[Budget of the United States Government]
[I. The Budget Message of the President]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


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                 I. THE BUDGET MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT

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                                                                Table I-1.  Budget Totals
                                                                (In billions of dollars)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                        Estimates
                                     1999  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------    Total
                                    Actual    2000     2001     2002     2003     2004     2005     2006     2007     2008     2009     2010   2001-2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Receipts.........................    1,827    1,956    2,019    2,081    2,147    2,236    2,341    2,440    2,559    2,676    2,785    2,917    24,202
Outlays..........................    1,703    1,790    1,835    1,895    1,963    2,041    2,125    2,185    2,267    2,362    2,456    2,553    21,683
                                  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total unified budget surplus.....      124      167      184      186      185      195      215      256      292      314      329      363     2,519

Debt Reduction:
  Social Security solvency lock-       124      148      160      172      184      195      214      224      239      250      260      272     2,169
   box...........................
   Medicare solvency transfers...  .......  .......       15       13  .......  .......  .......       26       47       57       61       80       299
   Reserve for catastrophic        .......  .......  .......  .......  .......  .......  .......        4        5        7        8       11        35
   prescription drug coverage....
   On-Budget surplus.............        1       19        9        1        *        *        2        1        1        *        *        *        16
                                  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Total debt reduction..........      124      167      184      186      185      195      215      256      292      314      329      363     2,519
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* $500 million or less.


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                   THE BUDGET MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT

  To the Congress of the United States:
  The 2001 Budget, which I am submitting to you with this message, is 
the fourth balanced budget of my Administration. This budget upholds my 
policy of fiscal discipline and promises new opportunity for our Nation.
  We have made great progress in the last seven years, rejecting the 
fiscal disarray of an earlier era and in its place, asserting a 
steadfast commitment to live within our means, balance the budget, and 
uphold fiscal discipline. As a result, we have created the conditions 
for unprecedented prosperity. The longest peacetime economic expansion 
in American history has produced more than 20 million new jobs. 
Unemployment has hit its lowest level in a generation. Today, more 
Americans own their own homes than ever before in our Nation's history.
  Our success in reversing what once seemed to be uncontrollable growth 
in the Federal budget deficit has created more than prosperity. We have 
restored to America a spirit of purpose and confidence. This is a rare 
moment in history. Few nations are blessed with a combination of 
economic prosperity and social stability at home and with the security 
of a relatively peaceful world. It is time to make the most of this 
moment of promise to extend prosperity to all corners of our Nation.
  My first budget of the new century is built upon a commitment to 
expanding opportunity, promoting responsibility, and building community. 
It includes my New Markets Initiative, which relies on public and 
private sector cooperation to spur economic development in areas of our 
Nation that have not yet fully benefited from this wave of prosperity. 
It includes an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit to lift more 
hard-pressed working families out of poverty. It expands health 
insurance coverage to more uninsured low-income children and extends 
this coverage to their hard-working parents.
  Because education is fundamental to creating opportunity, my budget 
contains resources to prepare the next generation for the future with 
new and expanded efforts to improve the quality of our schools, prepare 
our students for college, and make college more accessible. It includes 
efforts to narrow the digital divide, the gap that separates those who 
have access to information technology and those who do not, so that all 
will be equipped with the technological tools they need to succeed. It 
also includes a science and technology initiative to lay the foundation 
for new scientific breakthroughs.
  This budget responds to the pressing needs of today and builds an 
America of the future by making our Nation debt free by 2013. To be 
prepared for the retirement of the baby boom generation, my budget also 
provides a framework to extend the life of the Social Security and 
Medicare trust funds, while modernizing Medicare with a needed 
prescription drug benefit.
  This budget uses the same straightforward approach of relying on 
conservative assumptions, as have all the budgets of my Administration. 
This conservative approach has built confidence in our budgets, because 
when unforeseen results have materialized, an inevitable development in 
forecasting, they have always brought good news. In turn, reversing 
recent trends, my 2001 Budget builds on the tradition of straightforward 
budgets to meet the pressing needs of today in a balanced plan that 
adheres to the principles of fiscal discipline and debt reduction. This 
budget also maintains a strict set of budget rules upholding our long 
commitment to fiscal discipline, which has sustained the conditions for 
our economy to flourish.


