    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [January 24, 1995]
    [Pages 75-86]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union
    January 24, 1995

        Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the 104th Congress, my fellow
    Americans: Again we are here in the sanctuary of democracy, and once
    again our democracy has spoken. So let me begin by congratulating all of
    you here in the 104th Congress and congratulating you, Mr. Speaker.
        If we agree on nothing else tonight, we must agree that the American
    people certainly voted for change in 1992 and in 1994. And as I look out
    at you, I know how some of you must have felt in 1992. [Laughter]
        I must say that in both years we didn't hear America singing, we
    heard America shouting. And now all of us, Republicans and Democrats
    alike, must say, ``We hear you. We will work together to earn the jobs
    you have given us.'' For we are the keepers of a sacred trust, and we
    must be faithful to it in this new and very demanding era.

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        Over 200 years ago, our Founders changed the entire course of human
    history by joining together to create a new country based on a single
    powerful idea: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
    are created equal, . . . endowed by their Creator with certain
    unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
    Happiness.''
        It has fallen to every generation since then to preserve that idea,
    the American idea, and to deepen and expand its meaning in new and
    different times: to Lincoln and to his Congress to preserve the Union
    and to end slavery; to Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to restrain
    the abuses and excesses of the industrial revolution and to assert our
    leadership in the world; to Franklin Roosevelt to fight the failure and
    pain of the Great Depression and to win our country's great struggle
    against fascism; and to all our Presidents since to fight the cold war.
    Especially, I recall two who struggled to fight that cold war in
    partnership with Congresses where the majority was of a different party:
    to Harry Truman, who summoned us to unparalleled prosperity at home and
    who built the architecture of the cold war; and to Ronald Reagan, whom
    we wish well tonight and who exhorted us to carry on until the twilight
    struggle against communism was won.
        In another time of change and challenge, I had the honor to be the
    first President to be elected in the post-cold-war era, an era marked by
    the global economy, the information revolution, unparalleled change and
    opportunity and insecurity for the American people. I came to this
    hallowed Chamber 2 years ago on a mission, to restore the American dream
    for all our people and to make sure that we move into the 21st century
    still the strongest force for freedom and democracy in the entire world.
    I was determined then to tackle the tough problems too long ignored. In
    this effort I am frank to say that I have made my mistakes, and I have
    learned again the importance of humility in all human endeavor. But I am
    also proud to say tonight that our country is stronger than it was 2
    years ago. [Applause] Thank you.
        Record numbers of Americans are succeeding in the new global
    economy. We are at peace, and we are a force for peace and freedom
    throughout the world. We have almost 6 million new jobs since I became
    President, and we have the lowest combined rate of unemployment and
    inflation in 25 years. Our businesses are more productive. And here we
    have worked to bring the deficit down, to expand trade, to put more
    police on our streets, to give our citizens more of the tools they need
    to get an education and to rebuild their own communities.
        But the rising tide is not lifting all boats. While our Nation is
    enjoying peace and prosperity, too many of our people are still working
    harder and harder, for less and less. While our businesses are
    restructuring and growing more productive and competitive, too many of
    our people still can't be sure of having a job next year or even next
    month. And far more than our material riches are threatened, things far
    more precious to us, our children, our families, our values.
        Our civil life is suffering in America today. Citizens are working
    together less and shouting at each other more. The common bonds of
    community which have been the great strength of our country from its
    very beginning are badly frayed. What are we to do about it?
        More than 60 years ago, at the dawn of another new era, President
    Roosevelt told our Nation, ``New conditions impose new requirements on
    Government and those who conduct Government.'' And from that simple
    proposition, he shaped the New Deal, which helped to restore our Nation
    to prosperity and define the relationship between our people and their
    Government for half a century.
        That approach worked in its time. But we today, we face a very
    different time and very different conditions. We are moving from an
    industrial age built on gears and sweat to an information age demanding
    skills and learning and flexibility. Our Government, once a champion of
    national purpose, is now seen by many as simply a captive of narrow
    interests, putting more burdens on our citizens rather than equipping
    them to get ahead. The values that used to hold us all together seem to
    be coming apart.
        So tonight we must forge a new social compact to meet the challenges
    of this time. As we enter a new era, we need a new set of
    understandings, not just with Government but, even more important, with
    one another as Americans.
        That's what I want to talk with you about tonight. I call it the New
    Covenant. But it's grounded in a very, very old idea, that all Americans
    have not just a right but a solemn responsibility to rise as far as
    their God-given talents and determination can take them and to give

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    something back to their communities and their country in return.
    Opportunity and responsibility: They go hand in hand. We can't have one
    without the other. And our national community can't hold together
    without both.
        Our New Covenant is a new set of understandings for how we can equip
    our people to meet the challenges of a new economy, how we can change
    the way our Government works to fit a different time, and, above all,
    how we can repair the damaged bonds in our society and come together
    behind our common purpose. We must have dramatic change in our economy,
    our Government, and ourselves.
