    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [January 23, 1996]
    [Pages 79-87]
    [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 23, 1996

        Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of the
    104th Congress, distinguished guests, my fellow Americans all across our
    land: Let me begin tonight by saying to our men and women in uniform
    around the world and especially those helping peace take root in Bosnia
    and to their families, I thank you. America is very, very proud of you.
        My duty tonight is to report on the state of the Union, not the
    state of our Government but of our American community, and to set forth
    our responsibilities, in the words of our Founders, to form a more
    perfect Union.
        The state of the Union is strong. Our economy is the healthiest it
    has been in three decades. We have the lowest combined rates of
    unemployment and inflation in 27 years. We have completed--created
    nearly 8 million new jobs, over a million of them in basic industries
    like construction and automobiles. America is selling more cars than
    Japan for the first time since the 1970's. And for 3 years in a row, we
    have had a record number of new businesses started in our country.
        Our leadership in the world is also strong, bringing hope for new
    peace. And perhaps most important, we are gaining ground in restoring
    our fundamental values. The crime rate, the welfare and food stamp
    rolls, the poverty rate, and the teen pregnancy rate are all down. And
    as they go down, prospects for America's future go up.
        We live in an age of possibility. A hundred years ago we moved from
    farm to factory. Now we move to an age of technology, information, and
    global competition. These changes have opened vast new opportunities for
    our people, but they have also presented them with stiff challenges.
    While more Americans are living better, too many of our fellow citizens
    are working harder just to keep up, and they are rightly concerned about
    the security of their families.
        We must answer here three fundamental questions: First, how do we
    make the American dream of opportunity for all a reality for all
    Americans who are willing to work for it? Second, how do we preserve our
    old and enduring values as we move into the future? And third, how do we
    meet these challenges together, as one America?
        We know big Government does not have all the answers. We know
    there's not a program for every problem. We know, and we have worked to
    give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic Government in
    Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives
    within its means. The era of big Government is over. But we cannot go
    back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.
        Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation working
    together to meet the challenges we face together. Self-reliance and
    teamwork are not opposing virtues; we must have both. I believe our new,
    smaller Government must work in an old-fashioned American way, together
    with all of our citizens through State and local governments, in the
    workplace, in religious, charitable, and civic associations. Our goal
    must be to enable all our people to make the most of their own lives,
    with stronger families, more educational opportunity, economic security,
    safer streets, a cleaner environment in a safer world.
        To improve the state of our Union, we must ask more of ourselves, we
    must expect more of each other, and we must face our challenges
    together.
        Here, in this place, our responsibility begins with balancing the
    budget in a way that is fair

    [[Page 80]]

