[House Document 105-178]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
105th Congress, 2d Session - - - - - - - - - - House Document 105-178
STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE
__________
MESSAGE
from
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
transmitting
A REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE UNION
January 27, 1998.--Message and accompanying papers referred to the
Committee on 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 105th
Congress, distinguished guests, my fellow Americans, since the
last time we met in this Chamber, America has lost two patriots
and fine public servants. Though they sat on opposite sides of
the aisle, Representatives Walter Capps and Sonny Bono shared a
deep love for this House and an unshakable commitment to
improving the lives of all our people.
In the past few weeks, they have both been eulogized.
Tonight I think we should begin by sending a message to their
families and their friends that we celebrate their lives and
give thanks to their service to our Nation.
For 209 years, it has been the President's duty to report
to you on the State of the Union. Because of the hard work and
high purpose of the American people, these are good times for
America. We have more than 14 million new jobs. The lowest
unemployment in 24 years. The lowest core inflation in 30
years. Incomes are rising, and we have the highest
homeownership in history. Crime has dropped for a record five
years in a row and the welfare rolls are at their lowest level
in 27 years. Our leadership in the world is unrivaled. Ladies
and gentlemen, the state of our union is strong.
But with barely 700 days left in the 20th Century, this is
not a time to rest; it is a time to build, to build the America
within our reach.
An America where everybody has a chance to get ahead with
hard work. Where every citizen can live in a safe community.
Where families are strong, schools are good, and all our young
people can go on to college. An America where scientists find
cures for diseases from diabetes to Alzheimer's to AIDS. An
America where every child can stretch a hand across a keyboard
and reach every book ever written, every painting ever painted,
every symphony ever composed. Where government provides the
opportunity and citizens honor the responsibility to give
something back to their communities. An America which leads the
world to new heights of peace and prosperity.
This is the America we have begun to build; this is the
America we can leave to our children if we join together to
finish the work at hand. Let us strengthen our Nation for the
21st Century.
Rarely have Americans lived through so much change, in so
many ways, in so short a time. Quietly but with gathering
force, the ground has shifted beneath our feet, as we have
moved into an Information Age, a global economy, a truly new
world.
For five years now, we have met the challenge of these
changes, as Americans have at every turning point in our
history, by renewing the very idea of America: widening the
circle of opportunity, deepening the meaning of our freedom,
forging a more perfect union.
We have shaped a new kind of government for the Information
Age. I thank the Vice President for his leadership and the
Congress for its support in building a government that is
leaner, more flexible, a catalyst for new ideas. And most of
all, a government thatgives the American people the tools they
need to make the most of their own lives.
We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say
government is the enemy and those who say government is the
answer. My fellow Americans, we have found a third way. We have
the smallest government in 35 years, but a more progressive
one. We have a smaller government, but a stronger Nation.
We are moving steadily toward an even stronger America in
the 21st Century. An economy that offers opportunity. A society
rooted in responsibility. And a Nation that lives as a
community.
First, Americans in this Chamber and across our Nation have
pursued a new strategy for prosperity: Fiscal discipline to cut
interest rates and spur growth; investments in education and
skills in science and technology and transportation to prepare
our people for the new economy; new markets for American
products and American workers.
When I took office, the deficit for 1998 was projected to
be $357 billion, and heading higher. This year, our deficit is
projected to be $10 billion, and heading lower. For three
decades, six presidents have come before you to warn of the
damage deficits pose to our Nation. Tonight, I come before you
to announce that the Federal deficit, once so incomprehensibly
large that it had 11 zeros, will be simply zero.
I will submit to Congress for 1999 the first balanced
budget in 30 years. And if we hold fast to fiscal discipline,
we may balance the budget this year, 4 years ahead of schedule.
You can all be proud of that because turning a sea of red ink
into black is no miracle. It is the product of hard work by the
American people and of two visionary actions in Congress: the
courageous vote in 1993 that led to a cut in the deficit of 90
percent and the truly historic bipartisan balanced budget
agreement passed by this Congress.
