[House Document 106-1]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




106th Congress, 1st Session - - - - - - - - - - - House Document 106-1

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                      STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE

                               __________

                             COMMUNICATION

                                  from

                   THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

                              transmitting

                   A REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE UNION




February 2, 1999.--Referred to the Committee on the Whole House on the 
              State of the Union and ordered to be printed

                               --------

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE                    
54-275                     WASHINGTON : 1999




To the Congress of the United States:
    Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, 
honored guests, my fellow Americans, tonight, I have the honor 
of reporting to you on the State of the Union.
    Let me begin by saluting the new Speaker of the House and 
thanking him especially tonight for extending an invitation to 
two guests sitting in the gallery with Mrs. Hastert. Lyn Gibson 
and Wei Ling Chestnut are the widows of the two brave Capitol 
Hill Police Officers who gave their lives to defend freedom's 
house.
    Mr. Speaker, at your swearing in, you asked us all to work 
together in a spirit of civility and bipartisanship. Mr. 
Speaker, let's do exactly that.
    Tonight I stand before you to report that America has 
created the longest peacetime economic expansion in our 
history, with nearly 18 million new jobs, wages rising at more 
than twice the amount of inflation, the highest home ownership 
in history, the smallest welfare rolls in 30 years and the 
lowest peacetime unemployment since 1957.
    For the first time in 3 decades, the budget is balanced. 
From a deficit of $290 billion in 1992, we had a surplus of $70 
billion last year, and now we are on course for budget 
surpluses for the next 25 years.
    Thanks to the pioneering leadership of all of you, we have 
the lowest violent crime rate in a quarter of a century. Our 
environment is the cleanest in a quarter of a century.
    America is a strong force for peace from Northern Ireland, 
to Bosnia, to the Middle East.
    Thanks to the leadership of Vice President Gore, we have a 
government for the Information Age. Once again, our government 
is a progressive instrument of the common good, rooted in our 
oldest values of opportunity, responsibility and community, 
devoted to fiscal responsibility, determined to give our people 
the tools they need to make the most of their own lives in the 
21st century. A 21st century government for 21st century 
America.
    My fellow Americans, I stand before you tonight to report 
that the state of our union is strong.
    America is working again. The promise of our future is 
limitless. But we cannot realize that promise if we allow the 
hum of our prosperity to lull us into complacency. How we fare 
as a nation far into the 21st century depends upon what we do 
as a nation today.
    So with our budget surplus growing, our economy expanding, 
our confidence rising, now is the moment for this generation to 
meet our historic responsibility to the 21st century.
    Our fiscal discipline gives us an unsurpassed opportunity 
to address a remarkable new challenge: the aging of America.
    With the number of elderly Americans set to double by 2030, 
the Baby Boom will become a Senior Boom.
    So first and above all, we must save Social Security for 
the 21st century.
    Early in this century, being old meant being poor. When 
President Roosevelt created Social Security, thousands wrote to 
thank him for eliminating what one woman called the ``stark 
terror of penniless, helpless old age.'' Even today, without 
Social Security, half our Nation's elderly would be forced into 
poverty.
    Today, Social Security is strong. But by 2013, payroll 
taxes will no longer be sufficient to cover monthly payments. 
And by 2032, the Trust Fund will be exhausted and Social 
Security will be unable to pay the full benefits older 
Americans have been promised.
    The best way to keep Social Security a rock-solid guarantee 
is not to make drastic cuts in benefits; not to raise payroll 
tax rates; not to drain resources from Social Security in the 
name of saving it.
    Instead, I propose that we make the historic decision to 
invest the surplus to save Social Security.
    Specifically, I propose that we commit 60 percent of the 
budget surplus for the next 15 years to Social Security, 
investing a small portion in the private sector just as any 
private or State government pension would do. This will earn a 
higher return and keep Social Security sound for 55 years.
    But we must aim higher. We should put Social Security on a 
sound footing for the next 75 years. We should reduce poverty 
among elderly women, who are nearly twice as likely to be poor 
as our other seniors, and we should eliminate the limits on 
what seniors on Social Security can earn.
    Now, these changes will require difficult but fully 
achievable choices over and above the dedication of the 
surplus. They must be made on a bipartisan basis. They should 
be made this year. So let me say to you tonight, I reach out my 
hand to all of you in both Houses and in both parties and ask 
that we join together in saying to the American people, we will 
save Social Security now.
    Last year, we wisely reserved all of the surplus until we 
knew what it would take to save Social Security. Again, I say, 
we should not spend any of it, not any of it, until after 
Social Security is truly saved. First things first.
