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State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton

W >> William J. Clinton >> State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton




We must strengthen gun laws and better enforce laws already on the books.
Federal gun crime prosecutions are up 16 percent since I took office. But
again, we must do more. I propose to hire more federal and local gun
prosecutors, and more ATF agents to crack down on illegal gun traffickers
and bad-apple dealers. And we must give law enforcement the tools to trace
every gun – and every bullet – used in a crime in America.

Listen to this: the accidental gun death rate of children under 15 in the
United States is nine times higher than in the other 25 industrialized
nations – combined. Technologies now exist that could lead to guns that can
only be fired by the adults who own them. I ask Congress to fund research
in Smart Gun technology. I also call on responsible leaders in the gun
industry to work with us on smart guns and other steps to keep guns out of
the wrong hands and keep our children safe.

Every parent I know worries about the impact of violence in the media on
their children. I thank the entertainment industry for accepting my
challenge to put voluntary ratings on TV programs and video and Internet
games. But the ratings are too numerous, diverse, and confusing to be
really useful to parents. Therefore, I now ask the industry to accept the
First Lady's challenge – to develop a single, voluntary rating system for
all children's entertainment, one that is easier for parents to understand
and enforce.

If we take all these steps, we will be well on our way to making America
the safest big country in the world.

Opening New Markets

To keep our historic economic expansion going, we need a 21st Century
revolution to open new markets, start new businesses, and hire new workers
right here in America – in our inner cities, poor rural areas, and on
Indian reservations.

Our nation's prosperity has not yet reached these places. Over the last six
months, I have traveled to many of them – joined by many of you, and many
far-sighted business people – to shine a spotlight on the enormous
potential in communities from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta, from
Watts to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Everywhere I've gone, I've met
talented people eager for opportunity, and able to work. Let's put them to
work.

For business, it's the smart thing to do. For America, it's the right thing
to do. And if we don't do it now, when will we ever get around to it?

I ask Congress to give businesses the same incentives to invest in
America's new markets that they now have to invest in foreign markets.
Tonight, I propose a large New Markets Tax Credit and other incentives to
spur $22 billion in private-sector capital – to create new businesses and
new investments in inner cities and rural areas.

Empowerment Zones have been creating these opportunities for five years
now. We should also increase incentives to invest in them and create more
of them.

This is not a Democratic or a Republican issue. It is an American issue.
Mr. Speaker, it was a powerful moment last November when you joined me and
the Reverend Jesse Jackson in your home state of Illinois, and committed to
working toward our common goal, by combining the best ideas from both sides
of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with you.

We must maintain our commitment to community development banks and keep the
community reinvestment act strong so all Americans have access to the
capital they need to buy homes and build businesses.

We need to make special efforts to address the areas with the highest rates
of poverty. My budget includes a special $110 million initiative to promote
economic development in the Mississippi Delta; and $1 billion to increase
economic opportunity, health care, education and law enforcement for Native
American communities. In this new century, we should honor our historic
responsibility to empower the first Americans. I thank leaders and members
from both parties who have already expressed an interest in working with us
on these efforts.

There's another part of our American community in trouble today – our
family farmers. When I signed the Farm Bill in 1996, I said there was a
great danger it would work well in good times but not in bad. Well,
droughts, floods, and historically low prices have made times very bad for
our farmers. We must work together to strengthen the farm safety net,
invest in land conservation, and create new markets by expanding our
program for bio-based fuels and products.

Today, opportunity for all requires something new: having access to a
computer and knowing how to use it. That means we must close the digital
divide between those who have these tools and those who don't.

Connecting classrooms and libraries to the Internet is crucial, but it's
just a start. My budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach
21st Century skills and creates technology centers in 1,000 communities to
serve adults. This spring, I will invite high-tech leaders to join me on
another New Markets tour – to close the digital divide and open opportunity
for all our people. I thank the high-tech companies that are already doing
so much in this area – and I hope the new tax incentives I have proposed
will encourage others to join us.

If we take these steps, we will go a long way toward our goal of bringing
opportunity to every community.

Global Change and American Leadership

To realize the full possibilities of the new economy, we must reach beyond
our own borders, to shape the revolution that is tearing down barriers and
building new networks among nations and individuals, economies and
cultures: globalization.

