[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
[January 27, 1998]
[Pages 112-121]
[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 27, 1998

    The President. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice 
President, Members of the 105th Congress, 
distinguished guests, my fellow Americans: Since the last time we met in 
this Chamber, America has lost two patriots and fine public servants. 
Though they sat on opposite sides of the aisle, Representatives Walter 
Capps and Sonny Bono 
shared a deep love for this House and an unshakable commitment to 
improving the lives of all our people. In the past few weeks, they've 
both been eulogized. Tonight I think we should begin by sending a 
message to their families and their friends that we celebrate their 
lives and give thanks for their service to our Nation.
    For 209 years, it has been the President's duty to report to you on 
the state of the Union. Because of the hard work and high purpose of the 
American people, these are good times for America. We have more than 14 
million new jobs, the lowest unemployment in 24 years, the lowest core 
inflation in 30 years; incomes are rising; and we have the highest 
homeownership in history. Crime has dropped for a record 5 years in a 
row, and the welfare rolls are at their lowest levels in 27 years. Our 
leadership in the world is unrivaled. Ladies and gentlemen, the state of 
our Union is strong.
    But with barely 700 days left in the 20th century, this is not a 
time to rest. It is a time to build, to build the America within reach, 
an America where everybody has a chance to get ahead with hard work; 
where every citizen can live in a safe community; where families are 
strong, schools are good, and all our young people can go on to college; 
an America where scientists find cures for diseases from diabetes to 
Alzheimer's to AIDS; an America where every child can stretch a hand 
across a keyboard and reach every book ever written, every painting ever 
painted, every symphony ever composed; where government provides 
opportunity and citizens honor the responsibility to give something back 
to their communities; an America which leads the world to new heights of 
peace and prosperity. This is the America we have begun to build; this 
is the America we can leave to our children if we join together to 
finish the work at hand. Let us strengthen our Nation for the 21st 
century.
    Rarely have Americans lived through so much change in so many ways 
in so short a time. Quietly, but with gathering force, the ground has 
shifted beneath our feet as we have moved into an information age, a 
global economy, a truly new world. For 5 years now, we have met the 
challenge of these changes, as Americans have at every turning point in 
our history, by renewing the very idea of America: widening

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the circle of opportunity, deepening the meaning of our freedom, forging 
a more perfect Union.
    We shaped a new kind of Government for the information age. I thank 
the Vice President for his leadership and 
the Congress for its support in building a Government that is leaner, 
more flexible, a catalyst for new ideas, and most of all, a Government 
that gives the American people the tools they need to make the most of 
their own lives.
    We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say 
government is the enemy and those who say government is the answer. My 
fellow Americans, we have found a third way. We have the smallest 
Government in 35 years, but a more progressive one. We have a smaller 
Government, but a stronger Nation. We are moving steadily toward an even 
stronger America in the 21st century: an economy that offers 
opportunity, a society rooted in responsibility, and a nation that lives 
as a community.
    First, Americans in this Chamber and across our Nation have pursued 
a new strategy for prosperity: fiscal discipline to cut interest rates 
and spur growth; investments in education and skills, in science and 
technology and transportation, to prepare our people for the new 
economy; new markets for American products and American workers.
    When I took office, the deficit for 1998 was projected to be $357 
billion and heading higher. This year, our deficit is projected to be 
$10 billion and heading lower. For three decades, six Presidents have 
come before you to warn of the damage deficits pose to our Nation. 
Tonight I come before you to announce that the Federal deficit, once so 
incomprehensibly large that it had 11 zeros, will be, simply, zero. I 
will submit to Congress for 1999 the first balanced budget in 30 years. 
And if we hold fast to fiscal discipline, we may balance the budget this 
year--4 years ahead of schedule.
    You can all be proud of that, because turning a sea of red ink into 
black is no miracle. It is the product of hard work by the American 
people and of two visionary actions in Congress: the courageous vote in 
1993 that led to a cut in the deficit of 90 percent, and the truly 
historic bipartisan balanced budget agreement passed by this Congress. 
Here's the really good news: If we maintain our resolve, we will produce 
balanced budgets as far as the eye can see.
