[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 45 (Monday, November 12, 2001)]
[Pages 1602-1603]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 7493--National Adoption Month, 2001

November 5, 2001

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    Children deserve to be raised in loving families with parents who 
protect and nurture them. For some children, adoption is their best 
chance for a healthy and happy life. Each year, American families adopt 
approximately 120,000 newborn or older children, providing them with a 
loving and supportive environment.
    Despite this substantial number of annual adoptions, more than 
134,000 children are currently waiting adoption. While our foster care 
system can provide a safe, temporary home for these children, adoption 
would give them the love and stability of a permanent family that would 
better enable them to develop to their full potential.
    My Administration is working to help states promote and support 
adoptions. This year, 35 states and the District of Columbia received 
adoption incentive awards for increasing the number of children they 
placed

[[Page 1603]]

from foster care into permanent homes. States have reinvested these 
bonuses to enhance their adoption and child welfare programs, which has 
resulted in an unprecedented 79 percent increase in adoptions from 
28,000 in 1996 to 50,000 in 2000.
    Although we have made dramatic advances in encouraging adoption, we 
must strengthen our efforts to find a safe, loving, and permanent home 
for every child awaiting one. One important way to advance towards this 
goal is to ease the financial burden on families that adopt children. 
The tax relief bill that I signed into law earlier this year extends and 
increases the adoption tax credit for qualified expenses from $5,000 to 
$10,000 per child. The new law also increases the tax credit for 
adoptive parents of children with special needs from $6,000 to $10,000 
per child, regardless of expenses. Parents who adopt children with 
special needs will benefit from this meaningful tax credit because it 
will help cover unique adoption costs.
    Ensuring the provision of post-adoptive services also plays an 
important role in facilitating successful adoptions. I support the 
Promoting Safe and Stable Families proposal, currently before the 
Congress, which would improve post-adoptive services by prioritizing 
research and evaluation for these services and establishing systems to 
ensure that they are available to meet the needs of adoptive families. 
In addition, this proposal provides for education and training vouchers 
to children adopted after the age of 15.
    Adoptive parents have a special calling--sharing a loving home with 
children in need, offering them hope for a brighter future. Federal, 
state, and local governments must continue supporting these quiet heroes 
as they make the considerable sacrifices and receive the countless 
blessings of parenthood that come from providing a child with the chance 
of a lifetime--an upbringing in a happy and healthy home.
    Now, Therefore, I, George W. Bush, President of the United States of 
America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and 
laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 2001, as National 
Adoption Month. I call on all Americans to observe this month with 
appropriate programs and activities to honor adoptive families and to 
participate in efforts to find permanent homes for waiting children.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifth day of 
November, in the year of our Lord two thousand one, and of the 
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-
sixth.
                                                George W. Bush

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., November 7, 
2001]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on 
November 8.