Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, honored guests, my fellow Americans: We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our Nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats. Never before have we had such a blessed opportunity and, therefore, such a profound obligation to build the more perfect Union of our Founders' dreams. We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs; the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years; the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record; the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years; and next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy. And our economic revolution has been matched by a revival of the American spirit: crime down by 20 percent, to its lowest level in 25 years; teen births down 7 years in a row; adoptions up by 30 percent; welfare rolls cut in half, to their lowest levels in 30 years. My fellow Americans, the state of our Union is the strongest it has ever been. As always, the real credit belongs to the American people. My gratitude also goes to those of you in this Chamber who have worked with us to put progress over partisanship. Eight years ago, it was not so clear to most Americans there would be much to celebrate in the year 2000. Then our Nation was gripped by economic distress, social decline, political gridlock. The title of a best-selling book asked: "America: What Went Wrong?" In the best traditions of our Nation, Americans determined to set things right. We restored the vital center, replacing outmoded ideologies with a new vision anchored in basic, enduring values: opportunity for all, responsibility from all, a community of all Americans. We reinvented Government, transforming it into a catalyst for new ideas that stress both opportunity and responsibility and give our people the tools they need to solve their own problems. With the smallest Federal work force in 40 years, we turned record deficits into record surpluses and doubled our investment in education. We cut crime with 100,000 community police and the Brady law, which has kept guns out of the hands of half a million criminals. We ended welfare as we knew it, requiring work while protecting health care and nutrition for children and investing more in child care, transportation, and housing to help their parents go to work. We've helped parents to succeed at home and at work with family leave, which 20 million Americans have now used to care for a newborn child or a sick loved one. We've engaged 150,000 young Americans in citizen service through AmeriCorps, while helping them earn money for college. In 1992, we just had a roadmap. Today, we have results. Even more important, America again has the confidence to dream big dreams. But we must not let this confidence drift into complacency. For we, all of us, will be judged by the dreams and deeds we pass on to our children. And on that score, we will be held to a high standard, indeed, because our chance to do good is so great. My fellow Americans, we have crossed the bridge we built to the 21st century. Now, we must shape a 21st century American revolution of opportunity, responsibility, and community. We must be now, as we were in the beginning, a new nation. At the dawn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt said, "The one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight . . . it should be the growing Nation with a future that takes the long look ahead." So tonight let us take our long look ahead and set great goals for our Nation. To 21st century America, let us pledge these things: Every child will begin school ready to learn and graduate ready to succeed. Every family will be able to succeed at home and at work, and no child will be raised in poverty. We will meet the challenge of the aging of America. We will assure quality, affordable health care, at last, for all Americans. We will make America the safest big country on Earth. We will pay off our national debt for the first time since 1835.* We will bring prosperity to every American community. We will reverse the course of climate change and leave a safer, cleaner planet. America will lead the world toward shared peace and prosperity and the far frontiers of science and technology. And we will become at last what our Founders pledged us to be so long ago: One Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. These are great goals, worthy of a great nation. We will not reach them all this year, not even in this decade. But we will reach them. Let us remember that the first American Revolution was not won with a single shot; the continent was not settled in a single year. The lesson of our history and the lesson of the last 7 years is that great goals are reached step by step, always building on our progress, always gaining ground. Of course, you can't gain ground if you're standing still. And for too long this Congress has been standing still on some of our most pressing national priorities. So let's begin tonight with them. Again, I ask you to pass a real Patients' Bill of Rights. I ask you to pass commonsense gun safety legislation. I ask you to pass campaign finance reform. I ask you to vote up or down on judicial nominations and other important appointees. And again, I ask you—I implore you to raise the minimum wage. Now, 2 years ago—let me try to balance the seesaw here—[ ]—2 years ago, as we reached across party lines to reach our first balanced budget, I asked that we meet our responsibility to the next generation by maintaining our fiscal discipline. Because we refused to stray from that path, we are doing something that would have seemed unimaginable 7 years ago. We are actually paying down the national debt. Now, if we stay on this path, we can pay down the debt entirely in just 13 years now and make America debt-free for the first time since Andrew Jackson was President in 1835. In 1993 we began to put our fiscal house in order with the Deficit Reduction Act, which you'll all remember won passages in both Houses by just a single vote. Your former colleague, my first Secretary of the Treasury, led that effort and sparked our long boom. He's here with us tonight. Lloyd Bentsen, you have served America well, and we thank you. Beyond paying off the debt, we must ensure that the benefits of debt reduction go to preserving two of the most important guarantees we make to every American, Social Security and Medicare. Tonight I ask you to work with me to make a bipartisan downpayment on Social Security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the Social Security Trust Fund so that it will be strong and sound for the next 50 years. But this is just the start of our journey. We must also take the right steps toward reaching our great goals. First and foremost, we need a 21st century revolution in education, guided by our faith that every single child can learn. Because education is more important than ever, more than ever the key to our children's future, we must make sure all our children have that key. That means quality preschool and afterschool, the best trained teachers in the classroom, and college opportunities for all our children. For 7 years now, we've worked hard to improve our schools, with opportunity and responsibility, investing more but demanding more in turn. Reading, math, college entrance scores are up. Some of the most impressive gains are in schools in very poor neighborhoods. But all successful schools have followed the same proven formula: higher standards, more accountability, and extra help so children who need it can get it to reach those standards. I have sent Congress a reform plan based on that formula. It holds States and school districts accountable for progress and rewards them for results. Each year, our National Government invests more than $15 billion in our schools. It is time to support what works and stop supporting what doesn't. Now, as we demand more from our schools, we should also invest more in our schools. Let's double our investment to help States and districts turn around their worst performing schools or shut them down. Let's double our investments in after-school and summer school programs, which boost achievement and keep people off the streets and out of trouble. If we do this, we can give every single child in every failing school in America—everyone—the chance to meet high standards. Since 1993, we've nearly doubled our investment in Head Start and improved its quality. Tonight I ask you for another $1 billion for Head Start, the largest increase in the history of the program. We know that children learn best in smaller classes with good teachers. For 2 years in a row, Congress has supported my plan to hire 100,000 new qualified teachers to lower class size in the early grades. I thank you for that, and I ask you to make it 3 in a row. And to make sure all teachers know the subjects they teach, tonight I propose a new teacher quality initiative, to recruit more talented people into the classroom, reward good teachers for staying there, and give all teachers the training they need. We know charter schools provide real public school choice. When I became President, there was just one independent public charter school in all America. Today, thanks to you, there are 1,700. I ask you now to help us meet our goal of 3,000 charter schools by next year. We know we must connect all our classrooms to the Internet, and we're getting there. In 1994, only 3 percent of our classrooms were connected. Today, with the help of the Vice President's E-rate program, more than half of them are, and 90 percent of our schools have at least one Internet connection. But we cannot finish the job when a third of all our schools are in serious disrepair. Many of them have walls and wires so old, they're too old for the Internet. So tonight I propose to help 5,000 schools a year make immediate and urgent repairs and, again, to help build or modernize 6,000 more, to get students out of trailers and into high-tech classrooms. I ask all of you to help me double our bipartisan GEAR UP program, which provides mentors for disadvantaged young people. If we double it, we can provide mentors for 1.4 million of them. Let's also offer these kids from disadvantaged backgrounds the same chance to take the same college test-prep courses wealthier students use to boost their test scores. To make the American dream achievable for all, we must make college affordable for all. For 7 years, on a bipartisan basis, we have taken action toward that goal: larger Pell grants, more affordable student loans, education IRA's, and our HOPE scholarships, which have already benefited 5 million young people. Now, 67 percent of high school graduates are going on to college. That's up 10 percent since 1993. Yet millions of families still strain to pay college tuition. They need help. So I propose a landmark $30 billion college opportunity tax cut, a middle class tax deduction for up to $10,000 in college tuition costs. The previous actions of this Congress have already made 2 years of college affordable for all. It's time make 4 years of college affordable for all. If we take all these steps, we'll move a long way toward making sure every child starts school ready to learn and graduates ready to succeed. We also need a 21st century revolution to reward work and strengthen families by giving every parent the tools to succeed at work and at the most important work of all, raising children. That means making sure every family has health care and the support to care for aging parents, the tools to bring their children up right, and that no child grows up in poverty. From my first days as President, we've worked to give families better access to better health care. In 1997, we passed the Children's Health