[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 18 (Tuesday, February 2, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H295-H298]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




BUDGET OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, FISCAL YEAR 2000--MESSAGE FROM 
         THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (H. DOC. NO. 106-3)

  The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House the following message 
from the President of the United States; which was read and, together 
with the accompanying papers, without objection, referred to the 
Committee on Appropriations and ordered to be printed:

To the Congress of the United States:
  The 2000 Budget, which I am submitting to you with this message, 
promises the third balanced budget in my Administration. With this 
budget, our fiscal house is in order, our spirit strong, and our 
resources prepare us to meet the challenges of the next century.
  This budget marks a new era of opportunity. When I took office six 
years ago, I was determined to reverse decades of fiscal decline--a 
time when deficits grew without restraint, the economy suffered, and 
our national purpose seemed to be undermined. For too many years, the 
deficit loomed over us, a powerful reminder of the Government's 
inability to the people's business.
  Today, Americans deserve to be proud and confident in their ability 
to meet the next set of challenges. In the past six years, we have 
risen to our responsibilities and, as a result, have built an economy 
of unprecedented prosperity. We have done this the right way--by 
balancing fiscal discipline and investing in our Nation.
  This budget continues on the same path. It invests in education and 
training so Americans can make the most of this economy's 
opportunities. It invests in health and the environment to improve our 
quality of life. It invests in our security at home and abroad, 
strengthens law enforcement and provides our Armed Forces with the 
resources they need to safeguard our national interests in the next 
century.
  This year's budget surplus is one in many decades of surpluses to 
come--if we maintain our resolve and stay on the path that brought us 
this success in the first place. The budget forecasts that the economy 
will remain strong, producing surpluses until well into the next 
century.
  The 21st Century promises to be a time of promise for the American 
people. Our challenge as we move forward is to maintain our strategy of 
balancing fiscal discipline with the need to make wise decisions about 
our investment priorities. This strategy has resulted in unprecedented 
prosperity; it is now providing us with resources of a size and scope 
that just a few years ago simply didn't seem possible. Now that these 
resources are in our reach, it is both our challenge and responsibility 
to make sure we use them wisely.
  First and foremost, in the last year of this century, the task 
awaiting us is to save Social Security. The conditions are right. We 
have reserved the surplus, our economy is prosperous, and last year's 
national dialogue has advanced the goal of forging consensus. Acting 
now makes the work ahead easier, with changes that will be far simpler 
than if we wait until the problem is closer at hand.
  In my State of the Union address, I proposed a framework for saving 
Social Security that will use 62 percent of the surplus for the next 15 
years to strengthen the Trust Fund until the middle of the next 
century. Part of the surplus dedicated to Social Security would be 
invested in private securities, further strengthening the Trust Fund by 
drawing on the long-term strength of the stock market, and reducing the 
debt to ensure strong fiscal health. This proposal will keep Social 
Security safe and strong until 2055. In order to reach my goal of 
protecting and preserving the Trust Fund until 2075, I urge the 
Congress to join me on a bipartisan basis to make choices that, while 
difficult, can be achieved, and include doing more to reduce poverty 
among single elderly women.
  I am committed to upholding the pledge I made last year--that we must 
not drain the surplus until we save Social Security. It is time to fix 
Social Security now. And once we have done so, we should turn our 
efforts to other pressing national priorities. We must fulfill our 
obligation to save and improve Medicare--my framework would reserve 15 
percent of the projected surplus for Medicare, ensuring that the 
Medicare Trust Fund is secure for 20 years. It would establish 
Universal Savings Accounts, using just over one-tenth of the surplus to 
encourage all Americans to save and invest so they will have additional 
income in retirement. I propose that we reserve the final portion of 
the projected surplus, 11 percent, to provide resources for other 
pressing national needs that will arise in the future, including the 
need to maintain the military readiness of the Nation's Armed Forces, 
education, and other critical domestic priorities.


