[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 51 (Monday, December 25, 2000)]
[Pages 3101-3102]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on the Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Agreement

December 15, 2000

    I am pleased that Congress and I have reached agreement on a budget 
for the coming year. It is a budget that is fiscally responsible, pays 
down the debt, and makes vital investments in our Nation's future. In 
education, health care, and community renewal, this budget provides more 
opportunity for more Americans than ever before.
    First and foremost, this budget tops 8 years of commitment to 
education with dramatic new investment in our Nation's schools. This 
includes an historic $1.2 billion initiative to help renovate classrooms 
in thousands of school districts across the country. It includes the 
largest increases ever in funding for the Head Start program. It nearly 
doubles funding for after school programs--the largest increase ever. It 
increases by 25 percent funding to meet our goal of hiring 100,000 new, 
highly qualified teachers to reduce class size in the early grades. It 
dramatically expands our GEAR UP and TRIO programs to prepare young 
people for college. It increases the maximum Pell grant to an all-time-
high of $3,750--part of the biggest expansion of college opportunity 
since the GI bill. And it boosts accountability with more funding for 
teacher training and for turning around failing schools. With this 
budget, we have now increased funding for the Department of Education by 
76 percent since 1993--and targeted that funding to programs that work.
    Second, in this budget, we're also passing our historic bipartisan 
new markets and community renewal initiative--the most significant 
effort ever to help hard-pressed communities lift themselves up through 
private investment and entrepreneurship. With the help of our new 
markets tax credit, 40 strengthened empowerment zones, and 40 renewal 
communities, this initiative will spur billions of dollars in private 
investment and ensure that every American will share in Nation's 
economic prosperity.
    Third, this budget reaffirms our longstanding commitment to expand 
access to quality health care for all Americans. It includes a 
multibillion dollar effort to provide low- income children, seniors, and 
people with disabilities, and those leaving welfare for work, with 
health care coverage. It expands preventive benefits like cancer and 
glaucoma screenings for Medicare beneficiaries. It ensures quality 
health care services for those beneficiaries by investing approximately 
$30 billion in hospitals, home health agencies, hospices, nursing homes, 
and managed care plans. It will establish a new program to provide 
families caring for aging and ill relatives with essential support 
services, such as adult day care. It includes a new program to provide 
people with disabilities with community-based health care services. It 
increases funding for AIDS prevention, research, and treatment at home 
and abroad. It boosts support for graduate medical education at 
children's hospitals and for food safety efforts. It includes new 
efforts to improve nursing home quality and a downpayment to eliminate 
racial health disparities. And it includes a historic $20.3 billion 
investment in biomedical research, nearly doubling since 1993 our 
investment in the National Institutes of Health.
    Finally, this budget will allow nearly 700,000 immigrants who have 
worked, lived, and paid taxes in America for years to stay in the United 
States legally without fear of being separated from their families.
    Every year since 1993, I have worked with Congress to craft fiscally 
responsible budgets that are true to our values and that invest in the 
capacity of the American people to seize the new opportunities of the 
21st century. This year's budget does the same--by continuing to pay 
down the debt and invest in education, research, health care, and other 
priorities. I am confident that this budget will

[[Page 3102]]

help keep our progress strong and our prosperity going in the years 
ahead.

Note: This item was not received in time for publication in the 
appropriate issue.