    We must not go back to unwise spending or untargeted tax cuts that 
risk reopening the deficit. Last year, together, we enacted targeted tax 
cuts so that the typical middle class family will now have the lowest 
tax rates in 20 years. My plan to balance the budget next year includes 
both new investments and new tax cuts targeted to the needs of working 
families, for education, for child care, for the environment.
    But whether the issue is tax cuts or spending, I ask all of you to 
meet this test: Approve only those priorities that can actually be 
accomplished without adding a dime to the deficit.
    Now, if we balance the budget for next year, it is projected that 
we'll then have a sizable surplus in the years that immediately follow. 
What should we do with this projected surplus? I have a simple four-word 
answer: Save Social Security first.
    Tonight I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the surplus--that's 
every penny of any surplus--until we have taken all the necessary 
measures to strengthen the Social Security system for the 21st century. 
Let us say to all Americans watching tonight--whether you're 70 or 50 or 
whether you just started paying into the system--Social Security will be 
there when you need it. Let us make this commitment: Social Security 
first. Let's do that together.
    I also want to say that all the American people who are watching us 
tonight should be invited to join in this discussion, in facing these 
issues squarely and forming a true consensus on how we should proceed. 
We'll start by conducting nonpartisan forums in every region of the 
country, and I hope that lawmakers of both parties will participate. 
We'll hold a White House conference on Social Security in December. And 
one year from now, I will convene the leaders of Congress to craft 
historic, bipartisan legislation to achieve a landmark for our 
generation: a Social Security system that is strong in the 21st century.
    In an economy that honors opportunity, all Americans must be able to 
reap the rewards of prosperity. Because these times are good, we can 
afford to take one simple, sensible step to help millions of workers 
struggling to provide for their families: We should raise the minimum 
wage.
    The information age is, first and foremost, an education age, in 
which education must start at birth and continue throughout a lifetime. 
Last year, from this podium, I said that education

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has to be our highest priority. I laid out a 10-point plan to move us 
forward and urged all of us to let politics stop at the schoolhouse 
door. Since then, this Congress--across party lines--and the American 
people have responded, in the most important year for education in a 
generation, expanding public school choice, opening the way to 3,000 new 
charter schools, working to connect every classroom in the country to 
the information superhighway, committing to expand Head Start to a 
million children, launching America Reads, sending literally thousands 
of college students into our elementary schools to make sure all our 8-
year-olds can read.
    Last year I proposed and you passed 220,000 new Pell grant 
scholarships for deserving students. Student loans, already less 
expensive and easier to repay--now you get to deduct the interest. 
Families all over America now can put their savings into new tax-free 
education IRA's. And this year, for the first 2 years of college, 
families will get a $1,500 tax credit--a HOPE scholarship that will 
cover the cost of most community college tuition. And for junior and 
senior year, graduate school, and job training, there is a lifetime 
learning credit. You did that, and you should be very proud of it.
    And because of these actions, I have something to say to every 
family listening to us tonight: Your children can go on to college. If 
you know a child from a poor family, tell her not to give up; she can go 
on to college. If you know a young couple struggling with bills, worried 
they won't be able to send their children to college, tell them not to 
give up; their children can go on to college. If you know somebody who's 
caught in a dead-end job and afraid he can't afford the classes 
necessary to get better jobs for the rest of his life, tell him not to 
give up; he can go on to college. Because of the things that have been 
done, we can make college as universal in the 21st century as high 
school is today. And my friends, that will change the face and future of 
America.
    We have opened wide the doors of the world's best system of higher 
education. Now we must make our public elementary and secondary schools 
the world's best, as well, by raising standards, raising expectations, 
and raising accountability. Thanks to the actions of this Congress last 
year, we will soon have, for the very first time, a voluntary national 
test based on national standards in fourth grade reading and eighth 
grade math. Parents have a right to know whether their children are 
mastering the basics. And every parent already knows the key: good 
teachers and small classes.
    Tonight I propose the first ever national effort to reduce class 
size in the early grades. My balanced budget will help to hire 100,000 
new teachers who've passed a State competency test. Now, with these 
teachers--listen--with these teachers, we will actually be able to 
reduce class size in the first, second, and third grades to an average 
of 18 students a class, all across America.
    If I've got the math right, more teachers teaching smaller classes 
requires more classrooms. So I also propose a school construction tax 
cut to help communities modernize or build 5,000 schools.
