[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: January 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
             ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  The PRESIDENT. Thank you very much.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the 103rd Congress, my fellow 
Americans:
  I am not at all sure what speech is in the teleprompter tonight, but 
I hope we can talk about the State of the Union.
  I ask you to begin by recalling the memory of the giant who presided 
over this chamber with such force and grace. Tip O'Neill liked to call 
himself a man of the House, and he surely was that. But even more, he 
was a man of the people, a bricklayer's son who helped build the great 
American middle class. Tip O'Neill never forgot who he was, where he 
came from, or who sent him here.
  Tonight, he is smiling down on us for the first time from the Lord's 
gallery. But in his honor, may we too always remember who we are, where 
we come from, and who sent us here.
  If we do that, we will return over and over again to the principle 
that if we simply give ordinary people equal opportunity, quality 
education, and a fair shot at the American dream, they will do 
extraordinary things.
  We gather tonight in a world of changes, so profound and rapid that 
all nations are tested. Our American heritage has always been to master 
such change, to use it to expand opportunity at home, and our 
leadership abroad.
  But for too long, and in too many ways, that heritage was abandoned, 
and our country drifted.
  For thirty years, family life in America has been breaking down. For 
twenty years, the wages of working families have been stagnant, or 
declining. For twelve years of trickle-down economics, we built a false 
prosperity on a hollow base as our national debt quadrupled. From 1989 
to 1992, we experienced the slowest growth in a half century.
  For too many families, even when both parents are working, the 
American dream has been slipping away.
  In 1992, the American people demanded that we change. A year ago I 
asked all of you to join me in accepting responsibilities for the 
future of our country. Well, we did. We replaced drift and deadlock 
with renewal and reform. And I want to thank every one of you here who 
heard the American people, broke gridlock, who gave them the most 
successful teamwork between a President and a Congress in thirty years.
  This Congress produced a budget that cut the deficit by half a 
trillion dollars, cut spending and raised income taxes only on the very 
wealthiest Americans. This Congress produced tax relief for millions of 
low income workers to reward work over welfare. It produced NAFTA. It 
produced the Brady bill, now the Brady law. and thank you, Jim Brady, 
for being here, and God bless you, sir.
  This Congress produced tax cuts to reduce the taxes of nine out of 
ten small businesses who use the money to invest more and create more 
jobs. It produced more research and treatment for AIDS, more childhood 
immunizations, more support for women's health research, for affordable 
college loans for the middle class, a new national service program for 
those who want to give something back to their country and their 
communities for higher education. A dramatic increase in high-tech 
investments to move us from a defense to a domestic high-tech economy.
  This Congress produced a new law, the motor voter bill, to help 
millions of people register to vote. It produced family and medical 
leave. All passed, all signed into law, with not one single veto. These 
accomplishments were all commitments I made when I sought this office, 
and, in fairness, they all had to be passed by you and this Congress. 
But I am persuaded that the real credit belongs to the people who sent 
us here, who pay our salaries, who hold our feet to the fire.
  But what we do here is really beginning to change lives. Let me just 
give you one example. I will never forget what the family and medical 
leave law meant to just one father I met early one Sunday morning in 
the White House. It was unusual to see a family there touring early 
Sunday morning, but he had his wife and his three children there, one 
of them in a wheelchair.
  I came up, and after we had our picture taken and had a little visit, 
I was walking off and that man grabbed me by the arm and said, Mr. 
President, ``Let me tell you something. My little girl here is 
desperately ill. She is probably not going to make it. But because of 
the family leave law, I was able to take time off to spend with her, 
the most important time I ever spent in my life, without losing my job 
and hurting the rest of my family.
  ``It means more to me than I will ever be able to say. Don't you 
people up here ever think what you do doesn't make a difference. It 
does.''
  Though we are making a difference, our work has just begun. Many 
Americans still haven't felt the impact of what we have done. The 
recovery still hasn't touched every community or created enough jobs. 
Incomes are still stagnant. There is still too much violence and not 
enough hope in too many places. Abroad, the young democracies we are 
strongly supporting still face very difficult times and look to us for 
leadership.
  And so, tonight, let us resolve to continue the journey of renewal, 
to create more and better jobs, to guarantee health security for all, 
to reward work over welfare, to promote democracy abroad, and to begin 
to reclaim our streets from violent crime and drugs and gangs, to renew 
our own American community.
