    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 36 (Monday, September 9, 1996)]
    [Pages 1652-1659]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks in Sunrise, Florida

    August 5, 1996

        Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I tell you, I just hope
    you're having as good a time as I am this afternoon. Thank you. Thank
    you for making me feel so welcome. Thank you, Congressman Deutsch, for
    your remarks today and for being a steadfast ally for the people of
    Florida and for our administration the last 2 years. Thank you, Governor
    Lawton Chiles, for your lifetime of service to the people of Florida and
    the people of the United States and for your brilliant service as
    Governor.
        I'm delighted to be here with your attorney general, Bob
    Butterworth; your State insurance commissioner, Bill Nelson; State
    Senator Ken Jenne; State Senator Peter Weinstein; Mayor Effman of
    Sunrise; Mayor Graham of West Palm Beach; Gloria Jackson, the chair of
    the Broward County Democratic Party; Sheriff Ron Cochran. And I'd like
    to say a special word of thanks to my friend Gerry McEntee, back here,
    the president of

    [[Page 1653]]

    the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and a
    great supporter of Medicare. And I'd like to thank the Boyles who own
    the theater here for welcoming us. But most of all I'd like to thank
    Sallie and her mother, her daughter, and her granddaughter. Didn't she
    do a good job? Let's give her another hand. I thought she was great.
    [Applause] Thank you.
        Today I want to talk to you about how all of us, regardless of our
    ages, grandchildren, children, parents, grandparents, great-
    grandparents, great-grandchildren--how we can move forward together to
    build that bridge to the 21st century I talked about in Chicago last
    Thursday night.
        I especially want to talk a little more about health security
    because I know that one of the keys to enabling our families to succeed
    at home and at work is finding a way for hard-working people to have
    that health security, to provide the best possible care for people. And
    I'd like to talk a little bit about those who get their care from
    specific health care plans that have certain requirements and standards
    that may lower the costs but may also raise some questions.
        You know, we have had a remarkable week and a half. I took that
    train from West Virginia to the convention in Chicago, and I stopped
    along the way in places that hadn't seen a passenger train in a long
    time, and there were thousands and tens of thousands of people all along
    the route. It was terribly moving.
        And then, of course, we had a good convention. And then Hillary and
    I and Al and Tipper Gore set out on our bus tour, and we made another
    five States. And I figure we saw in our

    talks about a quarter of a million people, and another 200,000 just along
    the road and the rails. I never saw so many crowds, people coming out,
    believing in America again, knowing that we're on the track, knowing that
    we're on the right track and the right road to the 21st century. And it was
    very moving.

        Thanks to the support I have received from others in the Congress
    and in the administration, we have worked very hard to move this country
    forward. And compared to 4 years ago, we have 10 million more jobs,
    almost 4\1/2\ million more homeowners, another 10 million homeowners who
    refinanced their mortgages at lower mortgage rates. Wages are going up
    for the first time in a decade. We've had record numbers of new
    businesses in each of the last 4 years, and businesses are growing now,
    coming into existence at the fastest rate since John Kennedy was
    President. We have record--[applause] we're selling more of our products
    around the world than ever before. The combined rates of unemployment,
    inflation, and home mortgages are the lowest in 28 years. I am proud of
    these things, and you should be too, as Americans.
        For 4 years in a row, the crime rate has gone down. In Tampa, the
    crime rate fell 20 percent in 1995, just for example. I just came from
    there, so I asked for the numbers on Tampa, and I thought it was an
    amazing drop. There are 1.8 million fewer people on welfare than there
    were the day I took office. In Florida, there are over 135,000 fewer on
    welfare in the State of Florida alone. Child support collections are up
    40 percent in the Nation; in Florida--thank you, Governor Chiles--
    they're up 48 percent in the last 4 years.
        Just about 2 weeks ago, maybe 3 now--time has been flying the last
    few days--I signed a minimum wage bill which raised the minimum wage for
    10 million hard-working Americans. It also made the employees and the
    owners of small businesses all across America--made it easier for them
    to take out retirement plans and to keep those retirement plans when
    they move from job to job.
        Most of our new jobs are being created in small businesses. More and
    more businesses are coming into existence, going out of existence in
    this new, dynamic economy. We have to make it possible for people to
    save for their retirement even if they're in small businesses and even
    if they change jobs a lot of times. And I'm proud of the fact that we've
    got legislation now which will make that much, much easier and safer.
        Another interesting provision that Governor Chiles and I were
    talking about with his daughter up in Tampa that was in the minimum wage
    bill is that we provided a $5,000 tax credit to people who will adopt
    children. There are tens of thousands of chil-