    We must also demand greater accountability. When we promote a child 
from grade to grade who hasn't mastered the work, we don't do that child 
any favors. It is time to end social promotion in America's schools. 
Last year, in Chicago, they made that decision--not to hold our children 
back but to lift them up. Chicago stopped social promotion and started 
mandatory summer school to help students who are behind to catch up. I 
propose to help other communities follow Chicago's lead. Let's say to 
them: Stop promoting children who don't learn, and we will give you the 
tools to make sure they do.
    I also ask this Congress to support our efforts to enlist colleges 
and universities to reach out to disadvantaged children, starting in the 
sixth grade, so that they can get the guidance and hope they need so 
they can know that they, too, will be able to go on to college.
    As we enter the 21st century, the global economy requires us to seek 
opportunity not just at home but in all the markets of the world. We 
must shape this global economy, not shrink from it. In the last 5 years, 
we have led the way in opening new markets, with 240 trade agreements 
that remove foreign barriers to products bearing the proud stamp ``Made 
in the USA.'' Today, record high exports account for fully one-third of 
our economic growth. I want to keep them going, because that's the way 
to keep America growing and to advance a safer, more stable world.
    All of you know, whatever your views are, that I think this is a 
great opportunity for America. I know there is opposition to more 
comprehensive trade agreements. I have listened

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carefully, and I believe that the opposition is rooted in two fears: 
first, that our trading partners will have lower environmental and labor 
standards which will give them an unfair advantage in our market and do 
their own people no favors, even if there's more business; and, second, 
that if we have more trade, more of our workers will lose their jobs and 
have to start over. I think we should seek to advance worker and 
environmental standards around the world. I have made it abundantly 
clear that it should be a part of our trade agenda. But we cannot 
influence other countries' decisions if we send them a message that 
we're backing away from trade with them.
    This year I will send legislation to Congress, and ask other nations 
to join us, to fight the most intolerable labor practice of all: abusive 
child labor. We should also offer help and hope to those Americans 
temporarily left behind by the global marketplace or by the march of 
technology, which may have nothing to do with trade. That's why we have 
more than doubled funding for training dislocated workers since 1993. 
And if my new budget is adopted, we will triple funding. That's why we 
must do more, and more quickly, to help workers who lose their jobs for 
whatever reason.
    You know, we help communities in a special way when their military 
base closes; we ought to help them in the same way if their factory 
closes. Again, I ask the Congress to continue its bipartisan work to 
consolidate the tangle of training programs we have today into one 
single ``GI bill'' for workers, a simple skills grant so people can, on 
their own, move quickly to new jobs, to higher incomes, and brighter 
futures.
    We all know, in every way in life, change is not always easy, but we 
have to decide whether we're going to try to hold it back and hide from 
it or reap its benefits. And remember the big picture here: While we've 
been entering into hundreds of new trade agreements, we've been creating 
millions of new jobs.
    So this year we will forge new partnerships with Latin America, 
Asia, and Europe. And we should pass the new ``African Trade Act''; it 
has bipartisan support. I will also renew my request for the fast-track 
negotiating authority necessary to open more new markets, create more 
new jobs, which every President has had for two decades.
    You know, whether we like it or not, in ways that are mostly 
positive, the world's economies are more and more interconnected and 
interdependent. Today, an economic crisis anywhere can affect economies 
everywhere. Recent months have brought serious financial problems to 
Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, and beyond.
    Now, why should Americans be concerned about this? First, these 
countries are our customers. If they sink into recession, they won't be 
able to buy the goods we'd like to sell them. Second, they're also our 
competitors. So if their currencies lose their value and go down, then 
the price of their goods will drop, flooding our market and others with 
much cheaper goods, which makes it a lot tougher for our people to 
compete. And finally, they are our strategic partners. Their stability 
bolsters our security.
    The American economy remains sound and strong, and I want to keep it 
that way. But because the turmoil in Asia will have an impact on all the 
world's economies, including ours, making that negative impact as small 
as possible is the right thing to do for America and the right thing to 
do for a safer world.
    Our policy is clear: No nation can recover if it does not reform 
itself. But when nations are willing to undertake serious economic 
reform, we should help them do it. So I call on Congress to renew 
America's commitment to the International Monetary Fund. And I think we 
should say to all the people we're trying to represent here that 
preparing for a far-off storm that may reach our shores is far wiser 
than ignoring the thunder till the clouds are just overhead.
