[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 9 (Monday, February 7, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S375-S378]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




REPORT TO THE CONGRESS ON THE FISCAL YEAR 2001 BUDGET--MESSAGE FROM THE 
                            PRESIDENT--PM 84

  The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message 
from the President of the United States, together with an accompanying 
report; which was referred jointly, pursuant to the order of January 
30, 1975, to the Committees on Appropriations and the Budget.

To the Congress of the United States:
  The 2001 Budget, which I am submitting to you with this message, is 
the fourth balanced budget of my Administration. This budget upholds my 
policy of fiscal discipline and promises new opportunity for our 
Nation.
  We have made great progress in the last seven years, rejecting the 
fiscal disarray of an earlier era and in its place, asserting a 
steadfast commitment to live within our means, balance the budget, and 
uphold fiscal discipline. As a result, we have created the conditions 
for unprecedented prosperity. The longest peacetime economic expansion 
in American history has produced more than 20 million new jobs. 
Unemployment has hit its lowest level in a generation. Today, more 
Americans own their own homes than ever before in our Nation's history.
  Our success in reversing what once seemed to be uncontrollable growth 
in the Federal budget deficit has created more than prosperity. We have 
restored to America a spirit of purpose and confidence. This is a rare 
moment in history. Few nations are blessed with a combination of 
economic prosperity and social stability at home and with the security 
of a relatively peaceful world. It is time to make the most of this 
moment of promise to extend prosperity to all corners of our Nation.
  My first budget of the new century is built upon a commitment to 
expanding opportunity, promoting responsibility, and building 
community. It includes my New Markets Initiative, which relies on 
public and private sector cooperation to spur economic development in 
areas of our Nation that have not yet fully benefited from this wave of 
prosperity. It includes an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit to 
lift more hard-pressed working families out of poverty. It expands 
health insurance coverage to more uninsured low-income children and 
extends this coverage to their hard-working parents.
  Because education is fundamental to creating opportunity, my budget 
contains resources to prepare the next generation for the future with 
new and expanded efforts to improve the quality of our schools, prepare 
our students for college, and make college more accessible. It includes 
efforts to narrow the digital divide, the gap that separates those who 
have access to information technology and those who do not, so that all 
will be equipped with the technological tools they need to succeed. It 
also includes a science and technology initiative to lay the foundation 
for new scientific breakthroughs.
  This budget responds to the pressing needs of today and builds an 
America of the future by making our Nation debt free by 2013. To be 
prepared for the retirement of the baby boom generation, my budget also 
provides a framework to extend the life of the Social Security and 
Medicare trust funds, while modernizing Medicare with a needed 
prescription drug benefit.
  This budget uses the same straightforward approach of relying on 
conservative assumptions, as have all the budgets of my Administration. 
This conservative approach has built confidence in our budgets, because 
when unforeseen results have materialized, an inevitable development in 
forecasting, they have always brought good news. In turn, reversing 
recent trends, my 2001 Budget builds on the tradition of 
straightforward budgets to meet the pressing needs of today in a 
balanced plan that adheres to the principles of fiscal discipline and 
debt reduction. This budget also maintains a strict set of budget rules 
upholding our long commitment to fiscal discipline, which has sustained 
the conditions for our economy to flourish.
  The 2001 Budget continues to project that the Federal budget will 
remain in surplus for many decades to come, provided that a responsible 
fiscal policy holds course, to foster sustained economic growth. Our 
challenge now, in this era of surplus, is to make balanced choices to 
use our resources to meet the pressing needs of today, and the needs of 
generations to come.


            building on the success of our fiscal discipline

  When I took office in 1993, the current strength of our economy 
seemed beyond possibility. At that point, both the Federal budget 
deficit and the national debt had exploded, threatening our economic 
future. The costs of massive Federal borrowing drove interest rates up, 
incomes were stagnant for all but the most well off, and the economy 
had barely grown during the prior four years. The Nation needed a new 
course, and we worked hard to secure the passage of legislation, with 
the support of Democrats in Congress, to get the economy moving again.
  My three-part economic strategy, built upon reducing the deficit, 
investing in the American people, and engaging the international 
economy yielded results. The budget deficit quickly began to drop from 
its peak of $290 billion, and in 1997, we pressed ahead with our 
deficit reduction efforts as Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act on 
a bipartisan basis to finish the job. Four years ahead of schedule, the 
budget reached balance and is projected this year to produce its third 
surplus in a row. We have started to pay down the national debt and are 
on a path to make the Nation debt free by 2013 for the first time since 
1835.
  Throughout the past seven years, my Administration has been committed 
to creating opportunity for all Americans, demanding responsibility 
from all Americans, and strengthening the American community. The crime 
rate, which had tripled during the previous three decades, continues to 
fall and crime is down in every region of the Nation. We have reformed 
the welfare system, and more than seven million Americans in the past 
seven years have made the transition from welfare to work.
  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