    [[Page 1654]]

    dren out there who need a home, and I hope this will help more of them
    find it.
        In late 1994--there's one other thing I want to mention here that
    was done that didn't achieve a lot of notice because it was a part of a
    big trade bill. But we passed a provision to strengthen the protection
    for pensions that protected the integrity of 40 million Americans'
    pension, people already retired and people saving for their retirement,
    to make sure that these funds are not raided.
        And one of the things that I vetoed in that budget that Congressman
    Deutsch talked about, in addition to the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid
    and education and the environment, was a provision which would have
    allowed $15 billion to be taken out of existing pension funds and put to
    other purposes. And I thought that was wrong. I think we ought to keep
    the integrity of our pensions systems in this country.
        And let me say to a lot of you who may have grown up in an earlier
    time when we thought more about balancing our books except when there
    was an emergency, I'm very proud of the fact that our administration is
    the first administration since the 1840's, before the Civil War, to have
    the deficit go down in each of the 4 years of its term. It's been cut by
    60 percent.
        So compared to 4 years ago, we're in better shape. But as I said
    last week and I say again, there are many things we need to do to build
    a bridge to the 21st century that keeps the American dream alive for all
    of us, that enables people to succeed in their family lives and at work,
    that brings us together across all the lines that divide us, that keeps
    us the strongest country in the world for peace, freedom, and
    prosperity.
        Earlier today when I was in Tampa, I had a chance to go to a
    wonderful high school and speak to over 2,000 students there about our
    goals for education in the next 4 years. I want to mobilize an army of
    reading tutors so that instead of having 40 percent of our 8-year-olds
    who cannot read on their own, in 4 years every single 8-year-old will be
    able to read a book on his or her own.
        I want to make sure that every young child in America in school,
    without regard to their race, their income, where they have to live,
    from the poorest urban school districts to the most remote mountain
    school districts, will for the first time in the history of America have
    access to the same information in the same time, the same quality, as
    the children in the wealthiest districts do, by hooking all the
    classrooms up to the Internet, to the information superhighway, with
    adequate computers and trained teachers. We can do it for the first time
    in history.
        And I want to make sure that we put a college education within reach
    of every family. In the last 4 years, we have worked hard to increase
    scholarship funds for needy students. We have worked hard to reform the
    student loan program so that now it works faster and costs less than
    ever before.
        I remember Governor Chiles and the legislative leaders invited me to
    speak to the Florida Legislature up in Tallahassee. I had a very moving
    experience with a young couple there who had both graduated from medical
    school and who were doing their residency. And you know doctors don't
    make any money when they're residents, and they owed well over $100,000
    on their education. And because we had changed the law which said that
    young people could pay back their loans as a percentage of their income
    and never be required to pay back more than that in any given year,
    these young people were able to avoid literally having half of their
    income go to their college loan repayment, and they wouldn't have had
    enough left to live on. We should never have anyone drop out of any
    level of education because of that burden. And I want to do more.
        A lot of you can empathize with this: It's no longer possible for
    people to say they're through with education when they graduate from
    college. And now we know when people graduate from high school, chances
    are better than 50-50 they will not be able to find a job with a growing
    income. So what I want to do in the next 4 years, within 4 years, is to
    make 2 more years of education, the equivalent of at least a community
    college degree, just as universal as a high school diploma is today by
    giving a tax credit for the price of the tuition to the families of this
    country, so we can

    pay for it dollar for dollar through tax cuts, and everybody can at least

    [[Page 1655]]

    get a community college education. I think that's very important.

