    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [February 4, 1997]
    [Pages 109-117]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union
    February 4, 1997

        Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of the 105th Congress,
    distinguished guests, and my fellow Americans: I think I should start by
    saying thanks for inviting me back. I come before you tonight with a
    challenge as great as any in our peacetime history and a plan of action
    to meet that challenge, to prepare our people for the bold new world of
    the 21st century.
        We have much to be thankful for. With 4 years of growth, we have won
    back the basic strength of our economy. With crime and welfare rolls
    declining, we are winning back our optimism, the enduring faith that we
    can master any difficulty. With the cold war receding and global
    commerce at record levels, we are helping to win an unrivaled peace and
    prosperity all across the world.
        My fellow Americans, the state of our Union is strong. But now we
    must rise to the decisive moment, to make a nation and a world better
    than any we have ever known. The new promise of the global economy, the
    information age, unimagined new work, life-enhancing technology, all
    these are ours to seize. That is our honor and our challenge. We must be
    shapers of events, not observers, for if we do not act, the moment will
    pass, and we will lose the best possibilities of our future.
        We face no imminent threat, but we do have an enemy. The enemy of
    our time is inaction. So tonight I issue a call to action: action by
    this Congress, action by our States, by our people, to prepare America
    for the 21st century; action to keep our economy and our democracy
    strong and working for all our people; action to strengthen education
    and harness the forces of technology and science; action to build
    stronger families and stronger communities and a safer environment;
    action to keep America the world's strongest force for peace, freedom,
    and prosperity; and above all, action to build a more perfect Union here
    at home.
        The spirit we bring to our work will make all the difference. We
    must be committed to the pursuit of opportunity for all Americans,
    responsibility from all Americans, in a community of all Americans. And
    we must be committed to a new kind of Government, not to solve all our
    problems for us but to give our people, all our people, the tools they
    need to make the most of their own lives.
        And we must work together. The people of this Nation elected us all.
    They want us to be partners, not partisans. They put us all right here
    in the same boat, they gave us all oars, and they told us to row. Now,
    here is the direction I believe we should take.
        First, we must move quickly to complete the unfinished business of
    our country, to balance the budget, renew our democracy, and finish the
    job of welfare reform.
        Over the last 4 years, we have brought new economic growth by
    investing in our people, expanding our exports, cutting our deficits,
    creating over 11 million new jobs, a 4-year record. Now we must keep our
    economy the strongest in the world. We here tonight have an historic
    opportunity. Let this Congress be the Congress that finally balances the
    budget. [Applause] Thank you.
        In 2 days I will propose a detailed plan to balance the budget by
    2002. This plan will balance the budget and invest in our people while
    protecting Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment. It will
    balance the budget and build on the Vice President's efforts to make our
    Government work better, even as it costs less. It will balance the
    budget and provide middle class tax relief to pay for education and
    health care, to help to raise a child, to buy and sell a home.
        Balancing the budget requires only your vote and my signature. It
    does not require us to rewrite our Constitution. I believe it is both
    unnecessary and unwise to adopt a balanced

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    budget amendment that could cripple our country in time of economic
    crisis and force unwanted results, such as judges halting Social
    Security checks or increasing taxes. Let us at least agree, we should
    not pass any measure--no measure should be passed that threatens Social
    Security. Whatever your view on that, we all must concede: We don't need
    a constitutional amendment; we need action.
        Whatever our differences, we should balance the budget now. And
    then, for the long-term health of our society, we must agree to a
    bipartisan process to preserve Social Security and reform Medicare for
    the long run, so that these fundamental programs will be as strong for
    our children as they are for our parents.
        And let me say something that's not in my script tonight. I know
    this is not going to be easy. But I really believe one of the reasons
    the American people gave me a second term was to take the tough
    decisions in the next 4 years that will carry our country through the
    next 50 years. I know it is easier for me than for you to say or do. But
    another reason I was elected is to support all of you, without regard to
    party, to give you what is necessary to join in these decisions. We owe
    it to our country and to our future.