    to all Americans. There is now broad bipartisan agreement that permanent
    deficit spending must come to an end. I compliment the Republican
    leadership and the membership for the energy and determination you have
    brought to this task of balancing the budget. And I thank the Democrats
    for passing the largest deficit reduction plan in history in 1993, which
    has already cut the deficit nearly in half in 3 years.
        Since 1993, we have all begun to see the benefits of deficit
    reduction. Lower interest rates have made it easier for businesses to
    borrow and to invest and to create new jobs. Lower interest rates have
    brought down the cost of home mortgages, car payments, and credit card
    rates to ordinary citizens. Now it is time to finish the job and balance
    the budget.
        Though differences remain among us which are significant, the
    combined total of the proposed savings that are common to both plans is
    more than enough, using the numbers from your Congressional Budget
    Office, to balance the budget in 7 years and to provide a modest tax
    cut.
        These cuts are real. They will require sacrifice from everyone. But
    these cuts do not undermine our fundamental obligations to our parents,
    our children, and our future by endangering Medicare or Medicaid or
    education or the environment or by raising taxes on working families.
        I have said before, and let me say again, many good ideas have come
    out of our negotiations. I have learned a lot about the way both
    Republicans and Democrats view the debate before us. I have learned a
    lot about the good ideas that each side has that we could all embrace.
        We ought to resolve our remaining differences. I am willing to work
    to resolve them. I am ready to meet tomorrow. But I ask you to consider
    that we should at least enact these savings that both plans have in
    common and give the American people their balanced budget, a tax cut,
    lower interest rates, and a brighter future. We should do that now and
    make permanent deficits yesterday's legacy.
        Now it is time for us to look also to the challenges of today and
    tomorrow, beyond the burdens of yesterday. The challenges are
    significant. But our Nation was built on challenges. America was built
    on challenges, not promises. And when we work together to meet them, we
    never fail. That is the key to a more perfect Union. Our individual
    dreams must be realized by our common efforts.
        Tonight I want to speak to you about the challenges we all face as a
    people. Our first challenge is to cherish our children and strengthen
    America's families. Family is the foundation of American life. If we
    have stronger families, we will have a stronger America.
        Before I go on, I'd like to take just a moment to thank my own
    family and to thank the person who has taught me more than anyone else
    over 25 years about the importance of families and children, a wonderful
    wife, a magnificent mother, and a great First Lady. Thank you, Hillary.
        All strong families begin with taking more responsibility for our
    children. I've heard Mrs. Gore say that it's hard to be a parent today,
    but it's even harder to be a child. So all of us, not just as parents
    but all of us in our other roles--our media, our schools, our teachers,
    our communities, our churches and synagogues, our businesses, our
    governments--all of us have a responsibility to help our children to
    make it and to make the most of their lives and their God-given
    capacities.
        To the media, I say you should create movies and CD's and television
    shows you'd want your own children and grandchildren to enjoy.
        I call on Congress to pass the requirement for a V-chip in TV sets
    so that parents can screen out programs they believe are inappropriate
    for their children. When parents control what their young children see,
    that is not censorship; that is enabling parents to assume more personal
    responsibility for their children's upbringing. And I urge them to do
    it. The V-chip requirement is part of the important telecommunications
    bill now pending in this Congress. It has bipartisan support, and I urge
    you to pass it now.
        To make the V-chip work, I challenge the broadcast industry to do
    what movies have done, to identify your program in ways that help
    parents to protect their children. And I invite the leaders of major
    media corporations in the entertainment industry to come to the White
    House next month to work with us in a positive way on concrete ways to
    improve what our children see on television. I am ready to work with
    you.
        I say to those who make and market cigarettes, every year a million
    children take up smoking, even though it's against the law. Three
    hundred thousand of them will have their lives shortened as a result.
    Our administration has taken steps to stop the massive marketing cam-

    [[Page 81]]

    paigns that appeal to our children. We are simply saying: Market your
    products to adults, if you wish, but draw the line on children.
        I say to those who are on welfare, and especially to those who have
    been trapped on welfare for a long time: For too long our welfare system
    has undermined the values of family and work instead of supporting them.
    The Congress and I are near agreement on sweeping welfare reform. We
    agree on time limits, tough work requirements, and the toughest possible
    child support enforcement. But I believe we must also provide child care
    so that mothers who are required to go to work can do so without
    worrying about what is happening to their children.
        I challenge this Congress to send me a bipartisan welfare reform
    bill that will really move people from welfare to work and do the right
    thing by our children. I will sign it immediately.
        Let us be candid about this difficult problem. Passing a law, even
    the best possible law, is only a first step. The next step is to make it
    work. I challenge people on welfare to make the most of this opportunity
    for independence. I challenge American businesses to give people on
    welfare the chance to move into the work force. I applaud the work of
    religious groups and others who care for the poor. More than anyone else
    in our society, they know the true difficulty of the task before us, and
    they are in a position to help. Every one of us should join them. That
    is the only way we can make real welfare reform a reality in the lives
    of the American people.
        To strengthen the family we must do everything we can to keep the
    teen pregnancy rate going down. I am gratified, as I'm sure all
    Americans are, that it has dropped for 2 years in a row. But we all know
    it is still far too high. Tonight I am pleased to announce that a group
    of prominent Americans is responding to that challenge by forming an
    organization that will support grassroots community efforts all across
    our country in a national campaign against teen pregnancy. And I
    challenge all of us and every American to join their efforts.
        I call on American men and women in families to give greater respect
    to one another. We must end the deadly scourge of domestic violence in
    our country. And I challenge America's families to work harder to stay
    together. For families who stay together not only do better
    economically, their children do better as well.
        In particular, I challenge the fathers of this country to love and
    care for their children. If your family has separated, you must pay your
    child support. We're doing more than ever to make sure you do, and we're
    going to do more. But let's all admit something about that, too: A check
    will never substitute for a parent's love and guidance. And only you--
    only you can make the decision to help raise your children. No matter
    who you are, how low or high your station in life, it is the most basic
    human duty of every American to do that job to the best of his or her
    ability.
        Our second challenge is to provide Americans with the educational
    opportunities we'll all need for this new century. In our schools, every
    classroom in America must be connected to the information superhighway,
    with computers and good software and well-trained teachers. We are
    working with the telecommunications industry, educators, and parents to
    connect 20 percent of California's classrooms by this spring, and every
    classroom and every library in the entire United States by the year
    2000. I ask Congress to support this education technology initiative so
    that we can make sure this national partnership succeeds.
        Every diploma ought to mean something. I challenge every community,
    every school, and every State to adopt national standards of excellence,
    to measure whether schools are meeting those standards, to cut
    bureaucratic redtape so that schools and teachers have more flexibility
    for grassroots reform, and to hold them accountable for results. That's
    what our Goals 2000 initiative is all about. I challenge every State to
    give all parents the right to choose which public school their children
    will attend and to let teachers form new schools with a charter they can
    keep only if they do a good job.
        I challenge all our schools to teach character education, to teach
    good values and good citizenship. And if it means that teenagers will
    stop killing each other over designer jackets, then our public schools
    should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms.
        I challenge our parents to become their children's first teachers.
    Turn off the TV. See that the homework is done. And visit your
    children's classroom. No program, no teacher, no one else can do that
    for you.
        My fellow Americans, higher education is more important today than
    ever before. We've created a new student loan program that's made