Here is the really good news. If we maintain our resolve,
we will produce balanced budgets as far as the eye can see. We
must not go back to unwise spending or untargeted tax cuts that
risk reopening the deficit. Last year, together, we enacted
targeted tax cuts so that the typical middle class family will
now have the lowest tax rates in 20 years.
My plan to balance the budget next year includes both new
investments and new tax cuts targeted to the needs of working
families: for education, for child care, for the environment.
But whether the issue is tax cuts or spending, I ask all of
you to meet this test: approve only those priorities that can
actually be accomplished without adding a dime to the deficit.
Now, if we balance the budget for next year, it is
projected that we will then have a sizable surplus in the years
that immediately follow. What should we do with this projected
surplus? I have a simple, four-word answer: save Social
Security first.
Tonight I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the
surplus, that is every penny of any surplus, until we have
taken all the necessary measures to strengthen the Social
Security system for the 21st century. Let us say, let us say to
all Americans watching tonight, whether you are 70 or 50 or
whether you just started paying into the system, Social
Security will be there when you need it.
Let us make this commitment: Social Security first. Let's
do that together.
I also want to say that all the American people who are
watching us tonight should be invited to join in this
discussion, in facing these issues squarely and forming a true
consensus on how we should proceed.
We will start by conducting nonpartisan forums in every
region of the country, and I hope that lawmakers of both
parties will participate. We will hold the White House
conference on Social Security in December, and one year from
now I will convene the leaders of Congress to craft historic
bipartisan legislation to achieve a landmark for our
generation, a Social Security system that is strong in the 21st
century.
In an economy that honors opportunity, all Americans must
be able to reap the reward of prosperity. Because these times
are good, we can afford to take one simple, sensible step to
help millions of workers struggling to provide for their
families. We should raise the minimum wage.
The information age is first and foremost an education age
in which education must start at birth and continue throughout
a lifetime.
Last year from this podium I said that education has to be
our highest priority. I laid out a ten-point plan to move us
forward and urged all of us to let politics stop at the
schoolhouse door. Since then, this Congress, across party
lines, and the American people have responded in the most
important year for education in a generation, expanding public
school choice, opening the way to 3,000 new charter schools,
working to connect every classroom in the country to the
information superhighway, committing to expand Head Start to a
million children, launching America Reads, sending literally
thousands of college students into our elementary schools to
make sure all our 8-year-olds can read.
Last year I proposed and you passed 220,000 new Pell Grant
scholarships for deserving students. Student loans are already
less expensive and easier to repay. Now you get to deduct the
interest. Families all over America now can put their savings
into new tax-free education IRAs. And this year for the first 2
years of college families will get a $1,500 tax credit, a Hope
Scholarship that will cover the cost of most community college
tuition. And for junior and senior year, graduate school and
job training, there is a lifetime learning credit. You did that
and you should be very proud of it.
And because of these actions, I have something to say to
every family listening to us tonight: Your children can go on
to college. If you know a child from a poor family, tell her
not to give up. She can go on to college. If you know a young
couple struggling with bills, worried they won't be able to
send their children to college, tell them not to give up. Their
children can go on to college. If you know somebody who's
caught in a dead-end job and afraid he can't afford the classes
necessary to get better jobs for the rest of his life, tell him
not to give up. He can go on to college.
Because of the things that have been done, we can make
college as universal in the 21st century as high school is
today. And, my friends, that will change the face and future of
America.
We have opened wide the doors of the world's best system of
higher education. Now we must make our public elementary and
secondary schools the world's best as well by raising
standards, raising expectations and raising accountability.
Thanks to the actions of this Congress last year, we will
soon have, for the very first time, a voluntary national test
based on national standards in 4th grade reading and 8th grade
math.
Parents have a right to know whether their children are
mastering the basics, and every parent already knows the key:
good teachers and small classes. Tonight I propose the first
ever national effort to reduce class size in the early grades.
My balanced budget will help to hire 100,000 new teachers who
have passed a State competency test. Now, with these teachers,
listen, with these teachers we will actually be able to reduce
class size in the first, second and third grades to an average
of 18 students a class all across America.