        My fellow Americans, without regard to party, let us rise to the
    occasion. Let us put aside partisanship and pettiness and pride. As we
    embark on this new course, let us put our country first, remembering
    that regardless of party label, we are all Americans. And let the final
    test of everything we do be a simple one: Is it good for the American
    people?
        Let me begin by saying that we cannot ask Americans to be better
    citizens if we are not better servants. You made a good start by passing
    that law which applies to Congress all the laws you put on the private
    sector, and I was proud to sign it yesterday. But we have a lot more to
    do before people really trust the way things work around here. Three
    times as many lobbyists are in the streets and corridors of Washington
    as were here 20 years ago. The American people look at their Capital,
    and they see a city where the well-connected and the well-protected can
    work the system, but the interests of ordinary citizens are often left
    out.
        As the new Congress opened its doors, lobbyists were still doing
    business as usual; the gifts, the trips, all the things that people are
    concerned about haven't stopped. Twice this month you missed
    opportunities to stop these practices. I know there were other
    considerations in those votes, but I want to use something that I've
    heard my Republican friends say from time to time, ``There doesn't have
    to be a law for everything.'' So tonight I ask you to just stop taking
    the lobbyists' perks. Just stop. We don't have to wait for legislation
    to pass to send a strong signal to the American people that things are
    really changing. But I also hope you will send me the strongest possible
    lobby reform bill, and I'll sign that, too.
        We should require lobbyists to tell the people for whom they work
    what they're spending, what they want. We should also curb the role of
    big money in elections by capping the cost of campaigns and limiting the
    influence of PAC's. And as I have said for 3 years, we should work to
    open the airwaves so that they can be an instrument of democracy, not a
    weapon of destruction, by giving free TV time to candidates for public
    office.
        When the last Congress killed political reform last year, it was
    reported in the press that the lobbyists actually stood in the Halls of
    this sacred building and cheered. This year, let's give the folks at
    home something to cheer about.
        More important, I think we all agree that we have to change the way
    the Government works. Let's make it smaller, less costly, and smarter;
    leaner, not meaner. [Applause]
        I just told the Speaker the equal time doctrine is alive and well.
    [Laughter]
        The New Covenant approach to governing is as different from the old
    bureaucratic way as the computer is from the manual typewriter. The old
    way of governing around here protected organized interests. We should
    look out for the interests of ordinary people. The old way divided us by
    interest, constituency, or class. The New Covenant way should unite us
    behind a common vision of what's best for our country. The old way
    dispensed services through large, top-down, inflexible bureaucracies.
    The New Covenant way should shift these resources and decisionmaking
    from bureaucrats to citizens, injecting choice and competition and
    individual responsibility into national policy. The old way of governing
    around here actually seemed to reward failure. The New Covenant way
    should have built-in incentives to reward success. The old way was
    centralized here in Washington. The New Covenant way must take hold in
    the communities all across America. And we should help them to do that.
        Our job here is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy, to empower
    people to make the most of their own lives, and to enhance our security
    here at home and abroad. We must not ask Government to do what we should
    do for ourselves. We should rely on Government as a partner to help us
    to do more for ourselves and for each other.
        I hope very much that as we debate these specific and exciting
    matters, we can go beyond the sterile discussion between the illusion
    that there is somehow a program for every problem, on the one hand, and
    the other illusion that

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    the Government is a source of every problem we have. Our job is to get
    rid of yesterday's Government so that our own people can meet today's
    and tomorrow's needs. And we ought to do it together.
        You know, for years before I became President, I heard others say
    they would cut Government and how bad it was, but not much happened. We
    actually did it. We cut over a quarter of a trillion dollars in
    spending, more than 300 domestic programs, more than 100,000 positions
    from the Federal bureaucracy in the last 2 years alone. Based on
    decisions already made, we will have cut a total of more than a quarter
    of a million positions from the Federal Government, making it the
    smallest it has been since John Kennedy was President, by the time I
    come here again next year.
        Under the leadership of Vice President Gore, our initiatives have
    already saved taxpayers $63 billion. The age of the $500 hammer and the
    ashtray you can break on ``David Letterman'' is gone. Deadwood programs,
    like mohair subsidies, are gone. We've streamlined the Agriculture
    Department by reducing it by more than 1,200 offices. We've slashed the
    small business loan form from an inch thick to a single page. We've
    thrown away the Government's 10,000-page personnel manual.
        And the Government is working better in important ways: FEMA, the
    Federal Emergency Management Agency, has gone from being a disaster to
    helping people in disasters. You can ask the farmers in the Middle West
    who fought the flood there or the people in California who have dealt
    with floods and earthquakes and fires, and they'll tell you that.
    Government workers, working hand in hand with private business, rebuilt
    southern California's fractured freeways in record time and under
    budget. And because the Federal Government moved fast, all but one of
    the 5,600 schools damaged in the earthquake are back in business.
        Now, there are a lot of other things that I could talk about. I want
    to just mention one because it will be discussed here in the next few
    weeks. University administrators all over the country have told me that
    they are saving weeks and weeks of bureaucratic time now because of our
    direct college loan program, which makes college loans cheaper and more
    affordable with better repayment terms for students, costs the
    Government less, and cuts out paperwork and bureaucracy for the
    Government and for the universities. We shouldn't cap that program. We
    should give every college in America the opportunity to be a part of it.
