[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.