[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S309-S313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 REPORT OF THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS--MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT--
                                 PM 111

  The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message 
from the President of the United States, together with an accompanying 
report; which was ordered to lie on the table:
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of the 104th Congress, 
distinguished guests, my fellow Americans all across our land.
  I want to begin by saying to our men and women in uniform around the 
world, and especially those helping peace take root in Bosnia, and to 
their families. Thank you. America is very proud of you.
  My duty tonight is to report on the State of the Union, not the state 
of our government but of our American community, and to set forth our 
responsibilities--in the words of our Founders--to ``form a more 
perfect union.''
  The State of the Union is strong.
  Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades. We have 
the lowest combined rate of unemployment and inflation in 27 years.
  We have created nearly 8 million new jobs, over a million of them in 
basic industries like construction and automobiles. America is selling 
more cars than Japan for the first time since the 1970's, and for 3 
years in a row, we have 

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had a record number of new businesses started.
  Our leadership in the world is also strong, bringing new hope for 
peace. And perhaps most important, we are gaining ground in restoring 
our fundamental values. The crime rate, the welfare and food stamp 
rolls, the poverty rate, and the teen pregnancy rate are all down. And 
as they go down, prospects for America's future go up.
  We live in an Age of Possibility. A hundred years ago we moved from 
farm to factory. Now we move to an age of technology, information, and 
global competition.
  These changes have opened vast new opportunities, but they also 
present stiff challenges. While more Americans are living better lives, 
too many of our fellow citizens are working harder just to keep up. And 
they are concerned about the security of their families.
  We must answer three fundamental questions: How do we make the 
American dream of opportunity a reality for all who are willing to work 
for it? How do we preserve our old and enduring values as we move into 
the future? And how do we meet these challenges together, as one 
America?
  We know Big Government does not have all the answers. There is not a 
program for every problem. We know we need a smaller, less bureaucratic 
government in Washington--one that lives within its means.
  The era of Big Government is over. But we cannot go back to the time 
when our citizens were left to fend for themselves. Instead, we must go 
forward as one America--one nation working together, to meet the 
challenges we face together. Self-reliance and teamwork are not 
opposing virtues--we must have both.
  I believe our new, smaller government must work in an old-fashioned 
American way--together with all our citizens, through state and local 
governments, in the workplace, in religious, charitable, and civic 
associations.
  Our goal must be: to enable all our people to make the most of their 
own lives with stronger families, more educational opportunity, 
economic security, safer streets, a cleaner environment, a safer world.
  To improve the state of our Union, we must ask more of ourselves; we 
must expect more of each other; and we must face our challenges 
together.
  Our responsibility here begins with balancing the budget in a way 
that is fair to all Americans. There is now broad bipartisan agreement 
that permanent deficit spending must come to an end.
  I compliment the Republicans for the energy and determination they 
have brought to this task. And I thank the Democrats for passing the 
largest deficit reduction plan in history in 1993, which has already 
cut the deficit nearly in half in just 3 years.
  Since then, we have all begun to see the benefits of deficit 
reduction: lower interest rates have made it easier for business to 
create new jobs, and have brought down the cost of home mortgages, car 
payments, and credit card rates to ordinary citizens. Now it is time to 
finish the job. Though differences remain among us, the combined total 
of the proposed savings common to both plans is more than enough, using 
numbers from your Congressional Budget Office, to balance the budget in 
7 years and to provide a modest tax cut. These cuts are real; they will 
require sacrifice from everyone.
  But these cuts do not undermine our fundamental obligations to our 
parents, our children, and our future by endangering Medicare, 
Medicaid, education or the environment, or by raising taxes on the 
hardest pressed working families.
  I am willing to work to resolve our remaining differences. I am ready 
to meet tomorrow. But I ask you at least to enact these savings so we 
can give the American people their balanced budget, a tax cut, lower 
interest rates, and a brighter future.
  We must make permanent deficits yesterday's legacy.
  Now it is time to look to the challenges of today and tomorrow. Our 
Nation was built on challenges, not promises. When we work together to 
meet them, we never fail. That is the key to a more perfect union: our 
individual dreams must be realized by our common efforts.