        Our second piece of unfinished business requires us to commit
    ourselves tonight, before the eyes of America, to finally enacting
    bipartisan campaign finance reform. Now, Senators McCain and Feingold,
    Representatives Shays and Meehan have reached across party lines here to
    craft tough and fair reform. Their proposal would curb spending, reduce
    the role of special interests, create a level playing field between
    challengers and incumbents, and ban contributions from noncitizens, all
    corporate sources, and the other large soft money contributions that
    both parties receive.
        You know and I know that this can be delayed. And you know and I
    know the delay will mean the death of reform. So let's set our own
    deadline. Let's work together to write bipartisan campaign finance
    reform into law and pass McCain-Feingold by the day we celebrate the
    birth of our democracy, July the fourth.
        There is a third piece of unfinished business. Over the last 4
    years, we moved a record 2\1/4\ million people off the welfare rolls.
    Then last year, Congress enacted landmark welfare reform legislation,
    demanding that all able-bodied recipients assume the responsibility of
    moving from welfare to work. Now each and every one of us has to fulfill
    our responsibility, indeed, our moral obligation, to make sure that
    people who now must work, can work.
        Now we must act to meet a new goal: 2 million more people off the
    welfare rolls by the year 2000. Here is my plan: Tax credits and other
    incentives for businesses that hire people off welfare; incentives for
    job placement firms and States to create more jobs for welfare
    recipients; training, transportation, and child care to help people go
    to work.
        Now I challenge every State: Turn those welfare checks into private
    sector paychecks. I challenge every religious congregation, every
    community nonprofit, every business to hire someone off welfare. And I'd
    like to say especially to every employer in our country who ever
    criticized the old welfare system, you can't blame that old system
    anymore. We have torn it down. Now do your part. Give someone on welfare
    the chance to go to work.
        Tonight I am pleased to announce that five major corporations,
    Sprint, Monsanto, UPS, Burger King, and United Airlines, will be the
    first to join in a new national effort to marshal America's businesses,
    large and small, to create jobs so that people can move from welfare to
    work.
        We passed welfare reform. All of you know I believe we were right to
    do it. But no one can walk out of this Chamber with a clear conscience
    unless you are prepared to finish the job.
        And we must join together to do something else, too, something both
    Republican and Democratic Governors have asked us to do, to restore
    basic health and disability benefits when misfortune strikes immigrants
    who came to this country legally, who work hard, pay taxes, and obey the
    law. To do otherwise is simply unworthy of a great nation of immigrants.
        Now, looking ahead, the greatest step of all, the high threshold of
    the future we must now cross, and my number one priority for the next 4
    years is to ensure that all Americans have the best education in the
    world.
        Let's work together to meet these three goals: Every 8-year-old must
    be able to read; every 12-year-old must be able to log on to the
    Internet; every 18-year-old must be able to go to college; and every
    adult American must be able to keep on learning for a lifetime.

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        My balanced budget makes an unprecedented commitment to these goals,
    $51 billion next year. But far more than money is required. I have a
    plan, a call to action for American education, based on these 10
    principles:
        First, a national crusade for education standards, not Federal
    Government standards but national standards, representing what all our
    students must know to succeed in the knowledge economy of the 21st
    century. Every State and school must shape the curriculum to reflect
    these standards and train teachers to lift students up to them. To help
    schools meet the standards and measure their progress, we will lead an
    effort over the next 2 years to develop national tests of student
    achievement in reading and math. Tonight I issue a challenge to the
    Nation: Every State should adopt high national standards, and by 1999,
    every State should test every fourth grader in reading and every eighth
    grader in math to make sure these standards are met.
        Raising standards will not be easy, and some of our children will
    not be able to meet them at first. The point is not to put our children
    down but to lift them up. Good tests will show us who needs help, what
    changes in teaching to make, and which schools need to improve. They can
    help us end social promotions, for no child should move from grade
    school to junior high or junior high to high school until he or she is
    ready.
