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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release January 23, 1996
STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
OF THE PRESIDENT
U.S. Capitol
9:14 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of the 104th
Congress, distinguished guests, my fellow Americans all across our
land: Let me begin tonight by saying to our men and women in uniform
around the world, and especially those helping peace take root in
Bosnia and to their families, I thank you. America is very, very
proud of you. (Applause.)
My duty tonight is to report on the state of the Union
-- not the state of our government, but of our American community;
and to set forth our responsibilities, in the words of our Founders,
to form a more perfect union.
The state of the Union is strong. (Applause.) Our
economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades. We have the
lowest combined rates of unemployment and inflation in 27 years. We
have completed -- created nearly 8 million new jobs, over a million
of them in basic industries, like construction and automobiles.
America is selling more cars than Japan for the first time since the
1970s. And for three years in a row, we have had a record number of
new businesses started in our country. (Applause.)
Our leadership in the world is also strong, bringing
hope for new peace. And perhaps most important, we are gaining
ground in restoring our fundamental values. The crime rate, the
welfare and food stamp rolls, the poverty rate and the teen pregnancy
rate are all down. And as they go down, prospects for America's
future go up. (Applause.)
We live in an age of possibility. A hundred years ago
we moved from farm to factory. Now we move to an age of technology,
information, and global competition. These changes have opened vast
new opportunities for our people, but they have also presented them
with stiff challenges. While more Americans are living better, too
many of our fellow citizens are working harder just to keep up, and
they are rightly concerned about the security of their families.
We must answer here three fundamental questions: First,
how do we make the American Dream of opportunity for all a reality
for all Americans who are willing to work for it? Second, how do we
preserve our old and enduring values as we move into the future?
And, third, how do we meet these challenges together, as one America?
We know big government does not have all the answers.
We know there's not a program for every problem. (Applause.) We
know, and we have worked to give the American people a smaller, less
bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the
American people one that lives within its means. (Applause.) The
era of big government is over. (Applause.) But we cannot go back to
the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.
(Applause.)
Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation
working together to meet the challenges we face together.
Self-reliance and teamwork are not opposing virtues; we must have
both. (Applause.) I believe our new, smaller government must work
in an old-fashioned American way, together with all of our citizens
through state and local governments, in the workplace, in religious,
charitable and civic associations. Our goal must be to enable all
our people to make the most of their own lives -- with stronger
families, more educational opportunity, economic security, safer
streets, a cleaner environment in a safer world.
To improve the state of our Union, we must ask more of
ourselves, we must expect more of each other, and we must face our
challenges together. (Applause.)
Here, in this place, our responsibility begins with
balancing the budget in a way that is fair to all Americans.
(Applause.) There is now broad bipartisan agreement that permanent
deficit spending must come to an end. (Applause.)
I compliment the Republican leadership and the
membership for the energy and determination you have brought to this
task of balancing the budget. (Applause.) And I thank the Democrats
for passing the largest deficit reduction plan in history in 1993,
which has already cut the deficit nearly in half in three years.
(Applause.)
Since 1993, we have all begun to see the benefits of
deficit reduction. Lower interest rates have made it easier for
businesses to borrow and to invest and to create new jobs. Lower
interest rates have brought down the cost of home mortgages, car
payments and credit card rates to ordinary citizens. Now, it is time
to finish the job and balance the budget. (Applause.)
Though differences remain among us which are
significant, the combined total of the proposed savings that are
common to both plans is more than enough, using the numbers from your
Congressional Budget Office to balance the budget in seven years and
to provide a modest tax cut.
These cuts are real. They will require sacrifice from
everyone. But these cuts do not undermine are fundamental
obligations to our parents, our children, and our future, by
endangering Medicare, or Medicaid, or education, or the environment,
or by raising taxes on working families. (Applause.)
I have said before, and let me say again, many good
ideas have come out of our negotiations. I have learned a lot about
the way both Republicans and Democrats view the debate before us. I
have learned a lot about the good ideas have that we could all
embrace.
We ought to resolve our remaining differences. I am
willing to work to resolve them. I am ready to meet tomorrow. But I
ask you to consider that we should at least enact these savings that
both plans have in common and give the American people their balanced
budget, a tax cut, lower interest rates, and a brighter future. We
should do that now and make permanent deficits yesterday's legacy.
(Applause.)
Now it is time for us to look also to the challenges of
today and tomorrow, beyond the burdens of yesterday. The challenges
are significant. But our nation was built on challenges. America
was built on challenges, not promises. And when we work together to
meet them, we never fail. That is the key to a more perfect Union.
Our individual dreams must be realized by our common efforts.
Tonight I want to speak to you about the challenges we
all face as a people. Our first challenge is to cherish our children
and strengthen America's families. Family is the foundation of
American life. If we have stronger families, we will have a stronger
America.
Before I go on, I'd like to take just a moment to thank
my own family, and to thank the person who has taught me more than
anyone else over 25 years about the importance of families and
children -- a wonderful wife, a magnificent mother and a great First
Lady. Thank you, Hillary. (Applause.)
All strong families begin with taking more
responsibility for our children. I've heard Mrs. Gore say that it's
hard to be a parent today, but it's even harder to be a child. So
all of us, not just as parents, but all of us in our other roles --
our media, our schools, our teachers, our communities, our churches
and synagogues, our businesses, our governments -- all of us have a
responsibility to help our children to make it and to make the most
of their lives and their God-given capacities.
To the media, I say you should create movies and CDs and
television shows you'd want your own children and grandchildren to
enjoy. (Applause.)
I call on Congress to pass the requirement for a V chip
in TV sets so that parents can screen out programs they believe are
inappropriate for their children. (Applause.) When parents control
what their young children see, that is not censorship; that is
enabling parents to assume more personal responsibility for their
children's upbringing. And I urge them to do it. The V chip
requirement is part of the important telecommunications bill now
pending in this Congress. It has bipartisan support, and I urge you
to pass it now. (Applause.)
To make the V chip work, I challenge the broadcast
industry to do what movies have done -- to identify your program in
ways that help parents to protect their children. And I invite the
leaders of major media corporations in the entertainment industry to
come to the White House next month to work with us in a positive way
on concrete ways to improve what our children see on television. I
am ready to work with you. (Applause.)
I say to those who make and market cigarettes, every
year a million children take up smoking, even though it's against the
law. Three hundred thousand of them will have their lives shortened
as a result. Our administration has taken steps to stop the massive
marketing campaigns that appeal to our children. We are simply
saying: Market your products to adults, if you wish, but draw the
line on children. (Applause.)
I say to those who are on welfare, and especially to
those who have been trapped on welfare for a long time: For too long
our welfare system has undermined the values of family and work,
instead of supporting them. The Congress and I are near agreement on
sweeping welfare reform. We agree on time limits, tough work
requirements, and the toughest possible child support enforcement.
But I believe we must also provide child care so that mothers who are
required to go to work can do so without worrying about what is
happening to their children. (Applause.)
I challenge this Congress to send me a bipartisan
welfare reform bill that will really move people from welfare to work
and do the right thing by our children. I will sign it immediately.
(Applause.)