              Charting a Course for the New Era of Surplus

  Six years ago, when my Administration took office, we were determined 
to

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create the conditions for the Nation to enter the 21st Century from a 
position of strength. We were committed to turning the economy around, 
to reining in a budget that was out of control, and to restoring to the 
country confidence and purpose.
  Today, we have achieved these goals. The budget is in balance for the 
first time in a generation and surpluses are expected as far as the eye 
can see. The Nation's economy continues to grow; this is the longest 
peacetime expansion in our history. There are more than 17 million new 
jobs; unemployment is at its lowest peacetime level in 41 years; and 
today, more Americans own their own homes than at any time in our 
history.
  Americans today are safer, more prosperous, and have more 
opportunity. Crime is down, poverty is falling, and the number of 
people on welfare is the lowest it has been in 25 years. By almost 
every measure, our economy is vibrant and our Nation is strong.
  Throughout the past six years, my Administration has been committed 
to creating opportunity for all Americans, demanding responsibility 
from all Americans and to strengthening the American community. We have 
made enormous strides, with the success of our economy creating new 
opportunity and with our repair of the social fabric that had frayed so 
badly in recent decades reinvigorating our sense of community. Most of 
all, the prosperity and opportunity of our time offers us a great 
responsibility--to take action to ensure that Social Security is there 
for the elderly and the disabled, while ensuring that it not place a 
burden on our children.
  We have met the challenge of deficit reduction; there is now every 
reason for us to rise to the next challenge. For sixty years, Social 
Security has been a bedrock of security in retirement. It has saved 
many millions of Americans from an old age of poverty and dependency. 
It has offered help to those who become disabled or suffer the death of 
a family breadwinner. For these Americans--in fact, for all Americans--
Social Security is a reflection of our deepest values of community and 
the obligations we owe to each other.
  It is time this year to work together to strengthen Social Security 
so that we may uphold these obligations for years to come. We have the 
rare opportunity to act to meet these challenges--or in the words of 
the old saying, to fix the roof while the sun is shining. And at least 
as important, we can engage this crucial issue from a position of 
strength--with our economy prosperous and our resources available to do 
the job of fixing Social Security. I urge Americans to join together to 
make that happen this year.


                    Building on Economic Prosperity

  At the start of 1993, when my Administration took office, the 
Nation's economy had barely grown during the previous four years, 
creating few jobs. Interest rates were high due to the Government's 
massive borrowing to finance the deficit, which had reached a record 
$290 billion and was headed higher.
  Determined to set America on the right path, we launched an economic 
strategy built upon three elements: promoting fiscal responsibility; 
investing in policies that strengthen the American people, and engaging 
in the international economy. Only by pursuing all three elements could 
we restore the economy and build for the future.
  My 1993 budget plan, the centerpiece of our economic strategy, was a 
balanced plan that cut hundreds of billions of dollars of Federal 
spending while raising income taxes only on the very wealthiest of 
Americans. By cutting unnecessary and lower-priority spending, we found 
the resources to cut taxes for 15 million working families and to pay 
for strategic investments in areas including education and training, 
the environment, and other priorities meant to improve the standard of 
living and quality of life for the American people.

  Six years later, we have balanced the budget; and if we keep our 
resolve, the budget will be balanced for many years to come. We have 
invested in the education and skills of our people, giving them the 
tools they need to raise their children and get good jobs in an 
increasingly competitive economy. We have expanded trade, generating 
record exports that create high-wage jobs for millions of Americans.
  The economy has been on an upward trend, almost from the start of my 
Administration's new economic policies. Shortly after the release of my 
1993 budget plan, interest rates fell, and they fell even more as I 
worked successfully with Congress to put the plan into law. These lower 
interest rates helped to spur the steady economic growth and strong 
business investment that we have enjoyed for the last six years. Our 
policies have helped create over 17 million jobs, while interest rates 
have remained low and inflation has stayed under control.
  As we move ahead, I am determined to ensure that we continue to 
strike the right balance between fiscal discipline and strategic 
investments. We must not forget the discipline that brought us this new 
era of surplus--it is as important today as it was during our drive to 
end the days of deficits. Yet, we also must make sure that we balance 
our discipline with the need to provide resources for the strategic 
investments of the future.