        Last month our Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, and I visited
    northern Illinois, where eighth-grade students from 20 school districts,
    in a project aptly called First in the World, took the Third
    International Math and Science Study. That's a test that reflects the
    world-class standards our children must meet for the new era. And those
    students in Illinois tied for first in the world in science and came in
    second in math. Two of them, Kristen Tanner and Chris Getsler, are here
    tonight, along with their teacher, Sue Winski. They're up there with the
    First Lady. And they prove that when we aim high and challenge our
    students, they will be the best in the world. Let's give them a hand.
    Stand up, please. [Applause]
        Second, to have the best schools, we must have the best teachers.
    Most of us in this Chamber would not be here tonight without the help of
    those teachers; I know that I wouldn't be here. For years, many of our
    educators, led by North Carolina's Governor Jim Hunt and the National
    Board for Professional Teaching Standards, have worked very hard to
    establish nationally accepted credentials for excellence in teaching.
    Just 500 of these teachers have been certified since 1995. My budget
    will enable 100,000 more to seek national certification as master
    teachers. We should reward and recognize our best teachers, and as we
    reward them, we should quickly and fairly remove those few who don't
    measure up. And we should challenge more of our finest young people to
    consider teaching as a career.
        Third, we must do more to help all our children read. Forty
    percent--40 percent--of our 8-year-olds cannot read on their own. That's
    why we have just launched the America Reads initiative, to build a
    citizen army of one million volunteer tutors to make sure every child
    can read independently by the end of the third grade. We will use
    thousands of AmeriCorps volunteers to mobilize this citizen army. We
    want at least 100,000 college students to help, and tonight I am pleased
    that 60 college presidents have answered my call, pledging that
    thousands of their work-study students will serve for one year as
    reading tutors. This is also a challenge to every teacher and every
    principal: You must use these tutors to help students read. And it is
    especially a challenge to our parents: You must read with your children
    every night.
        This leads to the fourth principle: Learning begins in the first
    days of life. Scientists are now discovering how young children develop
    emotionally and intellectually from their very first days and how
    important it is for parents to begin immediately talking, singing, even
    reading to their infants. The First Lady has spent years writing about
    this issue, studying it. And she and I are going to convene a White
    House conference on early learning and the brain this spring, to explore
    how parents and educators can best use these startling new findings.
        We already know we should start teaching children before they start
    school. That's why this balanced budget expands Head Start to one
    million children by 2002. And that is why the Vice President and Mrs.
    Gore will host their annual family conference this June on what we can
    do to make sure that parents are an active part of their children's
    learning all the way through school. They've done a great deal to
    highlight the importance of family in our life, and now they're turning
    their attention to getting more parents involved in their children's

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    learning all the way through school. And I thank you, Mr. Vice
    President, and I thank you especially, Tipper, for what you do.
        Fifth, every State should give parents the power to choose the right
    public school for their children. Their right to choose will foster
    competition and innovation that can make public schools better. We
    should also make it possible for more parents and teachers to start
    charter schools, schools that set and meet the highest standards and
    exist only as long as they do. Our plan will help America to create
    3,000 of these charter schools by the next century, nearly 7 times as
    there are in the country today, so that parents will have even more
    choices in sending their children to the best schools.
        Sixth, character education must be taught in our schools. We must
    teach our children to be good citizens. And we must continue to promote
    order and discipline, supporting communities that introduce school
    uniforms, impose curfews, enforce truancy laws, remove disruptive
    students from the classroom, and have zero tolerance for guns and drugs
    in school.
        Seventh, we cannot expect our children to raise themselves up in
    schools that are literally falling down. With the student population at
    an all-time high and record numbers of school buildings falling into
    disrepair, this has now become a serious national concern. Therefore, my
    budget includes a new initiative, $5 billion to help communities finance
    $20 billion in school construction over the next 4 years.
