[House Document 104-168]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




        104th Congress, 2d Session - - - - - - - - - - - - House 
Document 104-168


 
                       STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE

                               __________

                                MESSAGE

                                  from

                   THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

                              transmitting

                   A REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE UNION




  January 23, 1996.--Message and accompanying papers referred to the 
 Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to 
                              be printed.
To the Congress of the United States:
    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.
    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. 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 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.
    Our leadership in the world is also strong, bringing hope 
for new peace. And perhaps most important, we are gaining 
ground and 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.
    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. 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. The era of big 
government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our 
citizens were left to fend for themselves. 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.
    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 opportunities, 
economic security, safer streets, a cleaner environment and 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.
    Here in this place our responsibility begins with balancing 
the budget in a way that is fair to all Americans. There is now 
broad bipartisan agreement that permanent deficit spending must 
come to an end.
    I compliment the Republican leadership and their membership 
for the energy and determination you have brought to this task 
of balancing the budget. 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.
    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.
    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 7 years 
and to provide a modest tax cut. These cuts are real. They will 
require sacrifice from everyone. But these cuts do not 
undermine our 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.
    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 that each side 
has 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 the 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.
    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. Families are the 
foundation of American life. If we have stronger families, we 
will have a stronger America.
    Before I go on, I would 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.
    All strong families begin with taking more responsibility 
for our children. I have heard Mrs. Gore say that it is hard to 
be a parent today, but it is 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 CD's and 
television shows you'd want your own children and grandchildren 
to enjoy.
    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.
    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.
    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.
    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.''
    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.
    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.
    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 others 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. Every one 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 
am sure all Americans are, that it has dropped for 2 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 grassroots 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.
    And I challenge America's families to work harder to stay 
together, for families that 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 are doing more than ever to make sure you do, 
and we are going to do more, but let's all admit something 
about that, too. A check will never 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.
    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.
    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 grassroots 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.
    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 designers jackets, 
then our public schools should be able to require their 
students to wear school uniforms.
    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 has made it easier to borrow and repay those 
loans, and we have dramatically cut the student loan default 
rate. That is 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.
    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 1 
million young Americans work their way through college by the 
year 2000, to provide a $1,000 merit scholarship for the top 5 
percent of graduates in every high school in the United States, 
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 is a good idea for America.
    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 GI bill for 
America's workers we should all be able to agree on.
    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 twenty-five 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.
    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.
    But 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 that 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.
    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.
    We should also protect existing pension plans. Two years 
ago, with bipartisan support, it 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' pension funds.
    I know the proposal to liberalize the ability of employers 
to take money out of the 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.
    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 1 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.
    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 have 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.
    The GI 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; and 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 are already a third of the way 
there, and I challenge the Congress to finish the job. Let us 
stick with a strategy that is working and keep the crime rate 
coming down.
    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.
    Our next step in the fight against crime is to take on 
gangs the way we once took on the mob. I am 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 peddle drugs should be, one strike and you're 
out.
    I challenge every State to match Federal policy to assure 
that serious violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of 
their sentence. More police and punishment are important, but 
they are 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 grassroots prevention 
efforts.
    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, and 
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 these DARE officers are making a real 
impression on grade school children that will give them the 
strength to say no when the time comes.
    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's Southern Command, General Barry 
McCaffrey as America's new drug czar.
    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.
    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 is 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 our 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 taxpayers 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. 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.
    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.
    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. 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 of our 
conflicts since, I salute your service and so do the American 
people.
    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 in the 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.
    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 isolationists, we must not be the world's policeman, but 
we can and should be the world's very best peacemaker.
    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.
    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.
    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 campaigns of rape and torture, 
the endless lines of refugees, the threat of a spreading war. 
All of 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.
    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. We must end the race to create new nuclear 
weapons by signing a truly comprehensive nuclear test ban 
treaty this year.
    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.
    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. 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.
    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. 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.
    Now I challenge Congress to go further, to curb special 
interest influence in politics by passing the first truly 
bipartisan campaign finance reform bill in a generation. You, 
Republicans and Democrats alike, can show the American people 
that we can limit spending and we can open the airwaves to all 
candidates.
    I also appeal to Congress to pass the line item veto you 
promised the American people.
    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 
decisionmaking 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 are helping people to find jobs, to start 
businesses. And with tax incentives for companies that clean up 
abandoned industrial properties, 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.
    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 the Federal work force is 200,000 
employees smaller than it was the day I took office as 
President. Our Federal Government today is the smallest it has 
been in 30 years, and it is getting smaller every day. Most of 
our fellow Americans probably don't know that. 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.
    I would like to give you one example. His name is Richard 
Dean. He is a 49-year-old Vietnam veteran who has 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 is here with us this evening and I 
want to recognize Richard and applaud both his public service 
and his extraordinary personal heroism.
    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.
    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 the 
people America keeps its word.
    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 and 
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.
    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 Rogers 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 Rogers 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.
    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 do 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 belief 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 part.
    Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States 
of America.

                                