Let us be candid about this difficult problem. Passing
a law, even the best possible law, is only a first step. The next
step is to make it work. I challenge people on welfare to make the
most of this opportunity for independence. I challenge American
businesses to give people on welfare the chance to move into the work
force. I applaud the work of religious groups and other who care for
the poor. More than anyone else in our society, they know the true
difficulty of the task before us, and they are in a position to help.
Everyone of us should join them. That is the only way
we can make real welfare reform a reality in the lives of the
American people.
To strengthen the family we must do everything we can to
keep the teen pregnancy rate going down. I am gratified, as I'm sure
all Americans are, that it has dropped for two years in a row. But
we all know it is still far too high.
Tonight I am pleased to announce that a group of
prominent Americans is responding to that challenge by forming an
organization that will support grass-roots community efforts all
across our country in a national campaign against teen pregnancy.
And I challenge all of us and every American to join their efforts.
I call on American men and women in families to give
greater respect to one another. We must end the deadly scourge of
domestic violence in our country. (Applause.) And I challenge
America's families to work harder to stay together. For families who
stay together not only do better economically, their children do
better as well.
In particular, I challenge the fathers of this country
to love and care for their children. If your family has separated,
you must pay your child support. We're doing more than ever to make
sure you do, and we're going to do more, but let's all admit
something about that, too: A check will substitute for a parent's
love and guidance. And only you -- only you can make the decision to
help raise your children. No matter who you are, how low or high
your station in life, it is the most basic human duty of every
American to do that job to the best of his or her ability.
(Applause.)
Our second challenge is to provide Americans with the
educational opportunities we'll all need for this new century. In
our schools, every classroom in America must be connected to the
information superhighway, with computers and good software, and
well-trained teachers. We are working with the telecommunications
industry, educators and parents to connect 20 percent of California's
classrooms by this spring, and every classroom and every library in
the entire United States by the year 2000. (Applause.) I ask
Congress to support this education technology initiative so that we
can make sure this national partnership succeeds.
Every diploma ought to mean something. I challenge
every community, every school and every state to adopt national
standards of excellence; to measure whether schools are meeting those
standards; to cut bureaucratic red tape so that schools and teachers
have more flexibility for grass-roots reform; and to hold them
accountable for results. That's what our Goals 2000 initiative is
all about.
I challenge every state to give all parents the right to
choose which public school their children will attend; and to let
teachers form new schools with a charter they can keep only if they
do a good job. (Applause.)
I challenge all our schools to teach character
education, to teach good values and good citizenship. And if it
means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer
jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their
students to wear school uniforms. (Applause.)
I challenge our parents to become their children's first
teachers. Turn off the TV. See that the homework is done. And
visit your children's classroom. No program, no teacher, no one else
can do that for you.
My fellow Americans, higher education is more important
today than ever before. We've created a new student loan program
that's made it easier to borrow and repay those loans, and we have
dramatically cut the student loan default rate. That's something we
should all be proud of because it was unconscionably high just a few
years ago.
Through AmeriCorps, our national service program, this
year 25,000 young people will earn college money by serving their
local communities to improve the lives of their friends and
neighbors. (Applause.)
These initiatives are right for America and we should
keep them going. And we should also work hard to open the doors of
college even wider. I challenge Congress to expand work-study and
help one million young Americans work their way through college by
the year 2000; to provide a $1000 merit scholarship for the top five
percent of graduates in every high school in the United States; --
(applause) -- to expand Pell Grant scholarships for deserving and
needy students; and to make up to $10,000 a year of college tuition
tax deductible. It's a good idea for America. (Applause.)
Our third challenge is to help every American who is
willing to work for it, achieve economic security in this new age.
People who work hard still need support to get ahead in the new
economy. They need education and training for a lifetime. They need
more support for families raising children. They need retirement
security. They need access to health care. More and more Americans
are finding that the education of their childhood simply doesn't last
a lifetime.
So I challenge Congress to consolidate 70 overlapping,
antiquated job-training programs into a simple voucher worth $2,600
for unemployed or underemployed workers to use as they please for
community college tuition or other training. This is a G.I. Bill for
America's workers we should all be able to agree on. (Applause.)
More and more Americans are working hard without a
raise. Congress sets the minimum wage. Within a year, the minimum
wage will fall to a 40-year low in purchasing power. Four dollars
and 25 cents an hour is no longer a minimum wage, but millions of
Americans and their children are trying to live on it. I challenge
you to raise their minimum wage. (Applause.)
In 1993, Congress cut the taxes of 15 million
hard-pressed working families to make sure that no parents who work
full-time would have to raise their children in poverty, and to
encourage people to move from welfare to work. This expanded earned
income tax credit is now worth about $1,800 a year to a family of
four living on $20,000. The budget bill I vetoed would have reversed
this achievement and raised taxes on nearly 8 million of these
people. We should not do that. We should not do that. (Applause.)
I also agree that the people who are helped under this
initiative are not all those in our country who are working hard to
do a good job raising their children and at work. I agree that we
need a tax credit for working families with children. That's one of
the things most of us in this Chamber, I hope, can agree on. I know
it is strongly supported by the Republican majority. And it should
be part of any final budget agreement. (Applause.)
I want to challenge every business that can possibly
afford it to provide pensions for your employees. And I challenge
Congress to pass a proposal recommended by the White House Conference
on Small Business that would make it easier for small businesses and
farmers to establish their own pension plans. That is something we
should all agree on. (Applause.)
We should also protect existing pension plans. Two
years ago, with bipartisan support that was almost unanimous on both
sides of the aisle, we moved to protect the pensions of 8 million
working people and to stabilize the pensions of 32 million more.
Congress should not now let companies endanger those workers's
pension funds. (Applause.)
I know the proposal to liberalize the ability of
employers to take money out of pension funds for other purposes would
raise money for the treasury. But I believe it is false economy. I
vetoed that proposal last year, and I would have to do so again.
(Applause.)
Finally, if our working families are going to succeed in
the new economy, they must be able to buy health insurance policies
that they do not lose when they change jobs or when someone in their
family gets sick. Over the past two years, over one million
Americans in working families have lost their health insurance. We
have to do more to make health care available to every American. And
Congress should start by passing the bipartisan bill sponsored by
Senator Kennedy and Senator Kassebaum that would require insurance
companies to stop dropping people when they switch jobs, and stop
denying coverage for preexisting conditions. Let's all do that.
(Applause.)
And even as we enact savings in these programs, we must
have a common commitment to preserve the basic protections of
Medicare and Medicaid -- not just to the poor, but to people in
working families, including children, people with disabilities,
people with AIDS, senior citizens in nursing homes.
In the past three years, we've saved $15 billion just by
fighting health care fraud and abuse. We have all agreed to save
much more. We have all agreed to stabilize the Medicare Trust Fund.
But we must not abandon our fundamental obligations to the people who
need Medicare and Medicaid. America cannot become stronger if they
become weaker. (Applause.)
The G.I. Bill for workers, tax relief for education and
child rearing, pension availability and protection, access to health
care, preservation of Medicare and Medicaid -- these things, along
with the Family and Medical Leave Act passed in 1993 -- these things
will help responsible, hard-working American families to make the
most of their own lives.