Insurance Program—CHIP—so that workers who don't have coverage through their employers at least can get it for their children. So far, we've enrolled 2 million children. We're well on our way to our goal of 5 million. But there are still more than 40 million of our fellow Americans without health insurance, more than there were in 1993. Tonight I propose that we follow Vice President Gore's suggestion to make low income parents eligible for the insurance that covers their children. Together with our children's initiative—think of this—together with our children's initiative, this action would enable us to cover nearly a quarter of all the uninsured people in America. Again, I want to ask you to let people between the ages of 55 and 65, the fastest growing group of uninsured, buy into Medicare. And this year I propose to give them a tax credit to make that choice an affordable one. I hope you will support that, as well. When the baby boomers retire, Medicare will be faced with caring for twice as many of our citizens; yet, it is far from ready to do so. My generation must not ask our children's generation to shoulder our burden. We simply must act now to strengthen and modernize Medicare. My budget includes a comprehensive plan to reform Medicare, to make it more efficient and more competitive. And it dedicates nearly $400 billion of our budget surplus to keep Medicare solvent past 2025. And at long last, it also provides funds to give every senior a voluntary choice of affordable coverage for prescription drugs. Lifesaving drugs are an indispensable part of modern medicine. No one creating a Medicare program today would even think of excluding coverage for prescription drugs. Yet more than three in five of our seniors now lack dependable drug coverage which can lengthen and enrich their lives. Millions of older Americans, who need prescription drugs the most, pay the highest prices for them. In good conscience, we cannot let another year pass without extending to all our seniors this lifeline of affordable prescription drugs. Record numbers of Americans are providing for aging or ailing loved ones at home. It's a loving but a difficult and often very expensive choice. Last year, I proposed a $1,000 tax credit for long-term care. Frankly, it wasn't enough. This year, let's triple it to $3,000. But this year, let's pass it. We also have to make needed investments to expand access to mental health care. I want to take a moment to thank the person who led our first White House Conference on Mental Health last year and who for 7 years has led all our efforts to break down the barriers to decent treatment of people with mental illness. Thank you, Tipper Gore. Taken together, these proposals would mark the largest investment in health care in the 35 years since Medicare was created—the largest investment in 35 years. That would be a big step toward assuring quality health care for all Americans, young and old. And I ask you to embrace them and pass them. We must also make investments that reward work and support families. Nothing does that better than the earned-income tax credit, the EITC. The "E" in the EITC is about earning, working, taking responsibility, and being rewarded for it. In my very first address to you, I asked Congress to greatly expand this credit, and you did. As a result, in 1998 alone, the EITC helped more than 4.3 million Americans work their way out of poverty toward the middle class. That's double the number in 1993. Tonight I propose another major expansion of the EITC: to reduce the marriage penalty, to make sure it rewards marriage as it rewards work, and also to expand the tax credit for families that have more than two children. It punishes people with more than two children today. Our proposal would allow families with three or more children to get up to $1,100 more in tax relief. These are working families; their children should not be in poverty. We also can't reward work and family unless men and women get equal pay for equal work. Today the female unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 46 years. Yet, women still only earn about 75 cents for every dollar men earn. We must do better, by providing the resources to enforce present equal pay laws, training more women for high-paying, high-tech jobs, and passing the "Paycheck Fairness Act." Many working parents spend up to a quarter—a quarter—of their income on child care. Last year, we helped parents provide child care for about 2 million children. My child care initiative before you now, along with funds already secured in welfare reform, would make child care better, safer, and more affordable for another 400,000 children. I ask you to pass that. They need it out there. For hard-pressed middle income families, we should also expand the child care tax credit. And I believe strongly we should take the next big step and make that tax credit refundable for low income families. For people making under $30,000 a year, that could mean up to $2,400 for child care costs. You know, we all say we're pro-work and pro-family. Passing this proposal would prove it. Ten of millions of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck. As hard as they work, they still don't have the opportunity to save. Too few can make use of IRA's and 401k plans. We should do more to help all working families save and accumulate wealth. That's the idea behind the Individual Development Accounts, the IDA's. I ask you to take that idea to a new level, with new retirement savings accounts that enable every low and moderate income family in America to save for retirement, a first home, a medical emergency, or a college education. I propose to match their contributions, however small, dollar for dollar, every year they save. And I propose to give a major new tax credit to any small business that will provide a meaningful pension to its workers. Those people ought to have retirement as well as the rest of us. Nearly one in three American children grows up without a father. These children are 5 times more likely to live in poverty than children with both parents at home. Clearly, demanding and supporting responsible fatherhood is critical to lifting all our children out of poverty. We've doubled child support collections since 1992. And I'm proposing to you tough new measures to hold still more fathers responsible. But we should recognize that a lot of fathers want to do right by their children but need help to do it. Carlos Rosas of St. Paul, Minnesota, wanted to do right by his son, and he got the help to do it. Now he's got a good job, and he supports his little boy. My budget will help 40,000 more fathers make the same choices Carlos Rosas did. I thank him for being here tonight. Stand up, Carlos. [ ] Thank you. If there is any single issue on which we should be able to reach across party lines, it is in our common commitment to reward work and strengthen families. Just remember what we did last year. We came together to help people with disabilities keep their health insurance when they go to work. And I thank you for that. Thanks to overwhelming bipartisan support from this Congress, we have improved foster care. We've helped those young people who leave it when they turn 18, and we have dramatically increased the number of foster care children going into adoptive homes. I thank all of you for all of that. Of course, I am forever grateful to the person who has led our efforts from the beginning and who's worked so tirelessly for children and families for 30 years now, my wife, Hillary, and I thank her. If we take the steps just discussed, we can go a long, long way toward empowering parents to succeed at home and at work and ensuring that no child is raised in poverty. We can make these vital investments in health care, education, support for working families, and still offer tax cuts to help pay for college, for retirement, to care for aging parents, to reduce the marriage penalty. We can do these things without forsaking the path of fiscal discipline that got us to this point here tonight. Indeed, we must make these investments and these tax cuts in the context of a balanced budget that strengthens and extends the life of Social Security and Medicare and pays down the national debt. Crime in America has dropped for the past 7 years—that's the longest decline on record— thanks to a national consensus we helped to forge on community police, sensible gun safety laws, and effective prevention. But nobody, nobody here, nobody in America believes we're safe enough. So again, I ask you to set a higher goal. Let's make this country the safest big country in the world. Last fall, Congress supported my plan to hire, in addition to the 100,000 community police we've already funded, 50,000 more, concentrated in high-crime neighborhoods. I ask your continued support for that. Soon after the Columbine tragedy, Congress considered commonsense gun legislation, to require Brady background checks at the gun shows, child safety locks for new handguns, and a ban on the importation of large capacity ammunition clips. With courage and a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President—[ ]—the Senate faced down the gun lobby, stood up for the American people, and passed this legislation. But the House failed to follow suit. Now, we have all seen what happens when guns fall into the wrong hands. Daniel Mauser was only 15 years old when he was gunned down at Columbine. He was an amazing kid, a straight-A student, a good skier. Like all parents who lose their children, his father, Tom, has borne unimaginable grief. Somehow he has found the strength to honor his son by transforming his grief into action. Earlier this month, he took a leave of absence from his job to fight for tougher gun safety laws. I pray that his courage and wisdom will at long last move this Congress to make commonsense gun legislation the very next order of business. Tom Mauser, stand up. We thank you for being here tonight. Tom. Thank you, Tom. [ ] We must strengthen our gun laws and enforce those already on the books better. Federal gun crime prosecutions are up 16 percent since I took office. But 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 them the enforcement tools that they need, tools to trace every gun and every bullet used in every gun crime in the United States. I ask you to help us do that. Every State in this country already requires hunters and automobile drivers to have a license. I think they ought to do the same thing for handgun purchases. Now, specifically, I propose a plan to ensure that all new handgun buyers must first have a photo license from their State showing they passed the Brady background check and a gun safety course, before they get the gun. I hope you'll help me pass that in this Congress. Listen to this—listen to this. The accidental gun rate—the accidental gun death rate of children under 15 in the United States is 9 times higher than in the other 25 industrialized countries combined. Now, 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 into smart gun technology to save these children's lives. I ask responsible leaders in the gun industry to work with us on smart guns and other steps to keep guns out of the wrong hands, to keep our children safe. You know, every parent I know worries about the impact of violence in the media on their children. I want to begin by thanking the entertainment industry for accepting my challenge to put voluntary ratings on TV programs and video and Internet games. But frankly, the ratings are too numerous, diverse, and confusing to be really useful to parents. So tonight I ask the industry to accept the First Lady's challenge to develop a single voluntary rating system for all children's entertainment that is easier for parents to understand and enforce. The steps I outline will take us well on our way to making America the safest big country in the world. Now, to keep our historic economic expansion going, the subject of a lot of discussion in this community and others, I believe we need a 21st century revolution to open new markets, start new businesses, hire new workers right here in America, in our inner cities, poor rural areas, and Native American reservations. Our Nation's prosperity hasn't yet reached these places. Over the last 6 months, I've traveled to a lot 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 Reservation. Everywhere I go, I meet talented people eager for opportunity and able to work. Tonight I ask you, 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 let me ask you something: If we don't do this now, when in the wide world will we ever get around to it? So I ask Congress to give businesses the same incentives to invest in America's new markets they now have to invest in markets overseas. 