It is the central reality of our time. Change this profound is both
liberating and threatening. But there is no turning back. And our open,
creative society stands to benefit more than any other – if we understand,
and act on, the new realities of interdependence. We must be at the center
of every vital global network, as a good neighbor and partner. We cannot
build our future without helping others to build theirs.

First, we must forge a new consensus on trade. Those of us who believe
passionately in the power of open trade must ensure that it lifts both our
living standards and our values, never tolerating abusive child labor or a
race to the bottom on the environment and worker protection. Still, open
markets and rules-based trade are the best engines we know for raising
living standards, reducing global poverty and environmental destruction,
and assuring the free flow of ideas. There is only one direction for
America on trade: we must go forward.

And we must make developing economies our partners in prosperity – which is
why I ask Congress to finalize our groundbreaking African and Caribbean
Basin trade initiatives.

Globalization is about more than economics. Our purpose must be to bring
the world together around democracy, freedom, and peace, and to oppose
those who would tear it apart.

Here are the fundamental challenges I believe America must meet to shape
the 21st Century world.

First, we must continue to encourage our former adversaries, Russia and
China, to emerge as stable, prosperous, democratic nations. Both are being
held back from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy of
communism, economic turmoil, a cruel and self-defeating war in Chechnya;
China by the illusion that it can buy stability at the expense of freedom.
But think how much has changed in the past decade: thousands of former
Soviet nuclear weapons eliminated; Russian soldiers serving with ours in
the Balkans; Russian people electing their leaders for the first time in a
thousand years. And in China, an economy more open to the world than ever
before. No one can know for sure what direction these great countries will
choose. But we must do everything in our power to increase the chance they
will choose wisely, to be constructive members of the global community.

That is why we must support those Russians struggling for a democratic,
prosperous future; continue to reduce both our nuclear arsenals; and help
Russia safeguard weapons and materials that remain.

That is why Congress should support the agreement we negotiated to bring
China into the WTO, by passing Permanent Normal Trade Relations as soon as
possible this year. Our markets are already open to China. This agreement
will open China's markets to us. And it will advance the cause of peace in
Asia and promote the cause of change in China.

A second challenge is to protect our security from conflicts that pose the
risk of wider war and threaten our common humanity. America cannot prevent
every conflict or stop every outrage. But where our interests are at stake
and we can make a difference, we must be peacemakers.

We should be proud of America's role in bringing the Middle East closer
than ever to a comprehensive peace; building peace in Northern Ireland;
working for peace in East Timor and Africa; promoting reconciliation
between Greece and Turkey and in Cyprus; working to defuse crises between
India and Pakistan; defending human rights and religious freedom.

And we should be proud of the men and women of our armed forces and those
of our allies who stopped the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo – enabling a
million innocent people to return to their homes.

When Slobodan Milosevic unleashed his terror on Kosovo, Captain John
Cherrey was one of the brave airmen who turned the tide. And when another
American plane went down over Serbia, he flew into the teeth of enemy air
defenses to bring his fellow pilot home. Thanks to our armed forces' skill
and bravery, we prevailed without losing a single American in combat.
Captain Cherrey, we honor you, and promise to finish the job you began.

A third challenge is to keep the inexorable march of technology from giving
terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine our
defenses. The same advances that have shrunk cell phones to fit in the
palms of our hands can also make weapons of terror easier to conceal and
easier to use.

We must meet this threat: by making effective agreements to restrain
nuclear and missile programs in North Korea, curbing the flow of lethal
technology to Iran; preventing Iraq from threatening its neighbors;
increasing our preparedness against chemical and biological attack;
protecting our vital computer systems from hackers and criminals; and
developing a system to defend against new missile threats – while working
to preserve our Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

I hope we can have a constructive bipartisan dialogue this year to build a
consensus which will lead eventually to the ratification of the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

A fourth challenge is to ensure that the stability of our planet is not
threatened by the huge gulf between rich and poor. We cannot accept a world
in which part of humanity lives on the cutting edge of a new economy, while
the rest live on the bare edge of survival. We must do our part, with
expanded trade, expanded aid, and the expansion of freedom.

From Nigeria to Indonesia, more people won the right to choose their
leaders in 1999 than in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. We must stand
by democracies – like Colombia, fighting narco-traffickers for its people's
lives, and our children's lives. I have proposed a strong two-year package
to help Colombia win this fight; and I ask for your support. And I will
propose tough new legislation to go after what drug barons value most –
their money.