  Tonight, I want to speak about the challenges we face as a people.
  Our first challenge is to cherish our children and strengthen 
American families.
  Families are the foundation of American life. If we have stronger 
families, we will have a stronger nation.
  Strong families begin with taking more responsibility for our 
children. It is hard to be a parent today; but it is even harder to be 
a child. All of us--our parents, our media, our schools, our teachers, 
our communities, our churches, our businesses, and government--have a 
responsibility to help children make it.
  To the media: I say you should create movies, CD's and television 
shows you would want your own children and grandchildren to enjoy. I 
call on Congress to pass the requirement for a ``V'' chip in TV sets, 
so parents can screen out programs which they believe are inappropriate 
for their younger children. When parents control what their children 
see, that's not censorship. That's enabling parents to assume more 
responsibility for their children. And I urge them to do it. The ``V'' 
chip requirement is part of the telecommunications bill now pending. It 
has bipartisan support, and I urge you to pass it now.
  To make the ``V'' chip work, I challenge the broadcast industry do 
what movies have done, to identify your programming in ways that help 
parents protect their children.
  I invite the leaders of major media corporations and the 
entertainment industry to come to the White House next month to work 
with us on concrete ways to improve what our children see on 
television. I am ready to work with you.
  I say to those who make and market cigarettes. Every year, a million 
children take up smoking; 300,000 of them will have their lives 
shortened as a result. My administration has taken steps to stop the 
massive marketing campaign that appeals to our children. We are saying: 
Market your products to adults, if you wish--but draw the line on 
children.
  I say to those on welfare: For too long, our welfare system has 
undermined the values of family and work, instead of supporting them. 
Congress and I are near agreement on sweeping welfare reform.
  We agree on time limits, tough work requirements, and the toughest 
possible child support enforcement. But we must also provide child care 
so that mothers can go to work without worrying about their children. 
So I challenge Congress: Send me a bipartisan welfare reform bill that 
will really move people from welfare to work and do right by our 
children, and I will sign it.
  But passing a law is only the first step. The next step is to make it 
work. I challenge people on welfare to make the most of this 
opportunity for independence. And I challenge American business to give 
them a chance to move from welfare to work. I applaud the work of 
religious groups that care for the poor.
  More than anyone else, they know the difficulty of this task, and 
they are in a position to help. Every one of us should join with them.
  To strengthen the family, we must do everything we can to keep the 
teen pregnancy rate going down. It is still too high: Tonight I am 
pleased to announce that a group of prominent Americans is responding 
to that challenge by forming an organization that will support grass 
roots community efforts in a national campaign against teen pregnancy. 
And I challenge every American to join them.
  I call on American men and women to respect one another. We must end 
the deadly scourge of domestic violence. I challenge America's families 
to stay together.
  In particular, I challenge fathers to love and care for their 
children. If your family has separated, you must pay your child 
support. We are doing more than ever to make sure you do, and we are 
going to do move. But let's all admit: A check will never be a 
substitute for a father's love and guidance, and only you can make the 
decision to help raise your children--no matter who you are, it is your 
most basic human duty.
  Our second challenge is to provide Americans with the educational 
opportunities we need for a new century.

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  Every classroom in America must be connected to the information 
superhighway, with computers, good software, and well-trained teachers. 
We are working with the telecommunications industry, educators and 
parents to connect 20 percent of the classrooms in California by this 
spring, and every classroom and library in America by the year 2000. I 
ask Congress to support our education technology initiative to make 
this national partnership successful.
  Every diploma ought to mean something. I challenge every community, 
school, and State to adopt national standards of excellence, measure 
whether schools are meeting those standards, cut redtape so that 
schools have more flexibility for grassroots reform, and hold them 
accountable for results. That's what our Goals 2000 initiative is all 
about.
  I challenge every State to give all parents the right to choose which 
public school their children attend, and let teachers form new schools 
with a charter they can keep only if they do a good job.
  I challenge all schools to teach character education: good values, 
and good citizenship. And if it means teenagers will stop killing each 
other over designer jackets, then public schools should be able to 
require school uniforms.
