    [A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget]
    [5. The President's 2000 Budget]
    [From the U.S. Government Printing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    5. THE PRESIDENT'S 2000 BUDGET

    The President's 2000 budget promises the third balanced budget of
    this Administration. With it, the Nation's fiscal house is in order
    and we are prepared to meet the challenges of the next century.
    It continues on the path the President has followed for the past
    six years of maintaining fiscal discipline and investing wisely
    in our Nation's priorities.

    It invests in education and training so Americans can make the most
    of this economy's opportunities. It invests in health and the
    environment to improve our quality of life. It invests in our
    security at home and abroad, strengthens law enforcement and
    provides our Armed Forces with the resources they need to safeguard
    our national interests in the next century.

    The President's budget makes these investments while maintaining the
    fiscal discipline that allowed the Federal Government to record its
    first surplus in a generation last year. The budget forecasts that
    the Government will produce a surplus again this year, and will
    continue to do so for decades to come. Our success in eliminating
    the budget deficit proves that we are capable of fulfilling great
    responsibilities, and there is now every reason for us to rise to
    the next challenge. The President believes it is now time to work
    together to save Social Security.

       Investing in the Future

    In his State of the Union address, the President proposed a framework
    for a comprehensive, bipartisan solution to the long-term financing
    problems of Social Security. The President's plan proposes using 62
    percent of the unified budget surplus of the next 15 years to
    strengthen Social Security. It would tap the power of financial
    markets by investing roughly one-fifth of the surplus dedicated to
    Social Security in private financial instruments, including
    corporate equities. This proposal would substantially improve the
    program's fiscal position, strengthening it until the middle of the
    next century. Then, in a bipartisan effort envisioned by the national
    dialogue of the last year, the President is urging Congress to join
    him to make the difficult but achievable choices to save Social
    Security until 2075.

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    Once Social Security is on sound financial footing, the President
    proposes saving and improving Medicare, the Federal program that
    finances health care for millions of seniors and disabled Americans.
    The President's framework will reserve 15 percent of the projected
    budget surplus of the nest 15 years for Medicare, ensuring that
    its trust fund is secure for 20 years.

    The President is also committed to helping all Americans save and
    invest so that they will have additional sources of income in retirement.
    Dedicating just over 10 percent of the surplus of the next 15 years
    to Universal Savings Accounts will help Americans save for the future
    by allowing them to invest as they choose and receive matching
    contributions.

    And looking ahead to the Nation's other vital needs that will arise in
    the future, the President's framework will reserve 11 percent of the
    projected surplus for military readiness, education, and other critical
    domestic priorities.

    The President's budget builds on efforts to invest in the skills of
    the American people. It continues his policy of helping working
    families with their basic needs_raising their children, sending
    them to college, and expanding access to health care. It also invests
    in education and training, the environment,, science and technology,
    law enforcement, and other priorities to help raise the standard of
    living and quality of life of Americans.

    In this budget, the President is proposing major initiatives that
    will continue his investments in high-priority areas_from helping
    working families with their child care expenses to allowing Americans
    from 55 to 65 to buy into Medicare; from helping States and school
    districts recruit and prepare thousands more teachers and build
    thousands more classrooms to making every effort to fight tobacco
    and its use among young people.

    For six years, the President has sought to help working families
    balance the demands of work and family. In this budget he proposes
    a major effort to make child care more affordable, accessible and
    safe, by expanding tax credits for middle-income families and for
    businesses to expand their child care needs, and increasing funds with
    which the Child Care and Development Block Grant can help more poor
    and near poor children. The budget proposes and Early Learning Fund,
    which would provide grants to communities for activities that improve
    early childhood deduction and the quality of child care for those
    under age five.

    The President has worked hard to expand health care coverage and
    improve the Nations' health. The budget  gives new insurance options
    to hundreds of thousands of Americans aged 55 to 65 and it advocates
    bipartisan national

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    legislation that would reduce tobacco use among the young. The
    President's budget proposed initiatives to help patients, families,
    and care givers cope with the burdens of long-term care; and it
    helps reduce barriers to employment for individuals with
    disabilities. The budget also enables more Medicare beneficiaries
    to receive promising cancer treatments by participating more easily
    in clinical trials. And it improves the fiscal soundness of Medicare
    and Medicaid through new management proposals, including programs
    to combat waste, fraud, and abuse.

    The President's efforts have also enhanced access to, and the
    quality of, education and training. The budget takes the next
    steps by continuing to help States and school districts reduce class
    size by recruiting and preparing thousands more teachers and
    building thousands more new classrooms. The President's budget
    proposes improving school accountability by funding monetary awards
    to the highest performing schools that serve low-income students,
    providing resources to States to help them identify and change the
    least successful schools, and ending social promotion by funding
    additional education hours through programs like the 21st Century
    Community Learning Centers. The budget also proposes further
    increases in the maximum Pell Grant to help low-income undergraduates
    complete their college education and more funding for universal
    reemployment services to help train or find jobs for all dislocated
    workers who need help.