    A strong nation rests on the rock of responsibility. A society 
rooted in responsibility must first promote the value of work, not 
welfare. We can be proud that after decades of finger-pointing and 
failure, together we ended the old welfare system. And we're now 
replacing welfare checks with paychecks.
    Last year, after a record 4-year decline in welfare rolls, I 
challenged our Nation to move 2 million more Americans off welfare by 
the year 2000. I'm pleased to report we have also met that goal, 2 full 
years ahead of schedule.
    This is a grand achievement, the sum of many acts of individual 
courage, persistence, and hope. For 13 years, Elaine Kinslow of Indianapolis, Indiana, was on and off welfare. 
Today, she's a dispatcher with a van company. She's saved enough money 
to move her family into a good neighborhood, and she's helping other 
welfare

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recipients go to work. Elaine Kinslow and all those like her are the 
real heroes of the welfare revolution. There are millions like her all 
across America. And I'm happy she could join the First Lady tonight. 
Elaine, we're very proud of you. Please stand up. [Applause]
    We still have a lot more to do, all of us, to make welfare reform a 
success--providing child care, helping families move closer to available 
jobs, challenging more companies to join our welfare-to-work 
partnership, increasing child support collections from deadbeat parents 
who have a duty to support their own children. I also want to thank 
Congress for restoring some of the benefits to immigrants who are here 
legally and working hard, and I hope you will finish that job this year.
    We have to make it possible for all hard-working families to meet 
their most important responsibilities. Two years ago we helped guarantee 
that Americans can keep their health insurance when they change jobs. 
Last year we extended health care to up to 5 million children. This year 
I challenge Congress to take the next historic steps.
    A hundred and sixty million of our fellow citizens are in managed 
care plans. These plans save money, and they can improve care. But 
medical decisions ought to be made by medical doctors, not insurance 
company accountants. I urge this Congress to reach across the aisle and 
write into law a consumer bill of rights that says this: You have the 
right to know all your medical options, not just the cheapest. You have 
the right to choose the doctor you want for the care you need. You have 
the right to emergency room care, wherever and whenever you need it. You 
have the right to keep your medical records confidential. Traditional 
care or managed care, every American deserves quality care.
    Millions of Americans between the ages of 55 and 65 have lost their 
health insurance. Some are retired; some are laid off; some lose their 
coverage when their spouses retire. After a lifetime of work, they are 
left with nowhere to turn. So I ask the Congress, let these hard-working 
Americans buy into the Medicare system. It won't add a dime to the 
deficit, but the peace of mind it will provide will be priceless.
    Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest 
health threat that they face: an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by 
multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns. I challenge Congress: Let's 
pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public 
health, protect our tobacco farmers, and change the way tobacco 
companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen 
smoking down. Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to a dollar and 
a half a pack over the next 10 years, with penalties on the tobacco 
industry if it keeps marketing to our children. Tomorrow, like every 
day, 3,000 children will start smoking, and 1,000 will die early as a 
result. Let this Congress be remembered as the Congress that saved their 
lives.
    In the new economy, most parents work harder than ever. They face a 
constant struggle to balance their obligations to be good workers and 
their even more important obligations to be good parents. The Family and 
Medical Leave Act was the very first bill I was privileged to sign into 
law as President in 1993. Since then, about 15 million people have taken 
advantage of it, and I've met a lot of them all across this country. I 
ask you to extend that law to cover 10 million more workers and to give 
parents time off when they have to go see their children's teachers or 
take them to the doctor.
    Child care is the next frontier we must face to enable people to 
succeed at home and at work. Last year I cohosted the very first White 
House Conference on Child Care with one of our foremost experts, 
America's First Lady. From all corners of America, we heard the same 
message, without regard to region or income or political affiliation: 
We've got to raise the quality of child care. We've got to make it 
safer. We've got to make it more affordable.
    So here's my plan: Help families to pay for child care for a million 
more children; scholarships and background checks for child care 
workers, and a new emphasis on early learning; tax credits for 
businesses that provide child care for their employees; and a larger 
child care tax credit for working families. Now, if you pass my plan, 
what this means is that a family of four with an income of $35,000 and 
high child care costs will no longer pay a single penny of Federal 
income tax.