But employers and employees must do their part, as well,
as they are doing in so many of our finest companies -- working
together, putting the long-term prosperity ahead of the short-term
gain. As workers increase their hours and their productivity,
employers should make sure they get the skills they need and share
the benefits of the good years, as well as the burdens of the bad
ones. When companies and workers work as a team they do better, and
so does America.
Our fourth great challenge is to take our streets back
from crime and gangs and drugs. At last we have begun to find a way
to reduce crime, forming community partnerships with local police
forces to catch criminals and prevent crime. This strategy, called
community policing, is clearly working. Violent crime is coming down
all across America. In New York City murders are down 25 percent; in
St. Louis, 18 percent; in Seattle, 32 percent. But we
still have a long way to go before our streets are safe and our
people are free from fear.
The Crime Bill of 1994 is critical to the success of
community policing. It provides funds for 100,000 new police in
communities of all sizes. We're already a third of the way there.
And I challenge the Congress to finish the job. Let us stick with a
strategy that's working and keep the crime rate coming down.
(Applause.)
Community policing also requires bonds of trust between
citizens and police. I ask all Americans to respect and support our
law enforcement officers. And to our police, I say, our children
need you as role models and heroes. Don't let them down.
The Brady Bill has already stopped 44,000 people with
criminal records from buying guns. The assault weapons ban is
keeping 19 kinds of assault weapons out of the hands of violent
gangs. I challenge the Congress to keep those laws on the books.
(Applause.)
Our next step in the fight against crime is to take on
gangs the way we once took on the mob. I'm directing the FBI and
other investigative agencies to target gangs that involve juveniles
and violent crime, and to seek authority to prosecute as adults
teenagers who maim and kill like adults.
And I challenge local housing authorities and tenant
associations: Criminal gang members and drug dealers are destroying
the lives of decent tenants. From now on, the rule for residents who
commit crime and pedal drugs should be one strike and you're out.
(Applause.)
I challenge every state to match federal policy to
assure that serious violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of
their sentence. (Applause.)
More police and punishment are important, but they're
not enough. We have got to keep more of our young people out of
trouble, with prevention strategies not dictated by Washington, but
developed in communities. I challenge all of our communities, all of
our adults, to give our children futures to say yes to. And I
challenge Congress not to abandon the Crime Bill's support of these
grass-roots prevention efforts. (Applause.)
Finally, to reduce crime and violence we have to reduce
the drug problem. The challenge begins in our homes, with parents
talking to their children openly and firmly. It embraces our
churches and synagogues, our youth groups and our schools.
I challenge Congress not to cut our support for
drug-free schools. People like the DARE officers are making a real
impression on grade schoolchildren that will give them the strength
to say no when the time comes. (Applause.)
Meanwhile, we continue our efforts to cut the flow of
drugs into America. For the last two years, one man in particular
has been on the front lines of that effort. Tonight I am nominating
him -- a hero of the Persian Gulf War and the Commander in Chief of
the United States Military Southern Command -- General Barry
McCaffrey, as America's new Drug Czar. (Applause.)
General McCaffrey has earned three Purple Hearts and two
Silver Stars fighting for this country. Tonight I ask that he lead
our nation's battle against drugs at home and abroad. To succeed, he
needs a force far larger than he has ever commanded before. He needs
all of us. Every one of us has a role to play on this team.
Thank you, General McCaffrey, for agreeing to serve your
country one more time. (Applause.)
Our fifth challenge: to leave our environment safe and
clean for the next generation. Because of a generation of bipartisan
effort we do have cleaner water and air, lead levels in children's
blood has been cut by 70 percent, toxic emissions from factories cut
in half. Lake Erie was dead, and now it's a thriving resource. But
10 million children under 12 still live within four miles of a toxic
waste dump. A third of us breathe air that endangers our health.
And in too many communities the water is not safe to drink. We still
have much to do.
Yet Congress has voted to cut environmental enforcement
by 25 percent. That means more toxic chemicals in our water, more
smog in our air, more pesticides in our food. Lobbyists for
polluters have been allowed to write their own loopholes into bills
to weaken laws that protect the health and safety of our children.
Some say that the taxpayer should pick up the tab for toxic waste and
let polluters who can afford to fix it off the hook. I challenge
Congress to reexamine those policies and to reverse them.
(Applause.)
This issue has not been a partisan issue. The most
significant environmental gains in the last 30 years were made under
a Democratic Congress and President Richard Nixon. We can work
together. We have to believe some basic things. Do you believe we
can expand the economy without hurting the environment? I do. Do
you believe we can create more jobs over the long run by cleaning the
environment up? I know we can. That should be our commitment.
(Applause.)
We must challenge businesses and communities to take
more initiative in protecting the environment, and we have to make it
easier for them to do it. To businesses this administration is
saying: If you can find a cheaper, more efficient way than
government regulations require to meet tough pollution standards, do
it -- as long as you do it right. To communities we say: We must
strengthen community right-to-know laws requiring polluters to
disclose their emissions, but you have to use the information to work
with business to cut pollution. People do have a right to know that
their air and their water are safe. (Applause.)
Our sixth challenge is to maintain America's leadership
in the fight for freedom and peace throughout the world. Because of
American leadership, more people than ever before live free and at
peace. And Americans have known 50 years of prosperity and security.
We owe thanks especially to our veterans of World War
II. (Applause.) I would like to say to Senator Bob Dole and to all
others in this Chamber who fought in World War II, and to all others
on both sides of the aisle who have fought bravely in all our
conflicts since: I salute your service and so do the American
people. (Applause.)
All over the world, even after the Cold War, people
still look to us and trust us to help them seek the blessings of
peace and freedom. But as the Cold War fades into memory, voices of
isolation say America should retreat from its responsibilities. I
say they are wrong.
The threats we face today as Americans respect no
nation's borders. Think of them: terrorism, the spread of weapons
of mass destruction, organized crime, drug trafficking, ethnic and
religious hatred, aggression by rogue states, environmental
degradation. If we fail to address these threats today, we will
suffer the consequences in all our tomorrows. (Applause.)
Of course, we can't be everywhere. Of course, we can't
do everything. But where our interests and our values are at stake,
and where we can make a difference, America must lead. We must not
be isolationist. We must not be the world's policeman. But we can
and should be the world's very best peacemaker. (Applause.)
By keeping our military strong, by using diplomacy where
we can and force where we must, by working with others to share the
risk and the cost of our efforts, America is making a difference for
people here and around the world. For the first time since the dawn
of the nuclear age -- for the first time since the dawn of the
nuclear age -- there is not a single Russian missile pointed at
America's children. (Applause.)
North Korea has now frozen its dangerous nuclear weapons
program. In Haiti, the dictators are gone, democracy has a new day,
the flow of desperate refugees to our shores has subsided. Through
tougher trade deals for America -- over 80 of them -- we have opened
markets abroad, and now exports are at an all-time high, growing
faster than imports and creating good American jobs. (Applause.)
We stood with those taking risks for peace: In Northern
Ireland, where Catholic and Protestant children now tell their
parents, violence must never return. In the Middle East, where Arabs
and Jews who once seemed destined to fight forever now share
knowledge and resources, and even dreams.