    The budget proposes a historic inter-agency Lands Legacy initiative
    to both preserve the Nation's Great Places, and advance preservation
    of open spaces in every community. This initiative will give State
    and local governments the loots for orderly growth while protecting
    and enhancing green spaces, clean water, wildlife habitat and
    outdoor recreation. The Administration also proposes a Livability
    Initiative with a new financing mechanism, Better America Bonds,
    to create more open spaces in urban and suburban areas, improve
    water quality, and clean up abandoned industrial sites. In
    addition, the budget would restore and rehabilitate national
    parks, forests, and public lands and facilities; expand efforts to
    restore and protect the water quality of rivers and lakes; and
    better protect endangered species.

    The President had worked to bring peace to troubled parts of the
    world, and has played a leadership role in Northern Ireland, Bosnia,
    and most recently in the Wye River Memorandum on the Middle East.
    The budget reinforces America's commitment to peace in the Middle
    East by providing for an economic and military assistance package
    arising for the Wye River Memorandum. The work of diplomacy,
    advancing peace and United States interests, has inherent dangers,
    as the death toll from the terrorist attacks on two U.S. Embassies
    in Africa last year reminds us. The budget proposes

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    increased funding to ensure the continued protection of American
    embassies, consulates and other facilities, and the valuable employees
    who work there. It supports significant increases in funding for
    State Department programs to address the threats posed by weapons
    of mass destruction. The budget also increases programs that support
    U.S. manufacturing exports and continues our long standing policy of
    opening foreign markets.

    The mission of our Armed Forces has changed in this post-Cold War
    era, and in many ways it is more complex. Today, the U.S. military
    must guard against major threats to the Nation's security, including
    regional dangers like cross-border aggression, the proliferation of
    the technology of weapons of mass destruction, transnational dangers
    like the spread of drugs and terrorism, and direct attacks on the
    U.S. homeland from intercontinental ballistic missiles or other
    weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. Armed Forces are well prepared
    to meet this mission. Military readiness_the ability to engage where
    and when necessary_is razor sharp, and this budget provides resources
    to make sure that it stays that way for years to come. The budget
    provides a long term, sustained increase in defense spending to
    enhance the military's ability to respond to crises, build for the
    future through programs for weapons modernization, and take care
    of military personnel and their families by enhancing the quality
    of life, thereby increasing retention and recruitment.

                  Improving Performance Through Better Management

    A key element in the Administration's ability to making these
    investments, while balancing the budget, is the reinvention of
    overnment_doing more with less. Efforts led by Vice President
    Gore's National Partnership for Reinvention have streamlined
    Government, reduced its work force, and focused on performance
    in improve operations and delivery of service. And these efforts,
    by reducing the cost of Government operations, have improved
    the bottom line and contributed to our strong economy.

    Since 1993, the Administration, working with the Congress, has
    eliminated and reduced hundreds of unnecessary programs and projects.
    The size of Government, that is, the actual total of Government
    spending, has equaled a smaller share of GDP than in any year of
    the previous two Administrations, and in 2000 will drop to 19.4
    percent of GDP, its lowest level since the early 1970s. Finally,
    the Administration has cut the size of the Federal civilian work
    force by 365,000, creating the smallest work force in 36 years
    and, as a share of total civilian employment, the smallest since
    1933 (see Chart 5�091).

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    Chart 5-1.  Cuts in Civilian Employment

    Note: In 1993, the President pledged to cut the Federal work force
    by 252,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions. Simply put, one
    full-time employee counts as one FTE, and two employees who work
    half-time also count as one FTE.

    The Administration, however, is working to create not just a
    smaller Government, but a better one, a Government that best
    provides services and benefits to its ultimate customers_the
    American people. It has not just cut the Federal work force, it
    has streamlined layers of bureaucracy. It has not just reorganized
    headquarters and field offices, it has ensured that those closest
    to the customers can best serve them.

    For 2000, the Administration once again is turning its efforts to
    the next stage of ``reinventing'' the Federal Government. It plans
    to dramatically overhaul 32 Federal agencies to improve performance
    in key services, such as expediting student loan processing and
    speeding aid to disaster victims. It also plans to continue tackling
    critical challenges, such as ensuring that Government computers
    can process the year 2000 date change and making more  Government
    services available electronically.

    Under the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, Cabinet
    departments and agencies have prepared individual performance
    plans that they will send to Congress with the performance goals
    they plan to meet in 2000. These plans provided the basis for the
    second Government-wide

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    Performance Plan which is contained in the budget. In 2000, for the
    first time, agencies will submit to the President and the Congress
    annual reports for 1999 that compare actual and target performance
    levels and explain any difference between them.