        Previous Government programs gathered dust. The reinventing
    Government report is getting results. And we're not through. There's
    going to be a second round of reinventing Government. We propose to cut
    $130 billion in spending by shrinking departments, extending our freeze
    on domestic spending, cutting 60 public housing programs down to 3,
    getting rid of over 100 programs we do not need, like the Interstate
    Commerce Commission and the Helium Reserve Program. And we're working on
    getting rid of unnecessary regulations and making them more sensible.
    The programs and regulations that have outlived their usefulness should
    go. We have to cut yesterday's Government to help solve tomorrow's
    problems.
        And we need to get Government closer to the people it's meant to
    serve. We need to help move programs down to the point where States and
    communities and private citizens in the private sector can do a better
    job. If they can do it, we ought to let them do it. We should get out of
    the way and let them do what they can do better. Taking power away from
    Federal bureaucracies and giving it back to communities and individuals
    is something everyone should be able to be for.
        It's time for Congress to stop passing on to the States the cost of
    decisions we make here in Washington. I know there are still serious
    differences over the details of the unfunded mandates legislation, but I
    want to work with you to make sure we pass a reasonable bill which will
    protect the national interests and give justified relief where we need
    to give it.
        For years, Congress concealed in the budget scores of pet spending
    projects. Last year was no difference. There was a $1 million to study
    stress in plants and $12 million for a tick removal program that didn't
    work. It's hard to remove ticks. Those of us who have had them know.
    [Laughter] But I'll tell you something, if you'll give me line-item
    veto, I'll remove some of that unnecessary spending.
        But I think we should all remember, and almost all of us would
    agree, that Government still has important responsibilities. Our young
    people--we should think of this when we cut--our young people hold our
    future in their hands. We still owe a debt to our veterans. And our
    senior citizens have made us what we are. Now,

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    my budget cuts a lot. But it protects education, veterans, Social
    Security, and Medicare, and I hope you will do the same thing. You
    should, and I hope you will.
        And when we give more flexibility to the States, let us remember
    that there are certain fundamental national needs that should be
    addressed in every State, North and South, East and West: Immunization
    against childhood disease, school lunches in all our schools, Head
    Start, medical care and nutrition for pregnant women and infants, all
    these things, all these things are in the national interest.
        I applaud your desire to get rid of costly and unnecessary
    regulations. But when we deregulate, let's remember what national action
    in the national interest has given us: safer food for our families,
    safer toys for our children, safer nursing homes for our parents, safer
    cars and highways, and safer workplaces, cleaner air, and cleaner water.
    Do we need common sense and fairness in our regulations? You bet we do.
    But we can have common sense and still provide for safe drinking water.
    We can have fairness and still clean up toxic dumps, and we ought to do
    it.
        Should we cut the deficit more? Well, of course we should. Of course
    we should. But we can bring it down in a way that still protects our
    economic recovery and does not unduly punish people who should not be
    punished but instead should be helped.
        I know many of you in this Chamber support the balanced budget
    amendment. I certainly want to balance the budget. Our administration
    has done more to bring the budget down and to save money than any in a
    very, very long time. If you believe passing this amendment is the right
    thing to do, then you have to be straight with the American people. They
    have a right to know what you're going to cut, what taxes you're going
    to raise, and how it's going to affect them. We should be doing things
    in the open around here. For example, everybody ought to know if this
    proposal is going to endanger Social Security. I would oppose that, and
    I think most Americans would.
        Nothing has done more to undermine our sense of common
    responsibility than our failed welfare system. This is one of the
    problems we have to face here in Washington in our New Covenant. It
    rewards welfare over work. It undermines family values. It lets millions
    of parents get away without paying their child support. It keeps a
    minority but a significant minority of the people on welfare trapped on
    it for a very long time.
        I've worked on this problem for a long time, nearly 15 years now. As
    a Governor, I had the honor of working with the Reagan administration to
    write the last welfare reform bill back in 1988. In the last 2 years, we
    made a good start at continuing the work of welfare reform. Our
    administration gave two dozen States the right to slash through Federal
    rules and regulations to reform their own welfare systems and to try to
    promote work and responsibility over welfare and dependency.
        Last year I introduced the most sweeping welfare reform plan ever
    presented by an administration. We have to make welfare what it was
    meant to be, a second chance, not a way of life. We have to help those
    on welfare move to work as quickly as possible, to provide child care
    and teach them skills, if that's what they need, for up to 2 years. And
    after that, there ought to be a simple, hard rule: Anyone who can work
    must go to work. If a parent isn't paying child support, they should be
    forced to pay. We should suspend drivers' license, track them across
    State lines, make them work off what they owe. That is what we should
    do. Governments do not raise children, people do. And the parents must
    take responsibility for the children they bring into this world.
        I want to work with you, with all of you, to pass welfare reform.
