The State Of The Union Address

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, honored guests, my fellow Americans: We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis or so few external threats. Never before have we had such a blessed opportunity -- and, therefore, such a profound obligation -- to build the more perfect union of our founders' dreams.

We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs. The fastest economic growth in more than 30 years; the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record; the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years.

Next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history.

We have built a new economy.

Our economic revolution has been matched by a revival of the American spirit: Crime down by 20 percent, to its lowest level in 25 years. Teen births down seven years in a row and adoptions up by 30 percent. Welfare rolls cut in half to their lowest levels in 30 years.

My fellow Americans, the state of our union is the strongest it has ever been.

As always, the credit belongs to the American people.

My gratitude also goes to those of you in this chamber who have worked with us to put progress above partisanship.

Eight years ago, it was not so clear to most Americans there would be much to celebrate in the year 2000. Then our nation was gripped by economic distress, social decline, political gridlock. The title of a best-selling book asked: "America: What went wrong?"

In the best traditions of our nation, Americans determined to set things right. We restored the vital center, replacing outdated ideologies with a new vision anchored in basic, enduring values: opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and a community of all Americans.

We reinvented government, transforming it into a catalyst for new ideas that stress both opportunity and responsibility, and give our people the tools to solve their own problems.

With the smallest federal workforce in 40 years, we turned record deficits into record surpluses, and doubled our investment in education. We cut crime: with 100,000 community police and the Brady Law, which has kept guns out of the hands of half a million criminals.

We ended welfare as we knew it -- requiring work while protecting health care and nutrition for children, and investing more in child care, transportation, and housing to help their parents go to work. We have helped parents to succeed at work and at home -- with family leave, which 20 million Americans have used to care for a newborn child or a sick loved one. We have engaged 150,000 young Americans in citizen service through AmeriCorps -- while also helping them earn their way through college.

In 1992, we had a roadmap. Today, we have results. More important, America again has the confidence to dream big dreams. But we must not let our renewed confidence grow into complacency. We will be judged by the dreams and deeds we pass on to our children. And on that score, we will be held to a high standard, indeed. Because our chance to do good is so great.

My fellow Americans, we have crossed the bridge we built to the 21st Century. Now, we must shape a 21st-Century American revolution -- of opportunity, responsibility, and community. We must be, as we were in the beginning, a new nation.

At the dawn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt said, "the one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight. . . It should be the growing nation with a future which takes the long look ahead."

Tonight let us take our look long ahead -- and set great goals for our nation.

To 21st Century America, let us pledge that:

Every child will begin school ready to learn and graduate ready to succeed. Every family will be able to succeed at home and at work -- and no child will be raised in poverty. We will meet the challenge of the aging of America. We will assure quality, affordable healthcare for all Americans. We will make America the safest big country on earth. We will bring prosperity to every American community. We will reverse the course of climate change and leave a cleaner, safer planet. America will lead the world toward shared peace and prosperity, and the far frontiers of science and technology. And we will become at last what our founders pledged us to be so long ago -- one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

These are great goals, worthy of a great nation. We will not reach them all this year. Not even in this decade. But we will reach them. Let us remember that the first American revolution was not won with a single shot. The continent was not settled in a single year. The lesson of our history -- and the lesson of the last seven years -- is that great goals are reached step by step: always building on our progress, always gaining ground.

Of course, you can't gain ground if you're standing still. For too long this Congress has been standing still on some of our most pressing national priorities. Let's begin with them.

I ask you again to pass a real patient's bill of rights. Pass common-sense gun-safety legislation. Pass campaign finance reform. Vote on long overdue judicial nominations and other important appointees. And, again, I ask you to raise the minimum wage.

Two years ago, as we reached our first balanced budget, I asked that we meet our responsibility to the next generation by maintaining our fiscal discipline. Because we refused to stray from that path, we are doing something that would have seemed unimaginable seven years ago: We are actually paying down the national debt. If we stay on this path, we can pay down the debt entirely in 13 years and make America debt-free for the first time since Andrew Jackson was president in 1835.

In 1993, we began to put our fiscal house in order with the Deficit Reduction Act, winning passage in both houses by just one vote. Your former colleague, my first Secretary of the Treasury, led that effort. He is here tonight. Lloyd Bentsen, you have served America well.

Beyond paying off the debt, we must ensure that the benefits of debt reduction go to preserving two of the most important guarantees we make to every American -- Social Security and Medicare. I ask you tonight to work with me to make a bipartisan down payment on Social Security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the Social Security Trust Fund to ensure that it is strong and sound for the next 50 years.

But this is just the start of our journey. Now we must take the right steps toward reaching our great goals.

OPPORTUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITY IN EDUCATION

First and foremost, we need a 21st Century revolution in education, guided by our faith that every child can learn. Because education is more than ever the key to our children's future, we must make sure all our children have that key. That means quality preschool and afterschool, the best trained teachers in every classroom, and college opportunities for all our children.

For seven years, we have worked hard to improve our schools, with opportunity and responsibility: Investing more, but demanding more in return.

Reading, math, and college entrance scores are up. And some of the most impressive gains are in schools in poor neighborhoods.

All successful schools have followed the same proven formula: higher standards, more accountability, so all children can reach those standards. I have sent Congress a reform plan based on that formula. It holds states and school districts accountable for progress, and rewards them for results. Each year, the national government invests more than $15 billion in our schools. It's time to support what works and stop supporting what doesn't.

As we demand more than ever from our schools, we should invest more than ever in our schools.

Let's double our investment to help states and districts turn around their worst-performing schools -- or shut them down.

Let's double our investment in afterschool and summer school programs -- boosting achievement, and keeping children off the street and out of trouble. If we do, we can give every child in every failing school in America the chance to meet high standards.

Since 1993, we've nearly doubled our investment in Head Start and improved its quality. Tonight, I ask for another $1 billion to Head Start, the largest increase in the program's history.

We know that children learn best in smaller classes with good teachers. For two years in a row, Congress has supported my plan to hire 100,000 new, qualified teachers, to lower class sizes in the early grades. This year, I ask you to make it three in a row.

And to make sure all teachers know the subjects they teach, tonight I propose a new teacher quality initiative -- to recruit more talented people into the classroom, reward good teachers for staying there, and give all teachers the training they need.

We know charter schools provide real public school choice. When I became President, there was just one independent public charter school in all America. Today there are 1,700. I ask you to help us meet our goal of 3,000 by next year.

We know we must connect all our classrooms to the Internet. We're getting there. In 1994, only three percent of our classrooms were connected. Today, with the help of the Vice President's E-rate program, more than half of them are; and 90 percent of our schools have at least one connection to the Internet.

But we can't finish the job when a third of all schools are in serious disrepair, many with walls and wires too old for the Internet. Tonight, I propose to help 5,000 schools a year make immediate, urgent repairs. And again, to help build or modernize 6,000 schools, to get students out of trailers and into high-tech classrooms.

We should double our bipartisan GEAR UP program to mentor 1.4 million disadvantaged young people for college. And let's offer these students a chance to take the same college test-prep courses wealthier students use to boost their test scores.

To make the American Dream achievable for all, we must make college affordable for all. For seven years, on a bipartisan basis, we have taken action toward that goal: larger Pell grants, more-affordable student loans, education IRAs, and our HOPE scholarships, which have already benefited 5 million young people. 67 percent of high school graduates now go on to college, up almost 10 percent since 1993. Yet millions of families still strain to pay college tuition. They need help.

I propose a landmark $30-billion college opportunity tax cut -- a middle-class tax deduction for up to $10,000 in college tuition costs. We've already made two years of college affordable for all. Now let's make four years of college affordable for all.

If we take all these steps, we will move a long way toward making sure every child starts school ready to learn and graduates ready to succeed.

REWARDING WORK AND STRENGTHENING FAMILIES

We need a 21st Century revolution to reward work and strengthen families -- by giving every parent the tools to succeed at work and at the most important work of all -- raising their children. That means making sure that every family has health care and the support to care for aging parents, the tools to bring their children up right, and that no child grows up in poverty.

From my first days as President, we have worked to give families better access to better health care. In 1997, we passed the Children's Health Insurance Program -- CHIP -- so that workers who don't have health care coverage through their employers at least can get it for their children. So far, we've enrolled 2 million children, and we're well on our way to our goal of 5 million.

But there are still more than 40 million Americans without health insurance, more than there were in 1993. Tonight I propose that we follow Vice President Gore's suggestion to make low income parents eligible for the insurance that covers their kids. Together with our children's initiative, we can cover nearly one quarter of the uninsured in America.

Again, I ask you to let people between 55 and 65 -- the fastest growing group of uninsured -- buy into Medicare. And let's give them a tax credit to make that choice an affordable one.

When the Baby Boomers retire, Medicare will be faced with caring for twice as many of our citizens -- and yet it is far from ready to do so. My generation must not ask our children's generation to shoulder our burden. We must strengthen and modernize Medicare now.

My budget includes a comprehensive plan to reform Medicare, to make it more efficient and competitive. And it dedicates nearly $400 billion of our budget surplus to keep Medicare solvent past 2025; and, at long last, to give every senior a voluntary choice of affordable coverage for prescription drugs.