        I'm well aware that the largest community college in the United
    States is not very far from here. But nearly every American--nearly
    every American--is within driving distance of a community college. And
    more and more, the people you see at our community colleges are older
    students, non-traditional students. The average age at a lot of our
    community colleges is bumping 30 now. And they have people in their
    fifties there and their sixties there, people who have lost their jobs
    and have to go back and get new education and training.
        So I say to you we ought to have that tax credit for the cost of a
    typical tuition at a community college. And I believe we should have a
    tax deduction worth up to $10,000 a year for any tuition cost at any
    post-high school education in the country to help people educate
    themselves. It will make our country stronger.
        So I hope you'll help me build that bridge to the future for the
    younger part of the families that are here. But we also have to keep
    this economy going strong. You know, whenever we argue about, well, how
    are we going to pay for Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or
    whatever part of it, always assume certain things about the strength of
    the American economy: what will the unemployment rate be, what will the
    incomes be, what will the growth be. We have to keep this economy going
    strong, and we can grow it even faster. But if we're going to do that,
    we have to keep investing in the things that make us strong, like
    education, research, environmental technology, and we have to keep
    bringing this deficit down.
        Every time I leave Washington for the last 4 months, some expert has
    said, ``Now, Mr. President, don't go down there and talk about the
    deficit. People really cared about the deficit when the economy was bad,
    but nobody really understands it very well, and so they don't care about
    it once the economy gets better. It's boring to them. Don't talk to them
    about that.''
        Well, I don't believe that. I think you do care about whether your
    country is spending itself into debt. Let me just briefly say why
    everyone should care about it. Because as our Republican friends said
    last year--they put out a paper on this, not me, but I agree with them--
    they said if we were not on a plan to a balanced budget, if we went back
    to permanent high deficit spending the way we did in the 12 years before
    I came here, interest rates would go up 2 percent. Why? Because the
    Government would be borrowing money and you would be borrowing money,
    and we would both be trying to borrow the same money so the price would
    go up.
        Now, what that means is, 2 percent on a home mortgage, on a car
    payment, on a credit card payment every month, it means 2 percent more
    for business borrowing, which undermines the ability of businesses to
    borrow money and invest, to be more productive, to give their workers
    raises and hire more people. It's harder to borrow money to start a new
    business.
        This is a big deal, folks. We have got to keep this economy growing
    and going strong, and every tax cut I talked about is paid for, dime by
    dime, line by line. We don't want to go back to the old days where
    someone says, ``Hey, I'm running for office, and I'll give you a big tax
    cut. No, I can't pay for it and yes, it will increase the deficit, and,
    oh, by the way, I'll have to cut Medicare and Medicaid and education and
    the environment even more than last time.'' That's what their proposal
    is; this across-the-board thing.
        Don't go for that. We went down that road before. We would have a
    surplus in the budget today and could have a bigger tax cut or extend
    the life of Medicare with no sweat for another several years, a surplus
    today if it weren't for the interest we're paying on the debt run up in
    just the 12 years before I became the President. We don't want to make
    that mistake again. We dare not make that mistake again, and I don't
    think you want to make that mistake again.
        Every time I come to Florida, someone talks to me about personal
    security. I'm proud of the fact that the crime rate has come down for 4
    years in a row. I want it to keep coming down. And that means we have to
    finish the work of putting 100,000 police on the street. It means we
    ought to pass a law that expands the Brady bill, which now covers
    anybody who has been convicted of a felon or is a fugitive or a stalker,
    can't

    [[Page 1656]]