    But our goal must be to liberate people and lift them up from dependence
    to independence, from welfare to work, from mere childbearing to
    responsible parenting. Our goal should not be to punish them because
    they happen to be poor.
        We should, we should require work and mutual responsibility. But we
    shouldn't cut people off just because they're poor, they're young, or
    even because they're unmarried. We should promote responsibility by
    requiring young mothers to live at home with their parents or in other
    supervised settings, by requiring them to finish school. But we
    shouldn't put them and their children out on the street. And I know all
    the arguments, pro and con, and I have read and thought about this for a
    long time. I still don't think we can in good conscience punish poor
    children for the mistakes of their parents.
        My fellow Americans, every single survey shows that all the American
    people care about this without regard to party or race or region.

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    So let this be the year we end welfare as we know it. But also let this
    be the year that we are all able to stop using this issue to divide
    America. No one is more eager to end welfare--[applause]--I may be the
    only President who has actually had the opportunity to sit in a welfare
    office, who's actually spent hours and hours talking to people on
    welfare. And I am telling you, the people who are trapped on it know it
    doesn't work; they also want to get off. So we can promote, together,
    education and work and good parenting. I have no problem with punishing
    bad behavior or the refusal to be a worker or a student or a responsible
    parent. I just don't want to punish poverty and past mistakes. All of us
    have made our mistakes, and none of us can change our yesterdays. But
    every one of us can change our tomorrows. And America's best example of
    that may be Lynn Woolsey, who worked her way off welfare to become a
    Congresswoman from the State of California.
        I know the Members of this Congress are concerned about crime, as
    are all the citizens of our country. And I remind you that last year we
    passed a very tough crime bill: longer sentences, ``three strikes and
    you're out,'' almost 60 new capital punishment offenses, more prisons,
    more prevention, 100,000 more police. And we paid for it all by reducing
    the size of the Federal bureaucracy and giving the money back to local
    communities to lower the crime rate.
        There may be other things we can do to be tougher on crime, to be
    smarter with crime, to help to lower that rate first. Well, if there
    are, let's talk about them, and let's do them. But let's not go back on
    the things that we did last year that we know work, that we know work
    because the local law enforcement officers tell us that we did the right
    thing, because local community leaders who have worked for years and
    years to lower the crime rate tell us that they work. Let's look at the
    experience of our cities and our rural areas where the crime rate has
    gone down and ask the people who did it how they did it. And if what we
    did last year supports the decline in the crime rate--and I am convinced
    that it does--let us not go back on it. Let's stick with it, implement
    it. We've got 4 more hard years of work to do to do that.
        I don't want to destroy the good atmosphere in the room or in the
    country tonight, but I have to mention one issue that divided this body
    greatly last year. The last Congress also passed the Brady bill and, in
    the crime bill, the ban on 19 assault weapons. I don't think it's a
    secret to anybody in this room that several Members of the last Congress
    who voted for that aren't here tonight because they voted for it. And I
    know, therefore, that some of you who are here because they voted for it
    are under enormous pressure to repeal it. I just have to tell you how I
    feel about it.
        The Members of Congress who voted for that bill and I would never do
    anything to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms to hunt and to
    engage in other appropriate sporting activities. I've done it since I
    was a boy, and I'm going to keep right on doing it until I can't do it
    anymore. But a lot of people laid down their seats in Congress so that
    police officers and kids wouldn't have to lay down their lives under a
    hail of assault weapon attack, and I will not let that be repealed. I
    will not let it be repealed.
        I'd like to talk about a couple of other issues we have to deal
    with. I want us to cut more spending, but I hope we won't cut Government
    programs that help to prepare us for the new economy, promote
    responsibility, and are organized from the grassroots up, not by Federal
    bureaucracy. The very best example of this is the national service
    corps, AmeriCorps. It passed with strong bipartisan support. And now
    there are 20,000 Americans, more than ever served in one year in the
    Peace Corps, working all over this country, helping people person-to-
    person in local grassroots volunteer groups, solving problems, and in
    the process earning some money for their education. This is citizenship
    at its best. It's good for the AmeriCorps members, but it's good for the
    rest of us, too. It's the essence of the New Covenant, and we shouldn't
    stop it.
        All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in
    every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers
    of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might
    otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service
    they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration
    has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record
    number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens
    as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare
    benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will
    try to do more to speed

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    the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better
    identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the
    commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a
    nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and
    ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind
    of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we
    must do more to stop it.
        The most important job of our Government in this new era is to
    empower the American people to succeed in the global economy. America
    has always been a land of opportunity, a land where, if you work hard,
    you can get ahead. We've become a great middle class country. Middle
    class values sustain us. We must expand that middle class and shrink the
    under class, even as we do everything we can to support the millions of
    Americans who are already successful in the new economy.
        America is once again the world's strongest economic power: almost 6
    million new jobs in the last 2 years, exports booming, inflation down.
    High-wage jobs are coming back. A record number of American
    entrepreneurs are living the American dream. If we want it to stay that
    way, those who work and lift our Nation must have more of its benefits.