            improving performance through better management

  Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing 
Government, with which we are truly creating a Government that ``works 
better and costs less,'' played a significant role in helping restore 
accountability to Government, and fiscal responsibility to its 
operations. In streamlining Government, we have done more than just 
reduce or eliminate hundreds of Federal programs and projects. We have 
cut the civilian Federal work force by 365,000, giving us the smallest 
work force in 36 years. In fact, as a share of our total civilian 
employment, we have the smallest work force since 1933.
  But we have set out to do more than just cut Government. We set out 
to make Government work, to create a Government that is more efficient 
and effective, and to create a Government focused on its customers, the 
American people.
  We have made real progress, but we still have much work to do. We 
have reinvented parts of departments and agencies, but we are forcing 
ahead with new efforts to improve the quality of the service that the 
Government offers its customers. My Administration has identified 24 
Priority Management Objectives, and we will tackle some of the 
Government's biggest management challenges--meeting the year 2000 
computer challenge; modernizing student aid delivery; and completing 
the restructuring of the Internal Revenue Service.
  I am determined that we will solve the very real management 
challenges before us.


                     preparing for the 21st century

  Education and Training: Education, in our competitive global economy, 
has become the dividing line between those who are able to move ahead 
and those who lag behind. For this reason, I have devoted a great deal 
of effort to ensure that we have a world-class system of education and 
training in place for Americans of all ages. Over the last six years, 
we have worked hard to ensure that every boy and girl is prepared to 
learn, that our schools focus on high standards and achievement, that 
anyone who wants to go to college can get the financial help to attend, 
and that those who need another chance at education and training or a 
chance to improve or learn new skills can do so.
  My budget significantly increases funds to help children, especially 
in the poorest communities, reach challenging academic standards; and 
makes efforts to strengthen accountability. It proposes investments to 
end social promotion, where too many public school students move from 
grade to grade without having mastered the basics, by expanding after 
school learning hours to give students the tools they need to earn 
advancement. The budget proposes improving school accountability by 
funding monetary awards to the highest performing schools that serve 
low-income students, providing resources to States to help them 
identify and change the least successful schools. It invests in 
programs to help raise the educational achievement of Hispanic 
students. The budget invests in reducing class size by recruiting and 
preparing thousands more teachers and building thousands more new 
classrooms. It increases Pell Grants and other college scholarships 
from the record levels already reached. My

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budget also helps the disabled enter the work force, by increasing 
flexibility to allow Medicaid and Medicare coverage and by providing 
tax credits to cover the extra costs associated with working.

  Families and Children: During the past six years, we have taken many 
steps to help working families, and we continue that effort with this 
budget. We cut taxes for 15 million working families, provided a tax 
credit to help families raise their children, ensured that 25 million 
Americans a year can change jobs without losing their health insurance, 
made it easier for the self-employed and those with pre-existing 
conditions to get health insurance, provided health care coverage for 
up to five million uninsured children, raised the minimum wage, and 
provided guaranteed time off for workers who need to care for a newborn 
or to address the health needs of a family member.
  I am determined to provide the help that families need when it comes 
to finding affordable child care. I am proposing a major effort to make 
child care more affordable, accessible, and safe by expanding tax 
credits for middle-income families and for businesses to increase their 
child care resources, by assisting parents who want to attend college 
meet their child care needs, and by increasing funds with which the 
Child Care and Development Block Grant will help more poor and near-
poor children. My budget proposes an Early Learning Fund, which would 
provide grants to communities for activities that improve early 
childhood education and the quality of child care for those under age 
five. And it proposes increasing equity for legal immigrants by 
restoring their Supplemental Security Income benefits and Food Stamps 
and by expanding health coverage to legal immigrant children.
  Economic Development: Most Americans are enjoying the fruits of our 
strong economy. But while many urban and rural areas are doing better, 
too many others have grown disconnected from our values of opportunity, 
responsibility and community. Working with the State and local 
governments and with the private sector, I am determined to help bring 
our distressed areas back to life and to replace despair with hope. I 
am proposing a New Markets Investment Strategy which will provide tax 
credit and loan guarantee incentives to stimulate billions in new 
private investment in distressed rural and urban areas. It will build a 
network of private investment institutions to funnel credit, equity, 
and technical assistance into businesses in America's untapped markets, 
and provide the expertise to targeted small businesses that will allow 
them to use investment to grow. I am also proposing to create more 
Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities, which provide tax 
incentives and direct spending to encourage the kind of private 
investment that creates jobs, and to provide more capital for lending 
through my Community Development Financial Institutions program. My 
budget also expands opportunities for home ownership, provides more 
funds to enforce the Nation's civil rights laws, maintains our 
government-to-government commitment to Native Americans, and 
strengthens the partnership we have begun with the District of 
Columbia.
  Health Care: This past year, we continued to improve health care for 
millions of Americans. Forty-seven States enrolled 2.5 million 
uninsured children in the new Children's Health Insurance Program. By 
executive order, I extended the patient protections that were included 
in the Patient's Bill of Rights, including emergency room access and 
the right to see a specialist, to 85 million Americans covered by 
Federal health plans, including Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and 
Federal employees. Medicare beneficiaries gained access of new 
prevention benefits, managed care choices, and low-income protections. 
My budget gives new insurance options to hundreds of thousands of 
Americans aged 55 to 65. I am advocating bipartisan national 
legislation to reduce tobacco use, especially among young people. And I 
am proposing a Long-Term Care initiative, including a $1,000 tax 
credit, to help patients, families, and care givers cope with the 
burdens of long-term care. The budget enables more Medicare recipients 
to receive promising cancer treatments by participating more easily in 
clinical trials. And it improves the fiscal soundness of Medicare and 
Medicaid through new management proposals, including programs to combat 
waste, fraud and abuse.

