    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [September 3, 1994]
    [Pages 1516-1517]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1516]]

    The President's Radio Address
    September 3, 1994

        Good morning. For most Americans, this Labor Day weekend is our last
    chance to catch our breath before the hustle and bustle of the fall. I'm
    on vacation with my family, and many of you may be driving to the beach
    or the lake for the last long weekend of summer. Maybe you're planning
    to do some back-to-school shopping or have a backyard barbecue for your
    family and friends. Or perhaps you're one of the unsung heroes of Labor
    Day, the police officers, the health care workers, who have to be on the
    job this weekend. Whether you're working or relaxing, let's take a few
    minutes to remember the story of Labor Day and what it says about the
    promise of American life.
        One hundred years ago, America created this national holiday to
    honor our working men and women. A hundred Labor Days later, its
    founders would be proud to know that the vast majority of our working
    people have lifted themselves into the great American middle class. We
    didn't do it with handouts but by working, hard working, smart working.
        The American way is to offer opportunity and challenge people to
    make the most of it. We have a unique partnership between government,
    business, labor, and individual citizens. It's given us the public
    school system, the State universities, collective bargaining, the GI
    bill, to name just a few, all partnerships that have given Americans the
    tools to build better lives for themselves.
        For the past two decades, however, more and more people have had a
    harder time achieving the American dream. Too many Americans have found
    themselves working longer and harder for stagnant wages. Crime and
    terrible social problems have rendered our quality of life more tenuous.
    Global economic competition and serious, serious problems at home have
    really complicated our lives.
        The American people have suffered and, too often and in too many
    ways, the National Government has ignored these problems or even made
    some of them worse. We have actually managed to quadruple our national
    debt in the decade of the eighties, while reversing and declining in our
    commitment to invest in our people and our economic future.
        I ran for President because I think our Nation's mission at the
    close of the 20th century must be to keep the American dream alive in
    the 21st century. We need a plan for the future that puts our people
    first, that has a partnership that creates opportunity, insists on more
    personal responsibility for our people, and enables us to rebuild our
    communities.
        We face tough challenges, and change is always hard. The status quo
    has always had powerful friends. But the families we honor on Labor Day
    deserve better.
        Last year we began to put into place this strategy for the future,
    beginning with an effort to renew our economy and put our economic house
    in order with the biggest budget deficit reduction package in history,
    including $255 billion in spending cuts, tax increases for the
    wealthiest 1.5 percent of Americans, and tax relief for 15 million
    working families with children to encourage them to keep working and not
    fall back into welfare.
        We pried open new markets around the world for American workers with
    NAFTA, a worldwide trade agreement, new openings to Japan and the rest
    of Asia, serious efforts to sell American products, everything from
    airplanes to apples.

        While we cut spending, we actually invested more in the lifelong
    education and training that our people will need in the global economy,
    from Head Start to apprenticeships for young people who don't go on to
    college to constant job-training opportunities for people once they're
    in the work force.

        The friends of the failed policies of the past--the people who
    raised taxes on the middle class, lowered them on the wealthy, reduced
    investment in our people, and exploded our deficit--they predicted this
    economic strategy would fail. They said it would produce disaster. But
    instead, in just 19 months, our economy has created more than 4.2
    million new jobs, 93 percent of them in the private sector.

        Yesterday we got more good news. We reached 2 million new jobs this
    year, and the year still has 4 months to go. And that total includes
    135,000 new manufacturing jobs created this year. For the first time in
    10 years,

    [[Page 1517]]

    manufacturing jobs have increased for 8 consecutive months.

        In addition, 20 million young Americans are already eligible to
    refinance their college loans at lower interest rates with longer
    repayment terms. And we're going to have 3 years of deficit reduction
    for the first time since Harry Truman was President, creating a more
    stable future for our children.

        Restoring opportunity, honoring work and family and community,
    that's what this administration and our mission are all about. A big
    part of that is personal security, and all of you saw that as the debate
    over the crime bill unfolded in the last several weeks. We have reduced
    the size of the Federal bureaucracy by over 270,000 over the next 6
    years and taken all that money to give it back to local communities to
    make children and families safer, 100,000 more police, more prisons,
    longer sentences for serious offenders, programs to help young people
    have something to say yes to, to prevent crimes: drug courts, boot
    camps, education and job-training programs, jobs and activities for
    young people, and a ban on juvenile ownership of handguns and on assault
    weapons. Again, there was bitter opposition. The status quo had powerful
    friends, but the American people and the American future won.

        In everything we do, we must honor work and family and community.
    That's why we're fighting for health security for working Americans by
    providing universal coverage and controlling costs, why we're working to
    reform the welfare system to help people move from public assistance to
    productive jobs, and why we're changing the unemployment system to a
    reemployment system to help people continuously get the training, the
    counseling, the information they need about new jobs.

        Our work won't be done until all Americans enjoy the dignity of
    work, the security of world-class skills, and the opportunity to build a
    life for themselves and their children that is better. That can only be
    done by taking a new direction--not a Government which says we can do it
    alone and certainly not a Government that sits on the sidelines but one
    that works in partnership with business and with our individual working
    men and women and their families.

        On Labor Day, Monday, I'll be visiting with workers at a shipyard in
    Bath, Maine, where that partnership is taking place, where labor and
    management have made a uniquely American covenant with themselves and
    with their Government: with themselves, to share the responsibility and
    rewards for the company's success, and with their Government, to take a
    little help to move from a defense-based economy to prove that they can
    compete and win in a global economy that involves far more than defense.
    Those shipyard workers in Maine exemplify the best in the American
    spirit, the understanding that when we pull together for the common good
    we are unstoppable.

        This Monday, Labor Day, you'll see that spirit all across our
    country: Milwaukee, at the Labor Day Parade; and Little Rock, at the
    Old-Time American Union Picnic; in Michigan, as they have on every Labor
    Day since 1958, you'll see tens of thousands of people walking the 5
    miles across the Mackinac Bridge connecting the State's Upper and Lower
    Peninsulas.

        Next Sunday, in Washington, DC, there will be a special Labor Day
    Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to bear witness
    to the timeless truth that work gives structure and meaning to our lives
    and is divinely ordained.

        Whatever you're doing this weekend, I wish you all the best for
    yourselves and your families. I thank you for listening and for your
    dedication to our country.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Tisbury School on
    Martha's Vineyard, MA.