    Second, once we have saved Social Security, we must fulfill 
our obligation to save and improve Medicare. Already, we have 
extended the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 10 years, but 
we should extend it for at least another decade. Tonight I 
propose that we use one out of every six dollars in the surplus 
for the next 15 years to guarantee the soundness of Medicare 
until the year 2020.
    But again, we should aim higher. We must be willing to work 
in a bipartisan way and look at new ideas, including the 
upcoming report of the bipartisan Medicare commission. If we 
work together, we can secure Medicare for the next 2 decades, 
and cover the greatest growing need of seniors, affordable 
prescription drugs.
    Third, we must help all Americans, from their first day on 
the job, to save, to invest, to create wealth. From its 
beginning, Americans have supplemented Social Security with 
private pensions and savings. Yet today, millions of people 
retire with little to live on other than Social Security. 
Americans living longer than ever simply must save more than 
ever.
    Therefore, in addition to saving Social Security and 
Medicare, I propose a new pension initiative for retirement 
security in the 21st century. I propose that we use a little 
over 11 percent of the surplus to establish Universal Savings 
Accounts, USA Accounts, to give all Americans the means to 
save. With these new accounts, Americans can invest as they 
choose, and receive funds to match a portion of their savings, 
with extra help for those least able to save.
    USA Accounts will help all Americans to share in our 
Nation's wealth, and to enjoy a more secure retirement. I ask 
you to support them.
    Fourth, we must invest in long-term care. I propose a tax 
credit of $1,000 for the aged, ailing or disabled and the 
families who care for them. Long-term care will become a bigger 
and bigger challenge with the aging of America, and we must do 
more to help our families deal with it.
    I was born in 1946, the first year of the Baby Boom. I can 
tell you that one of the greatest concerns of our generation is 
our absolute determination not to let our growing old place an 
intolerable burden on our children and their ability to raise 
our grandchildren. Our economic success and our fiscal 
discipline now give us an opportunity to lift that burden from 
their shoulders, and we should take it.
    Saving Social Security and Medicare, creating USA Accounts, 
this is the right way to use the surplus. If we do so, if we do 
so, we will still have resources to meet critical needs in 
education and defense. And I want to point out that this 
proposal is fiscally sound. Listen to this: If we set aside 60 
percent of the surplus for Social Security and 16 percent for 
Medicare, over the next 15 years, that saving will achieve the 
lowest level of publicly held debt since right before World War 
I in 1917.
    So, with these four measures, saving Social Security, 
strengthening Medicare, establishing the USA Accounts, 
supporting long-term care, we can begin to meet our 
generation's historic responsibility to establish true security 
for 21st century seniors.
    Now, there are more children from more diverse backgrounds 
in our public schools than at any time in our history. Their 
education must provide the knowledge and nurture the creativity 
that will allow our entire Nation to thrive in the new economy.
    Today we can say something we could not say 6 years ago: 
With tax credits and more affordable student loans, with more 
work study grants and more Pell grants, with education IRAs and 
the new HOPE Scholarship tax cut that more than 5 million 
Americans will receive this year, we have finally opened the 
doors of college to all Americans.
    With our support, nearly every State has set higher 
academic standards for public schools, and a voluntary national 
test is being developed to measure the progress of our 
students. With over $1 billion in discounts available this 
year, we are well on our way to our goal of connecting every 
classroom and library to the Internet.
    Last fall, you passed our proposal to start hiring 100,000 
new teachers to reduce class size in the early grades. Now I 
ask you to finish the job.
    You know, our children are doing better. SAT scores are up, 
math scores have risen in nearly all grades. But there is a 
problem: While our fourth graders outperform their peers in 
other countries in math and science, our eighth graders are 
around average, and our twelfth graders rank near the bottom.
    We must do better. Now, each year, the national government 
invests more than $15 billion in our public schools. I believe 
we must change the way we invest that money, to support what 
works and to stop supporting what does not work.
    First, later this year I will send to Congress a plan that 
for the first time holds States and school districts 
accountable for progress, and rewards them for results. My 
Education Accountability Act will require every school district 
receiving Federal help to take the following five steps.
    First, all schools must end social promotion. No child, no 
child should graduate from a high school with a diploma he or 
she can't read. We do our children no favors when we allow them 
to pass from grade to grade without mastering the material.
    But we can't just hold students back because the system 
fails them, so mybalanced budget triples the funding for summer 
school and after-school programs to keep 1 million children learning.