  Last year we began to put our House in order by tackling the budget 
deficit that was driving us toward bankruptcy. We cut $255 billion in 
spending, including entitlements, and over 340 separate budget items. 
We froze domestic spending, and used honest budget numbers.
  Led by the Vice President, we launched a campaign to reinvent 
government. We cut staff, cut perks, even trimmed the fleet of federal 
limousines. After years of leaders whose rhetoric attacked bureaucracy, 
but whose actions expanded it, we will actually reduce it by 252 
thousand people over the next five years. By the time we have finished, 
the federal bureaucracy will be at its lowest point in thirty years.
  Because the deficit was so large and because they had benefitted from 
tax cuts in the 1980's, we did ask the wealthiest Americans to pay more 
to reduce the deficit. So on April the 15th, the American people will 
discover the truth about what we did last year on taxes. Only the top--
listen, the top 1.2 percent of Americans, as I said all along, will pay 
higher income tax rates. Let me repeat, only the wealthiest 1.2 percent 
of Americans will face higher income tax rates, and no one else will, 
and that is the truth.
  Of course, there were, as there always are in politics, naysayers who 
said this plan won't work. But they were wrong. When I became 
President, the experts predicted that next year's deficit would be $300 
billion. But because we acted, those same people now say the deficit is 
going to be under $180 billion, forty percent lower than was previously 
predicted.
  Our economic program has helped to produce the lowest core inflation 
rate and the lowest interest rates in twenty years. And because those 
interest rates are down, business investment in equipment is growing at 
seven times the rate of the previous four years. Auto sales are way up, 
home sales at a record high. Millions of Americans have refinanced 
their homes, and our economy has produced 1.6 million private sector 
jobs in 1993, more than were created in the previous four years 
combined. The people who supported this economic plan should be proud 
of its early results. Proud. But everyone in this Chamber should know 
and acknowledge that there is more to do.
  Next month, I will send you one of the toughest budgets ever 
presented to Congress. It will cut spending in more than 300 programs, 
eliminate 100 domestic programs, and reforms the way in which 
government buys goods and services. This year we must again make the 
hard choices to live within the hard spending ceilings we have set. We 
must do it. We have proved we can bring the deficit down without 
choking off recovery, without punishing seniors or the middle class, 
and without putting our national security at risk. If you will stick 
with this plan, we will post three consecutive years of declining 
deficits for the first time since Harry Truman lived in the White 
House, and, once again, the buck stops here.
  Our economic plan also bolsters our strength and our credibility 
around the world. Once we reduced the deficit and put the steel back in 
our competitive edge, the world echoed with the sound of falling trade 
barriers. In one year, with NAFTA, with GATT, with our efforts in Asia 
and the national export strategy, we did more to open world markets to 
American products than at any time in the last two generations. That 
means more jobs and rising living standards for the American people.
  Low deficits, low inflation, low interest rates, low trade barriers, 
and high investments, these are the building blocks of our recovery. 
But if we want to take full advantage of the opportunities before us in 
the global economy, you all know we must do more.
  As we reduce defense spending, I ask Congress to invest more in the 
technologies of tomorrow. Defense conversion will keep us strong 
militarily and create jobs for our people here at home.
  As we protect our environment, we must invest in the environmental 
technologies of the future which will create jobs. This year we will 
fight for a revitalized Clean Water Act and a Safe Drinking Water Act 
and a reformed Superfund program. And the Vice President is right. We 
must also work with the private sector to connect every classroom, 
every clinic, every library, every hospital in America into a national 
information superhighway by the year 2000. Think of it: Instant access 
to information will increase productivity, will help to educate our 
children; it will provide better medical care; it will create jobs. And 
I call on the Congress to pass legislation to establish that 
information super highway this year.
  As we expand opportunity and create jobs, no one can be left out. We 
must continue to enforce fair lending and fair housing, and all civil 
rights laws, because America will never be complete in its renewal 
until everyone shares in its bounty.
  But we all know, too, we can do all these things: Put our economic 
House in order, expand world trade, target the jobs of the future, 
guarantee equal opportunity. But if we are honest, we will all admit 
that this strategy still cannot work unless we also give our people the 
education, training, and skills they need to seize the opportunities of 
tomorrow.
