    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [December 31, 1994]
    [Pages 2207-2209]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    December 31, 1994

        Good morning. The celebration of the New Year is an occasion for
    optimism and hope; it's full of dreams for the years ahead. At the same
    time, it's important that we take last year's lessons with us into the
    future, which is exactly why we make New Year's resolutions. They're

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    an avowal to work even harder in the coming year to be the best we can
    be.
        New Year's is also a very good time to think about what we want for
    America, as well as for our own families in the year ahead, and about
    what each of us can do to make our great Nation the best that it can be.
        My New Year's resolution to all of you is simple: I'm going to keep
    doing the work we have begun to help Americans compete and win in the
    new global economy and to restore the American dream for middle class
    families.
        First and foremost, we should do nothing to jeopardize the economic
    recovery we have helped to create over the last 2 years. Our deficit
    reduction plan has already cut our deficit by $700 billion. That's over
    $10,000 of debt for every American family. The economic strategy we have
    pursued, reducing the deficit, expanding trade, investing in the
    education and training of our people in the technologies of the future,
    this strategy has helped to produce over 5 million new jobs in the last
    2 years and, in 1994, more high-wage jobs than in the previous 5 years
    combined.
        We're cutting the Federal bureaucracy by over 272,000 people to its
    smallest size in 30 years. And with these cuts in Government, we've used
    the savings to invest in the American people, to expand Head Start, to
    make college loans more affordable to 20 million Americans, and already
    giving a tax cut to over 15 million working families with incomes under
    $27,000 a year.
        But last year made it very clear that all the good statistics in the
    world don't necessarily mean more money in the pockets of working
    Americans or more security and peace of mind for them. Most Americans
    haven't had a pay increase in this recovery. Most Americans are working
    longer work weeks than they were 10 years ago. Over a million Americans
    in working families lost their health insurance in 1994. And as other
    costs go up, disposable income and job security go down. So the average
    American is simply not receiving enough benefit from this robust
    economic recovery. And we have to keep working until we change that.
        Two weeks ago, I proposed a middle class bill of rights, four new
    ideas to help middle class Americans build a future that lives up to
    their dreams.
        First, to help Americans get the skills and education they need to
    get and keep high-paying jobs, I proposed that college tuition,
    community college costs, costs for graduate school, professional school,
    vocational education, or worker training be fully deductible from your
    taxable income, phased up to $10,000 a year if your family makes less
    than $120,000 a year. Second, to better support working families raising
    children, if your family makes $75,000 a year or less, I propose a tax
    cut phased up to $500 for every child under 13. Third, if your family
    makes less than $100,000 a year, I propose allowing you to put $2,000 a
    year tax-free into an individual retirement account, but also to enable
    you to withdraw the money tax-free for education, for buying a first
    home, for paying for health care expenses, or for the care of an elderly
    parent. Finally, I want to take the billions of dollars that Government
    now spends on job-training programs of all kinds and make that money
    directly available to working Americans, to spend as you decide when you
    need to learn new skills to get a new job or a better job.
        As we do this, we must not go back to the irresponsible practices of
    the past, back to trickle-down economics and exploding the deficit.
    Every single penny of the middle class bill of rights that I propose is
    paid for by dramatic cuts in the Government, which I have proposed. An
    important part of my New Year's resolution is this: I won't allow anyone
    to destroy the progress we have made in reducing the deficit.
        On this New Year's Eve, I want to welcome the new Congress. I ask
    them to put aside partisan differences, as I pledge to do, and join me
    in a New Year's resolution to do everything we can to help Americans
    prosper; to reduce yesterday's Government but help Government stay on
    the side of American families; to give the middle class tax relief but
    to do it responsibly, without exploding the deficit; to keep investing
    in education and job training; and to make our tax relief targeted
    toward the future, toward raising children, educating and training
    people, toward the things which make America great.
        I want to close by asking all of you to join me as well. Nothing we
    do here will succeed unless each of you takes a personal responsibility
    first to develop your own capacity and those of your family members and
    then to rekindle a sense of community and common purpose in America. We
    are not enemies in this country. We are all in this together. We are
    going up or down together. With all of our diversity and

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    differences, unless we work together, we can never make America the best
    it can be. So let's all make a New Year's resolution to face the future
    challenges together so that we can realize together the opportunities
    that lie ahead.
        Tomorrow, as you visit with your friends and your family, I hope
    you'll talk about the ideas in the middle class bill of rights. In the
    coming weeks, when you're back at work or when you're on the phone with
    friends, I hope you'll talk about the future and about the future you
    want for your families and your country. And I hope you'll do a lot of
    listening to each other and arguing with each other, but don't forget
    for a moment that we have more in common than what divides us. This is
    the great source of our abiding strength.
        Hillary and I wish you and your family a very happy New Year. Please
    be careful tonight, and thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 10:55 a.m. on December 28 in the
    Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on
    December 31.