        Eighth, we must make the 13th and 14th years of education, at least
    2 years of college, just as universal in America by the 21st century as
    a high school education is today, and we must open the doors of college
    to all Americans. To do that, I propose America's HOPE scholarship,
    based on Georgia's pioneering program: 2 years of a $1,500 tax credit
    for college tuition, enough to pay for the typical community college. I
    also propose a tax deduction of up to $10,000 a year for all tuition
    after high school, an expanded IRA you can withdraw from tax-free for
    education, and the largest increase in Pell grant scholarships in 20
    years. Now, this plan will give most families the ability to pay no
    taxes on money they save for college tuition. I ask you to pass it and
    give every American who works hard the chance to go to college.
        Ninth, in the 21st century, we must expand the frontiers of learning
    across a lifetime. All our people, of whatever age, must have the chance
    to learn new skills. Most Americans live near a community college. The
    roads that take them there can be paths to a better future. My ``GI
    bill'' for America's workers will transform the confusing tangle of
    Federal training programs into a simple skill grant to go directly into
    eligible workers' hands. For too long, this bill has been sitting on
    that desk there without action. I ask you to pass it now. Let's give
    more of our workers the ability to learn and to earn for a lifetime.
        Tenth, we must bring the power of the information age into all our
    schools. Last year, I challenged America to connect every classroom and
    library to the Internet by the year 2000, so that, for the first time in
    our history, children in the most isolated rural towns, the most
    comfortable suburbs, the poorest inner-city schools, will have the same
    access to the same universe of knowledge.
        That is my plan, a call to action for American education. Some may
    say that it is unusual for a President to pay this kind of attention to
    education. Some may say it is simply because the President and his
    wonderful wife have been obsessed with this subject for more years than
    they can recall. That is not what is driving these proposals.
        We must understand the significance of this endeavor. One of the
    greatest sources of our strength throughout the cold war was a
    bipartisan foreign policy. Because our future was at stake, politics
    stopped at the water's edge. Now I ask you and I ask all our Nation's
    Governors, I ask parents, teachers, and citizens all across America for
    a new nonpartisan commitment to education, because education is a
    critical national security issue for our future, and politics must stop
    at the schoolhouse door.
        To prepare America for the 21st century, we must harness the
    powerful forces of science and technology to benefit all Americans. This
    is the first State of the Union carried live in video over the Internet.
    But we've only begun to spread the benefits of a technology revolution
    that should become the modern birthright of every citizen.
        Our effort to connect every classroom is just the beginning. Now we
    should connect every hospital to the Internet, so that doctors can
    instantly share data about their patients with the best specialists in
    the field. And I challenge the private sector tonight to start by
    connecting every children's hospital as soon as possible, so

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    that a child in bed can stay in touch with school, family, and friends.
    A sick child need no longer be a child alone.
        We must build the second generation of the Internet so that our
    leading universities and national laboratories can communicate in speeds
    1,000 times faster than today, to develop new medical treatments, new
    sources of energy, new ways of working together.
        But we cannot stop there. As the Internet becomes our new town
    square, a computer in every home, a teacher of all subjects, a
    connection to all cultures, this will no longer be a dream but a
    necessity. And over the next decade, that must be our goal.
        We must continue to explore the heavens, pressing on with the Mars
    probes and the international space station, both of which will have
    practical applications for our everyday living.
        We must speed the remarkable advances in medical science. The human
    genome project is now decoding the genetic mysteries of life. American
    scientists have discovered genes linked to breast cancer and ovarian
    cancer and medication that stops a stroke in progress and begins to
    reverse its effects and treatments that dramatically lengthen the lives
    of people with HIV and AIDS.
        Since I took office, funding for AIDS research at the National
    Institutes of Health has increased dramatically to $1.5 billion. With
    new resources, NIH will now become the most powerful discovery engine
    for an AIDS vaccine, working with other scientists to finally end the
    threat of AIDS. Remember that every year--every year--we move up the
    discovery of an AIDS vaccine will save millions of lives around the
    world. We must reinforce our commitment to medical science.