    If you doubt this will work, just look at Chicago, which 
ended social promotion and made summer school mandatory for 
those who don't master the basics. Math and reading scores are 
up 3 years running, with some of the biggest gains in some of 
the poorest neighborhoods. It will work, and we should do it.
    Second, all States and school districts must turn around 
their worst performing schools or shut them down. That is the 
policy established in North Carolina by Governor Jim Hunt. 
North Carolina made the biggest gains in test scores in the 
Nation last year. Our budget includes $200 million to help 
States turn around their own failing schools.
    Third, all States and school districts must be held 
responsible for the quality of their teachers. The great 
majority of our teachers do a fine job, but in too many schools 
teachers don't have college majors, or even minors, in the 
subjects they teach. New teachers should be required to pass 
performance exams, and all teachers should know the subjects 
they are teaching.
    This year's balanced budget contains resources to help them 
reach higher standards, and to attract talented young teachers 
to the toughest assignments, I recommend a six-fold increase in 
our program for college scholarships for students who commit to 
teach in the inner cities and isolated rural areas and in 
Indian communities. Let us bring excellence to every part of 
America.
    Fourth, we must empower parents with more information and 
more choices. In too many communities it is easier to get 
information on the quality of local restaurants than on the 
quality of the local schools. Every school district should 
issue report cards on every school, and parents should be given 
more choices in selecting their public schools.
    When I became President, there was just one independent 
public charter school in all America. With our support, on a 
bipartisan basis, today there are 1,100. My budget assures that 
early in the next century there will be 3,000.
    Fifth, to ensure that our classrooms are truly places of 
learning and to respond to what teachers have been asking us to 
do for years, we should say that all States and school 
districts must both adopt and implement sensible discipline 
policies.
    Now, let's do one more thing for our children. Today too 
many schools are so old they are falling apart, or so 
overcrowded students are learning in trailers. Last fall 
Congress missed the opportunity to change that. This year, with 
53 million children in our schools, Congress must not miss that 
opportunity again. I ask you to help our communities build or 
modernize 5,000 schools.
    Now, if we do these things--end social promotion, turn 
around failing schools, build modern ones, support qualified 
teachers, promote innovation, competition, and discipline--then 
we will begin to meet our generation's historic responsibility 
to create 21st century schools.
    We also have to do more to support the millions of parents 
who give their all every day at home and at work.
    The most basic tool of all is a decent income. So let's 
raise the minimum wage by $1 an hour over the next 2 years. And 
let's make sure that women and men get equal pay for equal work 
by strengthening enforcement of the equal pay laws.
    That was encouraging, you know. There was more balance on 
the seesaw. I like that. Let's give them a hand. That's great.
    Working parents also need quality child care. So again this 
year I ask Congress to support our plan for tax credits and 
subsidies for working families, for improved safety and 
quality, for expanded after-school programs.
    Our plan also includes a new tax credit for stay-at-home 
parents, too. They need support, as well. Parents should never 
have to worry about choosing between their children and their 
work. The Family and Medical Leave Act, the very first bill I 
signed into law, has now, since 1993, helped millions and 
millions of Americans to care for a newborn baby or an ailing 
relative without risking their jobs. I think it is time, with 
all the evidence that it has been so little burdensome to 
employers, to extend family leave to 10 million more Americans 
working for smaller companies. I hope you will support it.
    Finally, on the matter of work, parents should never have 
to face discrimination in the workplace. I want to ask Congress 
to prohibit companies from refusing to hire or promote workers 
simply because they have children. That is not right.
    America's families deserve the world's best medical care. 
Thanks to bipartisan Federal support for medical research, we 
are now on the verge of new treatments to prevent or delay 
diseases, from Parkinsons to Alzheimers, from arthritis to 
cancer. But as we continue our advances in medical science, we 
can't let our medical system lag behind.
    Managed care has literally transformed medicine in America, 
driving down costs, but threatening to drive down quality as 
well. I think we ought to say to every American, you should 
have the right to know all your medical options, not just the 
cheapest. If you need a specialist, you should have a right to 
see one. You have a right to the nearest emergency care, if you 
are in an accident. These are things that we ought to say. I 
think we ought to say, you should have a right to keep your 
doctor during a period of treatment, whether it is a pregnancy 
or a chemotherapy treatment or anything else. I believe this.
    Now, I have ordered these rights to be extended to the 85 
million Americans served by Medicare, Medicaid, and other 
Federal health programs. But only Congress can pass a Patients' 
Bill of Rights for all Americans. Last year, Congress missed 
that opportunity. We must not miss that opportunity again. For 
the sake of our families, I ask us to join together across 
party lines and pass a strong, enforceable Patients' Bill of 
Rights.
