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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




Like every taxpayer, I'm outraged by the reports of abuses by the IRS. 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!

A nation that lives as a community must value all its communities. For the
past five 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 into 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. 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 gateway 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 toxics 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, in 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're 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
truly becomes 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.

And we all cherish family and faith, freedom and responsibility. We all
want our children to grow up in the 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 should also recognize that the greatest progress we can make toward
building one 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 communications 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 thousand 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 America'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 five years. In the 1980s, scientists identified the gene causing
cystic fibrosis; it took nine years. Last year, scientists located the gene
that causes Parkinson's disease – in only nine days! Within a decade, gene
chips will offer a road map 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 22nd century.

Tonight, as part of our gift to the millennium, I propose a 21st Century
research fund for pathbreaking scientific inquiry, the largest funding
increase in history for the National Institutes of Health, the National
Science Foundation, and the National Cancer Institute. We have already
discovered 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 and 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 Net, 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 a thousand 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, human kind 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 five-hour space flight that changed the world, will return
to the heavens. Godspeed, John Glenn!

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.

***

State of the Union Address
William J. Clinton
January 19, 1999

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, honored guests, my
fellow Americans:

Tonight I have the honor of reporting to you on the State of the Union.

Let me begin by saluting the new speaker of the House and thanking him
especially tonight for extending an invitation to two guests sitting in the
gallery with Mrs. Hastert. Lyn Gibson and Wei Ling Chestnut are the widows
of the two brave Capitol Hill police officers who gave their lives to
defend freedom's house.

Mr. Speaker, at your swearing in you asked us all to work together in a
spirit of civility and bipartisanship. Mr. Speaker, let's do exactly that.

Tonight, I stand before you to report that America has created the longest
peacetime economic expansion in our history. With nearly 18 million new
jobs, wages rising at more than twice the rate of inflation, the highest
homeownership in history, the smallest welfare roles in 30 years, and the
lowest peacetime unemployment since 1957.

For the first time in three decades, the budget is balanced. From a deficit
of $290 billion in 1992, we had a surplus of $70 billion last year. And
now, we are on course for budget surpluses for the next 25 years.

Thanks to the pioneering leadership of all of you, we have the lowest
violent crime rate in a quarter century and the cleanest environment in a
quarter century.

America is a strong force for peace – from Northern Ireland to Bosnia to
the Middle East.

Thanks to the leadership of Vice President Gore, we have a government for
the Information Age, once again a government that is a progressive
instrument of the common good, rooted in our oldest values of opportunity,
responsibility and community, devoted to fiscal responsibility, determined
to give our people the tools they need to make the most of their own lives
in the 21st century, a 21st century government for 21st century America.

My fellow Americans, I stand before you tonight to report that the state of
our union is strong. Now, America is working again. The promise of our
future is limitless. But we cannot realize that promise if we allow the hum
of our prosperity to lull us into complacency. How we fare as a nation far
into the 21st century depends upon what we do as a nation today.

So, with our budget surplus growing, our economy expanding, our confidence
rising, now is the moment for this generation to meet our historic
responsibility to the 21st century.

Our fiscal discipline gives us an unsurpassed opportunity to address a
remarkable new challenge, the aging of America. With the number of elderly
Americans set to double by 2030, the baby boom will become a senior boom.

So first and above all, we must save Social Security for the 21st century.

Early in this century, being old meant being poor. When President Roosevelt
created Social Security, thousands wrote to thank him for eliminating what
one woman called "the stark terror of penniless, helpless old age." Even
today, without Social Security, half our nation's elderly would be forced
into poverty.

Today, Social Security is strong, but by 2013, payroll taxes will no longer
be sufficient to cover monthly payments. By 2032, the trust fund will be
exhausted and Social Security will be unable to pay the full benefits older
Americans have been promised.

The best way to keep Social Security a rock solid guarantee is not to make
drastic cuts in benefits; not to raise payroll tax rates; not to drain
resources from Social Security in the name of saving it. Instead, I propose
that we make the historic decision to invest the surplus to save Social
Security.

