[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
[September 4, 1993]
[Pages 1439-1440]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1439]]


The President's Radio Address
September 4, 1993

    Good morning. On this Labor Day weekend, we honor the working men 
and women who are the strength and the soul of America. For people who 
work hard all year, this weekend offers the opportunity to relax with 
our families at a picnic, a barbecue, a beach, or just in our own homes. 
In the calm and the quiet of these last days of summer, there will be a 
moment when most of us think about our families and our future. Maybe it 
will come during a walk on the beach, a stroll through a park, or when 
we watch a son or a daughter take a swing at a softball or build a 
castle in the sand.
    We'll think of the faith of our parents that was instilled in us 
here in America, the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules, 
you'll be rewarded with a good life for yourself and a better chance for 
your children. Filled with that faith, generations of Americans have 
worked long hours on their jobs and passed along powerful dreams to 
their sons and daughters. Many of us can remember our own parents 
working long hours on their jobs and then coming home and helping us 
with our homework. The American dream has always been a better life for 
people who are willing to work for it.
    In 7 months as your President, I've been deeply inspired by the 
people I've met who are working hard and studying hard, building their 
futures in a time of turbulence and change. I'll never forget a woman I 
met from Detroit who had to support her children after her husband died. 
Determined not to be on welfare, she enrolled in a 6-year advanced 
training program and found a job as a machinist. I'll never forget the 
men and women I met at Van Nuys Community College in California, people 
who had lost their jobs as aerospace workers and auto workers and were 
learning new skills from film production to computer science. And just 
yesterday in Delaware, I spoke with young people who are combining their 
high school education with specialized job training for highly skilled 
jobs in the aviation industry. Young and old, these people are the 
heroes we honor on Labor Day, people who take personal responsibility 
for making their lives better and making our Nation stronger.
    Every morning when I go to work in the Oval Office, I think about 
how we can offer our hard-working Americans the opportunities they 
deserve, opportunities too many have been denied for too long.
    When Congress passed our economic plan last month, America took an 
important step toward building the high-wage, high-skill, high-growth 
economy where hard work is rewarded. We're beginning to pay down the 
deficit we inherited, get our economic house in order, cut wasteful 
spending, and invest in education and training and new technologies. We 
changed the tax laws to make sure that no one who works 40 hours a week 
with children at home will live in poverty. That means tax cuts for 
millions of American families with incomes below $27,000 a year. It's a 
pro-work, pro-family approach that's not about building bureaucracies 
but about encouraging people to keep doing the right things.
    We've also made it possible for over 90 percent of the small 
businesses in this country to reduce their taxes, but only if they 
invest more in their businesses. And we've opened the doors of college 
education to millions more Americans with lower interest loans and 
easier repayment terms and the opportunity for tens of thousands of our 
young people to pay off their college loans or earn credit against 
college through the national service program and building their 
communities at the grassroots level. These policies too are pro-work and 
pro-family. We're taking the values that are central to our own lives, 
values of work and family, and putting them at the center of our public 
policies. We've got to keep America moving, and we've got to pull 
America back together.
    In just 7 months we've done a lot. But for 20 years, because of the 
pressures of the global economy and problems here at home, Americans 
have been working harder for less. And after 12 years of trickle-down 
economics, which worked for just a little while but then left us with no 
fundamental change except a huge, huge national debt and a massive 
annual deficit, we've still got a lot more to do.
    In the weeks ahead we'll be taking three new steps on the journey of 
change toward a new American economy and a stronger American community. 
First, we'll reform the health care

[[Page 1440]]

system to provide health care security to all Americans and affordable 
costs so that this health care system doesn't bankrupt the economy while 
failing to cover millions of Americans. Second, we'll try to create more 
jobs through expanded trade through the North American Free Trade 
Agreement and a general agreement with the other trading nations of the 
world. And third, we'll try to give you more value for your tax dollar 
by reinventing Government to make it more efficient and less expensive. 
These are the things we can do to give our people the tools they need to 
build a stronger economy. Health security, expanded trade, and 
reinventing Government really aren't separate goals. They're part of a 
comprehensive strategy to promote long-term growth, increased incomes, 
more jobs, and a stronger American community, part of our effort to make 
all these changes our friend and not our enemy.
    In our own lives we understand that we often have to do several 
things to reach one goal. Think about the talk at your kitchen table 
when you discuss the challenges facing your own families. You might be 
talking about whether you can afford to buy a home or send your youngest 
child to college or whether to build a new business of your own or go to 
night school to learn a new skill. Of course, these are separate 
questions, but they all add up to one challenge: building a better life 
for you and your family.
    It's the same with building our country's future. These pieces must 
all fit together. To control the deficit, we have to reform health care 
and give families more security. To create new jobs for our workers, we 
have to open new markets for our companies and our products. And for 
Government to be a help and not a hindrance in economic growth, we must 
make it less bureaucratic and more productive. Business and labor and 
Government must work together as partners to achieve these goals.
    This Labor Day weekend is a good time to remember that a free 
society needs a strong and a vibrant labor movement. From the struggle 
against communism in Poland to the struggle against apartheid in South 
Africa to the struggle for social justice in our own Nation, we have 
seen what working men and women can accomplish when they work together 
in the spirit of solidarity. Now more than ever America needs the spirit 
of solidarity and the courage to change, the understanding that we're 
all in this together and that we have to move forward together.
    Together we can make the changes that our people deserve and our 
times demand. And then on Labor Day weekends years from now, our 
children and our children's children will look back on the work we did, 
and they will say with gratitude and pride that we kept faith with the 
American dream.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Oval Office at the 
White House.