    As more of our medical records are stored electronically, 
the threats to our privacy increase. Because Congress has given 
me the authority to act if it does not do so by August, one way 
or another, we can all say to the American people, we will 
protect the privacy of medical records, and we will do it this 
year.
    Two years ago the Congress extended health coverage to up 
to 5 million children. Now we should go beyond that. We should 
make it easier for small businesses to offer health insurance. 
We should give people between the ages of 55 and 65 who lose 
their health insurance the chance to buy into Medicare. We 
should continue to ensure access to family planning.
    No one should have to choose between keeping health care 
and taking a job. Therefore, I especially ask you tonight to 
join hands to pass the landmark bipartisan legislation proposed 
by Senators Kennedy and Jeffords, Roth and Moynihan, to allow 
people with disabilities to keep their health insurance when 
they go to work.
    We need to enable our public hospitals, our community, our 
university health centers, to provide basic, affordable care 
for all the millions of working families who don't have any 
insurance. They do a lot of that today, but much more can be 
done, and my balanced budget makes a good down payment toward 
that goal. I hope you will think about them and support that 
provision.
    Let me say, we must step up our efforts to treat and 
prevent mental illness. No American should ever be afraid, 
ever, to address this disease. This year we will host a White 
House Conference on Mental Health. With sensitivity, commitment 
and passion, Tipper Gore is leading our efforts here, and I 
would like to thank her for what she is doing.
    As everyone knows, our children are targets of a massive 
media campaign to hook them on cigarettes. I ask this Congress 
to resist the tobacco lobby, to reaffirm the FDA's authority to 
protect our children from tobacco, and to hold tobacco 
companies accountable while protecting tobacco farmers.
    Smoking has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars 
under Medicare and other programs. The States have been right 
about this, taxpayers shouldn't pay for the cost of lung 
cancer, emphysema, and other smoking-related illnesses; the 
tobacco companies should. So tonight I announce that the 
Justice Department is preparing a litigation plan to take the 
tobacco companies to court, and with the funds we recover, to 
strengthen Medicare.
    Now, if we act in these areas--minimum wage, family leave, 
child care, health care, the safety of our children--then we 
will begin to meet our generation's historic responsibilities 
to strengthen our families for the 21st century.
    Today, America is the most dynamic competitive job creating 
economy in history.
    But we can do even better in building a 21st century 
economy that embraces all Americans.
    Today's income gap is largely a skills gap. Last year, the 
Congress passed a law enabling workers to get a skills grant to 
choose the training they need, and I applaud all of you here 
who were part of that. This year, I recommend a five-year 
commitment to this new system, so that we can provide over the 
next 5 years appropriate training opportunities for all 
Americans who lose their jobs and expand rapid response teams 
to help all towns which have been really hurt when businesses 
close. I hope you will support this.
    Also, I ask your support for a dramatic increase in Federal 
support for adult literacy. We can mount a national campaign, 
aimed at helping the millions and millions of working people 
who still read at less than a fifth grade level. We need to do 
this.
    Here is some good news. In the past 6 years, we have cut 
the welfare rolls nearly in half. Two years ago, from this 
podium, I asked five companies to lead a national effort to 
hire people off welfare. Tonight, our Welfare to Work 
Partnership includes 10,000 companies who have hired hundreds 
of thousands of people. Our balanced budget will help another 
200,000 people move to the dignity and pride of work. I hope 
you will support it.
    We must do more to bring the spark of private enterprise to 
every corner of America, to build a bridge from Wall Street to 
Appalachia, to the Mississippi Delta, to our Native American 
communities, with more support for community development banks, 
for empowerment zones, for 100,000 new vouchers for affordable 
housing, and I ask Congress to support our bold new plan to 
help businesses raise up to $15 billion in private sector 
capital to bring jobs and opportunities to our inner cities and 
rural areas, with tax credits, loan guarantees, including the 
new American Private Investment Companies modeled on our 
Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
    Now, for years and years and years we have had this OPIC, 
this Overseas Private Investment Corporation, because we knew 
we had untapped markets overseas. But our greatest untapped 
markets are not overseas; they are right here at home, and we 
should go after them.
    Now, we must work hard to help bring prosperity back to the 
familyfarm. You know, as this Congress knows very well, 
dropping prices and the loss of foreign markets have devastated too 
many family farms. Last year, the Congress provided substantial 
assistance to help stave off a disaster in American agriculture, and I 
am ready to work with lawmakers of both parties to create a farm safety 
net that will include crop insurance reform and farm income assistance. 