And we stood up for peace in Bosnia. Remember the
skeletal prisoners, the mass graves, the campaign to rape and
torture, the endless lines of refugees, the threat of a spreading
war. All these threats, all these horrors have now begun to give way
to the promise of peace. Now, our troops and a strong NATO, together
with our new partners from Central Europe and elsewhere, are helping
that peace to take hold.
As all of you know, I was just there with a bipartisan
congressional group, and I was so proud not only of what our troops
were doing, but of the pride they evidenced in what they were doing.
They knew what America's mission in this world is, and they were
proud to be carrying it out. (Applause.)
Through these efforts, we have enhanced the security of
the American people. But make no mistake about it: important
challenges remain.
The START II Treaty with Russia will cut our nuclear
stockpiles by another 25 percent. I urge the Senate to ratify it
now. (Applause.) We must end the race to create new nuclear weapons
by signing a truly comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty this year.
(Applause.)
As we remember what happened in the Japanese subway, we
can outlaw poison gas forever if the Senate ratifies the Chemical
Weapons Convention this year. (Applause.) We can intensify the
fight against terrorists and organized criminals at home and abroad
if Congress passes the anti-terrorism legislation I proposed after
the Oklahoma City bombing now. (Applause.) We can help more people
move from hatred to hope all across the world in our own interest if
Congress gives us the means to remain the world's leader for peace.
(Applause.)
My fellow Americans, the six challenges I have just
discussed are for all of us. Our seventh challenge is really
America's challenge to those of us in this hallowed hall tonight: to
reinvent our government and make our democracy work for them.
Last year this Congress applied to itself the laws it
applies to everyone else. (Applause.) This Congress banned gifts
and meals from lobbyists. This Congress forced lobbyists to disclose
who pays them and what legislation they are trying to pass or kill.
This Congress did that, and I applaud you for it. (Applause.)
Now I challenge Congress to go further -- to curb
special interest influence in politics by passing the first truly
bipartisan campaign reform bill in a generation. (Applause.) You,
Republicans and Democrats alike, can show the American people that we
can limit spending and we can open the airwaves to all candidates.
(Applause.)
I also appeal to Congress to pass the line-item veto you
promised the American people. (Applause.)
Our administration is working hard to give the American
people a government that works better and costs less. Thanks to the
work of Vice President Gore, we are eliminating 16,000 pages of
unnecessary rules and regulations, shifting more decision-making out
of Washington, back to states and local communities.
As we move into the era of balanced budgets and smaller
government, we must work in new ways to enable people to make the
most of their own lives. We are helping America's communities, not
with more bureaucracy, but with more opportunities. Through our
successful empowerment zones and community development banks, we're
helping people to find jobs, to start businesses. And with tax
incentives for companies that clean up abandoned industrial property,
we can bring jobs back to places that desperately, desperately need
them.
But there are some areas that the federal government
should not leave and should address and address strongly. One of
these areas is the problem of illegal immigration. After years of
neglect, this administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the
protection of our borders. We are increasing border controls by 50
percent. We are increasing inspections to prevent the hiring of
illegal immigrants. And tonight, I announce I will sign an executive
order to deny federal contracts to businesses that hire illegal
immigrants. (Applause.)
Let me be very clear about this: We are still a nation
of immigrants; we should be proud of it. We should honor every legal
immigrant here, working hard to be a good citizen, working hard to
become a new citizen. But we are also a nation of laws.
I want to say a special word now to those who work for
our federal government. Today our federal is 200,000 employees
smaller than it was the day I took office as President. (Applause.)
Our federal government today is the smallest it has been in 30 years,
and it's getting smaller every day. Most of our fellow Americans
probably don't know that. And there's a good reason -- a good
reason: The remaining federal work force is composed of hard-working
Americans who are now working harder and working smarter than ever
before to make sure the quality of our services does not decline.
(Applause.)
I'd like to give you one example. His name is Richard
Dean. He's a 49 year-old Vietnam veteran who's worked for the Social
Security Administration for 22 years now. Last year he was hard at
work in the Federal Building in Oklahoma City when the blast killed
169 people and brought the rubble down all around him. He reentered
that building four times. He saved the lives of three women. He's
here with us this evening, and I want to recognize Richard and
applaud both his public service and his extraordinary personal
heroism. (Applause.)
But Richard Dean's story doesn't end there. This last
November, he was forced out of his office when the government shut
down. And the second time the government shut down he continued
helping Social Security recipients, but he was working without pay.
On behalf of Richard Dean and his family, and all the
other people who are out there working every day doing a good job for
the American people, I challenge all of you in this Chamber: Never,
ever shut the federal government down again. (Applause.)
On behalf of all Americans, especially those who need
their Social Security payments at the beginning of March, I also
challenge the Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the
United States -- to honor the obligations of this great nation as we
have for 220 years; to rise above partisanship and pass a
straightforward extension of the debt limit and show people America
keeps its word. (Applause.)
I know that this evening I have asked a lot of Congress,
and even more from America. But I am confident: When Americans work
together in their homes, their schools, their churches, their
synagogues, their civic groups, their workplace, they can meet any
challenge.
I say again, the era of big government is over. But we
can't go back to the era of fending for yourself. We have to go
forward to the era of working together as a community, as a team, as
one America, with all of us reaching across these lines that divide
us -- the division, the discrimination, the rancor -- we have to
reach across it to find common ground. We have got to work together
if we want America to work. (Applause.)
I want you to meet two more people tonight who do just
that. Lucius Wright is a teacher in the Jackson, Mississippi, public
school system. A Vietnam veteran, he has created groups to help
inner-city children turn away from gangs and build futures they can
believe in. Sergeant Jennifer Rodgers is a police officer in
Oklahoma City. Like Richard Dean, she helped to pull her fellow
citizens out of the rubble and deal with that awful tragedy. She
reminds us that in their response to that atrocity the people of
Oklahoma City lifted all of us with their basic sense of decency and
community.
Lucius Wright and Jennifer Rodgers are special
Americans. And I have the honor to announce tonight that they are
the very first of several thousand Americans who will be chosen to
carry the Olympic torch on its long journey from Los Angeles to the
centennial of the modern Olympics in Atlanta this summer -- not
because they are star athletes, but because they are star citizens,
community heroes meeting America's challenges. They are our real
champions.
Please stand up. (Applause.)
Now, each of us must hold high the torch of citizenship
in our own lives. None of us can finish the race alone. We can only
achieve our destiny together -- one hand, one generation, one
American connecting to another.
There have always been things we could to together,
dreams we could make real which we could never have done on our own.
We Americans have forged our identity, our very union, from the very
point of view that we can accommodate every point on the planet,
every different opinion. But we must be bound together by a faith
more powerful than any doctrine that divides us -- by our believe in
progress, our love of liberty, and our relentless search for common
ground.
America has always sought and always risen to every
challenge. Who would say that having come so far together, we will
not go forward from here? Who would say that this age of possibility
is not for all Americans?
Our country is and always has been a great and good
nation. But the best is yet to come if we all do our parts.
Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States
of America. Thank you. (Applause.)