    get a handgun. I think that should extend to anyone who has beaten up a
    child or a spouse at home. I don't believe people who are involved in
    domestic violence should do that.
        And I believe that we should ban those terrible cop-killer bullets.
    They have no purpose other than to shoot police officers. If the police
    officers are willing to protect us, we ought to be willing to protect
    them. It's a simple thing, and it has nothing to do with hunting or
    sporting.
        I believe that we have to build a bridge to the 21st century that
    works on building even stronger families. That's why I've said that the
    family leave law that I signed, the first bill I signed, has made it
    possible for 12 million American families, intergenerationally, just
    like these fine women up here--12 million families, where someone in the
    family could take some time off without losing their jobs for the birth
    of a baby or the illness of a parent. It's been a great thing for
    America, and it has not hurt the economy. And I would like to see it
    extended in a narrow way to say you can also take a little time off to
    take your child to the parent-teacher conference at school or your
    parent to a regular doctor's appointment as well, in case there are
    serious problems that can't be dealt with.
        I want to see us stand up for the environment and prove we can grow
    the economy and protect the environment more in the 21st century. You
    know, I talked about this the other night, but I want to say it again.
    It's appalling to me--it's appalling to me that we still have 10 million
    American children living within 4 miles of toxic waste sites. Now, we've
    cleaned up more of those in 3 years than the previous administrations
    did in 12. But we're not doing enough; we have to do more. And so I
    propose just in the next 4 years to clean up 500 more, the two-thirds
    worst of those sites, so that we can say that our children are going to
    grow up next to parks, not poison. And I hope you'll help me with that.
        And here in Florida, I can say I'm very proud of the fact that in
    the first 4 years we saved national parks from the ill-advised scheme to
    sell some of them off. We negotiated an end to a proposed gold mine at
    Yellowstone National Park, the crown jewel of America's whole natural
    history. We created the largest national park south of Alaska in the
    Mojave Desert in California. And I hope in the next 4 years we will
    complete the work of saving the Florida Everglades. And I hope you will
    help us do that. [Applause] Thank you.
        Now, let's talk about health care. There are few issues that tie
    people together as closely as health care--all across the ages. The
    other night when the First Lady spoke at the Democratic Convention and
    said that we strongly supported a bill that

    says that you cannot kick a mother and her newborn child out of a hospital
    sooner than 48 hours. I believe that the grandmothers and the great-
    grandmothers and the great-grandfathers and the grandfathers were among
    those cheering the loudest in America. Of course these hospitals have to
    save money. Of course we want to cut unnecessary costs. Of course some
    people are healthy and fine, and there's no problem. But it ought to be a
    decision that the doctor can make based on what is best for the mother and
    the baby, and people should not be put on the street if they're not ready.

        When we launched a remarkable effort to dramatically increase the
    rate of immunizations of children up to the age of 2 so that more of
    them would live and live healthy lives, I think the grandparents were
    among those who cared the most about it. And when I was saying, look, we
    don't want to balance the budget in a way that not only cuts too much
    out of Medicare and Medicaid, but fundamentally changes the system, that
    was as big a problem--that creates a two-tier system of Medicare where
    if you happen to be older or poorer or sicker at the time the changes
    are made, the chances of your falling into second-class health care are
    overwhelming; or that changes the whole system under Medicaid so that
    there is no longer a guarantee for people who have middle class
    lifestyles to get some help for their parents in nursing homes; or
    people who have middle class lifestyles who have children with
    disabilities to get some help with those children so they can keep them
    at home and still keep their jobs and not go broke. I don't believe

    [[Page 1657]]