I ask you to join with me and do this.
    This should not be a political issue. Everyone knows what 
an economic problem is going on out there in rural America 
today, and we need an appropriate means to address it.
    We must strengthen our lead in technology. It was 
government investment that led to the creation of the Internet. 
I propose a 28 percent increase in long-term computing 
research. We also must be ready for the 21st century from its 
very first moment, by solving the so-called ``Y2K'' computer 
problem.
    Now, we had one Member of Congress stand up and applaud, 
and we may have about that ratio out there applauding at home 
in front of their television sets. But, remember, this is a 
big, big problem and we have been working hard on it. Already 
we have made sure that the Social Security checks will come on 
time, but I want all the folks at home listening to know that 
we need every State and local government, every business, large 
and small, to work with us to make sure that this Y2K computer 
bug will be remembered as the last headache of the 20th 
century, not the first crisis of the 21st.
    Now, for our own prosperity, we must support economic 
growth abroad. Until recently, a third of our economic growth 
came from exports, but over the past year and a half, financial 
turmoil overseas has put that growth at risk. Today, much of 
the world is in recession, with Asia hit especially hard.
    This is the most serious financial crisis in half a 
century. To meet it, the United States and other nations have 
reduced interest rates and strengthened the International 
Monetary Fund, and while the turmoil is not over, we have 
worked very hard with other nations to contain it.
    At the same time, we have to continue to work on the long-
term project, building a global financial system for the 21st 
century that promotes prosperity and tames the cycle of boom 
and bust that has engulfed so much of Asia.
    This June, I will meet with other world leaders to advance 
this historic purpose, and I ask all of you to support our 
endeavors. I also ask you to support creating a freer and 
fairer trading system for 21st century America.
    I would like to say something really serious to everyone in 
this Chamber and both parties. I think trade has divided us and 
divided Americans outside this Chamber for too long. Somehow we 
have to find a common ground on which business and workers and 
environmentalists and farmers and government can stand 
together. I believe these are the things we ought to all agree 
on, so let me try.
    First, we ought to tear down barriers, open markets and 
expand trade, but at the same time we must ensure that ordinary 
citizens in all countries actually benefit from trade, a trade 
that promotes the dignity of work and the rights of workers and 
protects the environment. We must insist that international 
trade organizations be more open to public scrutiny, instead of 
mysterious secret things subject to wild criticism.
    When you come right down to it, now that the world economy 
is becoming more and more integrated, we have to do in the 
world what we spent the better part of this century doing here 
at home. We have got to put a human face on the global economy.
    Now, we must enforce our trade laws when imports unlawfully 
flood our Nation. I have already informed the Government of 
Japan that if that nation's sudden surge of steel imports into 
our country is not reversed, America will respond.
    We must help all manufacturers, hit hard by the present 
crisis, with loan guarantees and other incentives to increase 
American exports by nearly $2 billion.
    I would like to believe we can achieve a new consensus on 
trade based on these principles, and I ask the Congress again 
to join me in this common approach and to give the President 
the trade authority long used and now overdue and necessary to 
advance our prosperity in the 21st century.
    Tonight I issue a call to the nations of the world to join 
the United States in a new round of global trade negotiation to 
expand exports of services, manufacturers and farm products.
    Tonight I say, we will work with the International Labor 
Organization on a new initiative to raise labor standards 
around the world and this year we will lead the international 
community to conclude a treaty to ban abusive child labor 
everywhere in the world.
    If we do these things--invest in our people, our 
communities, our technology and lead in the global economy--
then we will begin to meet our historic responsibility to build 
a 21st century prosperity for America.
    No nation in history has had the opportunity and the 
responsibility we now have to shape a world that is more 
peaceful, more secure, more free. All Americans can be proud 
that our leadership helped to bring peace in Northern Ireland. 
All Americans can be proud that our leadership has put Bosnia 
on the path to peace, and with our NATO allies, we are pressing 
the Serbian Government to stop its brutal repression in Kosovo, 
to bring those responsible to justice and to give the people of 
Kosovo the self-government they deserve.
    All Americans can be proud that our leadership renewed hope 
for lasting peace in the Middle East. Some of you were with me 
last December as wewatched the Palestinian National Council 
completely renounce its call for the destruction of Israel. Now I ask 
Congress to provide resources so that all parties can implement the Wye 
Agreement, to protect Israel's security, to stimulate the Palestinian 
economy, to support our friends in Jordan. We must not, we dare not, 
let them down. I hope you will help.