[[Page S376]]

that it not place a burden on our children, that the life of Medicare 
is extended for future generations, and that we modernize Medicare with 
a needed prescription drug benefit. If we continue to follow sound 
fiscal policy, we can provide for the future, produce a balanced tax 
cut and meet the needs of today, while sustaining the conditions that 
have brought us this current wave of prosperity. All this can be done, 
but balanced and sound fiscal policy is the key.


            improving performance through better management

  At the start of this Administration, the Vice President and I set out 
to create a Government that works better, costs less, and gets results 
Americans care about. We believe that with better stewardship, the 
Government can better achieve its mission and improve the quality of 
life for all Americans. The success of these efforts is reflected in 
the significant changes of the past seven years in the way Government 
does business.
  We have streamlined Government, cutting the civilian Federal work 
force by 377,000, giving us the smallest work force in 39 years. We 
have done more than just reduce or eliminate hundreds of Federal 
programs and projects. We have also empowered government employees to 
cut red tape, and used partnerships to get results.
  While we have made real progress, there is still much work to do. We 
are forging ahead with new efforts to improve the quality of the 
service that the Government offers its customers. My Administration has 
identified its highest priorities--24 Priority Management Objectives 
listed in this budget, that will receive heightened attention to ensure 
positive changes in the way Government works. It is a mark of our 
success that in early 2000, we were able to remove last year's number 
one objective from the list: Manage the Year 2000 (Y2K) 
Computer Problem. Due largely to the efforts of Federal employees and 
the leadership provided by my Council on Year 2000 Conversion, the 
Federal Government's Y2K efforts were, beyond all expectation, 
remarkably trouble free. We will continue to move ahead to address 
other priorities, including modernizing student aid delivery, 
implementing IRS reforms, and strengthening the management of Health 
Care Financing Administration, which oversees Medicare.

  I believe the steps we have taken to change and improve the way 
Government works have also changed the way Americans view their 
Government, increasing the confidence and trust of the American public. 
It is our job to keep at this task, so that the Federal Government 
continues to improve its performance and the American public is better 
served. I am determined that we will do more to solve the very real 
management challenges before us.


              strengthening our nation in the 21st century

  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 am committed to ensuring that we have a first-rate 
system of education and training in place for Americans of all ages. 
Over the last seven 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 builds on the commitment to make college more 
affordable by expanding the tax credits for higher education and 
increasing Pell Grants and other college aid beyond the record levels 
already reached. It promotes smaller learning environments in high 
schools and invests in reducing class size by recruiting and preparing 
thousands more teachers and building thousands more classrooms, as well 
as providing for urgent and essential school repairs.
  My budget includes significant increases to expand access to after-
school and other extended learning time opportunities, a central 
element of my accountability agenda to help children, especially in the 
poorest communities, reach challenging academic standards while 
supporting efforts to demand more from schools and support them in 
return. It promotes efforts to recruit teachers in high-poverty areas 
and includes a peer review initiative to help school districts raise 
teacher standards and teacher pay. The budget proposes improving school 
accountability by holding States, districts and schools accountable for 
results by providing resources to identify and turn around the worst-
performing schools, and incentives to reward States that do the most to 
improve student performance and close the achievement gap. It invests 
in programs to help raise the educational achievement of Latino 
students. And my budget supports efforts to narrow the digital divide 
by expanding resources for technology centers to make computers 
accessible in low-income community areas.
  During the past seven 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 access to 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 proposing a significant expansion of the Earned Income Tax 
Credit to provide support to America's hard working, low-income 
families, especially larger families who are more likely to be poor 
than families with only one or two children. My budget also 
significantly increases 21st Century Learning Community Centers and 
expands after-school learning time. It makes child care more affordable 
by expanding tax credits or middle-income families and for businesses 
that provide child care services to their employees, by assisting 
parents who want to attend college meet their child care needs, as well 
as making a child care tax credit available to parents who choose to 
stay at home to raise a young child. My budget proposes to create an 
Early Learning Fund and builds on our expansion of the successful Head 
Start program to help meet the goal of serving one million children by 
2002. An it promotes responsible fatherhood by proposing tough new 
measures to ensure that all parents who can afford to pay child support 
do so, while providing support to increase the employment earnings and 
child support payments of low-income fathers. My budget includes 
efforts to increase access to food stamps for the working poor, in part 
by proposing that low-income working families, who need efficient 
transportation to get to work, be permitted to own a modest vehicle and 
retain food stamp eligibility. And, it proposes resources to provide 
health care to legal immigrant children, to restore Supplemental 
Security Income benefits to legal immigrants with disabilities, and to 
restore food stamp benefits to legal immigrants in families with 
eligible children.