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 our inner cities and rural areas. Because empowerment zones have been creating these opportunities for 5 years now, I also ask you to increase incentives to invest in them and to create more of them. And let me say to all of you again what I have tried to say at every turn: This is not a Democratic or a Republican issue. Giving people a chance to live their dreams is an American issue. Mr. Speaker, it was a powerful moment last November when you joined Reverend Jesse Jackson and me 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. I want to thank you again and to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with you. This is a worthy joint endeavor. Thank you. I also ask you to make special efforts to address the areas of our Nation with the highest rates of poverty, our Native American reservations and the Mississippi Delta. My budget includes a $110 million initiative to promote economic development in the Delta and a billion dollars to increase economic opportunity, health care, education, and law enforcement for our Native American communities. We should begin this new century by honoring our historic responsibility to empower the first Americans. And I want to thank tonight the leaders and the members from both parties who've expressed to me an interest in working with us on these efforts. They are profoundly important. There's another part of our American community in trouble tonight, our family farmers. When I signed the farm bill in 1996, I said there was great danger it would work well in good times but not in bad. Well, droughts, floods, and historically low prices have made these times very bad for the farmers. We must work together to strengthen the farm safety net, invest in land conservation, and create some new markets for them by expanding our programs for bio-based fuels and products. Please, they need help. Let's do it together. Opportunity for all requires something else today, having access to a computer and knowing how to use it. That means we must close the digital divide between those who've got the 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 it creates technology centers in 1,000 communities to serve adults. This spring, I'll invite high-tech leaders to join me on another new markets tour, to close the digital divide and open opportunity for our people. I want to thank the high-tech companies that already are doing so much in this area. I hope the new tax incentives I have proposed will get all the rest of them to join us. This is a national crusade. We have got to do this and do it quickly. Now, again I say to you, these are steps, but step by step, we can go a long way toward our goal of bringing opportunity to every community. To realize the full possibilities of this 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 and economies and cultures: globalization. It's the central reality of our time. Of course, change this profound is both liberating and threatening to people. But there's no turning back. And our open, creative society stands to benefit more than any other if we understand and act on the realities of interdependence. We have to be at the center of every vital global network, as a good neighbor and a good partner. We have to recognize that we cannot build our future without helping others to build theirs. The first thing we have got to do is to forge a new consensus on trade. Now, those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade, we have to ensure that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating abusive child labor or a race to the bottom in the environment and worker protection. But others must recognize that open markets and rule-based trade are the best engines we know of for raising living standards, reducing global poverty and environmental destruction, and assuring the free flow of ideas. I believe, as strongly tonight as I did the first day I got here, the only direction forward for America on trade—the only direction for America on trade is to keep going forward. I ask you to help me forge that consensus. We have to make developing economies our partners in prosperity. That's why I would like to ask you again to finalize our groundbreaking African and Caribbean Basin trade initiatives. But globalization is about more than economics. Our purpose must be to bring together the world around freedom and democracy 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 today from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy of communism, an economy in 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: 5,000 former Soviet nuclear weapons taken out of commission; Russian soldiers actually serving with ours in the Balkans; Russian people electing their leaders for the first time in 1,000 years; and in China, an economy more open to the world than ever before. Of course, no one, not a single person in this Chamber tonight can know for sure what direction these great nations will take. But we do know for sure that we can choose what we do. And we should do everything in our power to increase the chance that they will choose wisely, to be constructive members of our global community. That's why we should support those Russians who are struggling for a democratic, prosperous future; continue to reduce both our nuclear arsenals; and help Russia to safeguard weapons and materials that remain. And that's why I believe Congress should support the agreement we negotiated to bring China into the WTO, by passing permanent normal trade relations with China as soon as possible this year. I think you ought to do it for two reasons: First of all, our markets are already open to China; this agreement will open China's markets to us. And second, it will plainly advance the cause of peace in Asia and promote the cause of change in China. No, we don't know where it's going. All we can do is decide what we're going to do. But when all is said and done, we need to know we did everything we possibly could to maximize the chance that China will choose the right future. A second challenge we've got is to protect our own security from conflicts that pose the risk of wider war and threaten our common humanity. We can't prevent every conflict or stop every outrage. But where our interests are at stake and we can make a difference, we should be, and we must be, peacemakers. We should be proud of our role in bringing the Middle East closer to a lasting 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 these crises between India and Pakistan, in 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 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 was shot 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 in Kosovo without losing a single American in combat. I want to introduce Captain Cherrey to you. We honor Captain Cherrey, and we promise you, Captain, we'll finish the job you began. Stand up so we can see you. [ ] A third challenge we have is to keep this inexorable march of technology from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine our defenses. Keep in mind, the same technological 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 ABM missile treaty with Russia. We must do all these things. I predict to you, when most of us are long gone but some time in the next 10 to 20 years, the major security threat this country will face will come from the enemies of the nation-state, the narcotraffickers and the terrorists and the organized criminals who will be organized together, working together, with increasing access to ever more sophisticated chemical and biological weapons. And I want to thank the Pentagon and others for doing what they're doing right now to try to help protect us and plan for that, so that our defenses will be strong. I ask for your support to ensure they can succeed. I also want to ask you for a constructive bipartisan dialog this year to work to build a consensus which I hope will eventually lead to the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. I hope we can also have a constructive effort to meet the challenge that is presented to our planet 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 and the rest live on the bare edge of survival. I think we have to do our part to change that with expanded trade, expanded aid, and the expansion of freedom. This is interesting: From Nigeria to Indonesia, more people got the right to choose their leaders in 1999 than in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. We've got to stand by these democracies, including and especially tonight Colombia, which is fighting narcotraffickers, for its own people's lives and our children's lives. I have proposed a strong 2-year package to help Colombia win this fight. I want to thank the leaders in both parties in both Houses for listening to me and the President of Colombia about it. We have got to pass this. I want to ask your help. A lot is riding on it. And it's so important for the long-term stability of our country and for what happens in Latin America. I also want you to know I'm going to send you new legislation to go after what these drug barons value the most, their money. And I hope you'll pass that as well. In a world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day, we also have got to do our part in the global endeavor to reduce the debts of the poorest countries, so they can invest in education, health care, and economic growth. That's what the Pope and other religious leaders have urged us to do. And last year, Congress made a downpayment on America's share. I ask you to continue that. I thank you for what you did and ask you to stay the course. I also want to say that America must help more nations to break the bonds of disease. Last year in Africa, 10 times as many people died from AIDS as were killed in wars—10 times. The budget I give you invests $150 million more in the fight against this and other infectious killers. And 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. We can save millions of lives together, and we ought to do it. I also want to mention our final challenge, which, as always, is the most important. I ask you 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, which raises salaries for our service men and women, which protects our veterans, which fully funds the diplomacy that keeps our soldiers out of war, which makes good on our commitment to our U.N. dues and arrears. I ask you to pass this budget. I also want to say something, if I might, very personal tonight. The American people watching us at home, with the help of all the commentators, can tell, from who stands and who sits and who claps and who doesn't, that there's still modest differences of opinion in this room. [ ] But I want to thank you for something, every one of you. I want