    [[Page 82]]

    it easier to borrow and repay those loans, and we have dramatically cut
    the student loan default rate. That's something we should all be proud
    of because it was unconscionably high just a few years ago.
        Through AmeriCorps, our national service program, this year 25,000
    young people will earn college money by serving their local communities
    to improve the lives of their friends and neighbors.
        These initiatives are right for America, and we should keep them
    going. And we should also work hard to open the doors of college even
    wider. I challenge Congress to expand work-study and help one million
    young Americans work their way through college by the year 2000, to
    provide a $1,000 merit scholarship for the top 5 percent of graduates in
    every high school in the United States, to expand Pell grant
    scholarships for deserving and needy students, and to make up to $10,000
    a year of college tuition tax deductible. It's a good idea for America.
        Our third challenge is to help every American who is willing to work
    for it achieve economic security in this new age. People who work hard
    still need support to get ahead in the new economy. They need education
    and training for a lifetime. They need more support for families raising
    children. They need retirement security. They need access to health
    care. More and more Americans are finding that the education of their
    childhood simply doesn't last a lifetime.
        So I challenge Congress to consolidate 70 overlapping, antiquated
    job training programs into a simple voucher worth $2,600 for unemployed
    or underemployed workers to use as they please for community college
    tuition or other training. This is a ``GI bill'' for America's workers
    we should all be able to agree on.
        More and more Americans are working hard without a raise. Congress
    sets the minimum wage. Within a year, the minimum wage will fall to a
    40-year low in purchasing power. Four dollars and 25 cents an hour is no
    longer a minimum wage, but millions of Americans and their children are
    trying to live on it. I challenge you to raise their minimum wage.
        In 1993, Congress cut the taxes of 15 million hard-pressed working
    families to make sure that no parents who work full time would have to
    raise their children in poverty and to encourage people to move from
    welfare to work. This expanded earned-income tax credit is now worth
    about $1,800 a year to a family of four living on $20,000. The budget
    bill I vetoed would have reversed this achievement and raised taxes on
    nearly 8 million of these people. We should not do that. We should not
    do that.
        But I also agree that the people who are helped under this
    initiative are not all those in our country who are working hard to do a
    good job raising their children and at work. I agree that we need a tax
    credit for working families with children. That's one of the things most
    of us in this Chamber, I hope, can agree on. I know it is strongly
    supported by the Republican majority. And it should be part of any final
    budget agreement.
        I want to challenge every business that can possibly afford it to
    provide pensions for your employees. And I challenge Congress to pass a
    proposal recommended by the White House Conference on Small Business
    that would make it easier for small businesses and farmers to establish
    their own pension plans. That is something we should all agree on.
        We should also protect existing pension plans. Two years ago, with
    bipartisan support that was almost unanimous on both sides of the aisle,
    we moved to protect the pensions of 8 million working people and to
    stabilize the pensions of 32 million more. Congress should not now let
    companies endanger those workers' pension funds. I know the proposal to
    liberalize the ability of employers to take money out of pension funds
    for other purposes would raise money for the Treasury, but I believe it
    is false economy. I vetoed that proposal last year, and I would have to
    do so again.
        Finally, if our working families are going to succeed in the new
    economy, they must be able to buy health insurance policies that they do
    not lose when they change jobs or when someone in their family gets
    sick. Over the past 2 years, over one million Americans in working
    families have lost their health insurance. We have to do more to make
    health care available to every American. And Congress should start by
    passing the bipartisan bill sponsored by Senator Kennedy and Senator
    Kassebaum that would require insurance companies to stop dropping people
    when they switch jobs and stop denying coverage for preexisting
    conditions. Let's all do that.
        And even as we enact savings in these programs, we must have a
    common commitment to preserve the basic protections of Medicare