        Today, too many of those people are being left out. They're working
    harder for less. They have less security, less income, less certainty
    that they can even afford a vacation, much less college for their kids
    or retirement for themselves. We cannot let this continue. If we don't
    act, our economy will probably keep doing what it's been doing since
    about 1978, when the income growth began to go to those at the very top
    of our economic scale and the people in the vast middle got very little
    growth, and people who worked like crazy but were on the bottom then
    fell even further and further behind in the years afterward, no matter
    how hard they worked.
        We've got to have a Government that can be a real partner in making
    this new economy work for all of our people, a Government that helps
    each and every one of us to get an education and to have the opportunity
    to renew our skills. That's why we worked so hard to increase
    educational opportunities in the last 2 years, from Head Start to public
    schools, to apprenticeships for young people who don't go to college, to
    making college loans more available and more affordable. That's the
    first thing we have to do. We've got to do something to empower people
    to improve their skills.
        The second thing we ought to do is to help people raise their
    incomes immediately by lowering their taxes. We took the first step in
    1993 with a working family tax cut for 15 million families with incomes
    under $27,000, a tax cut that this year will average about $1,000 a
    family. And we also gave tax reductions to most small and new
    businesses. Before we could do more than that, we first had to bring
    down the deficit we inherited, and we had to get economic growth up. Now
    we've done both. And now we can cut taxes in a more comprehensive way.
    But tax cuts should reinforce and promote our first obligation: to
    empower our citizens through education and training to make the most of
    their own lives. The spotlight should shine on those who make the right
    choices for themselves, their families, and their communities.
        I have proposed the middle class bill of rights, which should
    properly be called the bill of rights and responsibilities because its
    provisions only benefit those who are working to educate and raise their
    children and to educate themselves. It will, therefore, give needed tax
    relief and raise incomes in both the short run and the long run in a way
    that benefits all of us.
        There are four provisions. First, a tax deduction for all education
    and training after high school. If you think about it, we permit
    businesses to deduct their investment, we permit individuals to deduct
    interest on their home mortgages, but today an education is even more
    important to the economic well-being of our whole country than even
    those things are. We should do everything we can to encourage it. And I
    hope you will support it. Second, we ought to cut taxes $500 for
    families with children under 13. Third, we ought to foster more savings
    and personal responsibility by permitting people to establish an
    individual retirement account and withdraw from it, tax-free, for the
    cost of education, health care, first-time homebuying, or the care of a
    parent. And fourth, we should pass a ``GI bill'' for America's workers.
    We propose to collapse nearly 70 Federal programs and not give the money
    to the States but give the money directly to the American people, offer
    vouchers to them so that they, if they're laid off or if they're working
    for a very low wage, can get a voucher worth $2,600 a year for up to 2
    years to go to their local

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    community colleges or wherever else they want to get the skills they
    need to improve their lives. Let's empower people in this way, move it
    from the Government directly to the workers of America.
        Now, any one of us can call for a tax cut, but I won't accept one
    that explodes the deficit or puts our recovery at risk. We ought to pay
    for our tax cuts fully and honestly.
        Just 2 years ago, it was an open question whether we would find the
    strength to cut the deficit. Thanks to the courage of the people who
    were here then, many of whom didn't return, we did cut the deficit. We
    began to do what others said would not be done. We cut the deficit by
    over $600 billion, about $10,000 for every family in this country. It's
    coming down 3 years in a row for the first time since Mr. Truman was
    President, and I don't think anybody in America wants us to let it
    explode again.
        In the budget I will send you, the middle class bill of rights is
    fully paid for by budget cuts in bureaucracy, cuts in programs, cuts in
    special interest subsidies. And the spending cuts will more than double
    the tax cuts. My budget pays for the middle class bill of rights without
    any cuts in Medicare. And I will oppose any attempts to pay for tax cuts
    with Medicare cuts. That's not the right thing to do.
        I know that a lot of you have your own ideas about tax relief, and
    some of them I find quite interesting. I really want to work with all of
    you. My test for our proposals will be: Will it create jobs and raise
    incomes; will it strengthen our families and support our children; is it
    paid for; will it build the middle class and shrink the under class? If
    it does, I'll support it. But if it doesn't, I won't.
        The goal of building the middle class and shrinking the under class
    is also why I believe that you should raise the minimum wage. It rewards
    work. Two and a half million Americans, two and a half million
    Americans, often women with children, are working out there today for
    $4.25 an hour. In terms of real buying power, by next year that minimum
    wage will be at a 40-year low. That's not my idea of how the new economy
    ought to work.
        Now, I've studied the arguments and the evidence for and against a
    minimum wage increase. I believe the weight of the evidence is that a
    modest increase does not cost jobs and may even lure people back into
    the job market. But the most important thing is, you can't make a living
    on $4.25 an hour, especially if you have children, even with the working
    families tax cut we passed last year. In the past, the minimum wage has
    been a bipartisan issue, and I think it should be again. So I want to
    challenge you to have honest hearings on this, to get together, to find
    a way to make the minimum wage a living wage.