END 10:15 P.M. EST
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release January 23, 1996
STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
OF THE PRESIDENT
U.S. Capitol
9:14 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of the 104th
Congress, distinguished guests, my fellow Americans all across our
land: Let me begin tonight by saying to our men and women in uniform
around the world, and especially those helping peace take root in
Bosnia and to their families, I thank you. America is very, very
proud of you. (Applause.)
My duty tonight is to report on the state of the Union
-- not the state of our government, but of our American community;
and to set forth our responsibilities, in the words of our Founders,
to form a more perfect union.
The state of the Union is strong. (Applause.) Our
economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades. We have the
lowest combined rates of unemployment and inflation in 27 years. We
have completed -- created nearly 8 million new jobs, over a million
of them in basic industries, like construction and automobiles.
America is selling more cars than Japan for the first time since the
1970s. And for three years in a row, we have had a record number of
new businesses started in our country. (Applause.)
Our leadership in the world is also strong, bringing
hope for new peace. And perhaps most important, we are gaining
ground in restoring our fundamental values. The crime rate, the
welfare and food stamp rolls, the poverty rate and the teen pregnancy
rate are all down. And as they go down, prospects for America's
future go up. (Applause.)
We live in an age of possibility. A hundred years ago
we moved from farm to factory. Now we move to an age of technology,
information, and global competition. These changes have opened vast
new opportunities for our people, but they have also presented them
with stiff challenges. While more Americans are living better, too
many of our fellow citizens are working harder just to keep up, and
they are rightly concerned about the security of their families.
We must answer here three fundamental questions: First,
how do we make the American Dream of opportunity for all a reality
for all Americans who are willing to work for it? Second, how do we
preserve our old and enduring values as we move into the future?
And, third, how do we meet these challenges together, as one America?
We know big government does not have all the answers.
We know there's not a program for every problem. (Applause.) We
know, and we have worked to give the American people a smaller, less
bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the
American people one that lives within its means. (Applause.) The
era of big government is over. (Applause.) But we cannot go back to
the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.
(Applause.)
Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation
working together to meet the challenges we face together.
Self-reliance and teamwork are not opposing virtues; we must have
both. (Applause.) I believe our new, smaller government must work
in an old-fashioned American way, together with all of our citizens
through state and local governments, in the workplace, in religious,
charitable and civic associations. Our goal must be to enable all
our people to make the most of their own lives -- with stronger
families, more educational opportunity, economic security, safer
streets, a cleaner environment in a safer world.
To improve the state of our Union, we must ask more of
ourselves, we must expect more of each other, and we must face our
challenges together. (Applause.)
Here, in this place, our responsibility begins with
balancing the budget in a way that is fair to all Americans.
(Applause.) There is now broad bipartisan agreement that permanent
deficit spending must come to an end. (Applause.)
I compliment the Republican leadership and the
membership for the energy and determination you have brought to this
task of balancing the budget. (Applause.) And I thank the Democrats
for passing the largest deficit reduction plan in history in 1993,
which has already cut the deficit nearly in half in three years.
(Applause.)
Since 1993, we have all begun to see the benefits of
deficit reduction. Lower interest rates have made it easier for
businesses to borrow and to invest and to create new jobs. Lower
interest rates have brought down the cost of home mortgages, car
payments and credit card rates to ordinary citizens. Now, it is time
to finish the job and balance the budget. (Applause.)
Though differences remain among us which are
significant, the combined total of the proposed savings that are
common to both plans is more than enough, using the numbers from your
Congressional Budget Office to balance the budget in seven years and
to provide a modest tax cut.
These cuts are real. They will require sacrifice from
everyone. But these cuts do not undermine are fundamental
obligations to our parents, our children, and our future, by
endangering Medicare, or Medicaid, or education, or the environment,
or by raising taxes on working families. (Applause.)
I have said before, and let me say again, many good
ideas have come out of our negotiations. I have learned a lot about
the way both Republicans and Democrats view the debate before us. I
have learned a lot about the good ideas have that we could all
embrace.
We ought to resolve our remaining differences. I am
willing to work to resolve them. I am ready to meet tomorrow. But I
ask you to consider that we should at least enact these savings that
both plans have in common and give the American people their balanced
budget, a tax cut, lower interest rates, and a brighter future. We
should do that now and make permanent deficits yesterday's legacy.
(Applause.)
Now it is time for us to look also to the challenges of
today and tomorrow, beyond the burdens of yesterday. The challenges
are significant. But our nation was built on challenges. America
was built on challenges, not promises. And when we work together to
meet them, we never fail. That is the key to a more perfect Union.
Our individual dreams must be realized by our common efforts.
Tonight I want to speak to you about the challenges we
all face as a people. Our first challenge is to cherish our children
and strengthen America's families. Family is the foundation of
American life. If we have stronger families, we will have a stronger
America.
Before I go on, I'd like to take just a moment to thank
my own family, and to thank the person who has taught me more than
anyone else over 25 years about the importance of families and
children -- a wonderful wife, a magnificent mother and a great First
Lady. Thank you, Hillary. (Applause.)
All strong families begin with taking more
responsibility for our children. I've heard Mrs. Gore say that it's
hard to be a parent today, but it's even harder to be a child. So
all of us, not just as parents, but all of us in our other roles --
our media, our schools, our teachers, our communities, our churches
and synagogues, our businesses, our governments -- all of us have a
responsibility to help our children to make it and to make the most
of their lives and their God-given capacities.
To the media, I say you should create movies and CDs and
television shows you'd want your own children and grandchildren to
enjoy. (Applause.)
I call on Congress to pass the requirement for a V chip
in TV sets so that parents can screen out programs they believe are
inappropriate for their children. (Applause.) When parents control
what their young children see, that is not censorship; that is
enabling parents to assume more personal responsibility for their
children's upbringing. And I urge them to do it. The V chip
requirement is part of the important telecommunications bill now
pending in this Congress. It has bipartisan support, and I urge you
to pass it now. (Applause.)
To make the V chip work, I challenge the broadcast
industry to do what movies have done -- to identify your program in
ways that help parents to protect their children. And I invite the
leaders of major media corporations in the entertainment industry to
come to the White House next month to work with us in a positive way
on concrete ways to improve what our children see on television. I
am ready to work with you. (Applause.)
I say to those who make and market cigarettes, every
year a million children take up smoking, even though it's against the
law. Three hundred thousand of them will have their lives shortened
as a result. Our administration has taken steps to stop the massive
marketing campaigns that appeal to our children. We are simply
saying: Market your products to adults, if you wish, but draw the
line on children. (Applause.)
I say to those who are on welfare, and especially to
those who have been trapped on welfare for a long time: For too long
our welfare system has undermined the values of family and work,
instead of supporting them. The Congress and I are near agreement on
sweeping welfare reform. We agree on time limits, tough work
requirements, and the toughest possible child support enforcement.
But I believe we must also provide child care so that mothers who are
required to go to work can do so without worrying about what is
happening to their children. (Applause.)
I challenge this Congress to send me a bipartisan
welfare reform bill that will really move people from welfare to work
and do the right thing by our children. I will sign it immediately.
(Applause.)