to thank you for the extraordinary support you have given, Republicans and Democrats alike, to our men and women in uniform. I thank you for that. I also want to thank, especially, two people. First, I want to thank our Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, for symbolizing our bipartisan commitment to national security. Thank you, sir. Even more, I want to thank his wife, Janet, who, more than any other American citizen, has tirelessly traveled this world to show the support we all feel for our troops. Thank you, Janet Cohen. I appreciate that. Thank you. These are the challenges we have to meet so that we can lead the world toward peace and freedom in an era of globalization. I want to tell you that I am very grateful for many things as President. But one of the things I'm grateful for is the opportunity that the Vice President and I have had to finally put to rest the bogus idea that you cannot grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time. As our economy has grown, we've rid more than 500 neighborhoods of toxic waste, ensured cleaner air and water for millions of people. In the past 3 months alone, we've helped preserve 40 million acres of roadless lands in the national forests, created three new national monuments. But as our communities grow, our commitment to conservation must continue to grow. Tonight I propose creating a permanent conservation fund, to restore wildlife, protect coastlines, save natural treasures, from the California redwoods to the Florida Everglades. This lands legacy endowment would represent by far the most enduring investment in land preservation ever proposed in this House. I hope we can get together with all the people with different ideas and do this. This is a gift we should give to our children and our grandchildren for all time, across party lines. We can make an agreement to do this. Last year the Vice President launched a new effort to make communities more liberal—livable—[ ]—liberal, I know. [ ] Wait a minute, I've got a punchline now. That's this year's agenda; last year was livable, right? [ ] That's what Senator Lott is going to say in the commentary afterwards—[ ]—to make our communities more livable. This is big business. This is a big issue. What does that mean? You ask anybody that lives in an unlivable community, and they'll tell you. They want their kids to grow up next to parks, not parking lots; the parents don't have to spend all their time stalled in traffic when they could be home with their children. Tonight I ask you to support new funding for the following things, to make American communities more liberal—livable. [ ] I've done pretty well with this speech, but I can't say that. One, I want you to help us to do three things. We need more funding for advanced transit systems. We need more funding for saving open spaces in places of heavy development. And we need more funding—this ought to have bipartisan appeal—we need more funding for helping major cities around the Great Lakes protect their waterways and enhance their quality of life. We need these things, and I want you to help us. The greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global warming. The scientists tell us the 1990's were the hottest decade of the entire millennium. If we fail to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, deadly heat waves and droughts will become more frequent, coastal areas will flood, and economies will be disrupted. That is going to happen, unless we act. Many people in the United States, some people in this Chamber, and lots of folks around the world still believe you cannot cut greenhouse gas emissions without slowing economic growth. In the industrial age, that may well have been true. But in this digital economy, it is not true anymore. 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. And before you know it, efficient production of bio-fuels will give us the equivalent of hundreds of miles from a gallon of gasoline. To speed innovation in these kind of technologies, I think we should give a major tax incentive to business for the production of clean energy and to families for buying energy-saving homes and appliances and the next generation of superefficient cars when they hit the showroom floor. I also ask the auto industry to use the available technologies to make all new cars more fuel-efficient right away. And I ask this Congress to do something else. Please help us make more of our clean energy technology available to the developing world. That will create cleaner growth abroad and a lot more new jobs here in the United States of America. In the new century, innovations in science and technology will be 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 our fellow Americans to recognize that Federal tax dollars have funded much of 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, diabetes, and certain kinds of cancer. They are designing precision therapies that will block the harmful effect of these genes for good. Researchers already are 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. Scientists are also working on an artificial retina to help many blind people to see and—listen to this—microchips that would actually directly stimulate damaged spinal cords in a way that could allow people now paralyzed to stand up and walk. These kinds of innovations are also propelling our remarkable prosperity. Information technology only includes 8 percent of our employment but now accounts for a third of our economic growth along with jobs that pay, by the way, about 80 percent above the private sector average. Again, we ought to 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 talk, materials 10 times stronger than steel at a fraction of the weight, and— this is unbelievable to me—molecular computers the size of a teardrop with the power of today's fastest supercomputers. To accelerate the march of discovery across all these disciplines in science and technology, I ask you to support my recommendation of an unprecedented $3 billion in the 21st century research fund, the largest increase in civilian research in a generation. We owe it to our future. Now, these new breakthroughs have to be used in ways that reflect our values. First and foremost, we have to safeguard our citizens' privacy. Last year we proposed to protect every citizen's medical record. This year we will finalize those rules. We've also taken the first steps to protect the privacy of bank and credit card records and other financial statements. Soon I will send legislation to you to finish that job. We must also act to prevent any genetic discrimination whatever by employers or insurers. I hope you will support that. These steps will allow us to lead toward the far frontiers of science and technology. They will enhance our health, the environment, the economy in ways we can't even imagine today. But we all know that at a time when science, technology, and the forces of globalization are bringing so many changes into all our lives, it's more important than ever that we strengthen the bonds that root us in our local communities and in our national community. No tie binds different people together like citizen service. There's a new spirit of service in America, a movement we've tried to support with AmeriCorps, expanded Peace Corps, unprecedented new partnerships with businesses, foundations, community groups; partnerships, for example, like the one that enlisted 12,000 companies which have now moved 650,000 of our fellow citizens from welfare to work; partnerships to battle drug abuse, AIDS, teach young people to read, save America's treasures, strengthen the arts, fight teen pregnancy, prevent violence among young people, promote racial healing. The American people are working together. But we should do more to help Americans help each other. First, we should help faithbased organizations to do more to fight poverty and drug abuse and help people get back on the right track, with initiatives like Second Chance Homes that do so much to help unwed teen mothers. Second, 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 that would allow low and middle income citizens who don't itemize to get that deduction. It's nothing but fair, and it will get more people to give. We should do more to help new immigrants to fully participate in our community. That's why I recommend spending more to teach them civics and English. And since everybody in our community counts, we've got to make sure everyone is counted in this year's census. Within 10 years—just 10 years—there will be no majority race in our largest State of 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. Look around. We have Members in this Congress from virtually every racial, ethnic, and religious background. And I think you would agree that America is stronger because of it. [ ] You also have to agree that all those differences you just clapped for all too often spark hatred and division even here at home. Just in the last couple of years, we've seen a man dragged to death in Texas just because he was black. We saw a young man murdered in Wyoming just because he was gay. Last year we saw the shootings of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Jewish children just because of who they were. This is not the American way, and we must draw the line. I ask you to draw that line by passing without delay the "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" and the "Employment Non-Discrimination Act." And I ask you to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. Finally tonight, I propose the largest ever investment in our civil rights laws for enforcement, because no American should be subjected to discrimination in finding a home, getting a job, going to school, or securing a loan. Protections in law should be protections in fact. Last February, because I thought this was so important, I created the White House Office of One America to promote racial reconciliation. That's what one of my personal heroes, Hank Aaron, has done all his life. From his days as our all-time home run king to his recent acts of healing, he has always brought people together. We should follow his example, and we're honored to have him with us tonight. Stand up, Hank Aaron. [ ] I just want to say one more thing about this, and I want every one of you to think about this the next time you get mad at one of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle. This fall, at the White House, Hillary had one of her millennium dinners, and we had this very distinguished scientist there, who is an expert in this whole work in the human genome. And he said that we are all, regardless of race, genetically 99.9 percent the same. Now, you may find that uncomfortable when you look around here. [ ] But it is worth remembering. We can laugh about this, but you think about it. Modern science has confirmed what ancient faiths have always taught: the most important fact of life is our common humanity. Therefore, we should do more than just tolerate our diversity; we should honor it and celebrate it. My fellow Americans, every time I prepare for the State of the Union, I approach it with hope and expectation and excitement for our Nation. But tonight is very special, because we stand on the mountaintop of a new millennium. Behind us we can look back and see the great expanse of American achievement, and before us we can see even greater, grander frontiers of possibility. We should, all of us, be filled with gratitude and humility for our present progress and prosperity. We should be filled with awe and joy at what lies over the horizon. And we should be filled with absolute determination to make the most of it. You know, when the Framers finished crafting our Constitution in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin stood in Independence Hall, and he reflected on the carving of the Sun that was on the back of a chair he saw. The Sun was low on the horizon. So he said this—he said, "I've often wondered whether that Sun was rising or setting. Today," Franklin said, "I have the happiness to know it's a rising Sun." Today, because each succeeding generation of Americans has kept the fire of freedom burning brightly, lighting those frontiers of possibility, we all still bask in the glow and the warmth of Mr. Franklin's rising Sun. After 224 years, the American revolution continues. We remain a new nation. And 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.