  We must set tough, world class academic and occupational standards 
for all of our children, and give our teachers and students the tools 
to meet them. Our Goals 2000 proposal will empower individual school 
districts to experiment with ideas like chartering their schools to be 
run by private corporations, or having more public school choice; to do 
whatever they wish to do, as long as we measure every school by one 
high standard: Are our children learning what they need to know to 
compete and win in the global economy. Goals 2000 links world class 
standards to grass roots reforms, and I hope Congress will pass it 
without delay.
  Our school-to-work initiative will, for the first time link schools 
to the world of work, providing at least one year of apprenticeship 
beyond high school. After all, most of the people we are counting on to 
build our economic future won't graduate from college. It's time to 
stop ignoring them and start empowering them.
  We must literally transform our outdated unemployment system into a 
re-employment system. The old unemployment system just sort of kept you 
going while you waited for your old job to come back. We have got to 
have a new system to move people into new and better jobs, because most 
of those old jobs just don't come back. And we know the only way to 
have real job security in the future, to get a good job with a growing 
income, is to have real skills and the ability to learn new ones. So we 
have got to streamline today's patchwork of training programs and make 
them a source of new skills for our people who lose their jobs. Re-
employment, not unemployment, must become the centerpiece of our 
economic renewal. I urge you to pass it in this session of Congress.
  Just as we must transform our unemployment system, so must we also 
revolutionize our welfare system. It doesn't work. It defies our values 
as a nation. If we value work, we can't justify a system that makes 
welfare more attractive than work if people are worried about losing 
their health care.
  If we value responsibility, we can't ignore the $34 billion in child 
support that absent parents ought to be paying to millions of parents 
who are taking care of their children.
  If we value strong families, we cannot perpetuate a system that 
actually penalizes those who stay together. Can you believe that a 
child who has a child gets more money from the government for leaving 
home than for staying home with a parent or a grandparent? That's not 
just bad policy, it is wrong, and we ought to change it.
  I worked on this problem for years before I became President, with 
other governors and with members of Congress of both parties and with 
the previous administration of another party. I worked on it with 
people who are on welfare, lots of them. And I wanted to say something 
to everybody here who cares about this issue: The people who most want 
to change this system are the people who are dependent on it. They want 
to get off welfare, they want to go back to work, they want to do right 
by their kids. I once had a hearing when I was a governor, and I 
brought in people on welfare from all over America who had found their 
way to work. And the woman from my state who testified was asked this 
question. What is the best thing about being off welfare and in a job? 
And without blinking an eye, she looked at 40 governors and she said, 
``When my boy goes to school and they say what does your mother do for 
a living, he can give an answer.''
  These people want a better system, and we ought to give it to them.
  Last year, we began this. We gave the states more power to innovate, 
because we know that a lot of great ideas come from outside Washington. 
And many states are using it.
  Then this Congress took a dramatic step. Instead of taxing people 
with modest incomes into poverty, we helped them to work their way out 
of poverty, by dramatically increasing the earned income tax credit. It 
will lift 15 million working families out of poverty, rewarding work 
over welfare, making it possible for people to be successful workers 
and successful parents. Now, that is real welfare reform.
  But there is more to be done. This spring, I will send you a 
comprehensive welfare reform bill that builds on the Family Support Act 
of 1988 and restores the basic values of work and responsibility.
  We will say to teenagers, if you have a child out of wedlock, we will 
no longer give you a check to set up a separate household. We want 
families to stay together.
  We will say to absent parents who aren't paying child support, if you 
are not providing for your children, we will garnish your wages, we 
will suspend your license, we will track you across state lines, and, 
if necessary, we will make some of you work off what you owe. People 
who bring children into this world cannot and must not just walk away 
from them.
  But to all those who depend on welfare, we should offer ultimately a 
simple compact. We will provide the support, the job training, the 
child care you need for up to two years. But after that, anyone who can 
work must, in the private sector wherever possible, in community 
service, if necessary. That is the only way we will make welfare what 
it ought to be, a second chance, not a way of life.