    As we work for peace, we must also meet threats to our 
Nation's security, including increased dangers from outlaw 
nations and terrorism. We will defend our security wherever we 
are threatened, as we did this summer when we struck at Osama 
bin Laden's network of terror. The bombing of our embassies in 
Kenya and Tanzania reminds us again of the risks faced every 
day by those who represent America to the world. So let us give 
them the support they need, the safest possible workplaces, and 
the resources they must have so America can continue to lead.
    We must work to keep terrorists from disrupting computer 
networks. We must work to prepare local communities for 
biological and chemical emergencies, to support research into 
vaccines and treatments.
    We must increase our efforts to restrain the spread of 
nuclear weapons and missiles from Korea to India and Pakistan. 
We must expand our work with Russia, Ukraine and other former 
Soviet nations to safeguard nuclear materials and technology so 
they never fall into the wrong hands.
    Our balanced budget will increase funding for these 
critical efforts by almost two-thirds over the next 5 years. 
With Russia, we must continue to reduce our nuclear arsenals. 
The START II Treaty and the framework we have already agreed to 
for START III could cut them by 80 percent from their Cold War 
height.
    It has been 2 years since I signed the Comprehensive Test 
Ban Treaty. If we do not do the right thing, other nations will 
not either. I ask the Senate to take this vital step: Approve 
the Treaty now to make it harder for other nations to develop 
nuclear arms and to make sure we can end nuclear testing 
forever.
    For nearly a decade, Iraq has defied its obligations to 
destroy its weapons of terror and the missiles to deliver them. 
America will continue to contain Saddam and we will work for 
the day when Iraq has a government worthy of its people.
    Last month, in our action over Iraq, our troops were 
superb. Their mission was so flawlessly executed that we risk 
taking for granted the bravery and the skill it required. 
Captain Jeff Taliaferro, a 10-year veteran of the Air Force, 
flew a B-1B bomber over Iraq as we attacked Saddam's war 
machine. He is here with us tonight. I would like to ask you to 
honor him and all the 33,000 men and women of Operation Desert 
Fox.
    It is time to reverse the decline in defense spending that 
began in 1985. Since April, together we have added nearly $6 
billion to maintain our military readiness. My balanced budget 
calls for a sustained increase over the next 6 years for 
readiness, for modernization and for pay and benefits for our 
troops and their families.
    We are the heirs of a legacy of bravery represented in 
every community in America by millions of our veterans. 
America's defenders today still stand ready at a moment's 
notice to go where comforts are few and dangers are many, to do 
what needs to be done as no one else can. They always come 
through for America. We must come through for them.
    The new century demands new partnerships for peace and 
security.
    The United Nations plays a crucial role, with allies 
sharing burdens America might otherwise bear alone. America 
needs a strong and effective UN. I want to work with this new 
Congress to pay our dues and our debts.
    We must continue to support security and stability in 
Europe and Asia, expanding NATO and defining its new missions, 
maintaining our alliance with Japan, with Korea, with our other 
Asian allies, and engaging China.
    In China last year, I said to the leaders and the people 
what I would like to say again tonight. Stability can no longer 
be bought at the expense of liberty. But I would also like to 
say again to the American people, it is important not to 
isolate China. The more we bring China into the world, the more 
the world will bring change and freedom to China.
    Last spring, with some of you, I traveled to Africa, where 
I saw democracy and reform rising but still held back by 
violence and disease. We must fortify African democracy and 
peace by launching radio democracy for Africa, supporting the 
transition to democracy now beginning to take place in Nigeria, 
and passing the African Trade and Development Act.
    We must continue to deepen our ties to the Americas and the 
Caribbean, our common work to educate children, fight drugs, 
strengthen democracy, and increase trade.
    In this hemisphere, every government but one is freely 
chosen by its people. We are determined that Cuba, too, will 
know the blessings of liberty.
    The American people have opened their hearts and their arms 
to our Central American and Caribbean neighbors who have been 
so devastated by the recent hurricanes. Working with Congress, 
I am committed to help them rebuild.
    When the First Lady and Tipper Gore visited the region, 
they saw thousands of our troops and thousands of American 
volunteers. In the Dominican Republic, Hillary helped to 
rededicate a hospital that had been rebuilt by Dominicans and 
Americans working side by side.
    With her was someone else who has been very important to 
the relief efforts. You know, sports records aremade and sooner 
or later they are broken. But making other people's lives better and 
showing our children the true meaning of brotherhood, that lasts 
forever. So for far more than baseball, Sammy Sosa, you are a hero of 
two countries.