        Members of Congress have been here less than a month, but by the end
    of the week, 28 days into the new year, every Member of Congress will
    have earned as much in congressional salary as a minimum wage worker
    makes all year long.
        Everybody else here, including the President, has something else
    that too many Americans do without, and that's health care. Now, last
    year we almost came to blows over health care, but we didn't do
    anything. And the cold, hard fact is that, since last year, since I was
    here, another 1.1 million Americans in working families have lost their
    health care. And the cold, hard fact is that many millions more, most of
    them farmers and small business people and self-employed people, have
    seen their premiums skyrocket, their copays and deductibles go up.
    There's a whole bunch of people in this country that in the statistics
    have health insurance but really what they've got is a piece of paper
    that says they won't lose their home if they get sick.
        Now, I still believe our country has got to move toward providing
    health security for every American family. But I know that last year, as
    the evidence indicates, we bit off more than we could chew. So I'm
    asking you that we work together. Let's do it step by step. Let's do
    whatever we have to do to get something done. Let's at least pass
    meaningful insurance reform so that no American risks losing coverage
    for facing skyrocketing prices, that nobody loses their coverage because
    they face high prices or unavailable insurance when they change jobs or
    lose a job or a family member gets sick.
        I want to work together with all of you who have an interest in
    this, with the Democrats who worked on it last time, with the Republican
    leaders like Senator Dole, who has a longtime commitment to health care
    reform and made some constructive proposals in this area last year. We
    ought to make sure that self-employed people in small businesses can buy
    insurance at more affordable rates through voluntary purchasing pools.
    We ought to help families provide

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    long-term care for a sick parent or a disabled child. We can work to
    help workers who lose their jobs at least keep their health insurance
    coverage for a year while they look for work. And we can find a way--it
    may take some time, but we can find a way--to make sure that our
    children have health care.
        You know, I think everybody in this room, without regard to party,
    can be proud of the fact that our country was rated as having the
    world's most productive economy for the first time in nearly a decade.
    But we can't be proud of the fact that we're the only wealthy country in
    the world that has a smaller percentage of the work force and their
    children with health insurance today than we did 10 years ago, the last
    time we were the most productive economy in the world. So let's work
    together on this. It is too important for politics as usual.
        Much of what the American people are thinking about tonight is what
    we've already talked about. A lot of people think that the security
    concerns of America today are entirely internal to our borders. They
    relate to the security of our jobs and our homes and our incomes and our
    children, our streets, our health, and protecting those borders. Now
    that the cold war has passed, it's tempting to believe that all the
    security issues, with the possible exception of trade, reside here at
    home. But it's not so. Our security still depends upon our continued
    world leadership for peace and freedom and democracy. We still can't be
    strong at home unless we're strong abroad.
        The financial crisis in Mexico is a case in point. I know it's not
    popular to say it tonight, but we have to act, not for the Mexican
    people but for the sake of the millions of Americans whose livelihoods
    are tied to Mexico's well-being. If we want to secure American jobs,
    preserve American exports, safeguard America's borders, then we must
    pass the stabilization program and help to put Mexico back on track.
        Now let me repeat: It's not a loan. It's not foreign aid. It's not a
    bailout. We will be given a guarantee like cosigning a note, with good
    collateral that will cover our risks. This legislation is the right
    thing for America. That's why the bipartisan leadership has supported
    it. And I hope you in Congress will pass it quickly. It is in our
    interest, and we can explain it to the American people because we're
    going to do it in the right way.
        You know, tonight, this is the first State of the Union Address ever
    delivered since the beginning of the cold war when not a single Russian
    missile is pointed at the children of America. And along with the
    Russians, we're on our way to destroying the missiles and the bombers
    that carry 9,000 nuclear warheads. We've come so far so fast in this
    post-cold-war world that it's easy to take the decline of the nuclear
    threat for granted. But it's still there, and we aren't finished yet.
        This year I'll ask the Senate to approve START II to eliminate
    weapons that carry 5,000 more warheads. The United States will lead the
    charge to extend indefinitely the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to
    enact a comprehensive nuclear test ban, and to eliminate chemical
    weapons. To stop and roll back North Korea's potentially deadly nuclear
    program, we'll continue to implement the agreement we have reached with
    that nation. It's smart. It's tough. It's a deal based on continuing
    inspection with safeguards for our allies and ourselves.
        This year I'll submit to Congress comprehensive legislation to
    strengthen our hand in combating terrorists, whether they strike at home
    or abroad. As the cowards who bombed the World Trade Center found out,
    this country will hunt down terrorists and bring them to justice.
        Just this week, another horrendous terrorist act in Israel killed 19
    and injured scores more. On behalf of the American people and all of
    you, I send our deepest sympathy to the families of the victims. I know
    that in the face of such evil, it is hard for the people in the Middle
    East to go forward. But the terrorists represent the past, not the
    future. We must and we will pursue a comprehensive peace between Israel
    and all her neighbors in the Middle East.