  Now, I know it will be difficult to tackle welfare reform in 1994 at 
the same time we tackle health care. But, let me point out, I think it 
is inevitable and imperative. It is estimated that one million people 
are on welfare today because it is the only way they can get health 
care coverage for their children. Those who choose to leave welfare for 
jobs without health benefits, and many entry level jobs don't have 
health benefits, find themselves in the incredible position of paying 
taxes that help to pay for health care coverage for those who made the 
other choice to stay on welfare. No wonder people leave work and go 
back to welfare, to get health care coverage. We have got to solve the 
health care problem to have real welfare reform.
  So this year we will make history by reforming the health care 
system. And I would say to you, all of you, my fellow public servants, 
this is another issue where the people are way ahead of the 
politicians.
  That may not be popular with either party, but it happens to be the 
truth.
  You know, the First Lady has received now almost a million letters 
from people all across America, from all walks of life. I would like to 
share just one of them with you.
  Richard Anderson of Reno, Nevada, lost his job, and, with it, his 
health insurance. Two weeks later, his wife Judy suffered a cerebral 
aneurysm. He rushed her to the hospital, where she stayed in intensive 
care for twenty-one days. The Anderson's bills were over $120,000. 
Although Judy recovered and Richard went back to work, at eight dollars 
an hour, the billings were too much for them, and they were literally 
forced into bankruptcy.
  ``Mrs. Clinton,'' he wrote to Hillary, ``no one in the United States 
of America should have to lose everything they have worked for all 
their lives because they were unfortunate enough to become ill.'' It 
was to help the Richard and Judy Andersons of America that the First 
Lady and so many others have worked so hard and so long on this health 
care reform issue. We owe them our thanks and our action.
  I know there are people here who say there is no health care crisis. 
Tell it to Richard and Judy Anderson. Tell it to the 58 million 
Americans who have no coverage at all for some time each year. Tell it 
to the 81 million Americans with those preexisting conditions, those 
folks who are paying more or they can't get insurance at all, or they 
can't ever change their jobs because they or someone in their family 
has one of those preexisting conditions.
  If you tell it to the small businesses burdened by skyrocketing costs 
of insurance, most small businesses cover their employees and they pay 
on average 35 percent more in premiums than big businesses or 
government. Or tell it to the 76 percent of insured Americans, three 
out of four, whose policies have lifetime limits, and that means they 
can find themselves without any coverage at all, just when they need it 
the most.
  So if any of you believe there is no crisis, you tell it to those 
people. Because I can't.
  There are some people who literally do not understand the impact of 
this problem on people's lives. But all you have to do is go out and 
listen to them. Just go talk to them, anywhere, in any Congressional 
district in this country. There are Republicans and Democrats and 
Independents. It doesn't have a lick to do with party. They think we 
don't get it. And it is time we show them that we do get it.
  From the day we began, our health care initiative has been designed 
to strengthen what is good about our health care system, the world's 
best care professionals, cutting edge research, and wonderful research 
institutes, Medicare for older Americans. None of this, none of it, 
should be put at risk. But we are paying more and more money for less 
and less care. Every year fewer and fewer Americans even get to choose 
their doctors. Every year doctors and nurses spend more time on 
paperwork and less time with patients, because of the absolute 
bureaucratic nightmare the present system has become. This system is 
riddled with inefficiency, with abuse, with fraud, and everybody knows 
it. In today's health care system, insurance companies call the shots. 
They pick whom they cover and how they cover them. They can cut off 
your benefits when you need your coverage the most. They are in charge.
  What does it mean? It means every night millions of well-insured 
Americans go to bed, just an illness, an accident, or a pink slip away 
from having no coverage or financial ruin. It means every morning 
millions of Americans go to work without health insurance at all, 
something the workers in no other advanced country in the world do. It 
means that every year more and more hard working people are told to 
pick a new doctor because their boss has had to pick a new plan, and 
countless others turn down better jobs because they know if they take 
the better job, they will lose their health insurance.
  If we just let the health care system continue to drift, our country 
will have people with less care, fewer choices, and higher bills. Now, 
our approach protects the quality of care and people's choices. It 
builds on what works today in the private sector, to expand the 
employer-based coverage, to, guarantee private insurance for every 
American. And, I might say, employer-based private insurance for every 
American was proposed twenty years ago by President Richard Nixon to 
the United States Congress. It was a good idea then, and it is a better 
idea today.
