[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 4 (Monday, January 29, 1996)]
[Pages 90-98]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 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

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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

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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 campaigns 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 not 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.

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    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 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.
    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

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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 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 child 
rearing, 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 and 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 
pedal 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

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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 
schoolchildren 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 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.

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    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 Protestant 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

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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 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--

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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.

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