    that's an age-specific area. I think that we all care about that.
        On the other hand, I don't agree that you can't do anything to try
    to save money in these programs to save them. Everybody wants us to save
    Medicare. Everybody knows that we're all living longer and staying
    healthier. And that's good, isn't it? I mean, I think that's pretty
    good.
        So when somebody tells me, Mr. President, we got this terrible
    problem with Medicare, since the inflation per person is not going up,
    it's just that people are living longer and the longer you live the more
    health care you use--to me, that's a high-class problem. I mean, I don't
    understand all this hand-wringing. That's a high-class problem if we got
    people living longer and being healthier and hanging around and doing
    things. I think that's a pretty high-class problem. I don't understand
    why everybody is going around like Chicken Little, ``Oh, the sky is
    falling. We have problems in Medicare because everybody is living.''
    [Laughter]
        I thought that was the object. [Laughter] I thought that was the
    point of the deal. Do you know, if you live in the United States--this
    is very interesting--in 1985, because of Social Security and SSI, for
    the first time in the history of our country, people over 65 had a lower
    poverty rate than people under 65. And because of Medicare and Medicaid,
    because of the things you can buy into with them, now if you live to be
    65 in the United States, we have the highest life expectancy of any
    country in the world among people who live to be 65 going forward.
        Our overall life expectancy is slightly lower, unfortunately,
    because we have higher rates of violence that take out too many of our
    children, because our maternal care programs are not as good as they
    should be, and because we have a disproportionate number of people
    compared to a lot of other countries with very serious illnesses. But if
    you live to be 65, you are in the country with the highest life
    expectancy for seniors in the entire world. Now, we know what did that.
    I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's a good thing. This is a
    high-class problem, this Medicare problem.
        So I proposed, and I told everybody--all the advocates for the
    senior groups came in; we worked with them--we proposed larger savings,
    substantive savings over a 6-year period in Medicare and Medicaid than
    any President ever had. The only problem was, I was trying to save the
    programs. I was trying to be fair. I wasn't trying to balance the budget
    on your back or make you pay for somebody else's tax cut or do something
    that would give us an excuse to walk away from our commitments under
    Medicare and Medicaid.
        So I say to you, the first thing we ought to do in going forward is
    to remember what the Hippocratic oath says: First, do no harm. Let's not
    do something we don't have to do. Let's do as much as we have to do to
    save the programs. But let's not do something we don't have to do that
    would make it unfair to those who depend upon them.
        We can--I'll say again, just like Congressman Deutsch said--we can
    clearly balance the budget and dramatically extend the life of the
    Medicare Trust Fund without the level of cuts in Medicare, Medicaid,
    education, and the environment in the budget that I vetoed last year.
        My door is still open to the Congress, even as they meet now in
    September to try to reach an agreement on that. But I will not do
    anything that will cause us to harm people who have justifiably depended
    on this when this program is working and the problem we have is the very
    problem we've been trying to create for 30 years, ever since we created
    it, which is we hoped people would live longer and be healthier and be
    stronger. We can fix it, but we don't want to destroy it.
        The second thing I want to say is, as we provide people more options
    in Medicare and more options in Medicaid, and take steps that will
    further slow the rate of inflation and give people attractive options to
    be in managed care programs of various kinds, we ought to do it, again,
    in a way that really creates a win-win situation. And we can do that.
    I'm prepared to give Governor Chiles and all the other Governors in the
    country greater flexibility in how they administer the Medicaid program,
    but I don't think we should walk away from the populations, pregnant
    women and their poor young children, families with disabilities, and the
    seniors. I don't think we

    [[Page 1658]]

    should do that. I think we should stay in there and serve those
    populations.
        In our balanced budget program, we actually also proposed to do some
    things that we think will be very good for the economy. A lot of
    parents--a lot of families, for example, are caring for parents with
    Alzheimer's. It's a painful, difficult thing. It's also a great labor of
    love. If a family is doing that and saving the system money by doing it,
    I think we ought to provide some way for them to get some respite care
    for those who are caring for Alzheimer's people in their own home. And
    that's an example of something that I think would be a good thing to do
    that will actually save money to the larger health care system and
    enable families again to make it at work and to make it at home, and to
    keep that close-knit bond that we all value so much.
        I think we are going to have to crack down even harder on those who
    rip the Medicare system off. We have--I will say this--I hear more about
    it in Florida than anyplace else, I guess, because more of you know
    about it, but you should know that we've saved more than $15 billion in
    3 years. We have strengthened the requirements and our tools for dealing
    with it, and Governor Chiles has done a better job of dealing with it
    than any other Governor in the country, in my opinion. So we're doing
    our best.
        Two weeks ago, I had the great privilege, as has already been said
    in my introduction, of signing the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, which is the
    most significant health care reform in a generation. The bill guarantees
    that working people can keep their health insurance if they change jobs,
    it gives self-employed business people a better tax break to buy
    insurance just like those who work for big firms. It means you don't
    lose your health insurance if you or somebody in your family gets sick.
    What it means is that up to 25 million Americans might be able to get or
    keep health insurance now when they couldn't do it before. It is a very
    good bill.
        But we have to do more. You don't want to say to some people we have
    created a right for you, and it's like saying we've all got a right to
    go buy a Jaguar. So my next proposal is--and this, again, is paid for in
    my balanced budget--that we help workers and their families who are in
    between jobs to keep their health insurance for up to 6 months so they
    don't lose it while they're changing jobs.
        This could help to bring peace of mind to 3 million Americans a
    year, including 700,000 children. It is paid for in my balanced budget,
    and it's long overdue. I also think we have to do more to give our
    people the assurance that they'll get the quality they are paying for
    and that they deserve. That's why I'm supporting the legislation I
    mentioned, dealing with not forcing new mothers and their newborns out
    of the hospital.
        And that's why I believe we should extend consumer protections to
    the 140 million Americans who are now enrolled in managed care health
    plans. These plans--let me talk a little bit about--these plans, on
    balance, have given most people who are in them high quality care with
    more choices at lower costs, because they are, in various ways, managed
    care plans, the HMO's, the PPO's, and the others. But we have to make
    sure that the changes that are being made do not lead to a decline in
    the quality of health care.
        Now, I can tell you, I've spent years studying this now as a
    Governor and as President, and I am convinced that the right kind of
    managed care can really be the best of all worlds, can give more choices
    to consumers, can give people more chances to make decisions that are
    right for them, can keep the costs of health care down and still
    maintain very high quality.
        I am also convinced that if they're not the right kind of plans,
    some bad things can happen, especially by not giving managed care
    customers all of the information they need. Too often, too many health
    care plans are literally gagging their doctors, their nurses, and other
    professionals by stopping them from telling patients about all their
    treatment options, because some of those options that may be best for
    the patients may be more expensive for the plan since the patient has
    already paid the flat rate.
        So I want to say to you that I think this has to stop, and this is
    my announcement for the day. But there is a bipartisan bill, a
    bipartisan bill that's been introduced in the Congress, sponsored by
    Representative Ed Markey, a Democrat, and Representative Greg Ganske, a
    Republican, that will help