  Why do we want guaranteed private insurance? Because right now, nine 
out of ten people who have insurance get it through employers, and that 
should continue. And if your employer is providing good benefits at 
reasonable prices,that should continue, too. That ought to make the 
Congress and the President feel better.
  Our goal is health insurance everybody can depend on, comprehensive 
benefits that cover preventive care and prescription drugs. Health 
premiums that don't just explode when you get sick or you get older. 
The power, no matter how small your business is, to choose dependable 
insurance at the same competitive rates governments and big business 
get today. One simple form for people who are sick. And, most of all, 
the freedom to choose a plan and the right to choose your own doctor.
  Our approach protects older Americans. Every plan before the Congress 
proposes to slow the growth of Medicare. The difference is this: We 
believe those savings should be used to improve health care for senior 
citizens. Medicare must be protected and it should cover prescription 
drugs, and we should take the first steps in covering long-term care. 
To those who would cut Medicare without protecting seniors, I say the 
solution to today's squeeze on middle class working people's health 
care is not to put the squeeze on middle class retired people's health 
care. We can do better than that. When it is all said and done, it is 
pretty simple to me: Insurance ought mean what it used to mean. You pay 
a fair price for security, and when you get sick, health care is always 
there. No matter what.
  Along with the guarantee of health security, we all have to admit, 
too, there must be more responsibility on the part of all of us in how 
we use this system. People have to take their kids to get immunized. We 
all should take advantage of preventive care. We must all work together 
to stop the violence that explodes our emergency rooms. We have to 
practice better health habits, and we can't abuse the system. And those 
who don't have insurance under our approach, will get coverage, but 
they will have to pay something for it too. The minority businesses 
that provide no insurance at all, and, in so doing, shift the costs of 
the care to their employees to others, should contribute something. 
People who smoke should pay more for a pack of cigarettes. Everybody 
can contribute something if we wanted to solve the health care crisis. 
There can't be anymore something for nothing. It will not be easy, but 
it can be done.
  In the coming months, I hope very much to work with both Democrats 
and Republicans, to reform our health care system by using the market 
to bring down costs, and to achieve lasting health security.
  If you look at history, we see that for sixty years this country has 
tried to reform health care. President Roosevelt tried, President 
Truman tried, President Nixon tried, President Carter tried. Every 
time, the special interests were powerful enough to defeat them. But 
not this time.
  I know that facing up to these interests will require courage. It 
will raise critical questions about the way we finance our campaigns 
and how lobbyists wield their influence. The work of change, frankly, 
will never get any easier until we limit the influence of well financed 
interests who profit from this current system. So I also must now call 
on you to finish the job both houses began last year, by passing tough 
and meaningful campaign finance reform and lobbying reform legislation 
this year.
  You know, my fellow Americans, this is really a test for all of us. 
The American people provide those of us in government service with 
terrific health care benefits at reasonable cost.We have health care 
that is always there.
  I think we we need to give every hard working tax paying American the 
same health care security they have already given to us.
  I want to make this very clear. I am open, as I have said repeatedly, 
to the best ideas of concerned members of both parties. I have no 
special belief for any specific approach, even in our own bill, except 
this: If you send me legislation that does not guarantee every American 
private health insurance that can never be taken away, you will force 
me to take this pen, veto the legislation, and we will come right back 
here and start all over again.
  But I don't think that is going to happen. I think we are ready to 
act now. I believe that you are ready to act now. And if you are ready 
to guarantee every American the same health care that you have, health 
care that can never be taken away, now, not next year, or the year 
after, now is the time to stand with the people who sent us here. Now.
  As we take these steps together to renew our strength at home, we 
cannot turn away from our obligation to renew our leadership abroad. 
This is a promising moment. Because of the agreements we have reached 
this year, last year, Russia's strategic nuclear missiles soon will no 
longer be pointed at the United States, nor will we point ours at them. 
Instead of building weapons in space, Russian scientists will help us 
build the international space station.
  Of course, there are still dangers in the world. Rampant arms 
proliferation, bitter regional conflicts, ethnic and nationalist 
tensions, in many new democracies, severe environmental degradation the 
world over, and fanatics who seek to cripple the world's cities with 
terror.