In a world where 1.2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, we
must do our part in the global endeavor to reduce the debts of the poorest
countries so they can invest in education, health and economic growth – as
the Pope and other religious leaders have urged. Last year, Congress made a
down payment on America's share. And I ask for your continued support.

And America must help more nations break the bonds of disease. Last year in
Africa, AIDS killed ten times as many people as war did. My budget invests
$150 million more in the fight against this and other infectious killers.
Today, I propose a tax credit to speed the development of vaccines for
diseases like malaria, TB and AIDS. I ask the private sector and our
partners around the world to join us in embracing this cause. Together, we
can save millions of lives.

Our final challenge is the most important: to pass a national security
budget that keeps our military the best trained and best equipped in the
world, with heightened readiness and 21st Century weapons; raises salaries
for our service men and women; protects our veterans; fully funds the
diplomacy that keeps our soldiers out of war; and makes good on our
commitment to pay our UN dues and arrears. I ask you to pass this budget
and I thank you for the extraordinary support you have given – Republicans
and Democrats alike – to our men and women in uniform. I especially want to
thank Secretary Cohen for symbolizing our bipartisan commitment to our
national security – and Janet Cohen, I thank you for tirelessly traveling
the world to show our support for the troops.

If we meet all these challenges, America can lead the world toward peace
and freedom in an era of globalization.

Responsibility, Opportunity, and the Environment

I am grateful for the opportunities the Vice President and I have had to
work hard to protect the environment and finally to put to rest the notion
that you can't expand the economy while protecting the environment. As our
economy has grown, we have rid more than 500 neighborhoods of toxic waste
and ensured cleaner air and water for millions of families. In the past
three months alone, we have acted to preserve more than 40 million acres of
roadless lands in our National Forests and created three new National
Monuments.

But as our communities grow, our commitment to conservation must grow as
well. Tonight, I propose creating a permanent conservation fund to restore
wildlife, protect coastlines, and save natural treasures from California
redwoods to the Everglades. This Lands Legacy endowment represents by far
the most enduring investment in land preservation ever proposed.

Last year, the Vice President launched a new effort to help make
communities more livable – so children will grow up next to parks, not
parking lots, and parents can be home with their children instead of stuck
in traffic. Tonight, we propose new funding for advanced transit systems –
for saving precious open spaces – for helping major cities around the Great
Lakes protect their waterways and enhance their quality of life.

The greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global warming.
Scientists tell us that the 1990s were the hottest decade of the entire
millennium. If we fail to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, deadly heat
waves and droughts will become more frequent, coastal areas will be
flooded, economies disrupted.

Many people in the United States and around the world still believe we
can't cut greenhouse gas pollution without slowing economic growth. In the
Industrial Age that may have been true. In the digital economy, it isn't.
New technologies make it possible to cut harmful emissions and provide even
more growth. For example, just last week, automakers unveiled cars that get
70 to 80 miles a gallon – the fruits of a unique research partnership
between government and industry. Before you know it, efficient production
of biofuels will give us the equivalent of hundreds of miles from a gallon
of gas.

To speed innovations in environmental technologies, I propose giving major
tax incentives to businesses for the production of clean energy – and to
families for buying energy-saving homes and appliances and the next
generation of super-efficient cars when they hit the showroom floor. I also
call on the auto industry to use available technologies to make all new
cars more fuel efficient right away. And on Congress to make more of our
clean-energy technologies available to the developing world – creating
cleaner growth abroad and new jobs at home.

The Opportunity and Responsibility of Science and Technology

In the new century, innovations in science and technology will be the key
not only to the health of the environment but to miraculous improvements in
the quality of our lives and advances in the economy.

Later this year, researchers will complete the first draft of the entire
human genome – the very blueprint of life. It is important for all
Americans to recognize that your tax dollars have fueled this research –
and that this and other wise investments in science are leading to a
revolution in our ability to detect, treat, and prevent disease.

For example, researchers have identified genes that cause Parkinson's
Disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer – and they are designing
precision therapies that will block the harmful effects of these faulty
genes for good. Researchers are already using this new technique to target
and destroy cells that cause breast cancer. Soon, we may be able to use it
to prevent the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. Scientists are also working on
an artificial retina to help many blind people to see and microchips that
would directly stimulate damaged spinal cords and allow people who are now
paralyzed to stand up and walk.