    [[Page 83]]

    and Medicaid, not just to the poor but to people in working families,
    including children, people with disabilities, people with AIDS, senior
    citizens in nursing homes. In the past 3 years, we've saved $15 billion
    just by fighting health care fraud and abuse. We have all agreed to save
    much more. We have all agreed to stabilize the Medicare Trust Fund. But
    we must not abandon our fundamental obligations to the people who need
    Medicare and Medicaid. America cannot become stronger if they become
    weaker.
        The ``GI bill'' for workers, tax relief for education and
    childrearing, pension availability and protection, access to health
    care, preservation of Medicare and Medicaid, these things, along with
    the Family and Medical Leave Act passed in 1993, these things will help
    responsible, hard-working American families to make the most of their
    own lives.
        But employers and employees must do their part as well, as they are
    doing in so many of our finest companies, working together, putting the
    long-term prosperity ahead of the short-term gain. As workers increase
    their hours and their productivity, employers should make sure they get
    the skills they need and share the benefits of the good years as well as
    the burdens of the bad ones. When companies and workers work as a team
    they do better, and so does America.
        Our fourth great challenge is to take our streets back from crime
    and gangs and drugs. At last we have begun to find a way to reduce
    crime, forming community partnerships with local police forces to catch
    criminals and prevent crime. This strategy, called community policing,
    is clearly working. Violent crime is coming down all across America. In
    New York City, murders are down 25 percent; in St. Louis, 18 percent; in
    Seattle, 32 percent. But we still have a long way to go before our
    streets are safe and our people are free from fear.
        The crime bill of 1994 is critical to the success of community
    policing. It provides funds for 100,000 new police in communities of all
    sizes. We're already a third of the way there. And I challenge the
    Congress to finish the job. Let us stick with a strategy that's working
    and keep the crime rate coming down.
        Community policing also requires bonds of trust between citizens and
    police. I ask all Americans to respect and support our law enforcement
    officers. And to our police, I say, our children need you as role models
    and heroes. Don't let them down.
        The Brady bill has already stopped 44,000 people with criminal
    records from buying guns. The assault weapons ban is keeping 19 kinds of
    assault weapons out of the hands of violent gangs. I challenge the
    Congress to keep those laws on the books.
        Our next step in the fight against crime is to take on gangs the way
    we once took on the mob. I'm directing the FBI and other investigative
    agencies to target gangs that involve juveniles in violent crime, and to
    seek authority to prosecute as adults teenagers who maim and kill like
    adults.
        And I challenge local housing authorities and tenant associations:
    Criminal gang members and drug dealers are destroying the lives of
    decent tenants. From now on, the rule for residents who commit crime and
    peddle drugs should be ``one strike and you're out.''
        I challenge every State to match Federal policy to assure that
    serious violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of their sentence.
        More police and punishment are important, but they're not enough. We
    have got to keep more of our young people out of trouble, with
    prevention strategies not dictated by Washington but developed in
    communities. I challenge all of our communities, all of our adults, to
    give our children futures to say yes to. And I challenge Congress not to
    abandon the crime bill's support of these grassroots prevention efforts.
        Finally, to reduce crime and violence we have to reduce the drug
    problem. The challenge begins in our homes, with parents talking to
    their children openly and firmly. It embraces our churches and
    synagogues, our youth groups and our schools. I challenge Congress not
    to cut our support for drug-free schools. People like the D.A.R.E.
    officers are making a real impression on grade-school children that will
    give them the strength to say no when the time comes.
        Meanwhile, we continue our efforts to cut the flow of drugs into
    America. For the last 2 years, one man in particular has been on the
    front lines of that effort. Tonight I am nominating him, a hero of the
    Persian Gulf war and the commander in chief of the United States
    Military Southern Command, General Barry McCaffrey, as America's new
    drug czar. General McCaffrey has earned three Purple Hearts and two
    Silver Stars fighting for this country. Tonight I ask that he lead our
    Nation's battle