  As the world's greatest power, we must therefore maintain our 
defenses and our responsibilities. This year, we secured indictments 
against terrorists and sanctions against those who harbor them. We 
worked to promote environmentally sustainable economic growth. We 
achieved agreements with Ukraine, with Belarus, and Kazakhstan to 
eliminate completely their nuclear arsenals. We are working to achieve 
a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. We will seek early 
ratification of a treaty to ban chemical weapons worldwide. And earlier 
today we joined with over 30 nations to begin negotiations on a 
comprehensive ban to stop all nuclear testing.
  But nothing, nothing is more important to our security, than our 
nation's Armed Forces. We honor their contributions, including those 
who are carrying out the longest humanitarian airlift in history in 
Bosnia, those who will complete their mission in Somalia this year, and 
their brave comrades who gave their lives there.
  Our forces are the finest military our nation has ever had, and I 
have pledged that as long as I am President, they will remain the best 
equipped, the best trained, and the best prepared fighting force on the 
face of the earth.
  Last year, I proposed a defense plan that maintains our post Cold War 
security at a lower cost. This year, many people urged me to cut our 
defense spending further to pay for other government programs. I said 
no. The budget I send to Congress draws the line against further 
defense cuts. It protects the readiness and quality of our forces. 
Ultimately, the best strategy is to do that. We must not cut defense 
further. I hope the Congress, without regard to party, will support 
that position.
  Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a 
durable piece is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere. 
Democracies do not attack each other. They make better trading 
partners, and partners in diplomacy. That is why we have supported, you 
and I, the democratic reformers in Russia, and in the other states of 
the former Soviet bloc. I applaud the bipartisan support this Congress 
provided last year for our initiatives to help Russia, Ukraine, and 
other states through the epic transformations.
  Our support of reform must combine patience for the enormity of the 
task, and vigilance for our fundamental interests and values. We will 
continue to urge Russia and the other states to press ahead with 
economic reforms, and we will seek to cooperate with Russia to solve 
regional problems, while insisting that if Russian troops operate in 
neighboring states, they do so only when those states agree to their 
presence and in strict accord with international standards. But we must 
also remember as these nations chart their own futures, and they must 
chart their own futures, how much more secure and more prosperous our 
own people will be if democratic and market reforms succeed all across 
the former Communist bloc. Our policy has been to support that move, 
and that has been the policy of the Congress. We should continue it. 
That is why I went to Europe earlier this month, to work with our 
European partners, to help to integrate all of the former Communist 
countries into a Europe that has the possibility of becoming unified 
for the first time in its entire history. Its entire history. Based on 
the simple commitments of all nations in Europe to democracy, to free 
markets, and to respect for existing borders. With our allies we 
created have a partnership for peace that invites states from the 
former Soviet bloc and other non-NATO members to work with NATO in 
military cooperation. When I met with central Europe's leaders, 
including Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, men who put their lives on the 
line for freedom, I told them that the security of their region is 
important to our country's security. This year we must also do more to 
support democratic renewal in human rights and sustainable development 
all around the world.
  We will ask Congress to ratify the new GATT accord. We will continue 
standing by South Africa as it works its way through its bold and 
hopeful and difficult transition to democracy. We will convene a summit 
of the western hemisphere's democratic leaders, from Canada to the tip 
of South America, and we will continue to press for the restoration of 
true democracy in Haiti. And, as we build a more constructive 
relationship with China, we must continue to insist on clear signs of 
improvement in that nation's human rights record.
  We will also work for new progress toward the Middle East peace. Last 
year the world watched Yitzakh Rabin and Yassir Arafat at the White 
House when they had their historic handshake of reconciliation. But 
there is a long, hard road ahead, and on that road I am determined that 
I and our administration will do all we can to achieve a comprehensive 
and lasting peace for all of the peoples of the region.
  Now, there are some in our country who argue that with the Cold War 
over, America should turn its back on the rest of the world. Many 
around the world were afraid we would do just that. But I took this 
office on a pledge that had no partisan tinge to keep our Nation secure 
by remaining engaged in the rest of the world, and this year, because 
of our work together enacting NAFTA, keeping our military strong and 
prepared, supporting democracy abroad, we have reaffirmed America's 
leadership, America's engagement, and as a result, the American people 
are more secure than they were before.