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  The 2001 Budget continues to project that the Federal budget will 
remain in surplus for many decades to come, provided that a responsible 
fiscal policy holds course, to foster sustained economic growth. Our 
challenge now, in this era of surplus, is to make balanced choices to 
use our resources to meet the pressing needs of today, and the needs of 
generations to come.

Building on the Success of Our Fiscal Discipline

  When I took office in 1993, the current strength of our economy seemed 
beyond possibility. At that point, both the Federal budget deficit and 
the national debt had exploded, threatening our economic future. The 
costs of massive Federal borrowing drove interest rates up, incomes were 
stagnant for all but the most well off, and the economy had barely grown 
during the prior four years. The Nation needed a new course, and we 
worked hard to secure the passage of legislation, with the support of 
Democrats in Congress, to get the economy moving again.
  My three-part economic strategy, built upon reducing the deficit, 
investing in the American people, and engaging the international economy 
yielded results. The budget deficit quickly began to drop from its peak 
of $290 billion, and in 1997, we pressed ahead with our deficit 
reduction efforts as Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act on a 
bipartisan basis to finish the job. Four years ahead of schedule, the 
budget reached balance and is projected this year to produce its third 
surplus in a row. We have started to pay down the national debt and are 
on a path to make the Nation debt free by 2013 for the first time since 
1835.
  Throughout the past seven years, my Administration has been committed 
to creating opportunity for all Americans, demanding responsibility from 
all Americans, and strengthening the American community. The crime rate, 
which had tripled during the previous three decades, continues to fall 
and crime is down in every region of the Nation. We have reformed the 
welfare system, and more than seven million Americans in the past seven 
years have made the transition from welfare to work.
  Most of all, the prosperity and opportunity of our time offers us a 
great responsibility--to take action to ensure that Social Security is 
there for the elderly and the disabled, while ensuring that it not place 
a burden on our children, that the life of Medicare is extended for 
future generations, and that we modernize Medicare with a needed 
prescription drug benefit. If we continue to follow sound fiscal policy, 
we can provide for the future, produce a balanced tax cut and meet the 
needs of today, while sustaining the conditions that have brought us 
this current wave of prosperity. All this can be done, but balanced and 
sound fiscal policy is the key.

Improving Performance Through Better Management

  At the start of this Administration, the Vice President and I set out 
to create a Government that works better, costs less, and gets results 
Americans care about. We believe that with better stewardship, the 
Government can better achieve its mission and improve the quality of 
life for all Americans. The success of these efforts is reflected in the 
significant changes of the past seven years in the way Government does 
business.
  We have streamlined Government, cutting the civilian Federal work 
force by 377,000, giving us the smallest work force in 39 years. We have 
done more than just reduce or eliminate hundreds of Federal programs and 
projects. We have also empowered government employees to cut red tape, 
and used partnerships to get results.
  While we have made real progress, there is still much work to do. We 
are forging ahead with new efforts to improve the quality of the service 
that the Government offers its customers. My Administration has 
identified its highest priorities--24 Priority Management Objectives 
listed in this budget, that will receive heightened attention to ensure 
positive changes in the way Government works. It is a mark of our 
success that in early 2000, we were able to remove last year's number 
one objective from the list: Manage the Year 2000 (Y2K) Computer

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Problem. Due largely to the efforts of Federal employees and the 
leadership provided by my Council on Year 2000 Conversion, the Federal 
Government's Y2K efforts were, beyond all expectation, remarkably 
trouble free. We will continue to move ahead to address other 
priorities, including modernizing student aid delivery, implementing IRS 
reforms, and strengthening the management of Health Care Financing 
Administration, which oversees Medicare.
  I believe the steps we have taken to change and improve the way 
Government works have also changed the way Americans view their 
Government, increasing the confidence and trust of the American public. 
It is our job to keep at this task, so that the Federal Government 
continues to improve its performance and the American public is better 
served. I am determined that we will do more to solve the very real 
management challenges before us.