  I challenge parents to be their children's first teachers. Turn off 
the TV. See that the homework gets done. Visit your children's 
classroom.
  Today, higher education is more important than ever before. We have 
created a new student loan program that has made it easier to borrow 
and repay loans; and dramatically cut the student loan default rate. 
Through AmeriCorps, our national service program, this year 25,000 
students will earn college money by serving in their local communities. 
These initiatives are right for America; we should keep them going.
  And we should open the doors to college even wider. I challenge 
Congress to expand work study and help one million young Americans work 
their way through college by the year 2000; to provide a $1,000 merit 
scholarship for the top 5 percent of graduates in every high school; to 
expand Pell grant scholarships for deserving students; and to make up 
to $10,000 a year of college tuition tax deductible.
  Our third challenge is to help every American achieve economic 
security.
  People who work hard still need support to get ahead in the new 
economy--education and training for a lifetime, more support for 
families raising children, retirement security, and access to health 
care.
  More and more Americans are finding that the education of their 
childhood simply does not last a lifetime.
  I challenge Congress to consolidate 70 overlapping job training 
programs into a simple voucher worth $2,600 for unemployed or 
underemployed workers to use for community college tuition or other 
training. Pass this GI bill for America's workers.
  More and more Americans are working hard without a raise. Congress 
sets the minimum wage. Within a year, the minimum wage will fall to a 
40-year low in purchasing power. Four dollars and twenty-five cents an 
hour is not a living wage. But millions of Americans and their children 
are trying to live on it. I challenge you to raise their minimum wage.
  In 1993, Congress cut the taxes of 15 million hard-pressed working 
families, to make sure no parents who worked full time would have to 
raise their children in poverty. This expanded earned income tax credit 
is now worth about $1,800 a year to a family of four living on $20,000. 
The budget bill I vetoed would have reversed this achievement, and 
raised taxes on nearly 8 million of these people. We must not do that.
  We need a tax credit for working families with children. That's one 
thing most of us in this Chamber can agree on. And it should be part of 
any final budget agreement.
  I challenge every business that can possibly afford it to provide 
pensions for your employees, and I challenge Congress to pass a 
proposal recommended by the White House Conference on Small Business, 
that would make it easier for small businesses and farmers to establish 
their own pension plans.
  We should also protect existing pension plans. Two years ago, with 
bipartisan support, we protected the pensions of 8 million working 
people and stabilized the pensions of 32 million more. Congress should 
not now let companies endanger their worker's pension funds. I vetoed 
such a proposal last year, and I would veto it again.
  Finally, if working families are going to succeed in the new economy, 
they must be able to buy health insurance policies that they don't lose 
when they change jobs or when someone in their family gets sick. Over 
the past 2 years, over one million Americans in working families lost 
their health insurance. We must do more to make health care available 
to every American. And Congress should start by passing the bipartisan 
bill before you that requires insurance companies to stop dropping 
people when they switch jobs, and stop denying coverage for pre-
existing conditions.
  And we must preserve the basic protections Medicare and Medicaid 
give, not just to the poor, but to people in working families, 
including children, people with disabilities, people with AIDS, and 
senior citizens in nursing homes. In the past 3 years we have saved $15 
billion just by fighting health care fraud and abuse. We can save much 
more. But we cannot abandon our fundamental obligations to the people 
who need Medicare and Medicaid. America cannot become stronger if they 
become weaker.
  The GI bill for workers, tax relief for education and child-rearing, 
pension availability and protection, access to health care, 
preservation of Medicare and Medicaid, these things--along with the 
Family and Medical Leave Act passed in 1993--will help responsible 
hard-working American families to make the most of their own lives.
  But, employers and employees must do their part as well, as they are 
in so many of our finest companies, working together, puttting long-
term prosperity ahead of short-term gains.
  As workers increase their hours and their productivity, employers 
should make sure they get the skills they need and share the benefits 
of the good years as well as the burdens of the bad ones. When 
companies and workers work as a team, they do better. And so does 
America.
  Our fourth great challenge is to take back our streets from crime, 
gangs, and drugs.