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, honored guests, my fellow Americans: We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our Nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats. Never before have we had such a blessed opportunity and, therefore, such a profound obligation to build the more perfect Union of our Founders' dreams. We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs; the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years; the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record; the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years; and next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy. And our economic revolution has been matched by a revival of the American spirit: crime down by 20 percent, to its lowest level in 25 years; teen births down 7 years in a row; adoptions up by 30 percent; welfare rolls cut in half, to their lowest levels in 30 years. My fellow Americans, the state of our Union is the strongest it has ever been. As always, the real credit belongs to the American people. My gratitude also goes to those of you in this Chamber who have worked with us to put progress over partisanship. Eight years ago, it was not so clear to most Americans there would be much to celebrate in the year 2000. Then our Nation was gripped by economic distress, social decline, political gridlock. The title of a best-selling book asked: "America: What Went Wrong?" In the best traditions of our Nation, Americans determined to set things right. We restored the vital center, replacing outmoded ideologies with a new vision anchored in basic, enduring values: opportunity for all, responsibility from all, a community of all Americans. We reinvented Government, transforming it into a catalyst for new ideas that stress both opportunity and responsibility and give our people the tools they need to solve their own problems. With the smallest Federal work force in 40 years, we turned record deficits into record surpluses and doubled our investment in education. We cut crime with 100,000 community police and the Brady law, which has kept guns out of the hands of half a million criminals. We ended welfare as we knew it, requiring work while protecting health care and nutrition for children and investing more in child care, transportation, and housing to help their parents go to work. We have helped parents to succeed at home and at work with family leave, which 20 million Americans have now used to care for a newborn child or a sick loved one. We have engaged 150,000 young Americans in citizen service through AmeriCorps, while helping them earn money for college. In 1992, we just had a roadmap. Today, we have results. Even more important, America again has the confidence to dream big dreams. But we must not let this confidence drift into complacency. For we, all of us, will be judged by the dreams and deeds we pass on to our children. And on that score, we will be held to a high standard, indeed, because our chance to do good is so great. My fellow Americans, we have crossed the bridge we built to the 21st century. Now, we must shape a 21st century American revolution of opportunity, responsibility, and community. We must be now, as we were in the beginning, a new nation. At the dawn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt said, "The one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight . . . it should be the growing Nation with a future that takes the long look ahead." So tonight let us take our long look ahead and set great goals for our Nation. To 21st century America, let us pledge these things: Every child will begin school ready to learn and graduate ready to succeed. Every family will be able to succeed at home and at work, and no child will be raised in poverty. We will meet the challenge of the aging of America. We will assure quality, affordable health care, at last, for all Americans. We will make America the safest big country on Earth. We will pay off our national debt for the first time since 1835.* We will bring prosperity to every American community. We will reverse the course of climate change and leave a safer, cleaner planet. America will lead the world toward shared peace and prosperity and the far frontiers of science and technology. And we will become at last what our Founders pledged us to be so long ago: One Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. These are great goals, worthy of a great nation. We will not reach them all this year, not even in this decade. But we will reach them. Let us remember that the first American Revolution was not won with a single shot; the continent was not settled in a single year. The lesson of our history and the lesson of the last 7 years is that great goals are reached step by step, always building on our progress, always gaining ground. Of course, you cannot gain ground if you are standing still. And for too long this Congress has been standing still on some of our most pressing national priorities. So let us begin tonight with them. Again, I ask you to pass a real Patients' Bill of Rights. I ask you to pass commonsense gun safety legislation. I ask you to pass campaign finance reform. I ask you to vote up or down on judicial nominations and other important appointees. And again, I ask you—I implore you to raise the minimum wage. Now, 2 years ago—let me try to balance the seesaw here—[ ]—2 years ago, as we reached across party lines to reach our first balanced budget, I asked that we meet our responsibility to the next generation by maintaining our fiscal discipline. Because we refused to stray from that path, we are doing something that would have seemed unimaginable 7 years ago. We are actually paying down the national debt. Now, if we stay on this path, we can pay down the debt entirely in just 13 years now and make America debt-free for the first time since Andrew Jackson was President in 1835. In 1993 we began to put our fiscal house in order with the Deficit Reduction Act, which you will all remember won passages in both Houses by just a single vote. Your former colleague, my first Secretary of the Treasury, led that effort and sparked our long boom. He is here with us tonight. Lloyd Bentsen, you have served America well, and we thank you. Beyond paying off the debt, we must ensure that the benefits of debt reduction go to preserving two of the most important guarantees we make to every American, Social Security and Medicare. Tonight I ask you to work with me to make a bipartisan downpayment on Social Security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the Social Security Trust Fund so that it will be strong and sound for the next 50 years. But this is just the start of our journey. We must also take the right steps toward reaching our great goals. First and foremost, we need a 21st century revolution in education, guided by our faith that every single child can learn. Because education is more important than ever, more than ever the key to our children's future, we must make sure all our children have that key. That means quality preschool and afterschool, the best trained teachers in the classroom, and college opportunities for all our children. For 7 years now, we have worked hard to improve our schools, with opportunity and responsibility, investing more but demanding more in turn. Reading, math, college entrance scores are up. Some of the most impressive gains are in schools in very poor neighborhoods. But all successful schools have followed the same proven formula: higher standards, more accountability, and extra help so children who need it can get it to reach those standards. I have sent Congress a reform plan based on that formula. It holds States and school districts accountable for progress and rewards them for results. Each year, our National Government invests more than $15 billion in our schools. It is time to support what works and stop supporting what does not. Now, as we demand more from our schools, we should also invest more in our schools. Let us double our investment to help States and districts turn around their worst performing schools or shut them down. Let us double our investments in after-school and summer school programs, which boost achievement and keep people off the streets and out of trouble. If we do this, we can give every single child in every failing school in America—everyone—the chance to meet high standards. Since 1993, we have nearly doubled our investment in Head Start and improved its quality. Tonight I ask you for another $1 billion for Head Start, the largest increase in the history of the program. We know that children learn best in smaller classes with good teachers. For 2 years in a row, Congress has supported my plan to hire 100,000 new qualified teachers to lower class size in the early grades. I thank you for that, and I ask you to make it 3 in a row. And to make sure all teachers know the subjects they teach, tonight I propose a new teacher quality initiative, to recruit more talented people into the classroom, reward good teachers for staying there, and give all teachers the training they need. We know charter schools provide real public school choice. When I became President, there was just one independent public charter school in all America. Today, thanks to you, there are 1,700. I ask you now to help us meet our goal of 3,000 charter schools by next year. We know we must connect all our classrooms to the Internet, and we are getting there. In 1994, only 3 percent of our classrooms were connected. Today, with the help of the Vice President's E-rate program, more than half of them are, and 90 percent of our schools have at least one Internet connection. But we cannot finish the job when a third of all our schools are in serious disrepair. Many of them have walls and wires so old, they are too old for the Internet. So tonight I propose to help 5,000 schools a year make immediate and urgent repairs and, again, to help build or modernize 6,000 more, to get students out of trailers and into high-tech classrooms. I ask all of you to help me double our bipartisan GEAR UP program, which provides mentors for disadvantaged young people. If we double it, we can provide mentors for 1.4 million of them. Let us also offer these kids from disadvantaged backgrounds the same chance to take the same college test-prep courses wealthier students use to boost their test scores. To make the American dream achievable for all, we must make college affordable for all. For 7 years, on a bipartisan basis, we have taken action toward that goal: larger Pell grants, more affordable student loans, education IRA's, and our HOPE scholarships, which have already benefited 5 million young people. Now, 67 percent of high school graduates are going on to college. That is up 10 percent since 1993. Yet millions of families still strain to pay college tuition. They need help. So I propose a landmark $30 billion college opportunity tax cut, a middle class tax deduction for up to $10,000 in college tuition costs. The previous actions of this Congress have already made 2 years of college affordable for all. It is time make 4 years