    [[Page 84]]

    against drugs at home and abroad. To succeed, he needs a force far
    larger than he has ever commanded before. He needs all of us. Every one
    of us has a role to play on this team.
        Thank you, General McCaffrey, for agreeing to serve your country one
    more time.
        Our fifth challenge: to leave our environment safe and clean for the
    next generation. Because of a generation of bipartisan effort we do have
    cleaner water and air, lead levels in children's blood has been cut by
    70 percent, toxic emissions from factories cut in half. Lake Erie was
    dead, and now it's a thriving resource. But 10 million children under 12
    still live within 4 miles of a toxic waste dump. A third of us breathe
    air that endangers our health. And in too many communities the water is
    not safe to drink. We still have much to do.
        Yet Congress has voted to cut environmental enforcement by 25
    percent. That means more toxic chemicals in our water, more smog in our
    air, more pesticides in our food. Lobbyists for polluters have been
    allowed to write their own loopholes into bills to weaken laws that
    protect the health and safety of our children. Some say that the
    taxpayer should pick up the tab for toxic waste and let polluters who
    can afford to fix it off the hook. I challenge Congress to reexamine
    those policies and to reverse them.
        This issue has not been a partisan issue. The most significant
    environmental gains in the last 30 years were made under a Democratic
    Congress and President Richard Nixon. We can work together. We have to
    believe some basic things. Do you believe we can expand the economy
    without hurting the environment? I do. Do you believe we can create more
    jobs over the long run by cleaning the environment up? I know we can.
    That should be our commitment.
        We must challenge businesses and communities to take more initiative
    in protecting the environment, and we have to make it easier for them to
    do it. To businesses this administration is saying, if you can find a
    cheaper, more efficient way than Government regulations require to meet
    tough pollution standards, do it, as long as you do it right. To
    communities we say, we must strengthen community right-to-know laws
    requiring polluters to disclose their emissions, but you have to use the
    information to work with business to cut pollution. People do have a
    right to know that their air and their water are safe.
        Our sixth challenge is to maintain America's leadership in the fight
    for freedom and peace throughout the world. Because of American
    leadership, more people than ever before live free and at peace. And
    Americans have known 50 years of prosperity and security.
        We owe thanks especially to our veterans of World War II. I would
    like to say to Senator Bob Dole and to all others in this Chamber who
    fought in World War II, and to all others on both sides of the aisle who
    have fought bravely in all our conflicts since: I salute your service,
    and so do the American people.
        All over the world, even after the cold war, people still look to us
    and trust us to help them seek the blessings of peace and freedom. But
    as the cold war fades into memory, voices of isolation say America
    should retreat from its responsibilities. I say they are wrong.
        The threats we face today as Americans respect no nation's borders.
    Think of them: terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction,
    organized crime, drug trafficking, ethnic and religious hatred,
    aggression by rogue states, environmental degradation. If we fail to
    address these threats today, we will suffer the consequences in all our
    tomorrows.
        Of course, we can't be everywhere. Of course, we can't do
    everything. But where our interests and our values are at stake, and
    where we can make a difference, America must lead. We must not be
    isolationist. We must not be the world's policeman. But we can and
    should be the world's very best peacemaker.
        By keeping our military strong, by using diplomacy where we can and
    force where we must, by working with others to share the risk and the
    cost of our efforts, America is making a difference for people here and
    around the world. For the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age--
    for the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age--there is not a
    single Russian missile pointed at America's children.
        North Korea has now frozen its dangerous nuclear weapons program. In
    Haiti, the dictators are gone, democracy has a new day, the flow of
    desperate refugees to our shores has subsided. Through tougher trade
    deals for America, over 80 of them, we have opened markets abroad, and
    now exports are at an all-time high, growing faster than imports and
    creating good American jobs.
        We stood with those taking risks for peace: in Northern Ireland,
    where Catholic and Protes-