  International Affairs: America must maintain its role as the world's 
leader by providing resources to pursue our goals of prosperity, 
democracy, and security. The resources in my budget will help us 
promote peace in troubled areas, provide enhanced security for our 
officials working abroad, combat weapons of mass destruction, and 
promote trade.
  The United States continues to play a leadership role in a 
comprehensive peace in the Middle East. The Wye River Memorandum, 
signed in October 1998, helps establish a path to restore positive 
momentum to the peace process. My budget supports this goal with 
resources for an economic and military assistance package to help meet 
priority needs arising from the Wye Memorandum.
  Despite progress in making peace there are real and growing threats 
to our national security. The terrorist attack against two U.S. 
embassies in East Africa last year is a stark reminder. My budget 
proposes increased funding to ensure the continued protection of 
American embassies, consulates and other facilities, and the valuable 
employees who work there. Our security and stability throughout the 
world is also threatened by the proliferation of weapons of mass 
destruction and their means of delivery. The budget supports 
significant increases for State Department efforts to address this 
need.
  National Security: The Armed Forces of the United States serve as the 
backbone of our national security strategy. In this post-Cold War era, 
the military's responsibilities have changed, but not diminished--and 
in many ways have become ever more complex. The military must be in a 
position to guard against the major threats to U.S. security: regional 
dangers, such as cross-border aggression; the proliferation of the 
technology of weapons of mass destruction; transnational dangers, such 
as the spread of illegal drugs and terrorism; and direct attacks on the 
U.S. homeland from intercontinental ballistic missiles or other weapons 
of mass destruction.
  Last year, the military and civilian leaders of our Armed Forces 
expressed concern that if we do not act to shore up our Nation's 
defenses, we would see a future decline in our military readiness--the 
ability of our forces to engage where and when necessary to protect the 
national security interests of the United States. Our military 
readiness is currently razor-sharp, and I intend to take measures to 
keep it that way. Therefore, I am proposing a long-term, sustained 
increase in defense spending to enhance the military's ability to 
respond to crises, build for the future through weapons modernization 
programs, and take care of military personnel and their families by 
enhancing the quality of life, thereby increasing retention and 
recruitment.
  Science and Technology: During the last six years, I have sought to 
strengthen science and technology investments in order to serve many of 
our broader goals for the Nation in the economy, education, health 
care, the environment, and national defense. My budget strengthens 
basic research programs, which are the foundation of the Government's 
role in expanding scientific knowledge and spurring innovation. Through 
the 21st Century Research Fund, the budget provides strong support for 
the Nation's two largest funders of civilian basic research at 
universities: the National Science Foundation and the National 
Institutes of Health. My budget provides a substantial increase for the 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Space Science program, 
including a significant cooperative endeavor with Russia.
  My budget also provides resources to launch a bold, new Information 
Technology Initiative to invest in long-term research in computing and 
communications. It will accelerate development of extremely fast 
supercomputers to support civilian research, enabling scientists to 
develop life-savings drugs, provide earlier tornado warnings, and 
design more fuel-efficient, safer automobiles.