of college affordable for all. If we take all these steps, we will move a long way toward making sure every child starts school ready to learn and graduates ready to succeed. We also need a 21st century revolution to reward work and strengthen families by giving every parent the tools to succeed at work and at the most important work of all, raising children. That means making sure every family has health care and the support to care for aging parents, the tools to bring their children up right, and that no child grows up in poverty. From my first days as President, we have worked to give families better access to better health care. In 1997, we passed the Children's Health Insurance Program—CHIP—so that workers who do not have coverage through their employers at least can get it for their children. So far, we have enrolled 2 million children. We are well on our way to our goal of 5 million. But there are still more than 40 million of our fellow Americans without health insurance, more than there were in 1993. Tonight I propose that we follow Vice President Gore's suggestion to make low income parents eligible for the insurance that covers their children. Together with our children's initiative—think of this—together with our children's initiative, this action would enable us to cover nearly a quarter of all the uninsured people in America. Again, I want to ask you to let people between the ages of 55 and 65, the fastest growing group of uninsured, buy into Medicare. And this year I propose to give them a tax credit to make that choice an affordable one. I hope you will support that, as well. When the baby boomers retire, Medicare will be faced with caring for twice as many of our citizens; yet, it is far from ready to do so. My generation must not ask our children's generation to shoulder our burden. We simply must act now to strengthen and modernize Medicare. My budget includes a comprehensive plan to reform Medicare, to make it more efficient and more competitive. And it dedicates nearly $400 billion of our budget surplus to keep Medicare solvent past 2025. And at long last, it also provides funds to give every senior a voluntary choice of affordable coverage for prescription drugs. Lifesaving drugs are an indispensable part of modern medicine. No one creating a Medicare program today would even think of excluding coverage for prescription drugs. Yet more than three in five of our seniors now lack dependable drug coverage which can lengthen and enrich their lives. Millions of older Americans, who need prescription drugs the most, pay the highest prices for them. In good conscience, we cannot let another year pass without extending to all our seniors this lifeline of affordable prescription drugs. Record numbers of Americans are providing for aging or ailing loved ones at home. It is a loving but a difficult and often very expensive choice. Last year, I proposed a $1,000 tax credit for long-term care. Frankly, it was not enough. This year, let us triple it to $3,000. But this year, let us pass it. We also have to make needed investments to expand access to mental health care. I want to take a moment to thank the person who led our first White House Conference on Mental Health last year and who for 7 years has led all our efforts to break down the barriers to decent treatment of people with mental illness. Thank you, Tipper Gore. Taken together, these proposals would mark the largest investment in health care in the 35 years since Medicare was created—the largest investment in 35 years. That would be a big step toward assuring quality health care for all Americans, young and old. And I ask you to embrace them and pass them. We must also make investments that reward work and support families. Nothing does that better than the earned-income tax credit, the EITC. The "E" in the EITC is about earning, working, taking responsibility, and being rewarded for it. In my very first address to you, I asked Congress to greatly expand this credit, and you did. As a result, in 1998 alone, the EITC helped more than 4.3 million Americans work their way out of poverty toward the middle class. That is double the number in 1993. Tonight I propose another major expansion of the EITC: to reduce the marriage penalty, to make sure it rewards marriage as it rewards work, and also to expand the tax credit for families that have more than two children. It punishes people with more than two children today. Our proposal would allow families with three or more children to get up to $1,100 more in tax relief. These are working families; their children should not be in poverty. We also cannot reward work and family unless men and women get equal pay for equal work. Today the female unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 46 years. Yet, women still only earn about 75 cents for every dollar men earn. We must do better, by providing the resources to enforce present equal pay laws, training more women for high-paying, high-tech jobs, and passing the "Paycheck Fairness Act." Many working parents spend up to a quarter—a quarter—of their income on child care. Last year, we helped parents provide child care for about 2 million children. My child care initiative before you now, along with funds already secured in welfare reform, would make child care better, safer, and more affordable for another 400,000 children. I ask you to pass that. They need it out there. For hard-pressed middle income families, we should also expand the child care tax credit. And I believe strongly we should take the next big step and make that tax credit refundable for low income families. For people making under $30,000 a year, that could mean up to $2,400 for child care costs. You know, we all say we are pro-work and pro-family. Passing this proposal would prove it. Ten of millions of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck. As hard as they work, they still do not have the opportunity to save. Too few can make use of IRA's and 401k plans. We should do more to help all working families save and accumulate wealth. That is the idea behind the Individual Development Accounts, the IDA's. I ask you to take that idea to a new level, with new retirement savings accounts that enable every low and moderate income family in America to save for retirement, a first home, a medical emergency, or a college education. I propose to match their contributions, however small, dollar for dollar, every year they save. And I propose to give a major new tax credit to any small business that will provide a meaningful pension to its workers. Those people ought to have retirement as well as the rest of us. Nearly one in three American children grows up without a father. These children are 5 times more likely to live in poverty than children with both parents at home. Clearly, demanding and supporting responsible fatherhood is critical to lifting all our children out of poverty. We have doubled child support collections since 1992. And I am proposing to you tough new measures to hold still more fathers responsible. But we should recognize that a lot of fathers want to do right by their children but need help to do it. Carlos Rosas of St. Paul, Minnesota, wanted to do right by his son, and he got the help to do it. Now he is got a good job, and he supports his little boy. My budget will help 40,000 more fathers make the same choices Carlos Rosas did. I thank him for being here tonight. Stand up, Carlos. [ ] Thank you. If there is any single issue on which we should be able to reach across party lines, it is in our common commitment to reward work and strengthen families. Just remember what we did last year. We came together to help people with disabilities keep their health insurance when they go to work. And I thank you for that. Thanks to overwhelming bipartisan support from this Congress, we have improved foster care. We have helped those young people who leave it when they turn 18, and we have dramatically increased the number of foster care children going into adoptive homes. I thank all of you for all of that. Of course, I am forever grateful to the person who has led our efforts from the beginning and who is worked so tirelessly for children and families for 30 years now, my wife, Hillary, and I thank her. If we take the steps just discussed, we can go a long, long way toward empowering parents to succeed at home and at work and ensuring that no child is raised in poverty. We can make these vital investments in health care, education, support for working families, and still offer tax cuts to help pay for college, for retirement, to care for aging parents, to reduce the marriage penalty. We can do these things without forsaking the path of fiscal discipline that got us to this point here tonight. Indeed, we must make these investments and these tax cuts in the context of a balanced budget that strengthens and extends the life of Social Security and Medicare and pays down the national debt. Crime in America has dropped for the past 7 years—that is the longest decline on record— thanks to a national consensus we helped to forge on community police, sensible gun safety laws, and effective prevention. But nobody, nobody here, nobody in America believes we are safe enough. So again, I ask you to set a higher goal. Let us make this country the safest big country in the world. Last fall, Congress supported my plan to hire, in addition to the 100,000 community police we have already funded, 50,000 more, concentrated in high-crime neighborhoods. I ask your continued support for that. Soon after the Columbine tragedy, Congress considered commonsense gun legislation, to require Brady background checks at the gun shows, child safety locks for new handguns, and a ban on the importation of large capacity ammunition clips. With courage and a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President—[ ]—the Senate faced down the gun lobby, stood up for the American people, and passed this legislation. But the House failed to follow suit. Now, we have all seen what happens when guns fall into the wrong hands. Daniel Mauser was only 15 years old when he was gunned down at Columbine. He was an amazing kid, a straight-A student, a good skier. Like all parents who lose their children, his father, Tom, has borne unimaginable grief. Somehow he has found the strength to honor his son by transforming his grief into action. Earlier this month, he took a leave of absence from his job to fight for tougher gun safety laws. I pray that his courage and wisdom will at long last move this Congress to make commonsense gun legislation the very next order of business. Tom Mauser, stand up. We thank you for being here tonight. Tom. Thank you, Tom. [ ] We must strengthen our gun laws and enforce those already on the books better. Federal gun crime prosecutions are up 16 percent since I took office. But 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 them the enforcement tools that they need, tools to trace every gun and every bullet used in every gun crime in the United States. I ask you to help us do that. Every State in this country already requires hunters and automobile drivers to have a license. I think they ought to do the same thing for handgun purchases. Now, specifically, I propose a plan to ensure that all new handgun buyers must first have a photo license from their State showing they passed the Brady background check and a gun safety course, before they get the gun. I hope you will help me pass that in this Congress. Listen to this—listen to this. The accidental gun rate—the accidental gun death rate of children under 15 in the United States is 9 times higher than in the other 25 industrialized countries combined. Now, 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 into smart gun technology to save these children's lives. I ask responsible leaders in the gun industry to work with us on smart guns and other steps to keep guns out of the wrong hands, to keep our children safe. You know, every parent I know worries about the impact of violence in the media on their children. I want to begin by thanking the entertainment industry for accepting my challenge to put voluntary ratings on TV programs and video and Internet games. But frankly, the ratings are too numerous, diverse, and confusing to be really useful to parents. So tonight I ask the industry to accept the First Lady's challenge to develop a single voluntary rating system for all children's entertainment that is easier for parents to understand and enforce. The steps I outline will take us well on our way to making America the safest big country in the world. Now, to keep our historic economic expansion going, the subject of a lot of discussion in this community and others, I believe we need a 21st century revolution to open new markets, start new businesses, hire new workers right here in America, in our inner cities, poor rural areas, and Native American reservations. Our Nation's prosperity has not yet reached these places. Over the last 6 months, I have traveled to a lot 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 Reservation. Everywhere I go, I meet talented people eager for opportunity and able to work. Tonight I ask you, let us put them to work. For business, it is the smart thing to do. For America, it is the right thing to do. And let me ask you something: If we do not do this now, when in the wide world will we ever get around to it? So I ask Congress to give businesses the same incentives to invest in America's new markets they now have to invest in markets overseas. 