    I think this is such a big issue with me because of my own personal 
experience. I have often wondered how my mother, when she was a young 
widow, would have been able to go away to school and get an education 
and come back and support me if my grandparents hadn't been able to take 
care of me. She and I were

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really very lucky. How many other families have never had that same 
opportunity? The truth is, we don't know the answer to that question. 
But we do know what the answer should be: Not a single American family 
should ever have to choose between the job they need and the child they 
love.
    A society rooted in responsibility must provide safe streets, safe 
schools, and safe neighborhoods. We pursued a strategy of more police, 
tougher punishment, smarter prevention, with crimefighting partnerships 
with local law enforcement and citizen groups, where the rubber hits the 
road. I can report to you tonight that it's working. Violent crime is 
down; robbery is down; assault is down; burglary is down--for 5 years in 
a row, all across America. We need to finish the job of putting 100,000 
more police on our streets.
    Again, I ask Congress to pass a juvenile crime bill that provides 
more prosecutors and probation officers, to crack down on gangs and guns 
and drugs, and bar violent juveniles from buying guns for life. And I 
ask you to dramatically expand our support for after-school programs. I 
think every American should know that most juvenile crime is committed 
between the hours of 3 in the afternoon and 8 at night. We can keep so 
many of our children out of trouble in the first place if we give them 
someplace to go other than the streets, and we ought to do it.
    Drug use is on the decline. I thank General McCaffrey for his leadership, and I thank this Congress for 
passing the largest antidrug budget in history. Now I ask you to join me 
in a groundbreaking effort to hire 1,000 new Border Patrol agents and to 
deploy the most sophisticated available new technologies to help close 
the door on drugs at our borders.
    Police, prosecutors, and prevention programs, as good as they are, 
they can't work if our court system doesn't work. Today, there are large 
numbers of vacancies in our Federal courts. Here is what the Chief 
Justice of the United States wrote: 
``Judicial vacancies cannot remain at such high levels indefinitely 
without eroding the quality of justice.'' I simply ask the United States 
Senate to heed this plea and vote on the highly qualified judicial 
nominees before you, up or down.
    We must exercise responsibility not just at home but around the 
world. On the eve of a new century, we have the power and the duty to 
build a new era of peace and security. But make no mistake about it; 
today's possibilities are not tomorrow's guarantees. America must stand 
against the poisoned appeals of extreme nationalism. We must combat an 
unholy axis of new threats from terrorists, international criminals, and 
drug traffickers. These 21st century predators feed on technology and 
the free flow of information and ideas and people. And they will be all 
the more lethal if weapons of mass destruction fall into their hands.
    To meet these challenges, we are helping to write international 
rules of the road for the 21st century, protecting those who join the 
family of nations and isolating those who do not. Within days, I will 
ask the Senate for its advice and consent to make Hungary, Poland, and 
the Czech Republic the newest members of NATO. For 50 years, NATO 
contained communism and kept America and Europe secure. Now, these three 
formerly Communist countries have said yes to democracy. I ask the 
Senate to say yes to them, our new allies. By taking in new members and 
working closely with new partners, including Russia and Ukraine, NATO 
can help to assure that Europe is a stronghold for peace in the 21st 
century.
    Next, I will ask Congress to continue its support of our troops and 
their mission in Bosnia. This Christmas, Hillary and I traveled to 
Sarajevo with Senator and Mrs. Dole and a bipartisan congressional delegation. We saw 
children playing in the streets, where 2 years ago they were hiding from 
snipers and shells. The shops are filled with food; the cafes were alive 
with conversation. The progress there is unmistakable, but it is not yet 
irreversible. To take firm root, Bosnia's fragile peace still needs the 
support of American and allied troops when the current NATO mission ends 
in June. I think Senator Dole actually said it best. He said, ``This is 
like being ahead in the fourth quarter of a football game. Now is not 
the time to walk off the field and forfeit the victory.''
    I wish all of you could have seen our troops in Tuzla. They're very 
proud of what they're doing in Bosnia, and we're all very proud of them. 
One of those brave soldiers is sitting with the First Lady tonight: Army 
Sergeant Michael Tolbert. His father was a 
decorated Vietnam vet. After college in Colorado, he joined the Army. 