        To prepare America for the 21st century, we must build stronger
    families. Over the past 4 years, the family and medical leave law has
    helped millions of Americans to take time off to be with their families.
    With new pressures on people in the way they work and live, I believe we
    must expand family leave so that workers can take time off for teacher
    conferences and a child's medical checkup. We should pass flextime, so
    workers can choose to be paid for overtime in income or trade it in for
    time off to be with their families.
        We must continue, step by step, to give more families access to
    affordable, quality health care. Forty million Americans still lack
    health insurance. Ten million children still lack health insurance; 80
    percent of them have working parents who pay taxes. That is wrong. My
    balanced budget will extend health coverage to up to 5 million of those
    children. Since nearly half of all children who lose their insurance do
    so because their parents lose or change a job, my budget will also
    ensure that people who temporarily lose their jobs can still afford to
    keep their health insurance. No child should be without a doctor just
    because a parent is without a job.
        My Medicare plan modernizes Medicare, increases the life of the
    Trust Fund to 10 years, provides support for respite care for the many
    families with loved ones afflicted with Alzheimer's, and for the first
    time, it would fully pay for annual mammograms.
        Just as we ended drive-through deliveries of babies last year, we
    must now end the dangerous and demeaning practice of forcing women home
    from the hospital only hours after a mastectomy. I ask your support for
    bipartisan legislation to guarantee that a woman can stay in the
    hospital for 48 hours after a mastectomy. With us tonight is Dr. Kristen
    Zarfos, a Connecticut surgeon whose outrage at this practice spurred a
    national movement and inspired this legislation. I'd like her to stand
    so we can thank her for her efforts. Dr. Zarfos, thank you. [Applause]
        In the last 4 years, we have increased child support collections by
    50 percent. Now we should go further and do better by making it a felony
    for any parent to cross a State line in an attempt to flee from this,
    his or her most sacred obligation.
        Finally, we must also protect our children by standing firm in our
    determination to ban the advertising and marketing of cigarettes that
    endanger their lives.
        To prepare America for the 21st century, we must build stronger
    communities. We should start with safe streets. Serious crime has
    dropped 5 years in a row. The key has been community policing. We must
    finish the job of putting 100,000 community police on the streets of the
    United States. We should pass the victims' rights amendment to the
    Constitution. And I ask you to mount a full-scale assault on juvenile
    crime with legislation that declares war on gangs with new prosecutors
    and tougher penalties; extends the Brady bill so violent teen

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    criminals will not be able to buy handguns; requires child safety locks
    on handguns to prevent unauthorized use; and helps to keep our schools
    open after hours, on weekends, and in the summer, so our young people
    will have someplace to go and something to say yes to.
        This balanced budget includes the largest antidrug effort ever, to
    stop drugs at their source, punish those who push them, and teach our
    young people that drugs are wrong, drugs are illegal, and drugs will
    kill them. I hope you will support it.
        Our growing economy has helped to revive poor urban and rural
    neighborhoods. But we must do more to empower them to create the
    conditions in which all families can flourish and to create jobs through
    investment by business and loans by banks. We should double the number
    of empowerment zones. They've already brought so much hope to
    communities like Detroit, where the unemployment rate has been cut in
    half in 4 years. We should restore contaminated urban land and buildings
    to productive use. We should expand the network of community development
    banks. And together we must pledge tonight that we will use this
    empowerment approach, including private-sector tax incentives, to renew
    our Capital City, so that Washington is a great place to work and live
    and once again the proud face America shows the world.
        We must protect our environment in every community. In the last 4
    years, we cleaned up 250 toxic waste sites, as many as in the previous
    12. Now we should clean up 500 more, so that our children grow up next
    to parks, not poison. I urge you to pass my proposal to make big
    polluters live by a simple rule: If you pollute our environment, you
    should pay to clean it up.