Lifesaving drugs are an indispensable part of modern medicine. No one creating a Medicare program today would even consider excluding coverage for prescription drugs. Yet more than three in five seniors now lack dependable drug coverage which can lengthen and enrich their lives. Millions of older Americans who need prescription drugs the most pay the highest prices for them.

In good conscience, we cannot let another year pass without extending to all seniors the lifeline of affordable prescription drugs.

Record numbers of Americans are providing for aging or ailing loved ones at home. Last year, I proposed a $1,000 tax credit for long-term care. Frankly, that wasn't enough. This year, let's triple it to $3,000 -- and this year, let's pass it.

And we must make needed investments to expand access to mental health care. I want to thank the person who has led our efforts to break down the barriers to the decent treatment of mental illness: Tipper Gore.

Taken together, these proposals would mark the largest investment in health care in the 35 years since the creation of Medicare -- a big step toward assuring health care for all Americans, young and old.

We must also make investments that reward work and support families. Nothing does that better than the Earned Income Tax Credit, the EITC. The "E" in "EITC" is about earning; working; taking responsibility and being rewarded for it. In my first Address to you, I asked Congress to greatly expand this tax credit; and you did. As a result, in 1998 alone, the EITC helped more than 4.3 million Americans work their way out of poverty and toward the middle class -- double the number in 1993.

Tonight, I propose another major expansion. We should reduce the marriage penalty for the EITC, making sure it rewards marriage just as it rewards work. And we should expand the tax credit for families with more than two children to provide up to $1,100 more in tax relief.

We can't reward work and family unless men and women get equal pay for equal work. The female unemployment rate is the lowest in 46 years. Yet women still earn only about 75 cents for every dollar men earn. We must do better by providing the resources to enforce present equal pay laws, training more women for high-paying, high-tech jobs, and passing the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Two-thirds of new jobs are in the suburbs, far away from many low-income families. In the past two years, I have proposed and Congress has approved 110,000 new housing vouchers -- rent subsidies to help working families live closer to the workplace. This year, let us more than double that number. If we want people to go to work, they have to be able to get to work.

Many working parents spend up to a quarter of their income on child care. Last year, we helped parents provide child care for about two million children. My child care initiative, along with funds already secured in welfare reform, would make child care better, safer, and more affordable for another 400,000 children.

For hard-pressed middle-income families, we should also expand the child care tax credit. And we should take the next big step. We should make that tax credit refundable for low-income families. For those making under $30,000 a year, that could mean up to $2,400 for child-care costs. We all say we're pro-work and pro-family. Passing this proposal would prove it.

Tens of millions of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck. As hard as they work, they still don't have the opportunity to save. Too few can make use of IRAs and 401-K retirement plans. We should do more to help working families save and accumulate wealth. That's the idea behind so-called Individual Development Accounts. Let's take that idea to a new level, with Retirement Savings Accounts that enable every low- and moderate-income family in America to save for retirement, a first home, a medical emergency, or a college education. I propose to match their contributions, however small, dollar for dollar, every year they save. And to give a major new tax credit for any small business that provides a meaningful pension to its workers.

Nearly one in three American children grows up in a home without a father. These children are five times more likely to live in poverty than children with both parents at home. Clearly, demanding and supporting responsible fatherhood is critical to lifting all children out of poverty.

We have doubled child support collections since 1992, and I am proposing tough new measures to hold still more fathers responsible. But we should recognize that a lot of fathers want to do right by their children -- and need help to do it. Carlos Rosas of St. Paul, Minnesota, got that help. Now he has a good job and he supports his son Ricardo. My budget will help 40,000 fathers make the choices Carlos did. And I thank him for being here.

If there is any issue on which we can reach across party lines it is in our common commitment to reward work and strengthen families. Thanks to overwhelming bipartisan support from this Congress, we have improved foster care, supported those who leave it when they turn eighteen, and dramatically increased the number of foster children going to adoptive homes. I thank you for that. Of course, I am especially grateful to the person who has led our efforts from the beginning, and who has worked tirelessly for children and families for thirty years now: my wife, Hillary.

If we take all these steps, we will move a long way toward empowering parents to succeed at home and at work and ensuring that no child is raised in poverty. We can make these vital investments in health care, education and support for working families?and still offer tax cuts to help pay for college, for retirement, to care for aging parents and reduce the marriage penalty ? without forsaking the path of fiscal discipline that got us here. Indeed, we must make these investments and tax cuts in the context of a balanced budget that strengthens and extends the life of Social Security and Medicare and pays down the national debt.

The Address: Continued.