Last year he led an infantry unit that stopped a mob of extremists from 
taking over a radio station that is a voice of democracy

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and tolerance in Bosnia. Thank you very much, Sergeant, for what you 
represent. Please stand up. [Applause]
    In Bosnia and around the world, our men and women in uniform always 
do their mission well. Our mission must be to keep them well-trained and 
ready, to improve their quality of life, and to provide the 21st century 
weapons they need to defeat any enemy.
    I ask Congress to join me in pursuing an ambitious agenda to reduce 
the serious threat of weapons of mass destruction. This year, four 
decades after it was first proposed by President Eisenhower, a 
comprehensive nuclear test ban is within reach. By ending nuclear 
testing, we can help to prevent the development of new and more 
dangerous weapons and make it more difficult for non-nuclear states to 
build them. I'm pleased to announce that four former Chairmen of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff--Generals John Shalikashvili, Colin Powell, and David 
Jones and Admiral William Crowe--have endorsed this treaty. And I ask the 
Senate to approve it this year.
    Together, we must confront the new hazards of chemical and 
biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized 
criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of 
his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on 
developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to 
deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly 
remarkable job finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was 
destroyed during the entire Gulf war. Now Saddam Hussein wants to stop 
them from completing their mission.
    I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and 
Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, 
``You cannot defy the will of the world,'' and when I say to him, ``You 
have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny 
you the capacity to use them again.''
    Last year the Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention to 
protect our soldiers and citizens from poison gas. Now we must act to 
prevent the use of disease as a weapon of war and terror. The Biological 
Weapons Convention has been in effect for 23 years now. The rules are 
good, but the enforcement is weak. We must strengthen it with a new 
international inspection system to detect and deter cheating.
    In the months ahead, I will pursue our security strategy with old 
allies in Asia and Europe and new partners from Africa to India and 
Pakistan, from South America to China. And from Belfast to Korea to the 
Middle East, America will continue to stand with those who stand for 
peace.
    Finally, it's long past time to make good on our debt to the United 
Nations. More and more, we are working with other nations to achieve 
common goals. If we want America to lead, we've got to set a good 
example. As we see so clearly in Bosnia, allies who share our goals can 
also share our burdens. In this new era, our freedom and independence 
are actually enriched, not weakened, by our increasing interdependence 
with other nations. But we have to do our part.
    Our Founders set America on a permanent course toward a more perfect 
Union. To all of you I say, it is a journey we can only make together, 
living as one community. First, we have to continue to reform our 
Government, the instrument of our national community. Everyone knows 
elections have become too expensive, fueling a fundraising arms race. 
This year, by March 6th, at long last the Senate will actually vote on 
bipartisan campaign finance reform proposed by Senators McCain and Feingold. Let's be 
clear: A vote against McCain-Feingold is a vote for soft money and for 
the status quo. I ask you to strengthen our democracy and pass campaign 
finance reform this year.
    At least equally important, we have to address the real reason for 
the explosion in campaign costs: the high cost of media advertising.

[At this point, audience members responded.]

    The President. To the folks watching at home, those were the groans 
of pain in the audience. [Laughter] I will formally request that the 
Federal Communications Commission act to provide free or reduced-cost 
television time for candidates who observe spending limits voluntarily. 
The airwaves are a public trust, and broadcasters also have to help us 
in this effort to strengthen our democracy.
    Under the leadership of Vice President Gore, we've reduced the Federal payroll by 300,000 workers, cut 
16,000 pages of regulation, eliminated hundreds of programs, and 
improved the operations of virtually every Government agency. But we can 
do more. Like every taxpayer, I'm outraged by the reports of abuses by 
the IRS.

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We need some changes there: new citizen advocacy panels, a stronger 
taxpayer advocate, phone lines open 24 hours a day, relief for innocent 
taxpayers. Last year, by an overwhelming bipartisan margin, the House of 
Representatives passed sweeping IRS reforms. This bill must not now 
languish in the Senate. Tonight I ask the Senate: Follow the House; pass 
the bipartisan package as your first order of business.
    I hope to goodness before I finish I can think of something to say 
``follow the Senate'' on, so I'll be out of trouble. [Laughter]
    A nation that lives as a community must value all its communities. 