        In the last 4 years, we strengthened our Nation's safe food and
    clean drinking water laws. We protected some of America's rarest, most
    beautiful land in Utah's Red Rocks region, created three new national
    parks in the California desert, and began to restore the Florida
    Everglades. Now we must be as vigilant with our rivers as we are with
    our lands. Tonight I announce that this year I will designate 10
    American Heritage Rivers, to help communities alongside them revitalize
    their waterfronts and clean up pollution in the rivers, proving once
    again that we can grow the economy as we protect the environment.
        We must also protect our global environment, working to ban the
    worst toxic chemicals and to reduce the greenhouse gases that challenge
    our health even as they change our climate.
        Now, we all know that in all of our communities, some of our
    children simply don't have what they need to grow and learn in their own
    homes or schools or neighborhoods. And that means the rest of us must do
    more, for they are our children, too. That's why President Bush, General
    Colin Powell, former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros will join the Vice
    President and me to lead the Presidents' Summit of Service in
    Philadelphia in April.
        Our national service program, AmeriCorps, has already helped 70,000
    young people to work their way through college as they serve America.
    Now we intend to mobilize millions of Americans to serve in thousands of
    ways. Citizen service is an American responsibility which all Americans
    should embrace, and I ask your support for that endeavor.
        I'd like to make just one last point about our national community.
    Our economy is measured in numbers and statistics, and it's very
    important. But the enduring worth of our Nation lies in our shared
    values and our soaring spirit. So instead of cutting back on our modest
    efforts to support the arts and humanities, I believe we should stand by
    them and challenge our artists, musicians, and writers, challenge our
    museums, libraries, and theaters. We should challenge all Americans in
    the arts and humanities to join with our fellow citizens to make the
    year 2000 a national celebration of the American spirit in every
    community, a celebration of our common culture in the century that has
    passed and in the new one to come in the new millennium, so that we can
    remain the world's beacon not only of liberty but of creativity long
    after the fireworks have faded.
        To prepare America for the 21st century, we must master the forces
    of change in the world and keep American leadership strong and sure for
    an uncharted time. Fifty years ago, a farsighted America led in creating
    the institutions that secured victory in the cold war and built a
    growing world economy. As a result, today more people than ever embrace
    our ideals and share our interests. Already we have dismantled many of
    the blocs and barriers that divided our parents' world. For the first
    time, more people

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    live under democracy than dictatorship, including every nation in our
    own hemisphere but one, and its day, too, will come.
        Now we stand at another moment of change and choice and another time
    to be farsighted, to bring America 50 more years of security and
    prosperity. In this endeavor, our first task is to help to build, for
    the very first time, an undivided, democratic Europe. When Europe is
    stable, prosperous, and at peace, America is more secure. To that end,
    we must expand NATO by 1999, so that countries that were once our
    adversaries can become our allies. At the special NATO summit this
    summer, that is what we will begin to do. We must strengthen NATO's
    Partnership For Peace with non-member allies. And we must build a stable
    partnership between NATO and a democratic Russia. An expanded NATO is
    good for America, and a Europe in which all democracies define their
    future not in terms of what they can do to each other but in terms of
    what they can do together for the good of all--that kind of Europe is
    good for America.
        Second, America must look to the East no less than to the West. Our
    security demands it. Americans fought three wars in Asia in this
    century. Our prosperity requires it. More than 2 million American jobs
    depend upon trade with Asia. There, too, we are helping to shape an
    Asia-Pacific community of cooperation, not conflict. Let our progress
    there not mask the peril that remains. Together with South Korea, we
    must advance peace talks with North Korea and bridge the cold war's last
    divide. And I call on Congress to fund our share of the agreement under
    which North Korea must continue to freeze and then dismantle its nuclear
    weapons program.
        We must pursue a deeper dialog with China for the sake of our
    interests and our ideals. An isolated China is not good for America; a
    China playing its proper role in the world is. I will go to China, and I
    have invited China's President to come here, not because we agree on
    everything but because engaging China is the best way to work on our
    common challenges like ending nuclear testing and to deal frankly with
    our fundamental differences like human rights.
