[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
[November 27, 1993]
[Pages 2071-2073]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
November 27, 1993

    Good morning. This week my family celebrated Thanksgiving as most 
American families did. We gathered around a table filled with the bounty 
of our great country, and we thanked the Lord for all we have and all we 
can hope for.
    No holiday tradition is more American than Thanksgiving. Indeed, no 
people have better reasons to give thanks, because no people have been 
more blessed. This holiday also signals the beginning of the end of the 
year, a time that many of us will use to take stock and to reflect. By 
any measure this has been an eventful year for our Nation.
    On the road and in letters from my fellow Americans, I've been 
touched and buoyed by the words of support for the changes we have put 
in place and the progress we've made. It's been a good beginning: 
Inflation is down; interest rates are down to historic lows; the deficit 
is down; investment is up. Many of you listening today are among the 
millions of Americans who've refinanced your homes or your businesses in 
just the last year because of the drop in interest rates. And in the 
last 10 months, the economy has produced more private sector jobs than 
in the previous 4 years. And now that Congress has approved the North 
American

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Free Trade Agreement and I have gone to Seattle to meet with the leaders 
of all the Asian-Pacific economies, I know we can stimulate our jobs 
machine even more with increased exports.
    There's so much else that we've been able to do to help our workers 
and our families. Congress also passed and I signed into law the family 
and medical leave law. Now workers have a right to take some time off to 
take care of a sick family member or newborn child without losing their 
jobs. It will help to make America a place where you can be a successful 
worker and a successful parent.
    We've also moved to help our students by reforming the college loan 
law so that loans are easier to get, with lower interest rates and 
better repayment terms and stiffer requirements to pay the loan back.
    We signed into law the National Service Act, which 3 years from now 
will allow 100,000 young Americans to earn some money against their 
college education while rebuilding their communities from the grassroots 
up.
    We won passage of our reforms in each House in campaign finance. And 
when the Congress comes back, if the House and Senate can agree, we can 
do a lot more to take special interest politics out of our congressional 
elections and therefore our decisionmaking process.
    We passed an economic program, which will give a real tax break to 
working families with children to try to make sure that everybody who 
works 40 hours a week in this country with a child in the home will be 
lifted well above the poverty line. But there's still a lot to do.
    Under the leadership of the First Lady, we've now got a health 
security proposal. And it's my fond hope that before the end of next 
year, Congress will pass a plan that will give every American 
comprehensive health care that can never be taken away.
    The crime bill has been passed in both Houses. It will put more 
police officers on the street, up to 100,000 of them, build more 
prisons, establish boot camps for young first-time offenders, it will 
ban assault weapons. But we have to resolve those two differences and 
pass that crime bill early next year.
    We're making progress in the fight against crime. Just before the 
Congress left, it adopted legislation requiring a 5-day waiting period 
before anyone can purchase a handgun, so there can be a check for 
someone's age, mental health history, and criminal record. This action 
was a national victory in the fight against crime and violence and a 
very personal victory for Jim and Sarah Brady, a family touched by 
violence who turned tragedy into triumph by fighting for 7 long years to 
pass this important legislation to protect the rest of us from 
individuals who shouldn't be permitted to possess or use handguns. We've 
waited a long time to pass the Brady bill, but it's just the latest 
example of how we brought to Washington the change we promised in the 
last campaign.
    In 10 months we've broken the gridlock. We've won much of what I set 
out to do in my first year. Much of the change that I talked about when 
I ran for President is beginning to be accomplished now. The fact is, 
according to the highly respected Congressional Quarterly, this 
administration, working with both parties, has had more of its major 
legislation adopted in this first year than any other administration in 
the last 40 years.
    Every one of these changes, every step we take, has to be measured 
in a job that a mother or father finds or an opportunity a child gains 
or in better prospects for a business owner or in safer streets and a 
more secure future. Every step forward, if it helps to invigorate our 
economy, our community, our families, is a step worth taking. But 
ultimately these steps will be steady only if we begin together to do 
more to fix America from the inside out.
    We have to be concerned with the number of families that have 
totally broken down, the number of young women giving birth to children 
out of wedlock. It's sweeping the country upward and offward--upward and 
all across racial lines. We have to be concerned that without the 
structure, the discipline, the love of families, too many children face 
a future stripped of hope. Too many kids now live without enough hope or 
enough love or enough discipline.
    We have to be concerned that in both our cities and our rural areas, 
the value of life has been cheapened. Too many children are killing 
children with weapons of destruction that are even more efficient and 
sophisticated than the police, who are supposed to protect the people, 
have.
    For our part, we're working hard to provide economic security, 
health care security, and safety in community and in this way to remove 
some of the stress that hurts our families. We're working hard to open 
opportunities to make the changes sweeping the world friendly to the

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American working family. It's been said that the family is the test of 
freedom. It tests our freedom and our sense of responsibility. And 
that's the best reason to try to preserve families and to try to 
alleviate some of the terrible, terrible burdens that have aggravated 
the strains on family life for nearly 30 years now.
    So, my fellow Americans, on this most treasured of holiday weekends, 
as we give thanks for what we have, let's remember what so many millions 
of Americans don't have. Let's remember how much both work and family 
mean to civilized life. We can restore and repair the basic fabric of 
our society only if we build up both: work and family. Together, I 
believe we can do that.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 12:15 p.m. on November 24 in the Oval 
Office at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on November 27.