Science and engineering innovations are also propelling our remarkable
prosperity. Information technology alone now accounts for a third of our
economic growth, with jobs that pay almost 80 percent above the private
sector average. Again, we should keep in mind: government-funded research
brought supercomputers, the Internet, and communications satellites into
being. Soon researchers will bring us devices that can translate foreign
languages as fast as you can speak; materials 10 times stronger than steel
at a fraction of the weight; and molecular computers the size of a teardrop
with the power of today's fastest supercomputers.

To accelerate the march of discovery across all disciplines of science and
technology, my budget includes an unprecedented $3 billion increase in the
21st Century Research Fund, the largest increase in civilian research in a
generation.

These new breakthroughs must be used in ways that reflect our most
cherished values. First and foremost, we must safeguard our citizens'
privacy. Last year, we proposed rules to protect every citizen's medical
records. This year, we will finalize those rules. We have also taken the
first steps to protect the privacy of bank and credit card statements and
other financial records. Soon I will send legislation to the Congress to
finish that job. We must also act to prevent any genetic discrimination by
employers or insurers.

These steps will allow America to lead toward the far frontiers of science
and technology – enhancing our health, environment, and economy in ways we
cannot even imagine today. Community

At a time when science, technology and the forces of globalization are
bringing so many changes into our lives, it is more important than ever
that we strengthen the bonds that root us in our local communities and in
our national communities.

No tie binds different people together like citizen service. There is a new
spirit of service in America – a movement we have supported with
AmeriCorps, an expanded Peace Corps, and unprecedented new partnerships
with businesses, foundations, and community groups. Partnerships to enlist
12,000 companies in moving 650,000 of our fellow citizens from welfare to
work. To battle drug abuse and AIDS. To teach young people to read. To Save
America's Treasures. To strengthen the arts. To fight teen pregnancy. To
prevent youth violence. To promote racial healing.

We can do even more to help Americans help each other. We should help
faith-based organizations do more to fight poverty and drug abuse and help
young people get back on the right track with initiatives like Second
Chance Homes to help unwed teen mothers. We should support Americans who
tithe and contribute to charities, but don't earn enough to claim a tax
deduction for it. Tonight, I propose new tax incentives to allow low- and
middle-income citizens to get that deduction.

We should do more to help new immigrants fully participate in the American
community – investing more to teach them civics and English. And since
everyone in our community counts, we must make sure everyone is counted in
this year's census.

Within ten years there will be no majority race in our largest state,
California. In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race
in America. In a more interconnected world, this diversity can be our
greatest strength. Just look around this chamber. We have members from
virtually every racial, ethnic, and religious background. And America is
stronger for it. But as we have seen, these differences all too often spark
hatred and division, even here at home.

We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A
young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year
alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and
Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American
way. We must draw the line. Without delay, we must pass the Hate Crimes
Prevention Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And we should
reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

No American should be subjected to discrimination in finding a home,
getting a job, going to school, or securing a loan. Tonight, I propose the
largest ever investment to enforce America's civil rights laws. Protections
in law must be protections in fact.

Last February, I created the White House Office of One America to promote
racial reconciliation. That's what Hank Aaron, has done all his life. From
his days as baseball's all-time homerun king to his recent acts of healing,
he has always brought Americans together. We're pleased he's with us
tonight.

This fall, at the White House, one of America's leading scientists said
something we should all remember. He said all human beings, genetically,
are 99.9 percent the same. So modern science affirms what ancient faith has
always taught: the most important fact of life is our common humanity.

Therefore, we must do more than tolerate diversity – we must honor it and
celebrate it.

My fellow Americans, each time I prepare for the State of the Union, I
approach it with great hope and expectations for our nation. But tonight is
special – because we stand on the mountaintop of a new millennium. Behind
us we see the great expanse of American achievement; before us, even
grander frontiers of possibility.

We should be filled with gratitude and humility for our prosperity and
progress; with awe and joy at what lies ahead; and with absolute
determination to make the most of it.

When the framers finished crafting our Constitution, Benjamin Franklin
stood in Independence Hall and reflected on a painting of the sun, low on
the horizon. He said, "I have often wondered whether that sun was rising or
setting. Today," Franklin said, " I have the happiness to know it is a
rising sun." Well, today, because each generation of Americans has kept the
fire of freedom burning brightly, lighting those frontiers of possibility,
we still bask in the warmth of Mr. Franklin's rising sun.

After 224 years, the American Revolution continues. We remain a new nation.
As long as our dreams outweigh our memories, America will be forever young.
That is our destiny. And this is our moment.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

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