        The American people must prosper in the global economy. We've worked
    hard to tear down trade barriers abroad so that we can create good jobs
    at home. I am proud to say that today America is once again the most
    competitive nation and the number one exporter in the world.
        Now we must act to expand our exports, especially to Asia and Latin
    America, two of the fastest growing regions on Earth, or be left behind
    as these emerging economies forge new ties with other nations. That is
    why we need the authority now to conclude new trade agreements that open
    markets to our goods and services even as we preserve our values.
        We need not shrink from the challenge of the global economy. After
    all, we have the best workers and the best products. In a truly open
    market, we can out-compete anyone, anywhere on Earth.
        But this is about more than economics. By expanding trade, we can
    advance the cause of freedom and democracy around the world. There is no
    better example of this truth than Latin America, where democracy and
    open markets are on the march together. That is why I will visit there
    in the spring to reinforce our important tie.
        We should all be proud that America led the effort to rescue our
    neighbor Mexico from its economic crisis. And we should all be proud
    that last month Mexico repaid the United States 3 full years ahead of
    schedule, with half a billion dollar profit to us.
        America must continue to be an unrelenting force for peace from the
    Middle East to Haiti, from Northern Ireland to Africa. Taking reasonable
    risks for peace keeps us from being drawn into far more costly conflicts
    later.
        With American leadership, the killing has stopped in Bosnia. Now the
    habits of peace must take hold. The new NATO force will allow
    reconstruction and reconciliation to accelerate. Tonight I ask Congress
    to continue its strong support of our troops. They are doing a
    remarkable job there for America, and America must do right by them.
        Fifth, we must move strongly against new threats to our security. In
    the past 4 years, we agreed to ban--we led the way to a worldwide
    agreement to ban nuclear testing. With Russia, we dramatically cut
    nuclear arsenals, and we stopped targeting each other's citizens. We are
    acting to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the wrong hands
    and to rid the world of landmines. We are working with other nations
    with renewed intensity to fight drug traffickers

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    and to stop terrorists before they act and hold them fully accountable
    if they do.
        Now we must rise to a new test of leadership, ratifying the Chemical
    Weapons Convention. Make no mistake about it. It will make our troops
    safer from chemical attack. It will help us to fight terrorism. We have
    no more important obligations, especially in the wake of what we now
    know about the Gulf war. This treaty has been bipartisan from the
    beginning, supported by Republican and Democratic administrations and
    Republican and Democratic Members of Congress and already approved by 68
    nations. But if we do not act by April 29th, when this convention goes
    into force with or without us, we will lose the chance to have Americans
    leading and enforcing this effort. Together we must make the Chemical
    Weapons Convention law, so that at last we can begin to outlaw poison
    gas from the Earth.
        Finally, we must have the tools to meet all these challenges. We
    must maintain a strong and ready military. We must increase funding for
    weapons modernization by the year 2000, and we must take good care of
    our men and women in uniform. They are the world's finest.
        We must also renew our commitment to America's diplomacy and pay our
    debts and dues to international financial institutions like the World
    Bank and to a reforming United Nations. Every dollar we devote to
    preventing conflicts, to promoting democracy, to stopping the spread of
    disease and starvation, brings a sure return in security and savings.
    Yet international affairs spending today is just one percent of the
    Federal budget, a small fraction of what America invested in diplomacy
    to choose leadership over escapism at the start of the cold war. If
    America is to continue to lead the world, we here who lead America
    simply must find the will to pay our way.
        A farsighted America moved the world to a better place over these
    last 50 years. And so it can be for another 50 years. But a shortsighted
    America will soon find its words falling on deaf ears all around the
    world.