Strengthening our Nation in the 21st Century

  Education, in our competitive global economy, has become the dividing 
line between those who are able to move ahead and those who lag behind. 
For this reason, I am committed to ensuring that we have a first-rate 
system of education and training in place for Americans of all ages. 
Over the last seven years, we have worked hard to ensure that every boy 
and girl is prepared to learn, that our schools focus on high standards 
and achievement, that anyone who wants to go to college can get the 
financial help to attend, and that those who need another chance at 
education and training, or a chance to improve or learn new skills, can 
do so. My budget builds on the commitment to make college more 
affordable by expanding the tax credits for higher education and 
increasing Pell Grants and other college aid beyond the record levels 
already reached. It promotes smaller learning environments in high 
schools and invests in reducing class size by recruiting and preparing 
thousands more teachers and building thousands more classrooms, as well 
as providing for urgent and essential school repairs.
  My budget includes significant increases to expand access to after-
school and other extended learning time opportunities, a central element 
of my accountability agenda to help children, especially in the poorest 
communities, reach challenging academic standards while supporting 
efforts to demand more from schools and support them in return. It 
promotes efforts to recruit teachers in high-poverty areas and includes 
a peer review initiative to help school districts raise teacher 
standards and teacher pay. The budget proposes improving school 
accountability by holding States, districts and schools accountable for 
results by providing resources to identify and turn around the worst-
performing schools, and incentives to reward States that do the most to 
improve student performance and close the achievement gap. It invests in 
programs to help raise the educational achievement of Latino students. 
And my budget supports efforts to narrow the digital divide by expanding 
resources for technology centers to make computers accessible in low-
income community areas.
  During the past seven years, we have taken many steps to help working 
families, and we continue that effort with this budget. We cut taxes for 
15 million working families, provided a tax credit to help families 
raise their children, ensured that 25 million Americans a year can 
change jobs without losing their health insurance, made it easier for 
the self-employed and those with pre-existing conditions to get health 
insurance, provided access to health care coverage for up to five 
million uninsured children, raised the minimum wage, and provided 
guaranteed time off for workers who need to care for a newborn or to 
address the health needs of a family member.
  I am proposing a significant expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit 
to provide support to America's hard working, low-income families, 
especially larger families who are more likely to be poor than families 
with only one or two children. My budget also significantly increases 
21st Century Learning Community Centers and expands after-school 
learning time. It makes child care more affordable by expanding tax 
credits for middle-income families and for businesses that provide child 
care services to their employees,

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by assisting parents who want to attend college meet their child care 
needs, as well as making a child care tax credit available to parents 
who choose to stay at home to raise a young child. My budget proposes to 
create an Early Learning Fund and builds on our expansion of the 
successful Head Start program to help meet the goal of serving one 
million children by 2002. And it promotes responsible fatherhood by 
proposing tough new measures to ensure that all parents who can afford 
to pay child support do so, while providing support to increase the 
employment earnings and child support payments of low-income fathers. My 
budget includes efforts to increase access to food stamps for the 
working poor, in part by proposing that low-income working families, who 
need efficient transportation to get to work, be permitted to own a 
modest vehicle and retain food stamp eligibility. And, it proposes 
resources to provide health care to legal immigrant children, to restore 
Supplemental Security Income benefits to legal immigrants with 
disabilities, and to restore food stamp benefits to legal immigrants in 
families with eligible children.
  We have continued to improve health care for millions of Americans. 
Since the establishment of the State Children's Health Insurance Program 
in 1997, two million children have enrolled in programs across all 50 
States. I am proposing a significant expansion of this successful 
program to extend health coverage to more children in hard working, low-
income families. My budget also extends this coverage to their parents, 
low-income working adults who lack health insurance, which will help 
increase the enrollment of their children by enabling entire families to 
receive coverage through the same program. My budget contains other 
significant incentives to increase access to affordable health care, 
including tax credits for small businesses and a provision to allow 
hundreds of thousands of Americans aged 55 to 65 to purchase Medicare 
coverage.
  My budget puts forth a plan that extends Medicare solvency to at least 
2025, respects fiscal discipline, and eliminates the national debt. My 
plan will modernize Medicare with a needed drug benefit, expand access 
to preventative benefits, and improve Medicare management. I intend to 
keep pressing ahead and working with Congress to enact essential patient 
protections including emergency room access and the right to see a 
specialist. By Executive Order, I have extended these rights to 85 
million Americans covered by Federal health plans, including Medicare 
and Medicaid beneficiaries and Federal employees.
  Most Americans are enjoying the fruits of our strong economy, yet we 
must do more to bring this prosperity to all corners of our great 
Nation. We must use this moment of promise to spread the values of 
community, opportunity, and responsibility, and to help create the 
conditions for all to share in our prosperity. My New Markets 
Initiative, an expanded approach built upon the same public-private 
cooperation at the center of last year's plan, will provide tax credit 
and loan guarantee incentives to stimulate tens of billions of dollars 
in new private investment in distressed rural and urban areas. It will 
build a network of private investment institutions to funnel credit, 
equity, and technical assistance into businesses in America's untapped 
markets, and provide the expertise to targeted small businesses that 
will allow them to use investment to grow. I am also proposing to expand 
the number of Empowerment Zones, which provide tax incentives and direct 
spending to encourage the kind of private investment that creates jobs, 
and to provide more capital for lending through my Community Development 
Financial Institutions program. My budget also includes significant 
funding increases for Native American communities to help this 
generation and future generations receive greater opportunities. It 
provides additional funds to enforce the Nation's civil rights laws, and 
strengthens the partnership we have begun with the District of Columbia. 
In addition, my budget proposes an $11 billion package for farmers in 
need and to help mend the farm safety net by providing assistance when 
crop prices are low.
  Our anti-crime strategy is working. Serious crime has fallen without 
interruption, and the murder rate is at its lowest point in three 
decades. Building on our successful community policing (COPS) program 
that is helping communities fund 100,000 cops on the beat, the 21st 
Century Policing initiative