    [[Page 85]]

    tant children now tell their parents violence must never return; in the
    Middle East, where Arabs and Jews who once seemed destined to fight
    forever now share knowledge and resources and even dreams.
        And we stood up for peace in Bosnia. Remember the skeletal
    prisoners, the mass graves, the campaign to rape and torture, the
    endless lines of refugees, the threat of a spreading war. All these
    threats, all these horrors have now begun to give way to the promise of
    peace. Now our troops and a strong NATO, together with our new partners
    from central Europe and elsewhere, are helping that peace to take hold.
        As all of you know, I was just there with a bipartisan congressional
    group, and I was so proud not only of what our troops were doing but of
    the pride they evidenced in what they were doing. They knew what
    America's mission in this world is, and they were proud to be carrying
    it out.
        Through these efforts, we have enhanced the security of the American
    people, but make no mistake about it: Important challenges remain.
        The START II treaty with Russia will cut our nuclear stockpiles by
    another 25 percent. I urge the Senate to ratify it now. We must end the
    race to create new nuclear weapons by signing a truly comprehensive
    nuclear test ban treaty this year.
        As we remember what happened in the Japanese subway, we can outlaw
    poison gas forever if the Senate ratifies the Chemical Weapons
    Convention this year. We can intensify the fight against terrorists and
    organized criminals at home and abroad if Congress passes the
    antiterrorism legislation I proposed after the Oklahoma City bombing,
    now. We can help more people move from hatred to hope all across the
    world in our own interest if Congress gives us the means to remain the
    world's leader for peace.
        My fellow Americans, the six challenges I have just discussed are
    for all of us. Our seventh challenge is really America's challenge to
    those of us in this hallowed Hall tonight: to reinvent our Government
    and make our democracy work for them.
        Last year this Congress applied to itself the laws it applies to
    everyone else. This Congress banned gifts and meals from lobbyists. This
    Congress forced lobbyists to disclose who pays them and what legislation
    they are trying to pass or kill. This Congress did that, and I applaud
    you for it.
        Now I challenge Congress to go further, to curb special interest
    influence in politics by passing the first truly bipartisan campaign
    finance reform bill in a generation. You, Republicans and Democrats
    alike, can show the American people that we can limit spending and we
    can open the airwaves to all candidates.
        I also appeal to Congress to pass the line item veto you promised
    the American people.
        Our administration is working hard to give the American people a
    Government that works better and costs less. Thanks to the work of Vice
    President Gore, we are eliminating 16,000 pages of unnecessary rules and
    regulations, shifting more decisionmaking out of Washington, back to
    States and local communities.
        As we move into the era of balanced budgets and smaller Government,
    we must work in new ways to enable people to make the most of their own
    lives. We are helping America's communities, not with more bureaucracy
    but with more opportunities. Through our successful empowerment zones
    and community development banks, we're helping people to find jobs, to
    start businesses. And with tax incentives for companies that clean up
    abandoned industrial property, we can bring jobs back to places that
    desperately, desperately need them.
        But there are some areas that the Federal Government should not
    leave and should address and address strongly. One of these areas is the
    problem of illegal immigration. After years of neglect, this
    administration has taken a strong stand to stiffen the protection of our
    borders. We are increasing border controls by 50 percent. We are
    increasing inspections to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants. And
    tonight I announce I will sign an Executive order to deny Federal
    contracts to businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
        Let me be very clear about this: We are still a nation of
    immigrants; we should be proud of it. We should honor every legal
    immigrant here, working hard to be a good citizen, working hard to
    become a new citizen. But we are also a nation of laws.
        I want to say a special word now to those who work for our Federal
    Government. Today the Federal work force is 200,000 employees smaller
    than it was the day I took office as President. Our Federal Government
    today is the smallest it has been in 30 years, and it's getting

