[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 25, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
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]

 
     STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS--MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT--PM 77

  The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message 
from the President of the United States; which was ordered to lie on 
the table.

To the Congress of the United States:
  As we gather to review the State of the Union, I recall the memory of 
the giant who presided in 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 American middle class. Tip O'Neill never forgot 
who he was, where he came from, or who sent him here.
  We too must remember who we are, where we come from, and who sent us 
here.
  We must return to the principle that if we 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 change, to expand 
opportunity at home, and provide 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 tried to 
build a false prosperity on a hollow base. 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 change. One year ago I asked 
you to join me and accept responsibility for the future of our country. 
Well, we did. We replaced drift and deadlock with renewal and reform.
  I want to thank all of you who heard the American people, broke 
gridlock, and gave them the most successful teamwork between a 
President and a Congress for 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.
  Tax relief for millions of low income workers to reward work over 
welfare.
  NAFTA.
  The Brady bill--which is now the Brady law.
  Tax cuts to help nine out of ten small businesses invest more and 
create jobs.
  More research and treatment for AIDS.
  More childhood immunizations.
  More support for women's health research.
  More affordable college loans for the middle class.
  A new national service program for those who want to give something 
back to their community and earn money for higher education.
  A dramatic increase in high tech investments to move us from a 
defense to a domestic economy.
  A new law, the Motor Voter bill, to help millions of people register 
to vote.
  Family and Medical Leave.
  All passed. All signed into law with no vetoes. These accomplishments 
were all commitments I made when I sought this office, and they were 
all passed by this Congress. But the real credit belongs to the people 
who sent us here, pay our salaries, and hold our feet to the fire.
  What we do here is really beginning to change lives. I will never 
forget what Family and Medical Leave meant to one father who brought 
his little girl to visit the White House last year.
  After we talked and took a picture, he held on to my arm and 
said,``my little girl is really sick, and she's probably not going to 
make it. But because of the Family and Medical Leave law I can take 
time off without losing my job. I have had some precious time with my 
child, the most important time I have ever had, without hurting the 
rest of my family. Don't you ever think that what you do up here 
doesn't make a difference.''
  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 has still not touched every community or created enough jobs. 
Incomes are still stagnant. There is still too much violence and not 
enough hope. And abroad, the young democracies we support still face 
difficult times and look to us for leadership.
  And so tonight, let us continue our journey of renewal: to create 
more and better jobs, guarantee health security for all, reward work 
over welfare, promote democracy abroad, and begin to reclaim our 
streets from violent crime and drugs, and 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 dollars in spending, including entitlements, and 
over 340 budget items. We froze domestic spending, and used honest 
numbers.
  Led by the Vice President, we launched a campaign to reinvent 
government. We cut staff, cut perks, and 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 252,000 
over five years. By the time we have finished, the federal bureaucracy 
will be at its lowest level in thirty years.
  Because the deficit was so large and because they had benefitted from 
tax cuts in the 1980s, we asked the wealthy to pay more to reduce the 
deficit. So April 15th, the American people will discover the truth 
about what we did last year on taxes. Only the top 1.2% of Americans 
will face higher income tax rates. Let me repeat: Only the wealthiest 
1.2% of Americans will face higher income tax rates, and no one else 
will.
  The naysayers said our plan wouldn't work. Well, they were wrong. 
When I became President, the experts predicted next year's deficit 
would be $300 billion. But because we acted, the deficit is now going 
to be less than $180 billion--forty percent lower than 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 pace of the previous four years. Auto sales are way up. 
Home sales are at a record high. Millions 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 first results.
  But there's much 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 reform the way government buys its goods and 
services. This year, we must make the hard choices again to live within 
the hard spending ceilings we have set.
  We have proved we can bring down the deficit without choking off the 
recovery, without punishing seniors or the middle class, and without 
putting our national security at risk. If you will stick with our plan, 
we will post three consecutive years of declining deficits for the 
first time since Harry Truman lived in the White House. Once again, the 
buck stops here.