  We have continued to improve health care for millions of Americans. 
Since the establishment of the State Children's Health Insurance 
Program in 1997, two million children have enrolled in programs across 
all 50 States. I am proposing a significant expansion of this 
successful program to extend health coverage to more children in hard 
working, low-income families. My budget also extends this coverage to 
their parents, low-income working adults who lack health insurance, 
which will help increase the enrollment of their children by enabling 
entire families to receive coverage through the same program. My budget 
contains other significant incentives to increase access to affordable 
health care, including tax credits for small businesses and a provision 
to allow hundreds of thousands of Americans aged 55 to 65 to purchase 
Medicare coverage.
  My budget puts forth a plan that extends Medicare solvency to at 
least 2025, respects fiscal discipline, and eliminates the national 
debt. My plan will modernize Medicare with a needed drug benefit, 
expand access to preventative benefits, and improve Medicare 
management. I intend to keep pressing ahead and working with Congress 
to enact essential patient protections including emergency room access 
and the right to see a specialist. By Executive

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Order, I have extended these rights to 85 million Americans covered by 
Federal health plans, including Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and 
Federal employees.
  Most Americans are enjoying the fruits of our strong economy, yet we 
must do more to bring this prosperity to all corners of our great 
Nation. We must use this moment of promise to spread the values of 
community, opportunity, and responsibility, and to help create the 
conditions for all to share in our prosperity. My New Markets 
Initiative, an expanded approach built upon the same public-private 
cooperation at the center of last year's plan, will provide tax credit 
and loan guarantee incentives to stimulate tens of billions of dollars 
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 
expand the number of Empowerment Zones, 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 
includes significant funding increases for Native American communities 
to help this generation and future generations receive greater 
opportunities. It provides additional funds to enforce the Nation's 
civil rights laws, and strengthens the partnership we have begun with 
the District of Columbia. In addition, my budget proposes an $11 
billion package for farmers in need and to help mend the farm safety 
net by providing assistance when crop prices are low.
  Our anti-crime strategy is working. Serious crime has fallen without 
interruption, and the murder rate is at its lowest point in three 
decades. Building on our successful community policing (COPS) program 
that is helping community fund 100,000 cops on the beat, the 21st 
Century Policing initiative was enacted last year to put us on track to 
fund new anti-crime technology and 50,000 more police. This year, I am 
launching the largest gun enforcement initiative ever, adding funds to 
hire 500 new ATF agents, 1,000 State and local gun prosecutors and 
funds for smart gun technology. 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 resources to strengthen 
enforcement, particularly on the Southwest and Northern borders, and to 
remove illegal aliens. To combat drug use, particularly among young 
people, my budget expands programs that stress treatment and 
prevention, law enforcement, international assistance, and 
interdiction.