For the past 5 years, we have worked to bring the spark of private 
enterprise to inner city and poor rural areas, with community 
development banks, more commercial loans in the poor neighborhoods, 
cleanup of polluted sites for development. Under the continued 
leadership of the Vice President, we 
propose to triple the number of empowerment zones to give business 
incentives to invest in those areas. We should also give poor families 
more help to move into homes of their own, and we should use tax cuts to 
spur the construction of more low-income housing.
    Last year, this Congress took strong action to help the District of 
Columbia. Let us renew our resolve to make our Capital City a great city 
for all who live and visit here. Our cities are the vibrant hubs of 
great metropolitan areas. They are still the gateways for new immigrants 
from every continent, who come here to work for their own American 
dreams. Let's keep our cities going strong into the 21st century; 
they're a very important part of our future.
    Our communities are only as healthy as the air our children breathe, 
the water they drink, the Earth they will inherit. Last year we put in 
place the toughest-ever controls on smog and soot. We moved to protect 
Yellowstone, the Everglades, Lake Tahoe. We expanded every community's 
right to know about the toxins that threaten their children. Just 
yesterday, our food safety plan took effect, using new science to 
protect consumers from dangers like E. coli and salmonella.
    Tonight I ask you to join me in launching a new clean water 
initiative, a far-reaching effort to clean our rivers, our lakes, and 
our coastal waters for our children.
    Our overriding environmental challenge tonight is the worldwide 
problem of climate change, global warming, the gathering crisis that 
requires worldwide action. The vast majority of scientists have 
concluded unequivocally that if we don't reduce the emission of 
greenhouse gases, at some point in the next century, we'll disrupt our 
climate and put our children and grandchildren at risk. This past 
December, America led the world to reach a historic agreement committing 
our Nation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through market forces, new 
technologies, energy efficiency. We have it in our power to act right 
here, right now. I propose $6 billion in tax cuts and research and 
development to encourage innovation, renewable energy, fuel-efficient 
cars, energy-efficient homes.
    Every time we have acted to heal our environment, pessimists have 
told us it would hurt the economy. Well, today, our economy is the 
strongest in a generation, and our environment is the cleanest in a 
generation. We have always found a way to clean the environment and grow 
the economy at the same time. And when it comes to global warming, we'll 
do it again.
    Finally, community means living by the defining American value, the 
ideal heard 'round the world, that we are all created equal. Throughout 
our history, we haven't always honored that ideal and we've never fully 
lived up to it. Often it's easier to believe that our differences matter 
more than what we have in common. It may be easier, but it's wrong.
    What we have to do in our day and generation to make sure that 
America becomes truly one nation--what do we have to do? We're becoming 
more and more and more diverse. Do you believe we can become one nation? 
The answer cannot be to dwell on our differences but to build on our 
shared values. We all cherish family and faith, freedom and 
responsibility. We all want our children to grow up in a world where 
their talents are matched by their opportunities.
    I've launched this national initiative on race to help us recognize 
our common interests and to bridge the opportunity gaps that are keeping 
us from becoming one America. Let us begin by recognizing what we still 
must overcome. Discrimination against any American is un-American. We 
must vigorously enforce the laws that make it illegal. I ask your help 
to end the backlog at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Sixty 
thousand of our fellow citizens are waiting in line for justice, and we 
should act now to end their wait.
    We also should recognize that the greatest progress we can make 
toward building one

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America lies in the progress we make for all Americans, without regard 
to race. When we open the doors of college to all Americans, when we rid 
all our streets of crime, when there are jobs available to people from 
all our neighborhoods, when we make sure all parents have the child care 
they need, we're helping to build one nation.
    We, in this Chamber and in this Government, must do all we can to 
address the continuing American challenge to build one America. But 
we'll only move forward if all our fellow citizens, including every one 
of you at home watching tonight, is also committed to this cause. We 
must work together, learn together, live together, serve together. On 
the forge of common enterprise, Americans of all backgrounds can hammer 
out a common identity. We see it today in the United States military, in 
the Peace Corps, in AmeriCorps. Wherever people of all races and 
backgrounds come together in a shared endeavor and get a fair chance, we 
do just fine. With shared values and meaningful opportunities and honest 
communication and citizen service, we can unite a diverse people in 
freedom and mutual respect. We are many; we must be one.
