a lot of things we have to do, and I can tell you one
    thing: We will never get there unless we ask ourselves not just ``What's
    in it for me?'' but ``What's in it for us?'' How can we move together to
    make this country what it ought to be for everybody who's willing to
    work hard and play by the rules. That's what I saw today in Florida City
    and Homestead, people who said, ``What's in it for us?'', who worked
    together to rebuild our communities and put the lives of families back
    together. That is what we have to do as a nation.
        In the next few weeks you're going to see the Congress deal with an
    enormous number of issues, but they all have one thing in common: We've
    got to deal with them to pull our country together and move our country
    forward. If we don't control health care costs and provide affordable
    health care to every American family, we'll never be the nation we ought
    to be.
        If we don't open the doors of college education to all Americans and
    give all Americans who don't go to college the chance to get good
    training programs so they can get good jobs, we'll never be the nation
    we ought to be.
        If we don't open new avenues of trade so that we can sell our
    products around the world and reinvest in this country, where the bases
    have been closed and the defense plants have been shut down, in putting
    those people back to work, we will never be the nation we ought to be.
        And finally, if we don't decide once and for all we are going to
    have secure, strong, safe communities, free of violence and guns, where
    we promote independence and work, not welfare, and where everybody has a
    chance to raise their children in a decent, secure, safe environ-

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    ment, we will never be the nation we ought to be.
        On Labor Day, you are doing your part by working for America. And I
    pledge to you that our administration will do its part by working for
    these goals to make this country what it ought to be.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:50 p.m. at the Caribbean West Apartments.
    In his remarks, he referred to Marty Urra, president, South Florida AFL-
    CIO, and Jeffrey H. Watson, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy
    Director of Intergovernmental Affairs.