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was enacted last year to put us on track to fund new anti-crime 
technology and 50,000 more police. This year, I am launching the largest 
gun enforcement initiative ever, adding funds to hire 500 new ATF 
agents, 1,000 State and local gun prosecutors and funds for smart gun 
technology. The budget also provides funds to prevent violence against 
women, and to address the growing law enforcement crisis on Indian 
lands. To boost our efforts to control illegal immigration, the budget 
provides resources to strengthen enforcement, particularly on the 
Southwest and Northern borders, and to remove illegal aliens. To combat 
drug use, particularly among young people, my budget expands programs 
that stress treatment and prevention, law enforcement, international 
assistance, and interdiction.
  During the past seven years, I have sought to strengthen science and 
technology investments in order to serve many of our broader goals for 
the Nation in the economy, education, health care, the environment, and 
national defense. Building on the balanced portfolio of basic and 
applied research in the 21st Century Research Fund, my budget includes a 
Science and Technology Initiative which places special emphasis on high-
priority, long-term basic research, including nanotechnology, the 
manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular level, which offers 
the promise that medical science may one day be able to detect cancerous 
tumors when they are comprised of only a few cells. My budget also 
increases resources for the Information Technology research and 
development program to invest in long-term research in computing and 
communications. It will accelerate development of extremely fast 
supercomputers to support civilian research, enabling experts to develop 
life-saving drugs, provide earlier tornado warnings, and design more 
fuel-efficient, safer automobiles. The budget provides strong support 
for the Nation's two largest sources of civilian basic research funding 
for universities: the National Science Foundation and the National 
Institutes of Health.
  The Nation does not have to choose between a strong economy and a 
clean environment. The past seven years are proof that we can have both. 
We have set tough new clean air standards for soot and smog that will 
prevent up to 15,000 premature deaths a year. We have set new food and 
drinking water safety standards and have accelerated the pace of 
cleanups of toxic Superfund sites. We expanded our efforts to protect 
tens of millions of acres of public and private lands, including 
Yellowstone National Park, Florida's Everglades, and California's 
redwoods. Led by the Vice President, the Administration reached an 
international agreement in Kyoto that calls for cuts in greenhouse gas 
emissions. My budget significantly expands support for the environment, 
by establishing dedicated funding and increasing resources for the 
historic interagency Lands Legacy initiative to preserve the Nation's 
natural and historic treasures. My budget also supports the Clean Energy 
initiative to reduce the threat of global warming, and the Greening the 
Globe initiative to save tropical and other forests around the globe. It 
provides resources to support farm conservation to upgrade water 
quality, the Clean Water Action plan to clean up polluted waterways, and 
climate change technology efforts to increase energy-efficient 
technologies and renewable energy to strengthen our economy while 
reducing greenhouse gases.
  In the past year, America's leadership was essential to the success of 
the NATO alliance in halting the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's ethnic 
Albanians and containing the risk of wider war at the doorstep of our 
allies. The United States has played a critical role in the strides made 
toward lasting peace in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and Sierra 
Leone. The United States has worked to detect and counter terrorist 
threats and continue efforts with Russia and other former Soviet nations 
to halt the spread of dangerous weapons materials. My budget seeks to 
build on these efforts, proposing funding to build a democratic society 
and stronger economy in Kosovo, initiatives to further protect our men 
and women overseas, and a 2000 emergency supplemental to provide 
critical assistance to the Government of Colombia in its fight against 
narcotics traffickers. My budget also proposes funding to promote 
international family planning, contain the global spread of AIDS, 
promote debt forgiveness to help people in the world's poorest