    [[Page 1659]]

    to protect doctors, nurses, and patients. It's called the ``Patient
    Right To Know Act,'' and it says that the professionals cannot be gagged
    from giving you the information you're entitled to and cannot be
    punished if they give it to you, so that we'll have the best of all
    worlds, managed care plus consumer protection. And I want--will you help
    me pass that bill? [Applause] Thank you.
        Again, I want to be clear: There are an awful lot of HMO's, PPO's,
    and other health care plans that give patients very good care at good
    value, even better value with more choices and less inflation in the
    health care premiums. But we have to

    make sure that we don't give up the quality of care. Doctors just must not
    face discrimination when they uphold their oath to give patients the best
    care. Patients should feel safe in the knowledge that they have been given
    the full story of what all their treatment options are and what are best
    for them. They should be told about the best treatment, whether it's the
    cheapest or not.

        There is also more to do. There are millions of Americans who are
    affected by the changes in our health system which ought to feel
    comfortable about the health care they receive. I have asked our
    Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, and our Labor
    Secretary, Bob Reich, to form an advisory commission about the quality
    of care for health care consumers with health care providers, health
    plans, consumers, business people--all on a bipartisan basis, everybody
    having their story heard, but to evaluate the ways that health plans can
    best serve their customers over the long run so that we can have a
    health care system we can afford and one we can be proud of because it
    keeps life expectancy going up and it keeps the health of our people
    improving.
        The Vice President I have asked to review this report because he has
    done such great work in other areas where we have tried to reinvent our
    Government and improve things. And what we're trying to do is to
    understand how these changes in the health care system are going to
    affect America's families, all generations of families, yours, mine,
    everyone else's; what are the financial implications; what are the
    health care implications; what else should we do.
        But I am confident that being for a consumer's right to know is the
    right thing to do here. And I am confident--I will say again--I am
    confident that we can find a way to preserve the Medicare program in a
    way that gives you more options, keeps it affordable, and doesn't divide
    it into a two-tier system where the elderly in our country who happen to
    be the oldest or the poorest or the sickest wind up getting the short
    end of the health care stick. I don't think any one of you want that,
    and I`m going to do my best to avoid that. We can do what we need to do.
        All of this is a way of building a bridge to the future. I believe
    that we have to make it possible--let me say again--for families across
    the generations to succeed at home and at work, to honor the obligations
    to parents and children and still be successful in the workplace and as
    citizens. I believe we can do that. I believe we can do it if we build
    the right kind of bridge to the future, including the health care
    reforms I have discussed today. And I hope that every one of you will
    help me and yourselves and your children to build that bridge.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:20 p.m. at the Sunrise Musical Theater.
    In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Steve Effman of Sunrise; Mayor
    Nancy Graham of West Palm Beach; Sheriff Ron Cochran of Broward County;
    Jack and Janet Boyle, owners, Sunrise Musical Theater; and Sallie A.
    Richardville, secretary-treasurer, Broward AFL-CIO, who introduced the
    President, her mother, Edith B. Tuten, her daughter, Mary K. Leake, and
    her granddaughter, Nicole ``Nikki'' Washburn.