  Our economic plan also bolsters America's strength and 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, GATT, our efforts in Asia, and the National 
Export strategy, we did more to open world markets to American products 
than at any time over the last two generations. That will mean more 
jobs and rising living standards for the American people.
  Low deficits, low inflation, low interest rates, low trade barriers 
and high investment--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, 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.
  As we protect our environment, we must invest in the environmental 
technologies of the future which will create jobs. And this year we 
will fight for a revitalized Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water 
Act, and a reformed Superfund program.
  And the Vice President is right: We must work with the private sector 
to connect every classroom, every clinic, every library, and every 
hospital in America to a national information superhighway by the year 
2000. Instant access to information will increase productivity, help 
educate our children, and provide better medical care and create jobs, 
I call on Congress this year to pass legislation to establish the 
information superhighway.
  As we expand opportunity and create jobs, no one can be left out. We 
will continue to enforce fair lending and fair housing and all civil 
rights laws, because America will never complete its renewal unless 
everyone shares in its bounty.
  We can do all these things, put our economic house in order, expand 
world trade, and target the jobs of the future. And we will. But let's 
be honest: this strategy 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, public school choice--so long as we 
measure every school by one high standard: Are our children learning 
what they need to know to complete and win in this new economy. Goals 
2000 links world class standards to grass roots reforms. Congress 
should pass it without delay.
  Our school-to-work initiative will for the first time link schools to 
the world of work, and will provide at least one year of apprenticeship 
beyond high school. After all, most of the people we're counting on to 
build our economic future do not graduate from college. It's time to 
stop ignoring them and start empowering them.
  We must transform America's outdated unemployment system into a 
reemployment system. The old system just kept you going while you 
waited for your old job to come back; but we have to have a new system 
to move people into new and better jobs, because most people don't get 
their old jobs back.
  The only way to get a real job with a growing income is to have real 
skills and the ability to learn new ones. We simply must streamline 
today's patchwork of training programs and make them a source of new 
skills for people who lose their jobs. Reemployment, not unemployment, 
will be the centerpiece of our program for economic renewal, and I urge 
you to pass it this year.
  Just as we must transform our unemployment system, we must also 
revolutionize our welfare system. It doesn't work. It defies our values 
as a nation.
  If we value work, we cannot justify a system that makes welfare more 
attractive than work.
  If we value personal responsibility, we cannot ignore the $34 billion 
in child support that absent parents ought to be paying to millions of 
mothers and children.
  If we value strong families, we cannot perpetuate a system that 
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 with a parent or a grandparent?
  That's not just bad policy; it is wrong. And we must change it.
  I worked for years on this welfare problem, and I can tell you: the 
people who most want to change welfare are the very people on it. They 
want to get off welfare, and get back to work, and support their 
children.
  Last year, we began. We gave the states more power to innovate--
because we know that great ideas can come from outside Washington--and 
many states are using it.
  Then, we took a dramatic step. Instead of taxing people with modest 
incomes who are working their way out of poverty, we dramatically 
increased the Earned Income Tax Credit to lift them out of poverty, to 
reward work over welfare, to make it possible for people to be 
successful workers and successful parents.
  But there is much more to be done.
  This spring, I will send you comprehensive welfare reform legislation 
that builds on the Family Support Act 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.''
  To absent parents who aren't paying child support, we'll say: ``If 
you're not providing for your children, we'll garnish your wages, we'll 
suspend your license, we'll track you across state lines, and if 
necessary, we'll make some of you work off what you owe. People who 
bring children into this world can't just walk away.''
  And to all those who depend on welfare, we offer this 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 work--in 
the private sector if possible, in community service if necessary. We 
will make welfare what it ought to be: A second chance, not a way of 
life.
  We must tackle welfare reform in 1994, yes, as we tackle health care. 
A million people are on welfare today are there because it's the only 
way they can get health care coverage. Those who choose leave welfare 
for jobs without health benefits find themselves in the incredible 
position of paying taxes that help pay for health coverage for those 
who choose to stay on welfare. No wonder many people leave work and go 
back on welfare to get health care coverage. We must solve the health 
care problem to solve the welfare problem.