  During the past seven 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. Building on the balanced portfolio of basic and 
applied research in the 21st Century Research Fund, my budget includes 
a Science and Technology Initiative which places special emphasis on 
high-priority, long-term basic research, including nanotechnology, the 
manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular level, which offers 
the promise that medical science may one day be able to detect 
cancerous tumors when they are comprised of only a few cells. My budget 
also increases resources for the Information Technology research and 
development program to invest in long-term research in computing and 
communications. It will accelerate development of extremely fast 
supercomputers to support civilian research, enabling experts to 
develop life-saving drugs, provide earlier tornado warnings, and design 
more fuel-efficient safer automobiles. The budget provides strong 
support for the Nation's two largest sources of civilian basic research 
funding for universities: the National Science Foundation and the 
National Institutes of Health.
  The Nation does not have to choose between a strong economy and a 
clean environment. The past seven 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 drinking 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, Florida's Everglades, and California's 
redwoods. Led by the Vice President, the Administration reached an 
international agreement in Kyoto that calls for cuts in greenhouse gas 
emissions. My budget significantly expands support for the environment, 
by establishing dedicated funding and increasing resources for the 
historic interagency Lands Legacy initiative to preserve the Nation's 
natural and historic treasures. My budget also supports the Clean 
Energy initiative to reduce the threat of global warming, and the 
Greening the Globe initiative to save tropical and other forests around 
the globe. It provides resources to support farm conservation to 
upgrade water quality, the Clean Water Action plan to clean up polluted 
waterways, and climate change technology efforts to increase energy-
efficient technologies and renewable energy to strengthen our economy 
while reducing greenhouse gases.
  In the past year, America's leadership was essential to the success 
of the NATO alliance in halting the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's ethnic 
Albanians and containing the risk of wider war at the doorstep of our 
allies. The United States has played a critical role in the strides 
made toward lasting peace in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and 
Sierra Leone. The United States has worked to detect and counter 
terrorist threats and continue efforts with Russia and other former 
Soviet nations to halt the spread of dangerous weapons materials. My 
budget seeks to build on these efforts, proposing funding to build a 
democratic society and stronger economy in Kosovo, initiatives to 
further protect our men and women overseas, and a 2000 emergency 
supplemental to provide critical assistance to the Government of 
Colombia in its fight against narcotics traffickers. My budget also 
proposes funding to promote international family planning, contain the 
global spread of AIDS, promote debt forgiveness to help people in the 
world's poorest countries join the global economy, and promote trade by 
opening global markets.

  The Armed Forces of the United States serve as the backbone of our 
national security strategy. As it did successfully last year in Kosovo, 
the military must be in a position to protect our national security 
interests and guard against the major threats to U.S. security. These 
include 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. To ensure that the military can fulfill this mission, I 
made a major commitment last year to maintain our military readiness, 
which this budget builds upon with additional resources to ensure that 
the services can meet required training standards, maintain equipment 
in top condition, recruit and retain quality personnel, and procure 
sufficient spare parts and other equipment. To help improve the quality 
of life and strengthen the Department's ability to attract and retain 
quality individuals, this budget includes a major initiative to reduce 
servicemembers' out-of-pocket costs for off-base housing. In addition, 
this budget provides resources for the Department of Defense and other 
agencies to combat emerging threats, including terrorism and weapons of 
mass destruction, and to provide for critical infrastructure 
protection. It provides funds to support counter-narcotics efforts, 
including a 2000 supplemental to increase assistance to the Government 
of Colombia in their fight against narcotics traffickers. It also 
provides additional funding for contingency operations in Southwest 
Asia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.


                   building prosperity for the future

  This is a rare moment in American history. Never before has our 
Nation enjoyed so much prosperity, at a time when special progress 
continues to advance and our position as the global leader is secure. 
Today, we are well

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prepared to make the choices that will shape our Nation's future for 
decades to come.
  By reversing the earlier trend of fiscal irresponsibility, balancing 
the budget, and producing a historic surplus, we have restored our 
national spirit and produced the resources to help opportunity and 
prosperity reach all corners of this Nation. We have it within our 
reach today, by making the right choices, to offer the promise of 
prosperity to generations of Americans to come. If we keep to the path 
of fiscal discipline, we can build a foundation of prosperity for the 
Nation's future.
  My plan to extend the solvency of Social Security and Medicare allows 
the United States to become debt-free in the next 13 years, for the 
first time since 1835, Eliminating the debt will strengthen our 
economy, devote resources to Social Security, and prepare us to meet 
the challenges of the aging of America. Through fiscal discipline and 
wise choices we can extend the life of Social Security to the middle of 
the century, extend the solvency of Medicare until 2025, and modernize 
Medicare with a needed prescription drug benefit.
  By continuing to maintain discipline, we can provide for the aging of 
America and for the investments of the future--including education, the 
environment, research and development, and defense--which are central 
to our economic growth, health, and national security. By making 
choices that respect fiscal discipline, we can make room to provide 
both for a balanced tax cut and for investments that will help this 
Nation stay strong in the future.
  This new century is filled with promise, for we live at a remarkable 
time. By making wise choices, we have it within our power to extend the 
same promise and prosperity to generations to come.
                                                   William J. Clinton. 
  The White House, February 7, 2000.

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