    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [June 15, 1996]
    [Pages 919-920]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 919]]

    The President's Radio Address
    June 15, 1996

        Good morning. Tomorrow millions of Americans will reach out to their
    fathers in thanks. I believe being a father is the most important job a
    man can do. Today I want to talk with you about what our Nation can do
    to help fathers as they try to raise good children.
        A good, strong father can make the difference between a lifetime of
    disappointment and anger and a lifetime of fulfillment and good
    parenting in turn. Children from single-parent families are twice as
    likely to drop out of high school, to have a child before they're 20, to
    live in poverty. Children who don't have a dad at home are more likely
    to do worse in school than those who do, regardless of their household
    income.
        Yet in so many ways, being a father today is harder than it was when
    our own dads were young. Most fathers are working longer hours to help
    support their families. At the same time, as many women move into the
    workplace, many, many American fathers find themselves taking on even
    greater responsibilities at home.
        So if we want to keep the American family strong in the 21st
    century, we have to support America's fathers in doing their best by
    their children. That's why we worked hard to pass the family and medical
    leave law, to cut taxes for our hardest pressed working families, why
    we're fighting to raise the minimum wage and to make it easier for
    parents to pay for their children's college education, why we're
    fighting to protect the Medicaid that helps working parents with
    children with disabilities to keep working and support their children.
        In addition to supporting fathers, we should expect basic
    responsibilities from them. That's why we worked so hard to strengthen
    child support enforcement. And I'm proud that child support collections
    are up by 40 percent in the last 3 years.
        We are also urging fathers to get more involved, along with mothers,
    in their children's education. In fact, this summer Education Secretary
    Dick Riley is enlisting fathers and mothers to keep reading to their
    children and reading with their children through vacation. While math
    and science scores have gone up in recent years, our reading scores have
    remained just about flat. And reading ability drops off when children
    are out of school. Secretary Riley's Read-Write-Now initiative will
    encourage one million children to keep reading, even after the school
    doors close. Fathers can help to build a lifetime of memories for
    themselves and their children by reading with them every day. I know. On
    this Father's Day, all those books that I read with Chelsea together are
    among my most precious memories.
        We also have to help parents protect their children from bad
    influences that come from outside the home. American parents are working
    overtime to keep their homes safe, to set good examples, only to have
    popular culture make their hard work even harder. That's why we worked
    hard to give parents the V-chip, so they can keep excessive violence and
    other inappropriate material out of their young children's TV viewing,
    and why we have encouraged the entertainment industry to rate their TV
    programs. It's why we're supporting antidrug strategies to help parents
    keep their children drug free.
        Parents also know that, aside from television and drugs, alcohol and
    tobacco are two of the biggest dangers to our children. Our
    administration is working hard, along with tens of thousands of
    citizens, including so many young people in antismoking groups, to keep
    our children away from tobacco. Every day 3,000 kids start to smoke in
    this country illegally, and 1,000 of them will have their lives
    shortened as a result. Our administration has proposed strong rules to
    prevent the advertising, marketing, and sales of tobacco to children.
        Now, some political leaders who oppose our efforts to restrict
    advertising and sales to children are saying that cigarettes are not
    necessarily addictive, even going so far as to compare the dangers of
    kids smoking to the dangers of some children drinking milk. Well, that's
    certainly the tobacco company line. But it was the Surgeon General, Dr.
    C. Everett Koop, under President Reagan who concluded nearly a decade
    ago that cigarettes are addictive, highly addictive. In fact, next week
    130 of the Nation's top doctors and scientists are meeting to discuss
    how people can break free from tobacco addiction, not whether it's
    addictive.
        So when political leaders parrot the tobacco company line, say
    cigarettes are not necessarily

    [[Page 920]]

    addictive, and oppose our efforts to keep tobacco away from our
    children, they continue to cater to powerful interests, but they're not
    standing up for parents and children. In fact, they're making the job of
    being a parent even harder. So on the eve of this Father's Day, I say to
    the tobacco industry, support our efforts to keep tobacco away from our
    kids. And I say to others in public life, stop fighting those efforts;
    you should be supporting them too.
        One thing parents haven't had to worry about is their kids being
    exposed on television and radio to liquor advertisements. For half a
    century liquor companies have voluntarily kept their ads off the air for
    the simple reason that it was the right thing to do. So I was
    disappointed this week when a major company announced it would break the
    ban and put liquor ads on TV, exposing our children to liquor before
    they know how to handle it or can legally do so. After voluntarily
    staying away from this for 50 years, being good corporate citizens,
    companies are now considering changing plans. I ask the companies to get
    back to the ban. Pull those ads. We appreciate your good corporate
    citizenship, and our parents need it to continue. Let's all resolve to
    make the job of being a father easier.
        Tomorrow we celebrate our fathers, who every day, without fanfare or
    recognition, are doing the hard work it takes to be good fathers, good
    husbands, good citizens of our country. To all of you I say thank you,
    God bless you, Happy Father's Day, and thanks for listening.

    Note: The address was recorded at 5:25 p.m. on June 14 in the Roosevelt
    Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on June 15.