  This year, we will make history by reforming our health care system. 
This is another issue where the people are way ahead of the 
politicians.
  The First Lady has received almost a million letters from people all 
across America and all walks of life. Let me share 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 exceeded $120,000. Although Judy recovered and 
Richard went back to work, at eight dollars an hour, the bills were too 
much for them. They were forced into bankruptcy by high medical costs.
  ``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 on the health care 
issue, and we owe them our thanks.
  There are others in Washington who say there is no health care 
crisis. Tell that to Richard and Judy Anderson. Tell it to the 58 
million Americans who have no coverage at all for some time each year 
that there is no health care crisis. Tell it to the 81 million 
Americans with ``pre-existing'' conditions who are paying more, can't 
get insurance, or can't change jobs. Tell it to the small businesses 
burdened by the skyrocketing cost of insurance. Tell it to the 76 
percent of insured Americans whose policies have lifetime limits--and 
who can find themselves without any coverage just when they need it 
most--tell them there is no health care crisis. You tell them--because 
I can't.
  The naysayers don't understand the impact of this problem on people's 
lives. They just don't get it. We must act now to show that we do.
  From the day we began, our health care initiative has been designed 
to strengthen all that is good about our health care system. The 
world's best health professionals. Cutting-edge research and research 
institutions. Medicare for older Americans. None of this should be put 
at risk.
  We're 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 on patients 
because of the bureaucratic nightmare the present system has become. 
The system is riddled with inefficiency, abuse and fraud.
  In today's health care system, insurance companies call all the 
shots. They pick and choose whom they cover. They can cut off your 
benefits when you need your coverage most. They are in charge.
  And so every night, millions of well-insured Americans go to bed just 
an illness, an accident, or a pink slip away from financial ruin. Every 
morning millions more go to work without health insurance for their 
families. And every year, hard-working people are told to pick a new 
doctor because their boss picked a new plan, and countless others turn 
down better jobs because they fear losing their insurance.
  If we let the health care system continue to drift, Americans will 
have less care, fewer choices, and higher bills. 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 system and guarantee private insurance for every 
American--something proposed by President Richard Nixon more than 
twenty years ago. That's what we want: guaranteed private insurance.
  Right now, nine out of ten people who have private insurance get it 
through employers--and that must continue. And if your employer is 
providing good benefits at reasonable prices--that must continue, too.
  Our goal is health insurance you can depend on: comprehensive 
benefits that cover preventive care and prescription drugs; health 
premiums that don't jump when you get sick or get older; the power, no 
matter how small your business is, to choose dependable insurance at 
the same rates government and big companies get; one simple form for 
people who are sick; and, most of all, the freedom to choose a health 
plan and the right to choose your own doctor.
  Our approach protects older Americans. Every plan before 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 toward 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 is 
not to put the squeeze on middle class retired people.
  When it's all said and done, insurance must 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, there must be more 
responsibility: parents must take their kids to be immunized; we all 
should take advantage of preventive care; and we all must work together 
to stop the violence that crowds its victims into our emergency rooms. 
People who don't have insurance will get coverage--but they'll have to 
pay something. The minority of business that provide no insurance and 
shift the costs to others, will have to contribute something. People 
who smoke will pay more for a pack of cigarettes. If we want to solve 
the health care crisis in this country, there can be no more something 
for nothing.
  In the coming months, I want to work with Democrats and Republicans 
to reform our health care system by using the market to bring down 
costs and to achieve lasting health security.
  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 powerful special 
interests defeated them. But not this time.
  Facing up to special interests will require courage. It will raise 
critical questions about the way we finance our campaigns and how 
lobbyists peddle their influence. The work of change will never get 
easier until we limit the influence of well financed interests who 
profit from the current system. So I call on you now to finish the job 
you began last year by passing tough, meaningful campaign finance 
reform and lobbying reform this year.
  This is a test for all of us. The American people provide those of us 
in government service with great benefits--health care that's always 
there. We need to give every hard-working, tax-paying American the same 
health care security they give us.