    [[Page 86]]

    smaller every day. Most of our fellow Americans probably don't know
    that. And there's a good reason--a good reason: The remaining Federal
    work force is composed of hard-working Americans who are now working
    harder and working smarter than ever before to make sure the quality of
    our services does not decline.
        I'd like to give you one example. His name is Richard Dean. He's a
    49-year-old Vietnam veteran who's worked for the Social Security
    Administration for 22 years now. Last year he was hard at work in the
    Federal Building in Oklahoma City when the blast killed 169 people and
    brought the rubble down all around him. He reentered that building four
    times. He saved the lives of three women. He's here with us this
    evening, and I want to recognize Richard and applaud both his public
    service and his extraordinary personal heroism. But Richard Dean's story
    doesn't end there. This last November, he was forced out of his office
    when the Government shut down. And the second time the Government shut
    down he continued helping Social Security recipients, but he was working
    without pay.
        On behalf of Richard Dean and his family, and all the other people
    who are out there working every day doing a good job for the American
    people, I challenge all of you in this Chamber: Let's never, ever shut
    the Federal Government down again.
        On behalf of all Americans, especially those who need their Social
    Security payments at the beginning of March, I also challenge the
    Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States, to
    honor the obligations of this great Nation as we have for 220 years, to
    rise above partisanship and pass a straightforward extension of the debt
    limit and show people America keeps its word.
        I know that this evening I have asked a lot of Congress and even
    more from America. But I am confident: When Americans work together in
    their homes, their schools, their churches, their synagogues, their
    civic groups, their workplace, they can meet any challenge.
        I say again, the era of big Government is over. But we can't go back
    to the era of fending for yourself. We have to go forward to the era of
    working together as a community, as a team, as one America, with all of
    us reaching across these lines that divide us--the division, the
    discrimination, the rancor--we have to reach across it to find common
    ground. We have got to work together if we want America to work.
        I want you to meet two more people tonight who do just that. Lucius
    Wright is a teacher in the Jackson, Mississippi, public school system. A
    Vietnam veteran, he has created groups to help inner-city children turn
    away from gangs and build futures they can believe in. Sergeant Jennifer
    Rodgers is a police officer in Oklahoma City. Like Richard Dean, she
    helped to pull her fellow citizens out of the rubble and deal with that
    awful tragedy. She reminds us that in their response to that atrocity
    the people of Oklahoma City lifted all of us with their basic sense of
    decency and community.
        Lucius Wright and Jennifer Rodgers are special Americans. And I have
    the honor to announce tonight that they are the very first of several
    thousand Americans who will be chosen to carry the Olympic torch on its
    long journey from Los Angeles to the centennial of the modern Olympics
    in Atlanta this summer, not because they are star athletes but because
    they are star citizens, community heroes meeting America's challenges.
    They are our real champions. Please stand up. [Applause]
        Now each of us must hold high the torch of citizenship in our own
    lives. None of us can finish the race alone. We can only achieve our
    destiny together, one hand, one generation, one American connecting to
    another.
        There have always been things we could do together, dreams we could
    make real which we could never have done on our own. We Americans have
    forged our identity, our very Union, from the very point of view that we
    can accommodate every point on the planet, every different opinion. But
    we must be bound together by a faith more powerful than any doctrine
    that divides us, by our belief in progress, our love of liberty, and our
    relentless search for common ground.
        America has always sought and always risen to every challenge. Who
    would say that having come so far together, we will not go forward from
    here? Who would say that this age of possibility is not for all
    Americans?
        Our country is and always has been a great and good nation. But the
    best is yet to come if we all do our parts.
        Thank you. God bless you, and God bless the United States of
    America. Thank you.

    [[Page 87]]

    Note: The President spoke at 9:14 p.m. in the House Chamber of the
    Capitol. The Executive order of February 13 on economy and efficiency in
    Government procurement through compliance with certain Immigration and
    Naturalization Act provisions is listed in Appendix D at the end of this
    volume.