Let us be candid about this difficult problem. Passing
a law, even the best possible law, is only a first step. The next
step is to make it work. I challenge people on welfare to make the
most of this opportunity for independence. I challenge American
businesses to give people on welfare the chance to move into the work
force. I applaud the work of religious groups and other who care for
the poor. More than anyone else in our society, they know the true
difficulty of the task before us, and they are in a position to help.
Everyone of us should join them. That is the only way
we can make real welfare reform a reality in the lives of the
American people.
To strengthen the family we must do everything we can to
keep the teen pregnancy rate going down. I am gratified, as I'm sure
all Americans are, that it has dropped for two years in a row. But
we all know it is still far too high.
Tonight I am pleased to announce that a group of
prominent Americans is responding to that challenge by forming an
organization that will support grass-roots community efforts all
across our country in a national campaign against teen pregnancy.
And I challenge all of us and every American to join their efforts.
I call on American men and women in families to give
greater respect to one another. We must end the deadly scourge of
domestic violence in our country. (Applause.) And I challenge
America's families to work harder to stay together. For families who
stay together not only do better economically, their children do
better as well.
In particular, I challenge the fathers of this country
to love and care for their children. If your family has separated,
you must pay your child support. We're doing more than ever to make
sure you do, and we're going to do more, but let's all admit
something about that, too: A check will substitute for a parent's
love and guidance. And only you -- only you can make the decision to
help raise your children. No matter who you are, how low or high
your station in life, it is the most basic human duty of every
American to do that job to the best of his or her ability.
(Applause.)
Our second challenge is to provide Americans with the
educational opportunities we'll all need for this new century. In
our schools, every classroom in America must be connected to the
information superhighway, with computers and good software, and
well-trained teachers. We are working with the telecommunications
industry, educators and parents to connect 20 percent of California's
classrooms by this spring, and every classroom and every library in
the entire United States by the year 2000. (Applause.) I ask
Congress to support this education technology initiative so that we
can make sure this national partnership succeeds.
Every diploma ought to mean something. I challenge
every community, every school and every state to adopt national
standards of excellence; to measure whether schools are meeting those
standards; to cut bureaucratic red tape so that schools and teachers
have more flexibility for grass-roots reform; and to hold them
accountable for results. That's what our Goals 2000 initiative is
all about.
I challenge every state to give all parents the right to
choose which public school their children will attend; and to let
teachers form new schools with a charter they can keep only if they
do a good job. (Applause.)
I challenge all our schools to teach character
education, to teach good values and good citizenship. And if it
means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer
jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their
students to wear school uniforms. (Applause.)
I challenge our parents to become their children's first
teachers. Turn off the TV. See that the homework is done. And
visit your children's classroom. No program, no teacher, no one else
can do that for you.
My fellow Americans, higher education is more important
today than ever before. We've created a new student loan program
that's made it easier to borrow and repay those loans, and we have
dramatically cut the student loan default rate. That's something we
should all be proud of because it was unconscionably high just a few
years ago.
Through AmeriCorps, our national service program, this
year 25,000 young people will earn college money by serving their
local communities to improve the lives of their friends and
neighbors. (Applause.)
These initiatives are right for America and we should
keep them going. And we should also work hard to open the doors of
college even wider. I challenge Congress to expand work-study and
help one million young Americans work their way through college by
the year 2000; to provide a $1000 merit scholarship for the top five
percent of graduates in every high school in the United States; --
(applause) -- to expand Pell Grant scholarships for deserving and
needy students; and to make up to $10,000 a year of college tuition
tax deductible. It's a good idea for America. (Applause.)
Our third challenge is to help every American who is
willing to work for it, achieve economic security in this new age.
People who work hard still need support to get ahead in the new
economy. They need education and training for a lifetime. They need
more support for families raising children. They need retirement
security. They need access to health care. More and more Americans
are finding that the education of their childhood simply doesn't last
a lifetime.
So I challenge Congress to consolidate 70 overlapping,
antiquated job-training programs into a simple voucher worth $2,600
for unemployed or underemployed workers to use as they please for
community college tuition or other training. This is a G.I. Bill for
America's workers we should all be able to agree on. (Applause.)
More and more Americans are working hard without a
raise. Congress sets the minimum wage. Within a year, the minimum
wage will fall to a 40-year low in purchasing power. Four dollars
and 25 cents an hour is no longer a minimum wage, but millions of
Americans and their children are trying to live on it. I challenge
you to raise their minimum wage. (Applause.)
In 1993, Congress cut the taxes of 15 million
hard-pressed working families to make sure that no parents who work
full-time would have to raise their children in poverty, and to
encourage people to move from welfare to work. This expanded earned
income tax credit is now worth about $1,800 a year to a family of
four living on $20,000. The budget bill I vetoed would have reversed
this achievement and raised taxes on nearly 8 million of these
people. We should not do that. We should not do that. (Applause.)
I also agree that the people who are helped under this
initiative are not all those in our country who are working hard to
do a good job raising their children and at work. I agree that we
need a tax credit for working families with children. That's one of
the things most of us in this Chamber, I hope, can agree on. I know
it is strongly supported by the Republican majority. And it should
be part of any final budget agreement. (Applause.)
I want to challenge every business that can possibly
afford it to provide pensions for your employees. And I challenge
Congress to pass a proposal recommended by the White House Conference
on Small Business that would make it easier for small businesses and
farmers to establish their own pension plans. That is something we
should all agree on. (Applause.)
We should also protect existing pension plans. Two
years ago, with bipartisan support that was almost unanimous on both
sides of the aisle, we moved to protect the pensions of 8 million
working people and to stabilize the pensions of 32 million more.
Congress should not now let companies endanger those workers's
pension funds. (Applause.)
I know the proposal to liberalize the ability of
employers to take money out of pension funds for other purposes would
raise money for the treasury. But I believe it is false economy. I
vetoed that proposal last year, and I would have to do so again.
(Applause.)
Finally, if our working families are going to succeed in
the new economy, they must be able to buy health insurance policies
that they do not lose when they change jobs or when someone in their
family gets sick. Over the past two years, over one million
Americans in working families have lost their health insurance. We
have to do more to make health care available to every American. And
Congress should start by passing the bipartisan bill sponsored by
Senator Kennedy and Senator Kassebaum that would require insurance
companies to stop dropping people when they switch jobs, and stop
denying coverage for preexisting conditions. Let's all do that.
(Applause.)
And even as we enact savings in these programs, we must
have a common commitment to preserve the basic protections of
Medicare and Medicaid -- not just to the poor, but to people in
working families, including children, people with disabilities,
people with AIDS, senior citizens in nursing homes.
In the past three years, we've saved $15 billion just by
fighting health care fraud and abuse. We have all agreed to save
much more. We have all agreed to stabilize the Medicare Trust Fund.
But we must not abandon our fundamental obligations to the people who
need Medicare and Medicaid. America cannot become stronger if they
become weaker. (Applause.)
The G.I. Bill for workers, tax relief for education and
child rearing, pension availability and protection, access to health
care, preservation of Medicare and Medicaid -- these things, along
with the Family and Medical Leave Act passed in 1993 -- these things
will help responsible, hard-working American families to make the
most of their own lives.