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countries join the global economy, and promote trade by opening global 
markets.
  The Armed Forces of the United States serve as the backbone of our 
national security strategy. As it did successfully last year in Kosovo, 
the military must be in a position to protect our national security 
interests and guard against the major threats to U.S. security. These 
include regional dangers, such as cross-border aggression; the 
proliferation of the technology of weapons of mass destruction; 
transnational dangers, such as the spread of illegal drugs and 
terrorism; and, direct attacks on the U.S. homeland from 
intercontinental ballistic missiles or other weapons of mass 
destruction. To ensure that the military can fulfill this mission, I 
made a major commitment last year to maintain our military readiness, 
which this budget builds upon with additional resources to ensure that 
the services can meet required training standards, maintain equipment in 
top condition, recruit and retain quality personnel, and procure 
sufficient spare parts and other equipment. To help improve the quality 
of life and strengthen the Department's ability to attract and retain 
quality individuals, this budget includes a major initiative to reduce 
servicemembers' out-of-pocket costs for off-base housing. In addition, 
this budget provides resources for the Department of Defense and other 
agencies to combat emerging threats, including terrorism and weapons of 
mass destruction, and to provide for critical infrastructure protection. 
It provides funds to support counter-narcotics efforts, including a 2000 
supplemental to increase assistance to the Government of Colombia in 
their fight against narcotics traffickers. It also provides additional 
funding for contingency operations in Southwest Asia, Bosnia, and 
Kosovo.

Building Prosperity for the Future

  This is a rare moment in American history. Never before has our Nation 
enjoyed so much prosperity, at a time when social progress continues to 
advance and our position as the global leader is secure. Today, we are 
well prepared to make the choices that will shape our Nation's future 
for decades to come.
   By reversing the earlier trend of fiscal irresponsibility, balancing 
the budget, and producing a historic surplus, we have restored our 
national spirit and produced the resources to help opportunity and 
prosperity reach all corners of this Nation. We have it within our reach 
today, by making the right choices, to offer the promise of prosperity 
to generations of Americans to come. If we keep to the path of fiscal 
discipline, we can build a foundation of prosperity for the Nation's 
future.
   My plan to extend the solvency of Social Security and Medicare allows 
the United States to become debt-free in the next 13 years, for the 
first time since 1835. Eliminating the debt will strengthen our economy, 
devote resources to Social Security, and prepare us to meet the 
challenges of the aging of America. Through fiscal discipline and wise 
choices we can extend the life of Social Security to the middle of the 
century, extend the solvency of Medicare until 2025, and modernize 
Medicare with a needed prescription drug benefit.

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  By continuing to maintain discipline, we can provide for the aging of 
America and for the investments of the future--including education, the 
environment, research and development, and defense--which are central to 
our economic growth, health, and national security. By making choices 
that respect fiscal discipline, we can make room to provide both for a 
balanced tax cut and for investments that will help this Nation stay 
strong in the future.
  This new century is filled with promise, for we live at a remarkable 
time. By making wise choices, we have it within our power to extend the 
same promise and prosperity to generations to come.

                                                      William J. Clinton
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                   February 7, 2000                     
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