        Accordingly, last night I signed an Executive order that will block
    the assets in the United States of terrorist organizations that threaten
    to disrupt the peace process. It prohibits financial transactions with
    these groups. And tonight I call on all our allies and peace-loving
    nations throughout the world to join us with renewed fervor in a global
    effort to combat terrorism. We cannot permit the future to be marred by
    terror and fear and paralysis.
        From the day I took the oath of office, I pledged that our Nation
    would maintain the best equipped, best trained, and best prepared
    military on Earth. We have, and they are. They have managed the dramatic
    downsizing of our

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    forces after the cold war with remarkable skill and spirit. But to make
    sure our military is ready for action and to provide the pay and the
    quality of life the military and their families deserve, I'm asking the
    Congress to add $25 billion in defense spending over the next 6 years.
        I have visited many bases at home and around the world since I
    became President. Tonight I repeat that request with renewed conviction.
    We ask a very great deal of our Armed Forces. Now that they are smaller
    in number, we ask more of them. They go out more often to more different
    places and stay longer. They are called to service in many, many ways.
    And we must give them and their families what the times demand and what
    they have earned.
        Just think about what our troops have done in the last year, showing
    America at its best, helping to save hundreds of thousands of people in
    Rwanda, moving with lightning speed to head off another threat to
    Kuwait, giving freedom and democracy back to the people of Haiti. We
    have proudly supported peace and prosperity and freedom from South
    Africa to Northern Ireland, from Central and Eastern Europe to Asia,
    from Latin America to the Middle East. All these endeavors are good in
    those places, but they make our future more confident and more secure.
        Well, my fellow Americans, that's my agenda for America's future:
    expanding opportunity, not bureaucracy; enhancing security at home and
    abroad; empowering our people to make the most of their own lives. It's
    ambitious and achievable, but it's not enough. We even need more than
    new ideas for changing the world or equipping Americans to compete in
    the new economy, more than a Government that's smaller, smarter, and
    wiser, more than all of the changes we can make in Government and in the
    private sector from the outside in.
        Our fortunes and our posterity also depend upon our ability to
    answer some questions from within, from the values and voices that speak
    to our hearts as well as our heads; voices that tell us we have to do
    more to accept responsibility for ourselves and our families, for our
    communities, and yes, for our fellow citizens. We see our families and
    our communities all over this country coming apart, and we feel the
    common ground shifting from under us. The PTA, the town hall meeting,
    the ball park, it's hard for a lot of overworked parents to find the
    time and space for those things that strengthen the bonds of trust and
    cooperation. Too many of our children don't even have parents and
    grandparents who can give them those experiences that they need to build
    their own character and their sense of identity.
        We all know that while we here in this Chamber can make a difference
    on those things, that the real differences will be made by our fellow
    citizens, where they work and where they live and that it will be made
    almost without regard to party. When I used to go to the softball park
    in Little Rock to watch my daughter's league and people would come up to
    me, fathers and mothers, and talk to me, I can honestly say I had no
    idea whether 90 percent of them were Republicans or Democrats. When I
    visited the relief centers after the floods in California, northern
    California, last week, a woman came up to me and did something that very
    few of you would do. She hugged me and said, ``Mr. President, I'm a
    Republican, but I'm glad you're here.'' [Laughter]
        Now, why? We can't wait for disasters to act the way we used to act
    every day, because as we move into this next century, everybody matters.
    We don't have a person to waste. And a lot of people are losing a lot of
    chances to do better. That means that we need a New Covenant for
    everybody.
        For our corporate and business leaders, we're going to work here to
    keep bringing the deficit down, to expand markets, to support their
    success in every possible way. But they have an obligation when they're
    doing well to keep jobs in our communities and give their workers a fair
    share of the prosperity they generate.
        For people in the entertainment industry in this country, we applaud
    your creativity and your worldwide success, and we support your freedom
    of expression. But you do have a responsibility to assess the impact of
    your work and to understand the damage that comes from the incessant,
    repetitive, mindless violence and irresponsible conduct that permeates
    our media all the time.
        We've got to ask our community leaders and all kinds of
    organizations to help us stop our most serious social problem, the
    epidemic of teen pregnancies and births where there is no marriage. I
    have sent to Congress a plan to target schools all over this country
    with antipregnancy programs that work. But Government can only do so
    much. Tonight I call on

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    parents and leaders all across this country to join together in a
    national campaign against teen pregnancy to make a difference. We can do
    this, and we must.
        And I would like to say a special word to our religious leaders. You
    know, I'm proud of the fact the United States has more houses of worship
    per capita than any country in the world. These people who lead our
    houses of worship can ignite their congregations to carry their faith
    into action, can reach out to all of our children, to all of the people
    in distress, to those who have been savaged by the breakdown of all we
    hold dear. Because so much of what must be done must come from the
    inside out and our religious leaders and their congregations can make
    all the difference, they have a role in the New Covenant as well.