Now, if I have got the math right, more teachers teaching
smaller classes requires more classrooms. So I also propose a
school construction tax cut to help communities modernize or
build 5,000 schools.
We must also demand greater accountability. When we promote
a child from grade to grade who hasn't mastered the work, we
don't do that child any favors. It is time to end social
promotion in America's schools.
Last year, last year in Chicago, they made that decision,
not to hold our children back but to lift them up. Chicago
stopped social promotion and started mandatory summer school to
help students who are behind to catch up. I propose, I propose
to help other communities follow Chicago's lead. Let's say to
them, stop promoting children who don't learn and we will give
you the tools to make sure they do.
I also ask this Congress to support our efforts to enlist
colleges and universities to reach out to disadvantaged
children starting in the 6th grade so that they can get the
guidance and hope they need so they can know that they too will
be able to go on to college.
As we enter the 21st century, the global economy requires
us to seek opportunity not just at home but in all the markets
of the world. We must shape this global economy, not shrink
from it. In the last 5 years we have led the way in opening new
markets with 240 trade agreements that remove foreign barriers
to products bearing the proud stamp ``Made in the USA''.
Today, record high exports account for fully one-third of
our economic growth. I want to keep them going, because that's
the way to keep America growing and to advance a safer, more
stable world.
Now, all of you know, whatever your views are, that I think
this is a great opportunity for America. I know there is
opposition to more comprehensive trade agreements. I have
listened carefully, and I believe that the opposition is rooted
in two fears: first, that our trading partners will have lower
environmental and labor standards which will give them an
unfair advantage in our market and do their own people no
favors even if there's more business; and, second, that if we
have more trade, more of our workers will lose their jobs and
have to start over.
I think we should seek to advance worker and environmental
standards around the world. I have made it abundantly clear
that it should be a part of our trade agenda, but we cannot
influence other countries' decisions if we send them a message
that we're backing away from trade with them. This year I will
send legislation to Congress and ask other nations to join us
to fight the most intolerable labor practice of all: Abusive
child labor.
We should also offer help and hope to those Americans
temporarily left behind by the global marketplace or by the
march of technology, which may have nothing to do with trade.
That's why we have more than doubled funding for training
dislocated workers since 1993. And if my new budget is adopted,
we will triple funding. That's why we must do more, and more
quickly, to help workers who lose their jobs for whatever
reason. You know, we help communities in a special way when
their military base closes. We ought to help them in the same
way if their factory closes.
Again, I ask the Congress to continue its bipartisan work
to consolidate the tangle of training programs we have today
into one single GI bill for workers, a simple skills grant so
people can, on their own, move quickly to new jobs, to higher
incomes and brighter futures.
Now, we all know in every way in life change is not always
easy, but we have to decide whether we're going to try to hold
it back and hide from it or reap its benefits. And remember the
big picture here. While we've been entering into hundreds of
new trade agreements,we've been creating millions of new jobs.
So this year we will forge new partnerships with Latin America, Asia
and Europe, and we should pass the new African Trade Act. It has
bipartisan support.
I will also renew my request for the fast track negotiating
authority necessary to open more new markets, create more new
jobs, which every President has had for two decades.
You know, whether we like it or not, in ways that are
mostly positive, the world's economies are more and more
interconnected and interdependent. Today an economic crisis
anywhere can affect economies everywhere. Recent months have
brought serious financial problems to Thailand, Indonesia,
South Korea and beyond.
Now, why should Americans be concerned about this? First,
these countries are our customers. If they sink into recession,
they won't be able to buy the goods we'd like to sell them.
Second, they are also our competitors. So if their currencies
lose their value and go down, then the price of their goods
will drop, flooding our market and others with much cheaper
goods, which makes it a lot tougher for our people to compete.
And finally, they are our strategic partners. Their stability
bolsters our security.
The American economy remains sound and strong, and I want
to keep it that way. But because the turmoil in Asia will have
an impact on all the world's economies, including ours, making
that negative impact as small as possible is the right thing to
do for America, and the right thing to do for a safer world.