    So I say to all of you, if we do these things, if we pursue 
peace, fight terrorism, increase our strength, renew our 
alliances, we will begin to meet our Nation's historic 
responsibility to build a stronger 21st century America in a 
freer, more peaceful world.
    As the world has changed, so have our own communities. We 
must make them safer, more livable and more united. This year 
we will reach our goal of 100,000 community police officers 
ahead of schedule and under budget.
    The Brady Bill has stopped a quarter million felons, 
fugitives, and stalkers from buying handguns. Now the murder 
rate is the lowest in 30 years, and the crime rate has dropped 
for 6 straight years.
    Tonight I propose a 21st century crime bill to deploy the 
latest technologies and tactics to make our communities even 
safer. Our balanced budget will help to put up to 50,000 more 
police on the street in the areas hardest hit by crime and to 
equip them with new tools, from crime-mapping computers to 
digital mug shots.
    We must break the deadly cycle of drugs and crime. Our 
budget expands support for drug testing and treatment, saying 
to prisoners, if you stay on drugs, you have to stay behind 
bars. And to those on parole, if you want to keep your freedom, 
you must stay free of drugs.
    I ask Congress to restore the 5-day waiting period for 
buying a handgun and extend the Brady Bill to prevent juveniles 
who commit violent crimes from buying a gun.
    We must do more to keep our schools the safest places in 
our communities. Last year, every American was horrified and 
heartbroken by the tragic killings in Jonesboro, Paducah, 
Pearl, Edinboro, and Springfield.
    We were deeply moved by the courageous parents now working 
to keep guns out of the hands of children and making efforts so 
that other parents do not have to live through their loss.
    After she lost her daughter, Suzann Wilson of Jonesboro, 
Arkansas, came here to the White House with a powerful plea. 
She said, ``Please, please for the sake of your children, lock 
up your guns. Don't let what happened in Jonesboro happen in 
your town.'' It is a message she is passionately advocating 
every day.
    Suzann is here with us tonight with the First Lady. I would 
like to thank her for her courage and her commitment. Thank 
you.
    In memory of all the children who lost their lives to 
school violence, I ask you to strengthen the Safe and Drug-Free 
School Act, to pass legislation to require child trigger locks, 
to do everything possible to keep our children safe.
    A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt defined our 
``great central task'' as ``leaving this land even a better 
land for our descendants than it is for us.''
    Today we are restoring the Florida Everglades, saving 
Yellowstone, preserving the red-rock canyons of Utah, 
protecting California's redwoods and our precious coasts. But 
our most fateful new challenge is the threat of global warming.
    1998 was the warmest year ever recorded. Last year's heat 
waves, floods, and storms are but a hint of what future 
generations may endure if we do not act now.
    Tonight, I propose a new Clean Air Fund to help communities 
reduce greenhouse and other pollution, and tax incentives and 
investment to spur clean energy technology, and I want to work 
with Members of Congress in both parties to reward companies 
who take early, voluntary action to reduce greenhouse gases.
    Now, all our communities face a preservation challenge as 
they grow, and green space shrinks. Seven thousand acres of 
farmland and open space are lost every day.
    In response, I propose two major initiatives: first, a $1 
billion Livability Agenda to help communities save open space, 
ease traffic congestion and grow in ways that enhance every 
citizen's quality of life; and, second, a $1 billion Lands 
Legacy Initiative to preserve places of natural beauty all 
across America, from the most remote wilderness to the nearest 
city park.
    These are truly landmark initiatives, which could not have 
been developed without the visionary leadership of the Vice 
President, and I want to thank him very much for his commitment 
here. Thank you.
    Now, to get the most out of your community, you have to 
give something back. That is why we created AmeriCorps, our 
national service program, that gives today's generation a 
chance to serve their communities and earn money for college. 
So far, in just 4 years, 100,000 young Americans have built 
low-income homes with Habitat for Humanity, helped to tutor 
children, with churches, worked with FEMA to ease the burden of 
natural disasters, and performed countless other acts of 
service that have made America better. I ask Congress to give 
more young Americans the chance to follow their lead and serve 
America in AmeriCorps.
    Now, we must work to renew our national community as well 
for the 21st century. Last year, the House passed the 
bipartisan campaign finance reform legislation sponsored by 
Representatives Shays and Meehan and Senators McCain and 
Feingold. But a partisan minority in the Senate blocked reform. 
So I would like to say to the House, pass it again, quickly; 
and I would like to say to the Senate,I hope you will say yes 
to a stronger American democracy in the year 2000.