Specifically, I propose that we commit 60 percent of the budget surplus for
the next 15 years to Social Security, investing a small portion in the
private sector just as any private or state government pension would do.
This will earn a higher return and keep Social Security sound for 55
years.

But we must aim higher. We should put Social Security on a sound footing
for the next 75 years. We should reduce poverty among elderly women, who
are nearly twice as likely to be poor as are other seniors. And we should
eliminate the limits on what seniors on Social Security can earn.

Now, these changes will require difficult, but fully achievable choices
over and above the dedication of the surplus. They must be made on a
bipartisan basis. They should be made this year. So let me say to you
tonight, I reach out my hand to all of you in both houses in both parties
and ask that we join together in saying to the American people, we will
save Social Security now.

Now, last year, we wisely reserved all of the surplus until we knew what it
would take to save Social Security. Again, I say, we shouldn't spend any of
it, not any of it, until after Social Security is truly saved. First
thing's first.

Second, once we have saved Social Security, we must fulfill our obligation
to save and improve Medicare. Already we have extended the life of the
Medicare trust fund by 10 years, but we should extend it for at least
another decade. Tonight, I propose that we use one out of every six dollars
in the surplus for the next 15 years to guarantee the soundness of Medicare
until the year 2020.

But, again – but, again, we should aim higher. We must be willing to work
in a bipartisan way and look at new ideas, including the upcoming report of
the Bipartisan Medicare Commission. If we work together, we can secure
Medicare for the next two decades and cover the greatest growing need of
seniors – affordable prescription drugs.

Third, we must help all Americans from their first day on the job to save,
to invest, to create wealth.

From its beginnings, Americans have supplemented Social Security with
private pensions and savings. Yet today millions of people retire with
little to live on other than Social Security. Americans living longer than
ever simply must save more than ever.

Therefore, in addition to saving Social Security and Medicare, I propose a
new pension initiative for retirement security in the 21st century. I
propose that we use a little over 11 percent of the surplus to establish
universal savings accounts – USA accounts – to give all Americans the means
to save.

With these new accounts, Americans can invest as they choose and receive
funds to match a portion of their savings with extra help for those least
able to save. USA accounts will help all Americans to share in our nation's
wealth and to enjoy a more secure retirement. I ask you to support them.

Fourth, we must invest in long-term care.

I propose a tax credit of $1,000 for the aged, ailing or disabled and the
families who care for them. Long-term care will become a bigger and bigger
challenge with the aging of America – and we must do more to help our
families deal with it.

I was born in 1946, the first year of the baby boom. I can tell you that
one of the greatest concerns of our generation is our absolute
determination not to let our growing old place an intolerable burden on our
children and their ability to raise our grandchildren.

Our economic success and our fiscal discipline now give us the opportunity
to lift that burden from their shoulders, and we should take it.

Saving Social Security, Medicare, creating U.S. accounts, this is the right
way to use the surplus. If we do so, if we do so, we will still have
resources to meet critical needs and education and defense.

And I want to point out that this proposal is fiscally sound. Listen to
this, if we set aside 60 percent of the surplus for Social Security and 16
percent for Medicare over the next 15 years, that savings will achieve the
lowest level of publicly-held debt since right before World War I in 1917.

So with these four measures; saving Social Security, strengthening
Medicare, establishing the USA accounts, supporting long-term care, we can
begin to meet our generation's historic responsibility to establish true
security for 21st century seniors.

Now, there are more children, from more diverse backgrounds, in our public
schools that any time in our history. Their education must provide the
knowledge and nurture the creativity that will allow our entire nation to
thrive in the new economy.

Today we can say something we couldn't say six years ago. With tax credits
and more affordable student loans, with more work-study grants and more
Pell Grants, with education IRAs, the new HOPE Scholarship tax cut that
more than five million Americans will receive this year, we have finally
opened the doors of college to all Americans.