Our policy is clear: No nation can recover if it does not
reform itself. But when nations are willing to undertake
serious economic reform, we should help them do it. So I call
on Congress to renew America's commitment to the International
Monetary Fund. I think we should say to all the people we are
trying to represent here that preparing for a far-off storm
that may reach our shores is far wiser than ignoring the
thunder until the clouds are just overhead.
A strong Nation rests on the rock of responsibility. A
society rooted in responsibility must first promote the value
of work, not welfare. We can be proud that after decades of
finger-pointing and failure, together we ended the old welfare
system, and we are now replacing welfare checks with paychecks.
Last year, after a record 4-year decline in welfare rolls,
I challenged our Nation to move 2 million more Americans off
welfare by the year 2000. I am pleased to report we have also
met that goal, 2 full years ahead of schedule.
This is a grand achievement, the sum of many acts of
individual courage, persistence and hope. For 13 years, Elaine
Kinslow of Indianapolis, Indiana, was on and off welfare.
Today, she is a dispatcher with a van company, she saved enough
money to move her family into a good neighborhood, and she is
helping other welfare recipients go to work.
Elaine Kinslow and all those like her are the real heroes
of the welfare revolution. There are millions like her all
across America, and I am happy she could join the First Lady
tonight.
Elaine, we are very proud of you. Please stand up.
We still have a lot more to do, all of us, to make welfare
reform a success, providing child care, helping families move
closer to available jobs, challenging more companies to join
our welfare-to-work partnership, increasing child support
collections from deadbeat parents who have a duty to support
their own children.
I also want to thank Congress for restoring some of the
benefits to immigrants who are here legally and working hard,
and I hope you will finish that job this year.
We have to make it possible for all hard-working families
to meet their most important responsibilities. Two years ago,
we helped guarantee that Americans can keep their health
insurance when they change jobs. Last year, we extended health
care to up to 5 million children. This year, I challenge
Congress to take the next historic steps.
One hundred sixty million of our fellow citizens are in
managed care plans. These plans save money, and they can
improve care. But medical decisions ought to be made by medical
doctors, not insurance company accountants. I urge this
Congress to reach across the aisle and write into law a
Consumer Bill of Rights that says this: You have the right to
know all your medical options, not just the cheapest. You have
the right to choose the doctor you want for the care you need.
You have the right to emergency room care, wherever and
whenever you need it. You have the right to keep your medical
records confidential. Now, traditional care or managed care,
every American deserves quality care.
Millions of Americans between the ages of 55 and 65 have
lost their health insurance. Some are retired, some are laid
off, some lose their coverage when their spouses retire. After
a lifetime of work, they are left with nowhere to turn. So I
ask the Congress, let these hard-working Americans buy into the
Medicare system. It will not add a dime to the deficit, but the
peace of mind it will provide will be priceless.
Next, we must help parents protect their children from the
gravest health threat that they face, an epidemic of teen
smoking, spread by multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns. I
challenge Congress, let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive
legislation that will improve public health, protect our
tobacco farmers, and change the way tobacco companies do
business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking
down. Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack
over the next 10 years, with penalties on the tobacco industry
if it keeps marketing to our children. Now, tomorrow, like
every day, 3,000 children will start smoking, and 1,000 will
die early as a result. Let this Congress be remembered as the
Congress that saved their lives.
In the new economy, most parents work harder than ever.
They face a constant struggle to balance their obligations to
be good workers, and their even more important obligations to
be good parents.
The Family and Medical Leave Act was the very first bill I
was privileged to sign into law as President in 1993. Since
then, about 15 million people have taken advantage of it, and I
have met a lot of them all across this country. I ask you to
extend that law to cover 10 million more workers and to give
parents time off when they have to go see their children's
teachers or take them to the doctor.
Child care is the next frontier we must face to enable
people to succeed at home and at work. Last year I cohosted the
very first White House Conference on Child Care with one of our
foremost experts, America's First Lady. From all corners of
America we heard the same message without regard to region or
income or political affiliation: We have to raise the quality
of child care. We have to make it safer. We have to make it
more affordable.