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 our inner cities and rural areas. Because empowerment zones have been creating these opportunities for 5 years now, I also ask you to increase incentives to invest in them and to create more of them. And let me say to all of you again what I have tried to say at every turn: This is not a Democratic or a Republican issue. Giving people a chance to live their dreams is an American issue. Mr. Speaker, it was a powerful moment last November when you joined Reverend Jesse Jackson and me 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. I want to thank you again and to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with you. This is a worthy joint endeavor. Thank you. I also ask you to make special efforts to address the areas of our Nation with the highest rates of poverty, our Native American reservations and the Mississippi Delta. My budget includes a $110 million initiative to promote economic development in the Delta and a billion dollars to increase economic opportunity, health care, education, and law enforcement for our Native American communities. We should begin this new century by honoring our historic responsibility to empower the first Americans. And I want to thank tonight the leaders and the members from both parties who have expressed to me an interest in working with us on these efforts. They are profoundly important. There is another part of our American community in trouble tonight, our family farmers. When I signed the farm bill in 1996, I said there was great danger it would work well in good times but not in bad. Well, droughts, floods, and historically low prices have made these times very bad for the farmers. We must work together to strengthen the farm safety net, invest in land conservation, and create some new markets for them by expanding our programs for bio-based fuels and products. Please, they need help. Let us do it together. Opportunity for all requires something else today, having access to a computer and knowing how to use it. That means we must close the digital divide between those who have got the tools and those who do not. Connecting classrooms and libraries to the Internet is crucial, but it is just a start. My budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach 21st century skills, and it 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 our people. I want to thank the high-tech companies that already are doing so much in this area. I hope the new tax incentives I have proposed will get all the rest of them to join us. This is a national crusade. We have got to do this and do it quickly. Now, again I say to you, these are steps, but step by step, we can go a long way toward our goal of bringing opportunity to every community. To realize the full possibilities of this 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 and economies and cultures: globalization. It is the central reality of our time. Of course, change this profound is both liberating and threatening to people. 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 realities of interdependence. We have to be at the center of every vital global network, as a good neighbor and a good partner. We have to recognize that we cannot build our future without helping others to build theirs. The first thing we have got to do is to forge a new consensus on trade. Now, those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade, we have to ensure that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating abusive child labor or a race to the bottom in the environment and worker protection. But others must recognize that open markets and rule-based trade are the best engines we know of for raising living standards, reducing global poverty and environmental destruction, and assuring the free flow of ideas. I believe, as strongly tonight as I did the first day I got here, the only direction forward for America on trade—the only direction for America on trade is to keep going forward. I ask you to help me forge that consensus. We have to make developing economies our partners in prosperity. That is why I would like to ask you again to finalize our groundbreaking African and Caribbean Basin trade initiatives. But globalization is about more than economics. Our purpose must be to bring together the world around freedom and democracy 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 today from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy of communism, an economy in 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: 5,000 former Soviet nuclear weapons taken out of commission; Russian soldiers actually serving with ours in the Balkans; Russian people electing their leaders for the first time in 1,000 years; and in China, an economy more open to the world than ever before. Of course, no one, not a single person in this Chamber tonight can know for sure what direction these great nations will take. But we do know for sure that we can choose what we do. And we should do everything in our power to increase the chance that they will choose wisely, to be constructive members of our global community. That is why we should support those Russians who are struggling for a democratic, prosperous future; continue to reduce both our nuclear arsenals; and help Russia to safeguard weapons and materials that remain. And that is why I believe Congress should support the agreement we negotiated to bring China into the WTO, by passing permanent normal trade relations with China as soon as possible this year. I think you ought to do it for two reasons: First of all, our markets are already open to China; this agreement will open China's markets to us. And second, it will plainly advance the because of peace in Asia and promote the because of change in China. No, we do not know where it is going. All we can do is decide what we are going to do. But when all is said and done, we need to know we did everything we possibly could to maximize the chance that China will choose the right future. A second challenge we have got is to protect our own security from conflicts that pose the risk of wider war and threaten our common humanity. We cannot prevent every conflict or stop every outrage. But where our interests are at stake and we can make a difference, we should be, and we must be, peacemakers. We should be proud of our role in bringing the Middle East closer to a lasting 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 these crises between India and Pakistan, in 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 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 was shot 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 in Kosovo without losing a single American in combat. I want to introduce Captain Cherrey to you. We honor Captain Cherrey, and we promise you, Captain, we will finish the job you began. Stand up so we can see you. [ ] A third challenge we have is to keep this inexorable march of technology from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine our defenses. Keep in mind, the same technological 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 ABM missile treaty with Russia. We must do all these things. I predict to you, when most of us are long gone but some time in the next 10 to 20 years, the major security threat this country will face will come from the enemies of the nation-state, the narcotraffickers and the terrorists and the organized criminals who will be organized together, working together, with increasing access to ever more sophisticated chemical and biological weapons. And I want to thank the Pentagon and others for doing what they are doing right now to try to help protect us and plan for that, so that our defenses will be strong. I ask for your support to ensure they can succeed. I also want to ask you for a constructive bipartisan dialog this year to work to build a consensus which I hope will eventually lead to the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. I hope we can also have a constructive effort to meet the challenge that is presented to our planet 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 and the rest live on the bare edge of survival. I think we have to do our part to change that with expanded trade, expanded aid, and the expansion of freedom. This is interesting: From Nigeria to Indonesia, more people got the right to choose their leaders in 1999 than in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. We have got to stand by these democracies, including and especially tonight Colombia, which is fighting narcotraffickers, for its own people's lives and our children's lives. I have proposed a strong 2-year package to help Colombia win this fight. I want to thank the leaders in both parties in both Houses for listening to me and the President of Colombia about it. We have got to pass this. I want to ask your help. A lot is riding on it. And it is so important for the long-term stability of our country and for what happens in Latin America. I also want you to know I am going to send you new legislation to go after what these drug barons value the most, their money. And I hope you will pass that as well. In a world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day, we also have got to do our part in the global endeavor to reduce the debts of the poorest countries, so they can invest in education, health care, and economic growth. That is what the Pope and other religious leaders have urged us to do. And last year, Congress made a downpayment on America's share. I ask you to continue that. I thank you for what you did and ask you to stay the course. I also want to say that America must help more nations to break the bonds of disease. Last year in Africa, 10 times as many people died from AIDS as were killed in wars—10 times. The budget I give you invests $150 million more in the fight against this and other infectious killers. And 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 because. We can save millions of lives together, and we ought to do it. I also