But employers and employees must do their part, as well,
as they are doing in so many of our finest companies -- working
together, putting the long-term prosperity ahead of the short-term
gain. As workers increase their hours and their productivity,
employers should make sure they get the skills they need and share
the benefits of the good years, as well as the burdens of the bad
ones. When companies and workers work as a team they do better, and
so does America.
Our fourth great challenge is to take our streets back
from crime and gangs and drugs. At last we have begun to find a way
to reduce crime, forming community partnerships with local police
forces to catch criminals and prevent crime. This strategy, called
community policing, is clearly working. Violent crime is coming down
all across America. In New York City murders are down 25 percent; in
St. Louis, 18 percent; in Seattle, 32 percent. But we
still have a long way to go before our streets are safe and our
people are free from fear.
The Crime Bill of 1994 is critical to the success of
community policing. It provides funds for 100,000 new police in
communities of all sizes. We're already a third of the way there.
And I challenge the Congress to finish the job. Let us stick with a
strategy that's working and keep the crime rate coming down.
(Applause.)
Community policing also requires bonds of trust between
citizens and police. I ask all Americans to respect and support our
law enforcement officers. And to our police, I say, our children
need you as role models and heroes. Don't let them down.
The Brady Bill has already stopped 44,000 people with
criminal records from buying guns. The assault weapons ban is
keeping 19 kinds of assault weapons out of the hands of violent
gangs. I challenge the Congress to keep those laws on the books.
(Applause.)
Our next step in the fight against crime is to take on
gangs the way we once took on the mob. I'm directing the FBI and
other investigative agencies to target gangs that involve juveniles
and violent crime, and to seek authority to prosecute as adults
teenagers who maim and kill like adults.
And I challenge local housing authorities and tenant
associations: Criminal gang members and drug dealers are destroying
the lives of decent tenants. From now on, the rule for residents who
commit crime and pedal drugs should be one strike and you're out.
(Applause.)
I challenge every state to match federal policy to
assure that serious violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of
their sentence. (Applause.)
More police and punishment are important, but they're
not enough. We have got to keep more of our young people out of
trouble, with prevention strategies not dictated by Washington, but
developed in communities. I challenge all of our communities, all of
our adults, to give our children futures to say yes to. And I
challenge Congress not to abandon the Crime Bill's support of these
grass-roots prevention efforts. (Applause.)
Finally, to reduce crime and violence we have to reduce
the drug problem. The challenge begins in our homes, with parents
talking to their children openly and firmly. It embraces our
churches and synagogues, our youth groups and our schools.
I challenge Congress not to cut our support for
drug-free schools. People like the DARE officers are making a real
impression on grade schoolchildren that will give them the strength
to say no when the time comes. (Applause.)
Meanwhile, we continue our efforts to cut the flow of
drugs into America. For the last two years, one man in particular
has been on the front lines of that effort. Tonight I am nominating
him -- a hero of the Persian Gulf War and the Commander in Chief of
the United States Military Southern Command -- General Barry
McCaffrey, as America's new Drug Czar. (Applause.)
General McCaffrey has earned three Purple Hearts and two
Silver Stars fighting for this country. Tonight I ask that he lead
our nation's battle against drugs at home and abroad. To succeed, he
needs a force far larger than he has ever commanded before. He needs
all of us. Every one of us has a role to play on this team.
Thank you, General McCaffrey, for agreeing to serve your
country one more time. (Applause.)
Our fifth challenge: to leave our environment safe and
clean for the next generation. Because of a generation of bipartisan
effort we do have cleaner water and air, lead levels in children's
blood has been cut by 70 percent, toxic emissions from factories cut
in half. Lake Erie was dead, and now it's a thriving resource. But
10 million children under 12 still live within four miles of a toxic
waste dump. A third of us breathe air that endangers our health.
And in too many communities the water is not safe to drink. We still
have much to do.
Yet Congress has voted to cut environmental enforcement
by 25 percent. That means more toxic chemicals in our water, more
smog in our air, more pesticides in our food. Lobbyists for
polluters have been allowed to write their own loopholes into bills
to weaken laws that protect the health and safety of our children.
Some say that the taxpayer should pick up the tab for toxic waste and
let polluters who can afford to fix it off the hook. I challenge
Congress to reexamine those policies and to reverse them.
(Applause.)
This issue has not been a partisan issue. The most
significant environmental gains in the last 30 years were made under
a Democratic Congress and President Richard Nixon. We can work
together. We have to believe some basic things. Do you believe we
can expand the economy without hurting the environment? I do. Do
you believe we can create more jobs over the long run by cleaning the
environment up? I know we can. That should be our commitment.
(Applause.)
We must challenge businesses and communities to take
more initiative in protecting the environment, and we have to make it
easier for them to do it. To businesses this administration is
saying: If you can find a cheaper, more efficient way than
government regulations require to meet tough pollution standards, do
it -- as long as you do it right. To communities we say: We must
strengthen community right-to-know laws requiring polluters to
disclose their emissions, but you have to use the information to work
with business to cut pollution. People do have a right to know that
their air and their water are safe. (Applause.)
Our sixth challenge is to maintain America's leadership
in the fight for freedom and peace throughout the world. Because of
American leadership, more people than ever before live free and at
peace. And Americans have known 50 years of prosperity and security.
We owe thanks especially to our veterans of World War
II. (Applause.) I would like to say to Senator Bob Dole and to all
others in this Chamber who fought in World War II, and to all others
on both sides of the aisle who have fought bravely in all our
conflicts since: I salute your service and so do the American
people. (Applause.)
All over the world, even after the Cold War, people
still look to us and trust us to help them seek the blessings of
peace and freedom. But as the Cold War fades into memory, voices of
isolation say America should retreat from its responsibilities. I
say they are wrong.
The threats we face today as Americans respect no
nation's borders. Think of them: terrorism, the spread of weapons
of mass destruction, organized crime, drug trafficking, ethnic and
religious hatred, aggression by rogue states, environmental
degradation. If we fail to address these threats today, we will
suffer the consequences in all our tomorrows. (Applause.)
Of course, we can't be everywhere. Of course, we can't
do everything. But where our interests and our values are at stake,
and where we can make a difference, America must lead. We must not
be isolationist. We must not be the world's policeman. But we can
and should be the world's very best peacemaker. (Applause.)
By keeping our military strong, by using diplomacy where
we can and force where we must, by working with others to share the
risk and the cost of our efforts, America is making a difference for
people here and around the world. For the first time since the dawn
of the nuclear age -- for the first time since the dawn of the
nuclear age -- there is not a single Russian missile pointed at
America's children. (Applause.)
North Korea has now frozen its dangerous nuclear weapons
program. In Haiti, the dictators are gone, democracy has a new day,
the flow of desperate refugees to our shores has subsided. Through
tougher trade deals for America -- over 80 of them -- we have opened
markets abroad, and now exports are at an all-time high, growing
faster than imports and creating good American jobs. (Applause.)
We stood with those taking risks for peace: In Northern
Ireland, where Catholic and Protestant children now tell their
parents, violence must never return. In the Middle East, where Arabs
and Jews who once seemed destined to fight forever now share
knowledge and resources, and even dreams.