  The Environment: The Nation does not have to choose between a strong 
economy and a clean environment. The past

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six years are proof that we can have both. We have set tough new clean 
air standards for soot and smog that will prevent up to 15,000 
premature deaths a year. We have set new food and water safety 
standards and have accelerated the pace of cleanups of toxic Superfund 
sites. We expanded our efforts to protect tens of millions of acres of 
public and private lands, including Yellowstone National Park and 
Florida's Everglades. Led by the Vice President, the Administration 
reached an international agreement in Kyoto that calls for cuts in 
greenhouse gas emissions. In my budget this year, I am proposing an 
historic interagency Lands Legacy initiative to both preserve the 
Nation's Great Places, and advance preservation of open spaces in every 
community. This initiative will give State and local governments the 
tools for orderly growth while protecting and enhancing green spaces, 
clean water, wildlife habitat, and outdoor recreation. I also propose a 
Livability Initiative with a new financing mechanism, Better America 
Bonds, to create more open spaces in urban and suburban areas, protect 
water quality, and clean up abandoned industrial sites. My budget 
continues to increase our investments in energy-efficient technologies 
and renewable energy to strengthen our economy while reducing 
greenhouse gases. And I am proposing a new Clean Air Partnership Fund 
to support State and local efforts to reduce both air pollution and 
greenhouse gases.
  Law: Our anti-crime strategy is working. For more than six years, 
serious crime has fallen uninterrupted and the murder rate is down by 
more than 28 percent, its lowest point in three decades. But, because 
crime remains unacceptably high, we must go further. Building on our 
successful community policing (COPS) program, which in this, its final 
year, places 100,000 more police on the street, my budget launches the 
next step--the 21st Century Policing initiative. This initiative 
invests in additional police targeted especially to crime ``hot 
spots,'' in crime fighting technology, and in community based 
prosecutors and crime prevention. The budget also provides funds to 
prevent violence against women, and to address the growing law 
enforcement crisis on Indian lands. To boost our efforts to control 
illegal immigration, the budget provides the resources to strengthen 
border enforcement in the South and West, remove illegal aliens, and 
expand our efforts to verify whether newly hired non-citizens are 
eligible for jobs. To combat drug use, particularly among young people, 
my budget expands programs that stress treatment and prevention, law 
enforcement, international assistance, and interdiction.


                       entering the 21st century

  As we prepare to enter the next century, we must keep sight of the 
source of our great success. We enjoy an economy of unprecedented 
prosperity due, in large measure, to our commitment to fiscal 
discipline. In the past six years, we have worked together as a Nation, 
facing the responsibility to correct the mistaken deficit-driven 
policies of the past. Balancing the budget has allowed our economy to 
prosper and has freed our children from a future in which mounting 
deficits threatened to limit options and sap the country's resources.
  In the course of the next century, we will face new challenges for 
which we are now fully prepared. As the result of our fiscal policy, 
and the resources it has produced, we will enter this next century from 
a position of strength, confident that we have both the purpose and 
ability to meet the tasks ahead. If we keep our course, and maintain 
the important balance between fiscal discipline and investing wisely in 
priorities, our position of strength promises to last for many 
generations to come.
  The great and immediate challenge before us is to save Social 
Security. It is time to move forward now.
  We have already started the hard work of seeking to build consensus 
for Social Security's problems. Let us finish the job before the year 
ends. Let us enter the 21st Century knowing that the American people 
have met one more great challenge--that we have fulfilled the 
obligations we owe to each other as Americans.
  If we can do this--and surely we can--then we will be able to look 
ahead with confidence, knowing that our strength, our resources, and 
our national purpose will help make the year 2000 the first in what 
promises to be the next American Century.
                                                  William J. Clinton.  
  The White House, February 1, 1999.

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