  At last, we have begun to find the way to reduce crime--forming 
community partnerships with local police forces to catch criminals and 
to prevent crime. This strategy, called community policing, has begun 
to work. Violent crime is coming down all across America.
  In New York City, murders are down 25 percent, in St. Louis 18 
percent, in Seattle 32 percent. But we still have a long way to go 
before our streets are safe and our people are free of fear.
  The Crime Bill of 1994 is critical to the success of community 
policing. It provides funds for 100,000 new police in communities of 
all sizes. We are already a third of the way there. I challenge the 
Congress to finish the job. Let's stick with a strategy that's working, 
and keep the crime rate coming down.
  Community policing also requires bonds of trust between our citizens 
and our police. So I ask all Americans to respect and support our 
police. And to our police, I say: Our children need you as role models 
and heroes. Don't let them down.
  The Brady bill has already stopped 44,000 people with criminal 
records from buying guns. The assault weapons ban is keeping 19 kinds 
of assault weapons out of the hands of violent gangs. I challenge 
Congress to keep those laws on the books.
  Our next step in the fight against crime is to take on gangs the way 
we took on the mob. I am directing the FBI and other investigative 
agencies to target gangs that involve juveniles in violent crime and to 
seek authority to prosecute as adults teenagers who maim and kill like 
adults.
  And I challenge local housing authorities and tenant associations: 
Criminal gang members and drug dealers are destroying the lives of 
decent tenants. From now on, the rule for residents who commit crimes 
and peddle drugs should be: One strike and you're out.
  I challenge every State to match Federal policy: to assure that 
serious violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of their sentence.

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  More police and punishment are important, but not enough. We must 
keep more of our young people out of trouble, with prevention 
strategies not dictated by Washington, but developed in communities. I 
challenge all communities and adults to give these children futures to 
say yes to. And I challenge Congress not to abandon the crime bill's 
support of these grassroots efforts.
  Finally, to reduce crime and violence, we must reduce the drug 
problem. The challenge begins at home, with parents talking to their 
children openly and firmly. It embraces our churches, youth groups, and 
our schools.
  I challenge Congress not to cut our support for drug-free schools. 
People like DARE officers are making an impression on grade school 
children that will give them the strength to say no when the time 
comes.
  Meanwhile, we continue our efforts to cut the flow of drugs into 
America. For the last 2 years, one man in particular has been on the 
front lines of that effort. And tonight I am nominating a hero of the 
Persian Gulf and the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Military's Southern 
Command, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, as America's new drug czar.
  General McCaffrey has earned three purple hearts and two silver stars 
fighting for America. Tonight I ask that he lead our Nation's battle 
against drugs at home and abroad.
  To succeed, he needs a force larger than he has ever commanded. He 
needs all of us. Every one of us will have a role to play on this team. 
Thank you, General McCaffrey, for agreeing to serve your country one 
more time.
  Our fifth challenge is to leave our environment safe and clean for 
the next generation.
  Because of a generation of bipartisan effort, we have cleaner air and 
water. Lead levels in children's blood has been cut by 70 percent, and 
toxic emissions from factories cut in half. Lake Erie was dead. Now it 
is a thriving resource.
  But 10 million children under 12 still live within 4 miles of a toxic 
waste dump. A third of us breathe air which endangers our health. And 
in too many communities, water is not safe to drink. We still have much 
to do.
  Yet Congress has voted to cut environmental enforcement by 25 
percent. That means more toxic chemicals in our water, more smog in our 
air, more pesticides in our food.
  Lobbyists for the polluters have been allowed to write their own 
loopholes into bills to weaken laws that protect the health and safety 
of our children. And some in this Congress want to make taxpayers pick 
up the tab for toxic waste and let polluters off the hook.
  I challenge Congress to reverse those priorities. I say the polluters 
should pay. We can expand the economy without hurting the environment. 
In fact we can create more jobs over the long run by cleaning it up.
  We must challenge businesses and communities to take more initiative 
in protecting the environment and make it easier for them to do so. To 
businesses, we are saying: If you can find a cheaper, more efficient 
way than government regulations require to meet tough pollution 
standards, then do it--as long as you do it right.