    Since 1997, our Initiative on Race has sought to bridge the 
divides between and among our people. In its report last fall, 
the Initiative's Advisory Board found that Americans really do 
want to bring our people together across racial lines. We know 
it has been a long journey. For some it goes back to before the 
beginning of our Republic; for others, back since the Civil 
War; for others, throughout the 20th century. But for most of 
us alive today, in a very real sense, this journey began 43 
years ago, when a woman named Rosa Parks sat down on a bus in 
Alabama and wouldn't get up. She is sitting down with the First 
Lady tonight, and she may get up or not as she chooses. We 
thank her.
    We know that our continuing racial problems are aggravated, 
as the Presidential Initiative said, by opportunity gaps. The 
initiative I have outlined tonight will help to close them. But 
we know that the discrimination gap has not been fully closed 
either. Discrimination or violence because of race or religion, 
ancestry or gender, disability or sexual orientation, is wrong, 
and it ought to be illegal. Therefore, I ask Congress to make 
the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the Hate Crimes 
Prevention Act the law of the land.
    You know, since every person in America counts, every 
American ought to be counted. We need a census that uses modern 
scientific methods to do that.
    Our new immigrants must be part of our One America. After 
all, they are revitalizing our cities, they are energizing our 
culture, they are building up our economy. We have a 
responsibility to make them welcome here, and they have a 
responsibility to enter the mainstream of American life. That 
means learning English and learning about our democratic system 
of government.
    There are now long waiting lines of immigrants that are 
trying to do just that. Therefore, our budget significantly 
expands our efforts to help them meet their responsibility. I 
hope you will support it.
    Whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower or on 
slave ships, whether they came to Ellis Island or LAX in Los 
Angeles, whether they came yesterday or walked this land 1,000 
years ago, our great challenge for the 21st century is to find 
a way to be One America. We can meet all the other challenges, 
if we can go forward as One America.
    You know, barely more than 300 days from now, we will cross 
that bridge into the new millennium. This is a moment, as the 
First Lady has said, to honor the past and imagine the future. 
I would like to take just a minute to honor her for leading our 
Millennium Project, for all she has done for our children, for 
all she has done in her historic role to serve our Nation and 
our best ideals at home and abroad. I honor her.
    Last year, I called on Congress and every citizen to mark 
the millennium by saving America's treasures. Hillary has 
traveled all across the country to inspire recognition and 
support for saving places like Thomas Edison's invention 
factory and Harriet Tubman's home.
    Now we have to preserve our treasures in every community, 
and tonight, before I close, I want to invite every town, every 
city, every community, to become a nationally recognized 
millennium community, by launching projects that save our 
history, promote our arts and humanities, prepare our children 
for the 21st century.
    Already the response has been remarkable, and I want to say 
a special word of thanks to our private sector partners and to 
Members in Congress of both parties for their support. Just one 
example: Because of you, the Star Spangled Banner will be 
preserved for the ages.
    In ways large and small, as we look to the millennium, we 
are keeping alive what George Washington called ``the sacred 
fire of liberty.''
    Six years ago, I came to office in a time of doubt for 
America, with our economy troubled, our deficit high, our 
people divided. Some even wondered whether our best days were 
behind us.
    But across this country, in 1,000 neighborhoods, I had 
seen, even amidst the pain and uncertainty of recession, the 
real heart and character of America. I knew then that we 
Americans could renew this country.
    Tonight, as I deliver the last State of the Union address 
of the 20th century, no one anywhere in the world can doubt the 
enduring resolve and boundless capacity of the American people 
to work toward that ``more perfect union'' of our founders' 
dream.
    We are now at the end of a century when generation after 
generation of Americans answered the call to greatness, 
overcoming Depression, lifting up the dispossessed, bringing 
down barriers to racial prejudice, building the largest middle 
class in history, winning two World Wars in the ``long twilight 
struggle'' of the Cold War. We must all be profoundly grateful 
for the magnificent achievements of our forebears in this 
century.
    Yet perhaps in the daily press of events, in the clash of 
controversy, we don't see our own time for what it truly is, a 
new dawn for America. Ten years from tonight, another American 
President will stand in this place and report on the State of 
the Union. He, or she, will look back on a 21st century shaped 
in so many ways by the decisions we make here and now.
    So let it be said of us then that we were thinking not only 
of our time, but of their time; that we reached as high as our 
ideals; that we put aside our divisions and found a new hour of 
healing and hopefulness; that we joined together to serve and 
strengthen the land we love.
    My fellow Americans, this is our moment. Let us lift our 
eyes as one nation, and from the mountain top of this American 
century, look ahead to the next one, asking God's blessing on 
our endeavors and on our beloved country.
    Thank you, and good evening.

                                
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