So here is my plan: Help families to pay for child care for
1 million more children. Scholarships and background checks for
child care workers, and a new emphasis on early learning. Tax
credits for businesses that provide child care for their
employees. And the larger child care tax credit for working
families.
Now, if you pass my plan, what this means is that a family
of 4 with an income of $35,000 and high child care costs will
no longer pay a single penny of Federal income tax.
You know, I think this is such a big issue with me because
of my own personal experience. I have often wondered how my
mother when she was a young widow would have been able to go
away to school and get an education and come back and support
me if my grandparents had not been able to take care of me. She
and I were really very lucky. How many other families have
never had that same opportunity? The truth is, we do not know
the answer to that question, but we do know what the answer
should be. Not a single American family should ever have to
choose between the job they need and the child they love.
A society rooted in responsibility must provide safe
streets, safe schools, and safe neighborhoods. We pursued a
strategy of more police, tougher punishment and smarter
prevention, with crime fighting partnerships with local law
enforcement and citizen groups where the rubber hits the road.
I can report to you tonight that it is working. Violent crime
is down, robbery is down, assault is down, burglary is down for
five years in a row all across America. Now we need to finish
the job of putting 100,000 more police on our streets.
Again, I ask Congress to pass a juvenile crime bill that
provides more prosecutors and probation officers to crack down
on gangs and guns and drugs and bar violent juveniles from
buying guns for life. And, I ask you to dramatically expand our
support for after-school programs. I think every American
should know that most juvenile crime is committed between the
hours of 3 in the afternoon and 8 at night. We can keep so many
of our children out of trouble in the first place if we give
them some place to go other than the streets, and we ought to
do it.
Drug use is on the decline. I thank General McCaffrey for
his leadership, and I thank this Congress for passing the
largest antidrug budget in history. Now I ask you to join me in
a groundbreaking effort to hire 1,000 new Border Patrol agents
and to deploy the most sophisticated available new technologies
to help close the door on drugs at our borders. Police,
prosecutors and prevention programs, as good as they are, they
cannot work if our court system does not work. Today there are
large numbers of vacancies in our Federal courts. Here is what
the Chief Justice of the United States wrote: Judicial
``vacancies cannot remain at such high levels indefinitely
without eroding the quality of justice.'' I simply ask the
United States Senate to heed this plea and vote on the highly
qualified nominees before you up or down.
We must exercise responsibility not just at home, but
around the world. On the eve of a new century, we have the
power and the duty to build a new era of peace and security.
But make no mistake about it, today's possibilities are not
tomorrow's guarantees. America must stand against the poisoned
appeals of extreme nationalism. We must combat an unholy axis
of new threats from terrorists, international criminals and
drug traffickers. These 21st century predators feed on
technology and the free flow of information and ideas and
people, and they will be all the more lethal if weapons of mass
destruction fall into their hands.
To meet these challenges, we are helping to write
international rules of the road for the 21st century,
protecting those who join the family of nations, and isolating
those who do not.
Within days, I will ask the Senate for its advice and
consent to make Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic the
newest members of NATO. For 50 years, NATO contained communism
and kept America and Europe secure. Now these three formerly
Communist countries have said yes to democracy. I ask the
Senate to say yes to them, our new allies. By taking in new
members and working closely with new partners, including Russia
and Ukraine, NATO can help to assure that Europe is a
stronghold for peace in the 21st century.
Next, I will ask Congress to continue its support for our
troops and their mission in Bosnia. This Christmas, Hillary and
I traveled to Sarajevo with Senator and Mrs. Dole and a
bipartisan congressional delegation. We saw children playing in
the streets where two years ago they were hiding from snipers
and shells. The shops were filled with food, the cafes were
alive with conversation.
The progress there is unmistakable, but it is not yet
irreversible. To take firm root, Bosnia's fragile peace still
needs the support of American and allied troops when the
current NATO mission ends in June. I think Senator Dole
actually said it best. He said, this is like being ahead in the
fourth quarter of a football game. Now is not the time to walk
off the field and forfeit the victory.