  Hear me clearly. If the legislation you send me does not guarantee 
every American private health insurance that can never be taken away, I 
will take this pen, veto that legislation, and we'll come right back 
here and start over again.
  But I believe we're ready to do it right now. If you're ready to 
guarantee to every American health care that can never be taken away, 
now is the time to stand with the people who sent you here.
  As we take these steps together to renew America's strength at home, 
we must also continue our work to renew America's leadership abroad.
  This is a promising moment. Because of the agreements we have 
reached, 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.
  There are still dangers in the world: Arms proliferation; bitter 
regional conflicts; ethnic and nationalist tensions in many new 
democracies; severe environmental degradation; and fanatics who seek to 
cripple the world's cities with terror.
  As the world's greatest power, we must 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, Belarus and Kazakhstan to eliminate 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 
world-wide. And earlier today we joined with over 30 nations to begin 
negotiations on a comprehensive ban to stop all nuclear testing.
  But 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 
trained, the best equipped and the best prepared fighting force on the 
face of this earth.
  Last year I proposed a defense plan that maintains our post Cold War 
security at lower cost. This year, many people urged me to cut our 
defense spending again to pay for other government programs. I said no. 
The budget I send to this Congress draws the line against further 
defense cuts and fully protects the readiness and quality of our 
forces.
  Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and build a 
durable peace is to support the advance of democracy. Democracies do 
not attack each other; they make better partners in trade and 
diplomacy.
  That is why we have supported the democratic reformers in Russia and 
in the other states of the former Soviet bloc. I applaud the bi-
partisan 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 and vigilance. We will 
urge Russia and the other states to continue with their 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, as these new 
nations chart their own futures, we must not forget how much more 
secure and more prosperous our nation will be if democratic and market 
reforms succeed across the former communist bloc.
  That is why I went to Europe earlier this month: to work with our 
European partners to help integrate the former communist countries into 
a Europe unified for the first time in history, based on shared 
commitments to democracy, free market economies and respect for 
existing borders. With our allies, we created 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, who 
put their lives on the line for freedom--I told them that the security 
of their region is important to America's security.
  This year we will provide support for democratic renewal, human 
rights and sustainable development around the world. We will ask 
Congress to ratify the new GATT accord. We will continue standing by 
South Africa as it makes its bold and hopeful transition. 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 democracy in Haiti. And as we build a more 
constructive relationship with China, we will insist on clear signs of 
improvement in that nation's human rights record.
  We will also work for new progress toward peace in the Middle East. 
Last year, the world watched Yitzakh Rabin and Yassir Arafat at the 
White House in their historic handshake of reconciliation. On the long, 
hard road ahead, I am determined to do all I can to help achieve a 
comprehensive and lasting peace for all the peoples of the region.
  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 to keep our nation secure by remaining engaged in the world. And 
this year, because of our work together--enacting NAFTA; keeping our 
military strong and prepared; supporting democracy abroad--we 
reaffirmed America's leadership and increased the security of the 
American people.
  While Americans are more secure from threats abroad, we are less 
secure from threats here at home.5
  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 hail 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--to be 
tough and smart.
  First, we must recognize that most violent crimes are committed by a 
small percentage of criminals, who too often break the laws even on 
parole. Those who commit crimes must be punished, and those who commit 
repeated violent crimes must be told: Commit a third violent crime and 
you'll be put away, and put away for good. Three strikes and you're 
out.
  Second, we must take steps to reduce violence and prevent crimes, 
beginning with more police officers and more community policing. We 
know that police who work the streets, know the folks, have the respect 
of the kids, and focus on high crime areas, are more likely to prevent 
crime as well as catch criminals.
  Here tonight is one of those policemen: a brave, young detective, 
Kevin Jett, whose beat is eight square blocks in one of the toughest 
blocks in New York City. Every day he restores some sanity and safety 
and a sense of values to the people whose lives he protects.