        There must be more responsibility for all of our citizens. You know,
    it takes a lot of people to help all the kids in trouble stay off the
    streets and in school. It takes a lot of people to build the Habitat for
    Humanity houses that the Speaker celebrates on his lapel pin. It takes a
    lot of people to provide the people power for all of the civic
    organizations in this country that made our communities mean so much to
    most of us when we were kids. It takes every parent to teach the
    children the difference between right and wrong and to encourage them to
    learn and grow and to say no to the wrong things but also to believe
    that they can be whatever they want to be.
        I know it's hard when you're working harder for less, when you're
    under great stress, to do these things. A lot of our people don't have
    the time or the emotional stress, they think, to do the work of
    citizenship.
        Most of us in politics haven't helped very much. For years, we've
    mostly treated citizens like they were consumers or spectators, sort of
    political couch potatoes who were supposed to watch the TV ads either
    promise them something for nothing or play on their fears and
    frustrations. And more and more of our citizens now get most of their
    information in very negative and aggressive ways that are hardly
    conducive to honest and open conversations. But the truth is, we have
    got to stop seeing each other as enemies just because we have different
    views.
        If you go back to the beginning of this country, the great strength
    of America, as de Tocqueville pointed out when he came here a long time
    ago, has always been our ability to associate with people who were
    different from ourselves and to work together to find common ground. And
    in this day, everybody has a responsibility to do more of that. We
    simply cannot want for a tornado, a fire, or a flood to behave like
    Americans ought to behave in dealing with one another.
        I want to finish up here by pointing out some folks that are up with
    the First Lady that represent what I'm trying to talk about--citizens. I
    have no idea what their party affiliation is or who they voted for in
    the last election. But they represent what we ought to be doing.
        Cindy Perry teaches second graders to read in AmeriCorps in rural
    Kentucky. She gains when she gives. She's a mother of four. She says
    that her service inspired her to get her high school equivalency last
    year. She was married when she was a teenager--stand up, Cindy. She was
    married when she was a teenager. She had four children. But she had time
    to serve other people, to get her high school equivalency, and she's
    going to use her AmeriCorps money to go back to college.
        Chief Stephen Bishop is the police chief of Kansas City. He's been a
    national leader--stand up, Steve. He's been a national leader in using
    more police in community policing, and he's worked with AmeriCorps to do
    it. And the crime rate in Kansas City has gone down as a result of what
    he did.
        Corporal Gregory Depestre went to Haiti as part of his adopted
    country's force to help secure democracy in his native land. And I might
    add, we must be the only country in the world that could have gone to
    Haiti and taken Haitian-Americans there who could speak the language and
    talk to the people. And he was one of them, and we're proud of him.
        The next two folks I've had the honor of meeting and getting to know
    a little bit, the Reverend John and the Reverend Diana Cherry of the
    A.M.E. Zion Church in Temple Hills, Maryland. I'd like to ask them to
    stand. I want to tell you about them. In the early eighties, they left
    Government service and formed a church in a small living room in a small
    house, in the early eighties. Today that church has 17,000 members. It
    is one of the three or four biggest churches in the entire United
    States. It grows by 200 a month. They do it together. And the special
    focus of their ministry is keeping families together.

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        Two things they did make a big impression on me. I visited their
    church once, and I learned they were building a new sanctuary closer to
    the Washington, DC, line in a higher crime, higher drug rate area
    because they thought it was part of their ministry to change the lives
    of the people who needed them. The second thing I want to say is that
    once Reverend Cherry was at a meeting at the White House with some other
    religious leaders, and he left early to go back to this church to
    minister to 150 couples that he had brought back to his church from all
    over America to convince them to come back together, to save their
    marriages, and to raise their kids. This is the kind of work that
    citizens are doing in America. We need more of it, and it ought to be
    lifted up and supported.
        The last person I want to introduce is Jack Lucas from Hattiesburg,
    Mississippi. Jack, would you stand up? Fifty years ago, in the sands of
    Iwo Jima, Jack Lucas taught and learned the lessons of citizenship. On
    February 20th, 1945, he and three of his buddies encountered the enemy
    and two grenades at their feet. Jack Lucas threw himself on both of
    them. In that moment, he saved the lives of his companions, and
    miraculously in the next instant, a medic saved his life. He gained a
    foothold for freedom, and at the age of 17, just a year older than his
    grandson who is up there with him today--and his son, who is a West
    Point graduate and a veteran--at 17, Jack Lucas became the youngest
    Marine in history and the youngest soldier in this century to win the
    Congressional Medal of Honor. All these years later, yesterday, here's
    what he said about that day: ``It didn't matter where you were from or
    who you were, you relied on one another. You did it for your country.''
        We all gain when we give, and we reap what we sow. That's at the
    heart of this New Covenant. Responsibility, opportunity, and
    citizenship, more than stale chapters in some remote civic book, they're
    still the virtue by which we can fulfill ourselves and reach our God-
    given potential and be like them and also to fulfill the eternal promise
    of this country, the enduring dream from that first and most sacred
    covenant. I believe every person in this country still believes that we
    are created equal and given by our Creator the right to life, liberty
    and the pursuit of happiness. This is a very, very great country. And
    our best days are still to come.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:14 p.m. in the House Chamber of the
    Capitol.