I wish all of you could have seen our troops in Tuzla. They
are very proud of what they are doing in Bosnia and we are all
very proud of them.
One of those brave soldiers is sitting with the First Lady
tonight, Army Sergeant Michael Tolbert. His father was a
decorated Vietnam vet. After college in Colorado, he joined the
Army. Last year, he led an Infantry unit that stopped a mob of
extremists from taking over a radio station that is a voice of
democracy and tolerance in Bosnia.
Thank you very much, Sergeant, for what you represent.
Please stand up.
In Bosnia, and around the world, our men and women in
uniform always do their mission well. Our mission must be to
keep them well-trained and ready, to improve their quality of
life, and to provide the 21st Century weapons they need to
defeat any enemy.
I ask Congress to join me in pursuing an ambitious agenda
to reduce the serious threat of weapons of mass destruction.
This year, four decades after it was first proposed by
President Eisenhower, a comprehensive nuclear test ban is
within reach. By ending nuclear testing we can help to prevent
the development of new and more dangerous weapons and make it
more difficult for non-nuclear states to build them.
I am pleased to announce that four former chairmen of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Generals John Shalikashvili, Colin
Powell, David Jones and Admiral William Crowe, have endorsed
this treaty, and I ask the Senate to approve it this year.
Together, we must also confront the new hazards of chemical
and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and
organized criminals seeking to acquire them.
Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and
much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi
people but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations
weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job, finding
and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during
the entire Gulf War. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them
from completing their mission.
I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans
and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein: You cannot defy
the will of the world. And when I say to him: You have used
weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny
you the capacity to use them again.
Last year, the Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons
Convention to protect our soldiers and citizens from poison
gas. Now we must act to prevent the use of disease as a weapon
of war and terror. The Biological Weapons Convention has been
in effect for 23 years now. The rules are good, but the
enforcement is weak. We must strengthen it with a new
international inspection system to detect and deter cheating.
In the months ahead, I will pursue our security strategy
with old allies in Asia and Europe, and new partners from
Africa to India and Pakistan, from South America to China. And
from Belfast to Korea to the Middle East, America will continue
to stand with those who stand for peace.
Finally, it is long past time to make good on our debt to
the United Nations. More and more, we are working with other
Nations to achieve common goals. If we want America to lead, we
have got to set a good example. As we see so clearly in Bosnia,
allies who share our goals can also share our burdens.
In this new era, our freedom and independence are actually
enriched, not weakened, by our increasing interdependence with
other nations, but we have to do our part.
Our Founders set America on a permanent course toward ``a
more perfect union.'' To all of you I say it is a journey we
can only make together, living as one community.
First, we have to continue to reform our government, the
instrument of our national community.
Everyone knows elections have become too expensive, fueling
a fund-raising arms race. This year, by March the 6th, at long
last the Senate will actually vote on bipartisan campaign
finance reform proposed by Senators McCain and Feingold. Let us
be clear: A vote against McCain-Feingold is a vote for soft
money and for the status quo. I ask you to strengthen our
democracy and pass campaign reform this year.
But at least equally important, we have to address the real
reason for the explosion in campaign costs: the high cost of
media advertising. For the folks watching at home, those were
the groans of pain in the audience.
I will formally request that the Federal Communications
Commission act to provide free or reduced-cost television time
for candidates who observe spending limits voluntarily. The
airwaves are a public trust and broadcasters also have to help
us in this effort to strengthen our democracy.
Under the leadership of Vice President Gore, we have
reduced the Federal payroll by 300,000 workers, cut 16,000
pages of regulation, eliminated hundreds of programs, and
improved the operations of virtually every government agency.
But we can do more.
Like every taxpayer, I am outraged by the reports of abuses
by the IRS. We need some changes there: New citizen advocacy
panels, a stronger taxpayer advocate, phone lines open 24 hours
a day, relief for innocent taxpayers. Last year, by an
overwhelming bipartisan margin, the House of Representatives
passed sweeping IRS reforms. This bill must not now languish in
the Senate. Tonight I ask the Senate: Follow the House. Pass
the bipartisan package as your first order of business.