  That's why we must hire 100,000 new community police officers, well 
trained and patrolling beats all over America; a police corps; and move 
retiring military personnel into police forces across America. We must 
also invest in safe schools, so that our children can learn to count 
and read and write without also learning how to duck bullets.
  Third, we must build on the Brady bill, and take further steps to 
keep guns out of the hands of criminals. When it comes to guns, let me 
be clear: Hunters must always be free to hunt, and law abiding adults 
should be free to own guns and protect their homes. I respect that part 
of American culture. I grew up in it.
  But I want to ask sportsmen and others who lawfully own guns to join 
us in a common campaign to reduce gun violence. You didn't create this 
problem, but we need your help to solve it. There is no sporting 
purpose on earth that should stop us from banishing the assault weapons 
that outgun our police and cut down our children. So, I urge you to 
pass an assault weapons ban.
  Fourth, we must remember that drugs are a factor in an enormous 
percentage of crimes. Recent studies indicate that drug use is on the 
rise again among young people. The crime bill contains more money for 
drug treatment for criminal addicts and boot camps for youthful 
offenders.
  The Administration budget contains a large increase in funding for 
drug treatment and drug education. I hope you will pass them both.
  The problem of violence is an American problem. It has no partisan or 
philosophical element. Therefore, I urge you to set aside your partisan 
differences and pass a strong, smart, tough crime bill now.
  But, further, I urge you: As we demand tougher penalties for those 
who choose violence, let us also remember how we came to this sad 
point. In America's toughest neighborhoods, meanest streets, and 
poorest rural areas, we have seen a stunning breakdown of community, 
family and work--the heart and soul of civilized society. This has 
created a vast vacuum into which violence, drugs and gangs have moved. 
So, 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 rebuild distressed 
communities, strengthen families, and 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; insuring that banks make loans in the same communities their 
deposits come from; and passing legislation to unleash the power of 
capital through Community Development Banks to create jobs, opportunity 
and hope where they are needed most.
  Let's be honest. Our problems go way beyond the reach of any 
government program. They are rooted in the loss of values, the 
disappearance of work, and the breakdown of our families and our 
communities. My fellow Americans, we can cut the deficit, create jobs, 
promote democracy around the globe, pass welfare reform, and health 
care reform, and the toughest crime bill in history, and still leave 
too many of our people behind. The American people must want to change 
within, if we are to bring back work, 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 is no marriage.
  We cannot renew our country when thirteen year old boys get semi-
automatic weapons and gun down nine year old boys--just for the kick of 
it.
  We cannot renew our country when children are having children and the 
fathers of those children are walking away from them as if they don't 
amount to anything.
  We cannot renew our country when our businesses eagerly look for new 
investments and new customers abroad, but ignore those who would give 
anything to have their jobs and would gladly buy their products if they 
had the money to do it right here at home.
  We cannot renew our country unless more of us are willing to join the 
churches and other good citizens who are saving kids, adopting schools, 
making streets safer.
  We cannot renew our country until we all realize that governments 
don't raise children, parents do--parents who know their children's 
teachers, turn off the TV, help with the homework, and teach right from 
wrong--can make all the difference.
  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 sturdy threads into a new American community that 
can once more stand strong against the forces of despair and evil, and 
lead us to a better tomorrow.
  The naysayers fear we will not be equal to the challenges of our 
time, but they misread our history, our heritage, and even today's 
headlines. They all tell us we can and we will overcome any challenge.
  When the earth shook and fires raged in California, when the 
Mississippi deluged the farmlands of the Midwest, when a 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 strangers, showing 
the better angels of our nature.
  Let us not reserve those better angels only for natural disasters, 
leaving our deepest problems to petty political fights. Let us instead 
be true to our spirit--facing facts, coming together, bringing hope, 
moving forward.
  Tonight, we are summoned to answer a question as old as the Republic 
itself. My fellow Americans, what is the State of the Union? It is 
growing stronger. But it must be stronger still. With your help and 
with God's, it will be.
  Thank you. And may God bless America.
                                                  William J. Clinton.  
  The White House, January 25, 1994.

                          ____________________