  But while Americans are more secure from threats abroad, I think we 
all know that in many ways we are less secure from threats here at 
home. Every day the national peace is shattered by crime. In Petaluma, 
California, an innocent slumber party gives way to agonizing tragedy 
for the family of Polly Klass. An ordinary train ride on Long Island 
ends in a hale of 9 millimeter rounds. A tourist in Florida is nearly 
burned alive by bigots simply because he is black. Right here in our 
Nation's Capital, a brave young man named Jason White--a policeman, the 
son and grandson of policemen--is ruthlessly gunned down.
  Violent crime and the fear it provokes are crippling our society, 
limiting personal freedom, and fraying the ties that bind us. The crime 
bill before Congress gives you a chance to do something about it, a 
chance to be tough and smart.
  What does that mean? Let me begin by saying I care a lot about this 
issue. Many years ago when I started out in public life I was the 
Attorney General of my State. As a governor for a dozen years, I know 
what it is like to sign laws increasing penalties to build more prison 
cells to carry out the death penalty. I understand this issue, and it 
is not a simple thing.
  First, we must recognize that most violent crimes are committed by a 
small percentage of criminals who too often break the laws even when 
they are on parole. Now those who commit crimes should be punished, and 
those who commit repeated violent crimes should be told when you commit 
a third violent crime you will be put away and put away for good; three 
strikes and you are out.
  Second, we must take steps to reduce violence and prevent crime 
beginning with more police officers and more community policemen. We 
know right now that police who work the streets, know the folks, have 
the respect of the neighborhood kids, focus on high crime areas, we 
know that they are more likely to prevent crime as well as catch 
criminals.
  Look at the experience of Houston where the crime rate dropped 17 
percent in one year when that approach was taken.
  Here tonight is one of those policemen, a brave young detective, 
Kevin Jett, whose beat is eight square blocks in one of the toughest 
neighborhoods in New York. Every day he restores some sanity and safety 
and a sense of values and connection to the people whose lives he 
protects. I would like to ask him to stand up and be recognized 
tonight.
  You will be given a chance to give the children of this country, the 
law-abiding working people of this country--and do not forget in the 
toughest neighborhoods in this country, in the highest crime 
neighborhoods in this country, the vast majority of the people get up 
every day and obey the law, pay their taxes, do their best to raise 
their kids. They deserve people like Kevin Jett. And you are going to 
be given a chance to give the American people another 100,000 of them, 
well trained, and I urge you to do it.
  You have before you crime legislation which also establishes a police 
court to encourage young people to get an education, pay it off by 
serving as police officers, which encourages retiring military 
personnel to move into police forces, an enormous resource for our 
country, one which has a safe schools provision which will give our 
young people to change to walk to school in safety and to be in school 
in safety instead of dodging bullets. These are important things.
  The third thing we have to do is to build on the Brady bill, the 
Brady law, to take further steps to keep guns out of the hands of 
criminals. I want to say something about this issue. Hunters must 
always be free to hunt, law-abiding adults should always be free to own 
guns and to protect their homes. I respect that part of our culture. I 
grew up in it. But I want to ask the sportsmen and others who lawfully 
own guns to join us in this campaign to reduce gun violence. I say to 
you I know you did not create this problem, but we need your help to 
solve it. There is no sporting purpose on earth that should stop the 
United States Congress from banishing assault weapons that outgun our 
police and cut down our children.
  Fourth, we must remember that drugs are a factor in an enormous 
percentage of crimes. Recent studies indicate sadly that drug use is on 
the rise again among our young people. The crime bill contains, all of 
the crime bills contain more money for drug treatment for criminal 
addicts and boot camps for youthful offenders that include incentives 
to get off drugs and to stay off drugs. Our administration's budget 
with all its cuts contains a large increase infunding for drug 
treatment and drug education. You must pass them both. We need them 
desperately.
  My fellow Americans, the problem of violence is an American problem. 
It has no partisan or philosophical element. Therefore, I urge you to 
find ways as quickly as possible to set aside partisan differences and 
pass a strong, smart, tough crime bill.
  But further, I urge you to consider this: As you demand tougher 
penalties for those who choose violence, let us also remember how we 
came to this sad point. In our toughest neighborhoods, on our meanest 
streets, in our poorest rural areas, we have seen a stunning and 
simultaneous breakdown of community, family, and work, the heart and 
soul of civilized society. This has created a vast vacuum which has 
been filled by violence, and drugs, and gangs.