I hope to goodness before I finish I can think of something
to say ``Follow the Senate'' on so I will be out of trouble.
A nation that lives as a community must value all its
communities.
For the past five years, we have worked to bring the spark
of private enterprise to inner-city and poor rural areas with
community development banks, more commercial loans into poor
neighborhoods, cleanups of polluted sites for development.
Under the continued leadership of the Vice President, we
proposed to triple the number of empowerment zones to give
business incentives to invest in those areas. We should also
give poor families more help to move into homes of their own,
and we should use tax cuts to spur the construction of more
low-income housing.
Last year this Congress took strong action to help the
District of Columbia. Let us renew our resolve to make our
capital city a great city for all who live and visit here.
Our cities are the vibrant hubs of great metropolitan
areas. They are still the gateways for new immigrants from
every continent who come here to work for their own American
dreams. Let's keep our cities going strong into the 21st
century. They are a very important part of our future.
Our communities are only as healthy as the air our children
breathe, the water they drink, the Earth they will inherit.
Last year we put in place the toughest ever controls on
smog and soot. We moved to protect Yellowstone, the Everglades,
Lake Tahoe. We expanded every community's right to know about
toxics that threaten their children.
Just yesterday our food safety plan took effect, using new
signs to protect consumers from dangers like e-coli and
salmonella.
Tonight I ask you to join me in launching a new clean water
initiative, a far-reaching effort to clean our rivers, our
lakes and our coastal waters for our children.
Our overriding environmental challenge tonight is the
worldwide problem of climate change, global warming, the
gathering crisis that requires worldwide action.
The vast majority of scientists have concluded
unequivocally that if we do not reduce the emission of
greenhouse gases at some point in the next century, we will
disrupt our climate and put our children and grandchildren at
risk.
This past December, America led the world to reach a
historic agreement, committing our Nation to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions through market forces, new technologies, energy
efficiency.
We have it in our power to act right here, right now. I
propose $6 billion in tax cuts and research and development to
encourage innovation, renewable energy, fuel-efficient cars,
energy-efficient homes.
Every time we have acted to heal our environment,
pessimists told us it would hurt the economy. Well, today our
economy is the strongest in a generation. And our environment
is the cleanest in a generation. We have always found a way to
clean the environment and grow the economy at the same time.
And when it comes to global warming, we will do it again.
Finally, communities means living by the defining American
value, the ideal heard round the world, that we are all created
equal. Throughout our history we haven't always honored that
ideal, and we have never fully lived up to it.
Often it is easier to believe that our differences matter
more than what we have in common. It may be easier, but it is
wrong. What must we do in our day and generation to make sure
that America truly becomes one Nation? What do we have to do?
We are becoming more and more diverse. Do you believe we can
become one Nation?
The answer cannot be to dwell on our differences but to
build on our shared values. We all cherish family and faith,
freedom and responsibility. We all want our children to grow up
in a world where their talents are matched by their
opportunities.
I have launched this national initiative on race to help us
recognize our common interests and to bridge the opportunity
gaps that are keeping us from becoming one America.
Let us begin by recognizing what we still must overcome.
Discrimination against any American is un-American. We must
vigorously enforce the laws that make it illegal.
I ask your help to end the backlog at the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission. Sixty thousand of our fellow citizens
are waiting in line for justice, and we should act now to end
their wait.
We should also recognize that the greatest progress we can
make toward building one America lies in the progress we make
for all Americans without regard to race. When we open the
doors of college to all Americans, when we rid all our streets
of crime, when there are jobs available to peoplefrom all our
neighborhoods, when we make sure all parents have the child care they
need, we are helping to build one Nation.
We, in this Chamber and in this government, must do all we
can to address the continuing American challenge to build one
America. But we will only move forward if all our fellow
citizens, including every one of you at home watching tonight,
is also committed to this cause. We must work together, learn
together, live together, serve together. On the forge of common
enterprise, Americans of all backgrounds can hammer out a
common identity.