  To communities, we say: we must strengthen community right-to-know 
laws requiring polluters to disclose their emissions, but you must use 
the information to work with business to cut pollution. People do have 
a right to know that their air and water are safe.
  Our sixth challenge is to maintain America's leadership in the fight 
for freedom and peace.
  Because of American leadership, more people than ever before live 
free and at peace, and Americans have known 50 years of prosperity and 
security. We owe thanks especially to our veterans of World War II. To 
Senator Bob Dole, and all the others in this Chamber and throughout our 
country who fought in World War II and all the conflicts since, I 
salute your service.
  All over the world, people still look to us. And trust us to help 
them seek the blessings of peace and freedom.
  But as the cold war fades, voices of isolation say America should 
retreat from its responsibilities. I say they are wrong. The threats we 
Americans face respect no nation's borders: terrorism, the spread of 
weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, drug trafficking, ethnic 
and religious hatred, aggression by rogue states, environmental 
degradation. If we fail to address these threats today, we will suffer 
the consequences of our neglect tomorrow.
  We can't be everywhere. We can't do everything. But where our 
interests and our values are at stake--and where we can make a 
difference--America must lead.
  We must not be isolationist or the world's policeman. But we can be 
the world's best peacemaker. By keeping our military strong, by using 
diplomacy where we can, and force where we must, by working with others 
to share the risk and the cost of our efforts, America is making a 
difference for people here and around the world.
  For the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age, there are no 
Russian missiles pointed at America's children. North Korea has now 
frozen its dangerous nuclear weapons program. In Haiti, the dictators 
are gone, democracy has a new day, and the flow of desperate refugees 
to our shores has subsided.
  Through tougher trade deals for America, over 80 of them, we have 
opened markets abroad, and now exports are at an all-time high, growing 
faster than imports and creating American jobs.
  We stood with those taking risks for peace, in Northern Ireland, 
where Catholic and Protestant children now tell their parents that 
violence must never return, and in the Middle East, where Arabs and 
Jews, who once seemed destined to fight forever, now share knowledge, 
resources, and dreams.
  And, we stood up for peace in Bosnia. Remember the skeletal 
prisoners, the mass graves, the campaigns of rape and torture, endless 
lines of refugees, the threat of a spreading war--all these horrors 
have now given way to the hope of peace. Now our troops and a strong 
NATO, together with its new partners from Central Europe and elsewhere, 
are helping that peace to take hold.
  Through these efforts, we have enhanced the security of the American 
people. But important challenges remain. The START II treaty with 
Russia will cut our nuclear stockpiles by another 25 percent; I urge 
the Senate to ratify it--now.
  We must end the race to create new nuclear weapons by signing a truly 
comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty--this year. We can outlaw poison 
gas forever, if the Senate ratifies the Chemical Weapons Convention--
this year. We can intensify the fight against terrorists and organized 
criminals at home and abroad, if Congress passes the anti-terrorism 
legislation I proposed after the Oklahoma City bombing--now.
  We can help more people move from hatred to hope, if Congress gives 
us the means to remain the world's leader for peace.
  The six challenges I have discussed thus far are for all Americans. 
But our seventh challenge is America's challenge to us here tonight: to 
reinvent our Government and make our democracy work for them.
  Last year, this Congress applied to itself the laws that it applies 
to everyone else, banned gifts and meals from lobbyists. It forced 
lobbyists to disclose who pays them and what legislation they are 
trying to pass or kill. I applaud you for that.
  Now I challenge Congress to go further: curb special interest 
influence in politics by passing the first truly bipartisan campaign 
finance reform bill in a generation.
  Show the American people we can limit spending and that we can open 
the airwaves to all candidates.
  And I appeal to Congress to pass the line-item veto you promised the 
American people.
  We are working hard to create a government that works better and 
costs less. Thanks to the work of Vice-President Gore, we are 
eliminating 16,000 pages of unnecessary rules and regulations and 
shifting more decision making out of Washington back to States and 
local communities.
  As we move into an era of balanced budgets and smaller government, we 
must work in new ways to enable people to make the most of their own 
lives.