        Almost exactly 50 years ago, in the first winter of the cold war,
    President Truman stood before a Republican Congress and called upon our
    country to meet its responsibilities of leadership. This was his
    warning; he said, ``If we falter, we may endanger the peace of the
    world, and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this Nation.'' That
    Congress, led by Republicans like Senator Arthur Vandenberg, answered
    President Truman's call. Together, they made the commitments that
    strengthened our country for 50 years. Now let us do the same. Let us do
    what it takes to remain the indispensable nation, to keep America
    strong, secure, and prosperous for another 50 years.
        In the end, more than anything else, our world leadership grows out
    of the power of our example here at home, out of our ability to remain
    strong as one America. All over the world, people are being torn asunder
    by racial, ethnic, and religious conflicts that fuel fanaticism and
    terror. We are the world's most diverse democracy, and the world looks
    to us to show that it is possible to live and advance together across
    those kinds of differences.
        America has always been a nation of immigrants. From the start, a
    steady stream of people in search of freedom and opportunity have left
    their own lands to make this land their home. We started as an
    experiment in democracy fueled by Europeans. We have grown into an
    experiment in democratic diversity fueled by openness and promise.
        My fellow Americans, we must never, ever believe that our diversity
    is a weakness. It is our greatest strength. Americans speak every
    language, know every country. People on every continent can look to us
    and see the reflection of their own great potential, and they always
    will, as long as we strive to give all of our citizens, whatever their
    background, an opportunity to achieve their own greatness.
        We're not there yet. We still see evidence of abiding bigotry and
    intolerance in ugly words and awful violence, in burned churches and
    bombed buildings. We must fight against this, in our country and in our
    hearts.
        Just a few days before my second Inauguration, one of our country's
    best known pastors, Reverend Robert Schuller, suggested that I read
    Isaiah 58:12. Here's what it says: ``Thou shalt raise up the foundations
    of many generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer of the
    breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.'' I placed my hand on that
    verse when I took the oath of office, on behalf of all Americans, for no
    matter what our differences in our faiths, our backgrounds, our
    politics, we must all be repairers of the breach.
        I want to say a word about two other Americans who show us how.
    Congressman Frank Tejeda was buried yesterday, a proud American

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    whose family came from Mexico. He was only 51 years old. He was awarded
    the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart fighting for his
    country in Vietnam. And he went on to serve Texas and America fighting
    for our future here in this Chamber. We are grateful for his service and
    honored that his mother, Lillie Tejeda, and his sister, Mary Alice, have
    come from Texas to be with us here tonight. And we welcome you.
        Gary Locke, the newly elected Governor of Washington State, is the
    first Chinese-American Governor in the history of our country. He's the
    proud son of two of the millions of Asian-American immigrants who have
    strengthened America with their hard work, family values, and good
    citizenship. He represents the future we can all achieve. Thank you,
    Governor, for being here. Please stand up. [Applause]
        Reverend Schuller, Congressman Tejeda, Governor Locke, along with
    Kristen Tanner and Chris Getsler, Sue Winski and Dr. Kristen Zarfos,
    they're all Americans from different roots whose lives reflect the best
    of what we can become when we are one America. We may not share a common
    past, but we surely do share a common future. Building one America is
    our most important mission, the foundation for many generations of every
    other strength we must build for this new century. Money cannot buy it.
    Power cannot compel it. Technology cannot create it. It can only come
    from the human spirit.
        America is far more than a place. It is an idea, the most powerful
    idea in the history of nations. And all of us in this Chamber, we are
    now the bearers of that idea, leading a great people into a new world. A
    child born tonight will have almost no memory of the 20th century.
    Everything that child will know about America will be because of what we
    do now to build a new century.
        We don't have a moment to waste. Tomorrow there will be just over
    1,000 days until the year 2000; 1,000 days to prepare our people; 1,000
    days to work together; 1,000 days to build a bridge to a land of new
    promise. My fellow Americans, we have work to do. Let us seize those
    days and the century.
        Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:15 p.m. in the House Chamber of the
    Capitol. The Executive order of September 11, 1997, establishing the
    American Heritage Rivers initiative was published in the Federal
    Register at 62 FR 48445.