We see it today in the United States military, in the Peace
Corps, in AmeriCorps. Wherever people of all races and
backgrounds come together in a shared endeavor and get a fair
chance, we do just fine. With shared values and meaningful
opportunities and honest communication and citizen service, we
can unite a diverse people in freedom and mutual respect. We
are many. We must be one.
In that spirit, let us lift our eyes to the new millennium.
How will we mark that passage? It just happens once every
thousand years.
This year Hillary and I launched the White House Millennium
Program to promote America's creativity and innovation and to
preserve our heritage and culture into the 21st century. Our
culture lives in every community, and every community has
places of historic value that tell our stories as Americans. We
should protect them. I am proposing a public-private
partnership to advance our arts and humanities and to celebrate
the millennium by saving America's treasures, great and small.
And while we honor the past, let us imagine the future.
Think about this, the entire store of human knowledge now
doubles every 5 years. In the 1980s, scientists identified the
gene causing cystic fibrosis. It took 9 years.
Last year scientists located the gene that causes
Parkinson's disease in only 9 days. Within a decade, gene chips
will offer a road map for prevention of illnesses throughout a
lifetime. Soon we will be able to carry all the phone calls on
Mother's Day on a single strand of fiber the width of a human
hair. A child born in 1998 may well live to see the 22nd
century.
Tonight, as part of our gift to the millennium, I propose a
21st Century Research Fund for path-breaking scientific
inquiry, the largest funding increase in history for the
National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation,
the National Cancer Institute.
We have already discovered genes for breast cancer and
diabetes. I ask you to support this initiative so ours will be
the generation that finally wins the war against cancer and
begins a revolution in our fight against all deadly diseases.
As important as all this scientific progress is, we must
continue to see that science serves humanity, not the other way
around. We must prevent the misuse of genetic tests to
discriminate against any American. And we must ratify the
ethical consensus of the scientific and religious communities
and ban the cloning of human beings.
We should enable all the world's people to explore the far
reaches of cyberspace. Think of this: The first time I made a
State of the Union speech to you, only a handful of physicists
used the Worldwide Web. Literally just a handful of people.
Now, in schools and libraries, homes and businesses, millions
and millions of Americans surf the net everyday.
We must give parents the tools they need to help protect
their children from inappropriate material on the Internet, but
we also must make sure that we protect the exploding global
commercial potential of the internet.
We can do the kinds of things that we need to do and still
protect our kids. For one thing, I ask Congress to step up
support for building the next generation Internet. It's getting
kind of clogged, you know, and the next generation Internet
will operate at speeds up to a thousand times faster than
today.
Even as we explore this innerspace in the new millennium,
we're going to open new frontiers in outer space. Throughout
all history humankind has had only one place to call home: Our
planet earth. Beginning this year, 1998, men and women from 16
countries will build a foothold in the heavens. The
International Space Station, with its vast expanses, scientists
and engineers will actually set sail on an uncharted sea of
limitless mystery and unlimited potential, and this October a
true American hero, a veteran pilot of 149 combat missions and
one five-hour space flight that changed the world will return
to the heavens. Godspeed, John Glenn.
John, you will carry with you America's hopes. And on your
uniform once again you will carry America's flag, marking the
unbroken connection between the deeds of America's past and the
daring of America's future.
Nearly 200 years ago a tattered flag, its broad stripes and
bright stars still gleaming through the smoke of a fierce
battle moved Francis Scott Key to scribble a few word on the
back of an envelope, the words that became our national anthem.
Today that Star Spangled Banner, along with the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are on
display just a short walk from here. They are America's
treasures and we must also save them for the ages.
I ask all Americans to support our project to restore all
our treasures so that the generations of the 21st century can
see for themselves the images and the words that are the old
and continuing glory of America, an America that has continued
to rise through every age, against every challenge, of people
of great works and greater possibilities who have always,
always found the wisdom and strength to come together as one
nation, to widen the circle of opportunity, to deepen the
meaning of our freedom, to form that more perfect union. Let
that be our gift to the 21st century. God bless you and God
bless the United States.