  We are helping America's communities, not with bureaucracy, but with 
opportunity. Through our successful 

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empowerment zones and community development banks, we are helping 
people find jobs and start businesses. And with tax incentives for 
companies that clean up abandoned industrial property, bringing jobs 
back to the places that desperately need them.
  But there are some areas that the Federal Government must address 
directly and strongly. One of these is the problem of illegal 
immigration. After years and years of neglect, this administration has 
taken a strong stand to stiffen protection on our borders.
  We are increasing border controls by 50 percent, we are increasing 
inspections to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants. And tonight, I 
announce I will sign an executive order to deny Federal contracts to 
businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
  Let me be clear: we are still a nation of immigrants; we honor all 
those immigrants who are working hard to become new citizens. But we 
are also a nation of laws.
  I want to say a special word to those who work for our Federal 
Government. Today, the Federal workforce is 200,000 employees smaller 
than the day I took office. The Federal Government is the smallest it 
has been in 30 years, and it is getting smaller every day. Most of my 
fellow Americans probably didn't know that, and there's a good reason. 
The remaining Federal workforce is composed of Americans who are 
working harder and working smarter to make sure that the quality of our 
services does not decline.
  Take Richard Dean. He is a 49-year-old Vietnam veteran who has worked 
for Social Security for 22 years. Last year he was hard at work in the 
Federal building in Oklahoma City when the terrorist blast killed 169 
people and brought the rubble down around him.
  He re-entered the building four times and saved lives of three women. 
He is here with us this evening. I want to recognize Richard and 
applaud both his public service and his extraordinary heroism.
  But Richard's story doesn't end there. This last November, he was 
forced out of his office when the Government shut down.
  And the second time the Government shut down, he continued helping 
Social Security recipients, but he was working without pay.
  On behalf of Richard Dean and his family, I challenge all of you in 
this Chamber: never--ever--shut the Federal Government down again.

  And on behalf of all Americans, especially those who need their 
Social Security payments at the beginning of March, I challenge 
Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States, to 
honor the obligations of this great nation as we have for 220 years, to 
rise above partisanship and pass a straightforward extension of the 
debt limit. Show them that America keeps its word.
  I have asked a lot of America this evening. But I am confident. When 
Americans work together in their homes, their schools, their churches, 
their civic groups or at work, they can meet any challenge.
  I say again: The era of Big Government is over. But we can't go back 
to the era of fending for yourself. We must go forward, to the era of 
working together, as a community, as a team, as one America, with all 
of us reaching across the lines that divide us, rejecting division, 
discrimination and rancor, to find common ground. We must work 
together.
  I want you to meet two people tonight who do that. Lucius Wright is a 
teacher in the Jackson, MS public school system, a Vietnam veteran. He 
has created groups that help inner city children turn away from gangs 
and build futures they can believe in.
  Sgt. Jennifer Rodgers is a police officer in Oklahoma City. Like 
Richard Dean, she helped pull her fellow citizens out of the rubble and 
deal with that awful tragedy. She reminds us that, in their response to 
that atrocity, the people of Oklahoma City lifted us all with their 
basic sense of decency and community.
  Lucius Wright and Jennifer Rogers are special Americans. I have the 
honor to announce tonight that they are the very first of several 
thousand Americans who will be chosen to carry the Olympic torch on its 
long journey from Los Angeles to the centennial of the modern Olympics 
in Atlanta this summer--not because they are star athletes, but because 
they are star citizens--community heroes meeting America's challenges--
our real champions.
  Now each of us must hold high the torch of citizenship in our own 
lives. But none of us can finish the race alone. We can only achieve 
our destiny together, one hand, one generation, one American connecting 
to another.
  There have always been things we could do together--dreams we could 
make real--which we could never have done on our own. We Americans have 
forged our identity, our very union, from every point of view and every 
point on the planet. But we are bound by a faith more powerful than any 
doctrines that divide us--by our belief in progress, our love of 
liberty, and our relentless search for common ground. America has 
always sought and always risen to the challenge.
  Who would say that, having come so far together, we will not go 
forward from here? Who would say that this Age of Possibility is not 
for all Americans?
  America is--and always has been--a great and good country. But the 
best is yet to come. If we all do our part.
  Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

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