With our support, nearly every state has set higher academic standards for
public schools and a voluntary national test is being developed to measure
the progress of our students. With over $1 billion in discounts available
this year, we are well on our way to our goal of connecting every classroom
and library to the Internet.

Last fall, you passed our proposal to start hiring 100,000 new teachers to
reduce class size in the early grades. Now I ask you to finish the job.

You know our children are doing better. SAT scores are up. Math scores have
risen in nearly all grades. But there's a problem. While our fourth-graders
out performed their peers in other countries in math and science, our
eighth-graders are around average, and our 12th-graders rank near the
bottom. We must do better.

Now each year the national government invests more than $15 billion in our
public schools. I believe we must change the way we invest that money to
support what works and to stop supporting what does not work.

First, later this year I will send to Congress a plan that for the first
time holds states and school districts accountable for progress and rewards
them for results. My Education Accountability Act will require every school
district receiving federal help to take the following five steps:

First, all schools must end social promotion.

Now, no child, no child should graduate from high school with a diploma he
or she can't read. We do our children no favors when we allow them to pass
from grade to grade without mastering the material. But we can't just hold
students back because the system fails them.

So my balanced budget triples the funding for summer school and
after-school programs to keep a million children learning. Now, if – if you
doubt this will work, just look at Chicago, which ended social promotion
and made summer school mandatory for those who don't master the basics.
Math and reading scores are up three years running with some of the biggest
gains in some of the poorest neighborhoods. It will work, and we should do
it.

Second, all states and school districts must turn around their worst
performing schools or shut them down. That's the policy established in
North Carolina by Governor Jim Hunt. North Carolina made the biggest gains
in test scores in the nation last year. Our budget includes $200 million to
help states turn around their own failing schools.

Third, all states and school districts must be held responsible for the
quality of their teachers. The great majority of our teachers do a fine
job, but in too many schools teachers don't have college majors or even
minors in the subjects they teach. New teachers should be required to pass
performance exams, and all teachers should know the subject their
teaching.

This year's balanced budget contains resources to help them reach higher
standards. And to attract talented young teachers to the toughest
assignments, I recommend a six-fold increase in our program for college
scholarships for students who commit to teach in the inner-cities and
isolated rural areas and in Indian communities. Let us bring excellence to
every part of America.

Fourth, we must empower parents with more information and more choices. In
too many communities it's easier to get information on the quality of the
local restaurants than on the quality of the local schools.

Every school district should issue report cards on every school. And
parents should be given more choices in selecting their public schools.

When I became president, there was just one independent public charter
school in all America. With our support on a bipartisan basis, today there
are 1,100. My budget assures that early in the next century, there will be
3,000.

Fifth, to assure that our classrooms are truly places of learning, and to
respond to what teachers have been asking us to do for years, we should say
that all states and school districts must both adopt and implement sensible
discipline policies.

Now let's do one more thing for our children. Today, too many schools are
so old they're falling apart, or so overcrowded students are learning in
trailers. Last fall, Congress missed the opportunity to change that. This
year, with 53 million children in our schools, Congress must not miss that
opportunity again. I ask you to help our communities build or modernize
5,000 schools.

If we do these things – end social promotion, turn around failing schools,
build modern ones, support qualified teachers, promote innovation,
competition and discipline – then we will begin to meet our generation's
historic responsibility to create to 21st century schools.

Now, we also have to do more to support the millions of parents who give
their all every day at home and at work.

The most basic tool of all is a decent income. So let's raise the minimum
wage by a dollar an hour over the next two years.

And let's make sure that women and men get equal pay for equal work by
strengthening enforcement of the equal pay laws.

That was encouraging, you know? There was more balance on the seesaw. I
like that. Let's give them a hand. That's great.

Working parents also need quality child care. So, again this year, I ask
Congress to support our plan for tax credits and subsidies for working
families, for improved safety and quality, for expanded after-school
program. And our plan also includes a new tax credit for stay-at-home
parents, too. They need support as well.

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