And we stood up for peace in Bosnia. Remember the
skeletal prisoners, the mass graves, the campaign to rape and
torture, the endless lines of refugees, the threat of a spreading
war. All these threats, all these horrors have now begun to give way
to the promise of peace. Now, our troops and a strong NATO, together
with our new partners from Central Europe and elsewhere, are helping
that peace to take hold.
As all of you know, I was just there with a bipartisan
congressional group, and I was so proud not only of what our troops
were doing, but of the pride they evidenced in what they were doing.
They knew what America's mission in this world is, and they were
proud to be carrying it out. (Applause.)
Through these efforts, we have enhanced the security of
the American people. But make no mistake about it: important
challenges remain.
The START II Treaty with Russia will cut our nuclear
stockpiles by another 25 percent. I urge the Senate to ratify it
now. (Applause.) We must end the race to create new nuclear weapons
by signing a truly comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty this year.
(Applause.)
As we remember what happened in the Japanese subway, we
can outlaw poison gas forever if the Senate ratifies the Chemical
Weapons Convention this year. (Applause.) We can intensify the
fight against terrorists and organized criminals at home and abroad
if Congress passes the anti-terrorism legislation I proposed after
the Oklahoma City bombing now. (Applause.) We can help more people
move from hatred to hope all across the world in our own interest if
Congress gives us the means to remain the world's leader for peace.
(Applause.)
My fellow Americans, the six challenges I have just
discussed are for all of us. Our seventh challenge is really
America's challenge to those of us in this hallowed hall tonight: to
reinvent our government and make our democracy work for them.
Last year this Congress applied to itself the laws it
applies to everyone else. (Applause.) This Congress banned gifts
and meals from lobbyists. This Congress forced lobbyists to disclose
who pays them and what legislation they are trying to pass or kill.
This Congress did that, and I applaud you for it. (Applause.)
Now I challenge Congress to go further -- to curb
special interest influence in politics by passing the first truly
bipartisan campaign reform bill in a generation. (Applause.) You,
Republicans and Democrats alike, can show the American people that we
can limit spending and we can open the airwaves to all candidates.
(Applause.)
I also appeal to Congress to pass the line-item veto you
promised the American people. (Applause.)
Our administration is working hard to give the American
people a government that works better and costs less. Thanks to the
work of Vice President Gore, we are eliminating 16,000 pages of
unnecessary rules and regulations, shifting more decision-making out
of Washington, back to states and local communities.
As we move into the era of balanced budgets and smaller
government, we must work in new ways to enable people to make the
most of their own lives. We are helping America's communities, not
with more bureaucracy, but with more opportunities. Through our
successful empowerment zones and community development banks, we're
helping people to find jobs, to start businesses. And with tax
incentives for companies that clean up abandoned industrial property,
we can bring jobs back to places that desperately, desperately need
them.
But there are some areas that the federal government
should not leave and should address and address strongly. One of
these areas is the problem of illegal immigration. After years of
neglect, this administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the
protection of our borders. We are increasing border controls by 50
percent. We are increasing inspections to prevent the hiring of
illegal immigrants. And tonight, I announce I will sign an executive
order to deny federal contracts to businesses that hire illegal
immigrants. (Applause.)
Let me be very clear about this: We are still a nation
of immigrants; we should be proud of it. We should honor every legal
immigrant here, working hard to be a good citizen, working hard to
become a new citizen. But we are also a nation of laws.
I want to say a special word now to those who work for
our federal government. Today our federal is 200,000 employees
smaller than it was the day I took office as President. (Applause.)
Our federal government today is the smallest it has been in 30 years,
and it's getting smaller every day. Most of our fellow Americans
probably don't know that. And there's a good reason -- a good
reason: The remaining federal work force is composed of hard-working
Americans who are now working harder and working smarter than ever
before to make sure the quality of our services does not decline.
(Applause.)
I'd like to give you one example. His name is Richard
Dean. He's a 49 year-old Vietnam veteran who's worked for the Social
Security Administration for 22 years now. Last year he was hard at
work in the Federal Building in Oklahoma City when the blast killed
169 people and brought the rubble down all around him. He reentered
that building four times. He saved the lives of three women. He's
here with us this evening, and I want to recognize Richard and
applaud both his public service and his extraordinary personal
heroism. (Applause.)
But Richard Dean's story doesn't end there. This last
November, he was forced out of his office when the government shut
down. And the second time the government shut down he continued
helping Social Security recipients, but he was working without pay.
On behalf of Richard Dean and his family, and all the
other people who are out there working every day doing a good job for
the American people, I challenge all of you in this Chamber: Never,
ever shut the federal government down again. (Applause.)
On behalf of all Americans, especially those who need
their Social Security payments at the beginning of March, I also
challenge the Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the
United States -- to honor the obligations of this great nation as we
have for 220 years; to rise above partisanship and pass a
straightforward extension of the debt limit and show people America
keeps its word. (Applause.)
I know that this evening I have asked a lot of Congress,
and even more from America. But I am confident: When Americans work
together in their homes, their schools, their churches, their
synagogues, their civic groups, their workplace, they can meet any
challenge.
I say again, the era of big government is over. But we
can't go back to the era of fending for yourself. We have to go
forward to the era of working together as a community, as a team, as
one America, with all of us reaching across these lines that divide
us -- the division, the discrimination, the rancor -- we have to
reach across it to find common ground. We have got to work together
if we want America to work. (Applause.)
I want you to meet two more people tonight who do just
that. Lucius Wright is a teacher in the Jackson, Mississippi, public
school system. A Vietnam veteran, he has created groups to help
inner-city children turn away from gangs and build futures they can
believe in. Sergeant Jennifer Rodgers is a police officer in
Oklahoma City. Like Richard Dean, she helped to pull her fellow
citizens out of the rubble and deal with that awful tragedy. She
reminds us that in their response to that atrocity the people of
Oklahoma City lifted all of us with their basic sense of decency and
community.
Lucius Wright and Jennifer Rodgers are special
Americans. And I have the honor to announce tonight that they are
the very first of several thousand Americans who will be chosen to
carry the Olympic torch on its long journey from Los Angeles to the
centennial of the modern Olympics in Atlanta this summer -- not
because they are star athletes, but because they are star citizens,
community heroes meeting America's challenges. They are our real
champions.
Please stand up. (Applause.)
Now, each of us must hold high the torch of citizenship
in our own lives. None of us can finish the race alone. We can only
achieve our destiny together -- one hand, one generation, one
American connecting to another.
There have always been things we could to together,
dreams we could make real which we could never have done on our own.
We Americans have forged our identity, our very union, from the very
point of view that we can accommodate every point on the planet,
every different opinion. But we must be bound together by a faith
more powerful than any doctrine that divides us -- by our believe in
progress, our love of liberty, and our relentless search for common
ground.
America has always sought and always risen to every
challenge. Who would say that having come so far together, we will
not go forward from here? Who would say that this age of possibility
is not for all Americans?
Our country is and always has been a great and good
nation. But the best is yet to come if we all do our parts.
Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States
of America. Thank you. (Applause.)
END 10:15 P.M. EST
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