    In that spirit, let us lift our eyes to the new millennium. How will 
we mark that passage? It just happens once every 1,000 years. This year 
Hillary and I launched the White House Millennium Program to promote 
America's creativity and innovation, and to preserve our heritage and 
culture into the 21st century. Our culture lives in every community, and 
every community has places of historic value that tell our stories as 
Americans. We should protect them. I am proposing a public-private 
partnership to advance our arts and humanities and to celebrate the 
millennium by saving American's treasures, great and small.
    And while we honor the past, let us imagine the future. Now, think 
about this: The entire store of human knowledge now doubles every 5 
years. In the 1980's, scientists identified the gene causing cystic 
fibrosis; it took 9 years. Last year scientists located the gene that 
causes Parkinson's disease in only 9 days. Within a decade, ``gene 
chips'' will offer a roadmap for prevention of illnesses throughout a 
lifetime. Soon we'll be able to carry all the phone calls on Mother's 
Day on a single strand of fiber the width of a human hair. A child born 
in 1998 may well live to see the 22d century.
    Tonight, as part of our gift to the millennium, I propose a 21st 
century research fund for path-breaking scientific inquiry, the largest 
funding increase in history for the National Institutes of Health, the 
National Science Foundation, the National Cancer Institute. We have 
already discovered genes for breast cancer and diabetes. I ask you to 
support this initiative so ours will be the generation that finally wins 
the war against cancer and begins a revolution in our fight against all 
deadly diseases.
    As important as all this scientific progress is, we must continue to 
see that science serves humanity, not the other way around. We must 
prevent the misuse of genetic tests to discriminate against any 
American. And we must ratify the ethical consensus of the scientific and 
religious communities and ban the cloning of human beings.
    We should enable all the world's people to explore the far reaches 
of cyberspace. Think of this: The first time I made a State of the Union 
speech to you, only a handful of physicists used the World Wide Web--
literally, just a handful of people. Now, in schools, in libraries, 
homes, and businesses, millions and millions of Americans surf the Net 
every day. We must give parents the tools they need to help protect 
their children from inappropriate material on the Internet, but we also 
must make sure that we protect the exploding global commercial potential 
of the Internet. We can do the kinds of things that we need to do and 
still protect our kids. For one thing, I ask Congress to step up support 
for building the next generation Internet. It's getting kind of clogged, 
you know, and the next generation Internet will operate at speeds up to 
1,000 times faster than today.
    Even as we explore this inner space in the new millennium, we're 
going to open new frontiers in outer space. Throughout all history, 
humankind has had only one place to call home, our planet, Earth. 
Beginning this year, 1998, men and women from 16 countries will build a 
foothold in the heavens, the international space station. With its vast 
expanses, scientists and engineers will actually set sail on an 
uncharted sea of limitless mystery and unlimited potential.
    And this October, a true American hero, a veteran pilot of 149 
combat missions and one 5-hour space flight that changed the world, will 
return to the heavens. Godspeed, John Glenn.

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[Applause] John, you will carry with you America's hopes. And on your 
uniform, once again, you will carry America's flag, marking the unbroken 
connection between the deeds of America's past and the daring of 
America's future.
    Nearly 200 years ago, a tattered flag, its broad stripes and bright 
stars still gleaming through the smoke of a fierce battle, moved Francis 
Scott Key to scribble a few words on the back of an envelope, the words 
that became our national anthem. Today, that Star-Spangled Banner, along 
with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of 
Rights, are on display just a short walk from here. They are America's 
treasures, and we must also save them for the ages.
    I ask all Americans to support our project to restore all our 
treasures so that the generations of the 21st century can see for 
themselves the images and the words that are the old and continuing 
glory of America, an America that has continued to rise through every 
age, against every challenge, a people of great works and greater 
possibilities, who have always, always found the wisdom and strength to 
come together as one nation to widen the circle of opportunity, to 
deepen the meaning of our freedom, to form that more perfect Union. Let 
that be our gift to the 21st century.
    God bless you, and God bless the United States.

Note: The President spoke at 9:12 p.m. in the House Chamber of the 
Capitol. In his remarks, he referred to former Senator Bob Dole and his 
wife, Elizabeth; and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.