Current Shareware 1994 January/SHAR194.ISO/articles/wh930907.zip/9-7E.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-09-07 | 8KB

From [e-mail]  Tue Sep  7 15:10:05 1993
To: [e-mail],
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993 08:49-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
Subject: Radio Address of 9/4/93

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary

_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                               September 4, 1993


            RADIO ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE NATION

                           The Oval Office

10:06 A.M. EDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning.  On this Labor Day
weekend, we honor the working men and women who are the strength and
the soul of America.  For people who work hard all year, this weekend
offers the opportunity to relax with our families at a picnic, a
barbecue, a beach or just in our own homes.

         In the calm and the quite of these last days of summer,
there will be a moment when most of us think about our families and
our future.  Maybe it will come during a walk on the beach, a stroll
through a park, or when we watch a son or a daughter take as swing at
a softball or build a castle in the sand.

         We'll think of the faith of our parents that was
instilled in us here in America -- the idea that if  you work hard
and play by the rules, you'll be rewarded with a good life for
yourself and a better chance for your children.

         Filled with that faith, generations of Americans have
worked long hours on their jobs and passed along powerful dreams to
their sons and daughters.  Many of us can remember our own parents
working long hours on their jobs and then coming home and helping us
with our homework.  The American Dream has always been a better life
for people who are willing to work for it.

         In seven months as your President, I've been deeply
inspired by the people I've met who are working hard and studying
hard, building their futures in a time of turbulence and change.
I'll never forget a woman I met from Detroit who had to support her
children after her husband died.  Determined not to be on welfare,
she enrolled in a six-year advanced training program and found a job
as a machinist.  I'll never forget the men and women I met at Van
Nuys Community College in California, people who had lost their jobs
as aerospace workers and auto workers and were learning new skills
from film production to computer science.  And just yesterday in
Delaware, I spoke with young people who are combining their high
school education with specialized job training for highly skilled
jobs in the aviation industry.

         Young and old, these people are the heroes we honor on
Labor Day, people who take personal responsibility for making their
lives better and making our nation stronger.

         Every morning when I go to work in the Oval Office, I
think about how we can offer our hard working Americans the
opportunities they deserve, opportunities too many have been denied
for too long.

         When Congress passed our economic plan last month,
America took an important step toward building the high-wage, high-
skill, high-growth economy where hard work is rewarded.  We're
beginning to pay down the deficit we inherited, get our economic
house in order, cut wasteful spending and invest in education and
training and new technologies.  We changed the tax laws to make sure
that no one who works 40 hours a week with children at home will live
in poverty.  That means tax cuts for millions of American families
with incomes below $27,000 a year.  It's a pro-work, pro-family
approach that's not about building bureaucracies but about
encouraging people to keep doing the right things.

         We've also made it possible for over 90 percent of the
small businesses in this country to reduce their taxes but only if
they invest more in their businesses.  And we've opened the doors of
college education to millions more Americans with lower interest
loans and easier repayment terms, and the opportunity for tens of
thousands of our young people to pay off their college loans or earn
credit against college through the National Service Program and
building their communities at the grass roots level.  These policies,
too, are pro-work and pro-family.

         We're taking the values that are central to our own
lives, values of work and family and putting them at the center of
our public policies.  We've got to keep America moving and we've got
to pull America back together.

         In just seven months we've done a lot.  But for 20 years
because of the pressures of the global economy and problems here at
home, Americans have been working harder for less.  And after 12
years of trickle down economics, which worked for just a little while
but then left us with no fundamental change except a huge, huge
national debt and a massive annual deficit, we've still got a lot
more to do.

         In the weeks ahead we'll be taking three new steps on
the journey of change toward a new American economy and a stronger
American community.  First, we'll reform the health care system to
provide health care security to all Americans and affordable costs so
that this health care system doesn't bankrupt the economy while
failing to cover millions of Americans.  Second, we'll try to create
more jobs through expanded trade, through the North American Free
Trade Agreement and a general agreement with the other trading
nations of the world.  And third, we'll try to give you more value
for your tax dollar by reinventing government to make it more
efficient and less expensive.

         These are the things we can do to give our people the
tools they need to build a stronger economy.  Health security,
expanded trade and reinventing government really aren't separate
goals.  They're part of a comprehensive strategy to promote long-term
growth, increased incomes, more jobs and a stronger American
community -- part of our effort to make all these changes our friend
and not our enemies.

         In our own lives we understand that we often have to do
several things to reach one goal.  Think about the talk at your
kitchen table when you discuss the challenges facing your own
families.  You might be talking about whether you can afford to buy a
home or send your youngest child to college, or whether to build a
new business of your own or go to night school to learn a new skill.
Of course, these are separate questions, but they all add up to one
challenge -- building a better life for you and your family.

         It's the same with building our country's future.  These
pieces must all fit together.  To control the deficit we have to
reform health care and give families more security.  To create new
jobs for our workers, we have to open new markets for our companies
and our products.  And for government to be a help and not a
hindrance in economic growth, we must make it less bureaucratic and
more productive.  Business and labor and government must work
together as partners to achieve these goals.

         This Labor Day weekend is a good time to remember that a
free society needs a strong and a vibrant labor movement.  From the
struggle against communism in Poland to the struggle against
apartheid in South Africa, to the struggle for social justice in our
nation, we have seen what working men and women can accomplish when
they work together in the spirit of solidarity.

         Now more than ever America needs the spirit of
solidarity and the courage to change -- the understanding that we're
all in this together and that we have to move forward together.

         Together we can make the changes that our people deserve
and our times demand.  And then on Labor Day weekends years from now
our children and our children's children will look back on the work
we did.  And they will say with gratitude and pride that we kept
faith with the American Dream.

         Thanks for listening.

                                 END10:12 A.M. EDT