  So I ask you to remember that even as we say no to crime, we must 
give people, especially our young people, something to say yes to. Many 
of our initiatives, from job training to welfare reform, to health 
care, to national service, will help to rebuild distressed communities, 
to strengthen families, to provide work. But more needs to be done. 
That is what our community empowerment agenda is all about, challenging 
businesses to provide more investment through empowerment zones, 
ensuring banks will make loans in the same communities their deposits 
come from, passing legislation to unleash the power of capital through 
community development banks to create jobs, opportunity and hope where 
they are needed most. But, I think you know that to really solve this 
problem we will all have to put our heads together, leave our 
ideological armor aside, and find some new ideas to do even more.
  And let us be honest. We all know something else too. Our problems go 
way beyond the reach of government. They are rooted in the loss of 
values, in the disappearance of work, and the breakdown of our families 
and communities. My fellow Americans, we can cut the deficit, create 
jobs, promote democracy around the world, pass welfare reform and 
health care, pass the toughest crime bill in history, and still leave 
too many of our people behind. The American people have got to change 
from within if we are going to bring back work and family and 
community.
  We cannot renew our country when within a decade more than half of 
our children will be born into families where there has been no 
marriage. We cannot renew this country when 13-year-old boys get 
semiautomatic weapons to shoot 9-year-olds for kicks. We cannot renew 
our country when children are having children and the fathers walk away 
as if the kids do not amount to anything.
  We cannot renew the country when our businesses eagerly look for new 
investments and new customers abroad, but ignore those people right 
here at home who would give anything to have their jobs, and would 
gladly buy their products if they had the money to do it.
  We cannot renew our country unless more of us, I mean all of us are 
willing to join the churches and other good citizens, people like all 
of the ministers I have worked with over the years, or the priests and 
the nuns I met at Our Lady of Health in East Los Angeles, or my good 
friend, Tony Campollo in Philadelphia, unless we are willing to work 
with people like that, people who are saving kids, adopting schools, 
making streets safer, all of us can do that. We cannot renew our 
country until we realize that governments do not raise children, 
parents do, parents who know their children's teachers, and turn off 
the television and help with the homework, and teach their kids right 
from wrong. Those kinds of parents can make all of the difference. I 
know. I had one.
  I am telling you, we have got to stop pointing our fingers at these 
kids who have no future and reach our hands out to them. Our country 
needs it. We need it. And they deserve it.
  And so I say to you tonight, let us give our children a future. Let 
us take away their guns and give them books. Let us overcome their 
despair and replace it with hope. Let us by our example teach them to 
obey the law, respect our neighbors, and cherish our values.
  Let us weave these 30 threads into a new American community that can 
once more stand strong against the forces of despair and evil because 
everybody has a chance to walk into a better tomorrow.
  Oh, there will be naysayers who fear that we will not be equal to the 
challenges of this time. But they misread our history, our heritage, 
even today's headlines. All of those things tell us we can and we will 
overcome any challenge.
  When the earth shook and fires raged in California, when I saw the 
Mississippi deluge the farmlands of the Midwest in a 500-year flood, 
when the century's bitterest cold swept from North Dakota to Newport 
News, it seemed as though the world itself was coming apart at the 
seams. But the American people came together, they rose to the 
occasion, neighbor helping neighbor, strangers risking life and limb to 
save total strangers, showing the better angels of our nature.
  Let us not reserve these better angels only for natural disasters, 
leaving our deepest problems and most profound problems to petty 
political fighting.
  Let us instead be true to our spirit--facing facts, coming together, 
bringing hope and moving forward.
  Tonight, my fellow Americans, we are summoned to answer a question as 
old as the Republic itself: What is the state of our Union? It is 
growing stronger, but it must be stronger still. With your help, and 
God's help, it will be.
  Thank you, and God bless America.
  At 10 o'clock and 20 minutes p.m., the President of the United 
States, accompanied by the committee of escort, retired from the Hall 
of the House of Representatives.
  The Doorkeeper escorted the invited guests from the Chamber in the 
following order:
  The members of the President's Cabinet.
  The Chief Justice of the United States and the Associate Justices of 
the Supreme Court.
  The Ambassadors, Ministers, and Charge d'Affaires of foreign 
governments.

                          ____________________