want to mention our final challenge, which, as always, is the most important. I ask you 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, which raises salaries for our service men and women, which protects our veterans, which fully funds the diplomacy that keeps our soldiers out of war, which makes good on our commitment to our YOU.N. dues and arrears. I ask you to pass this budget. I also want to say something, if I might, very personal tonight. The American people watching us at home, with the help of all the commentators, can tell, from who stands and who sits and who claps and who does not, that there is still modest differences of opinion in this room. [ ] But I want to thank you for something, every one of you. I want to thank you for the extraordinary support you have given, Republicans and Democrats alike, to our men and women in uniform. I thank you for that. I also want to thank, especially, two people. First, I want to thank our Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, for symbolizing our bipartisan commitment to national security. Thank you, sir. Even more, I want to thank his wife, Janet, who, more than any other American citizen, has tirelessly traveled this world to show the support we all feel for our troops. Thank you, Janet Cohen. I appreciate that. Thank you. These are the challenges we have to meet so that we can lead the world toward peace and freedom in an era of globalization. I want to tell you that I am very grateful for many things as President. But one of the things I am grateful for is the opportunity that the Vice President and I have had to finally put to rest the bogus idea that you cannot grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time. As our economy has grown, we have rid more than 500 neighborhoods of toxic waste, ensured cleaner air and water for millions of people. In the past 3 months alone, we have helped preserve 40 million acres of roadless lands in the national forests, created three new national monuments. But as our communities grow, our commitment to conservation must continue to grow. Tonight I propose creating a permanent conservation fund, to restore wildlife, protect coastlines, save natural treasures, from the California redwoods to the Florida Everglades. This lands legacy endowment would represent by far the most enduring investment in land preservation ever proposed in this House. I hope we can get together with all the people with different ideas and do this. This is a gift we should give to our children and our grandchildren for all time, across party lines. We can make an agreement to do this. Last year the Vice President launched a new effort to make communities more liberal—livable—[ ]—liberal, I know. [ ] Wait a minute, I have got a punchline now. That is this year's agenda; last year was livable, right? [ ] That is what Senator Lott is going to say in the commentary afterwards—[ ]—to make our communities more livable. This is big business. This is a big issue. What does that mean? You ask anybody that lives in an unlivable community, and they will tell you. They want their kids to grow up next to parks, not parking lots; the parents do not have to spend all their time stalled in traffic when they could be home with their children. Tonight I ask you to support new funding for the following things, to make American communities more liberal—livable. [ ] I have done pretty well with this speech, but I cannot say that. One, I want you to help us to do three things. We need more funding for advanced transit systems. We need more funding for saving open spaces in places of heavy development. And we need more funding—this ought to have bipartisan appeal—we need more funding for helping major cities around the Great Lakes protect their waterways and enhance their quality of life. We need these things, and I want you to help us. The greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global warming. The scientists tell us the 1990's were the hottest decade of the entire millennium. If we fail to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, deadly heat waves and droughts will become more frequent, coastal areas will flood, and economies will be disrupted. That is going to happen, unless we act. Many people in the United States, some people in this Chamber, and lots of folks around the world still believe you cannot cut greenhouse gas emissions without slowing economic growth. In the industrial age, that may well have been true. But in this digital economy, it is not true anymore. 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. And before you know it, efficient production of bio-fuels will give us the equivalent of hundreds of miles from a gallon of gasoline. To speed innovation in these kind of technologies, I think we should give a major tax incentive to business for the production of clean energy and to families for buying energy-saving homes and appliances and the next generation of superefficient cars when they hit the showroom floor. I also ask the auto industry to use the available technologies to make all new cars more fuel-efficient right away. And I ask this Congress to do something else. Please help us make more of our clean energy technology available to the developing world. That will create cleaner growth abroad and a lot more new jobs here in the United States of America. In the new century, innovations in science and technology will be 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 our fellow Americans to recognize that Federal tax dollars have funded much of 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 because Parkinson's, diabetes, and certain kinds of cancer. They are designing precision therapies that will block the harmful effect of these genes for good. Researchers already are using this new technique to target and destroy cells that because breast cancer. Soon, we may be able to use it to prevent the onset of Alzheimer's. Scientists are also working on an artificial retina to help many blind people to see and—listen to this—microchips that would actually directly stimulate damaged spinal cords in a way that could allow people now paralyzed to stand up and walk. These kinds of innovations are also propelling our remarkable prosperity. Information technology only includes 8 percent of our employment but now accounts for a third of our economic growth along with jobs that pay, by the way, about 80 percent above the private sector average. Again, we ought to 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 talk, materials 10 times stronger than steel at a fraction of the weight, and— this is unbelievable to me—molecular computers the size of a teardrop with the power of today's fastest supercomputers. To accelerate the march of discovery across all these disciplines in science and technology, I ask you to support my recommendation of an unprecedented $3 billion in the 21st century research fund, the largest increase in civilian research in a generation. We owe it to our future. Now, these new breakthroughs have to be used in ways that reflect our values. First and foremost, we have to safeguard our citizens' privacy. Last year we proposed to protect every citizen's medical record. This year we will finalize those rules. We have also taken the first steps to protect the privacy of bank and credit card records and other financial statements. Soon I will send legislation to you to finish that job. We must also act to prevent any genetic discrimination whatever by employers or insurers. I hope you will support that. These steps will allow us to lead toward the far frontiers of science and technology. They will enhance our health, the environment, the economy in ways we cannot even imagine today. But we all know that at a time when science, technology, and the forces of globalization are bringing so many changes into all our lives, it is more important than ever that we strengthen the bonds that root us in our local communities and in our national community. No tie binds different people together like citizen service. There is a new spirit of service in America, a movement we have tried to support with AmeriCorps, expanded Peace Corps, unprecedented new partnerships with businesses, foundations, community groups; partnerships, for example, like the one that enlisted 12,000 companies which have now moved 650,000 of our fellow citizens from welfare to work; partnerships to battle drug abuse, AIDS, teach young people to read, save America's treasures, strengthen the arts, fight teen pregnancy, prevent violence among young people, promote racial healing. The American people are working together. But we should do more to help Americans help each other. First, we should help faithbased organizations to do more to fight poverty and drug abuse and help people get back on the right track, with initiatives like Second Chance Homes that do so much to help unwed teen mothers. Second, we should support Americans who tithe and contribute to charities but do not earn enough to claim a tax deduction for it. Tonight I propose new tax incentives that would allow low and middle income citizens who do not itemize to get that deduction. It is nothing but fair, and it will get more people to give. We should do more to help new immigrants to fully participate in our community. That is why I recommend spending more to teach them civics and English. And since everybody in our community counts, we have got to make sure everyone is counted in this year's census. Within 10 years—just 10 years—there will be no majority race in our largest State of 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. Look around. We have Members in this Congress from virtually every racial, ethnic, and religious background. And I think you would agree that America is stronger because of it. [ ] You also have to agree that all those differences you just clapped for all too often spark hatred and division even here at home. Just in the last couple of years, we have seen a man dragged to death in Texas just because he was black. We saw a young man murdered in Wyoming just because he was gay. Last year we saw the shootings of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Jewish children just because of who they were. This is not the American way, and we must draw the line. I ask you to draw that line by passing without delay the "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" and the "Employment Non-Discrimination Act." And I ask you to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. Finally tonight, I propose the largest ever investment in our civil rights laws for enforcement, because no American should be subjected to discrimination in finding a home, getting a job, going to school, or securing a loan. Protections in law should be protections in fact. Last February, because I thought this was so important, I created the White House Office of One America to promote racial reconciliation. That is what one of my personal heroes, Hank Aaron, has done all his life. From his days as our all-time home run king to his recent acts of healing, he has always brought people together. We should follow his example, and we are honored to have him with us tonight. Stand up, Hank Aaron. [ ] I just want to say one more thing about this, and I want every one of you to think about this the next time you get mad at one of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle. This fall, at the White House, Hillary had one of her millennium dinners, and we had this very distinguished scientist there, who is an expert in this whole work in the human genome. And he said that we are all, regardless of race, genetically 99.9 percent the same. Now, you may find that uncomfortable when you look around here. [ ] But it is worth remembering. We can laugh about this, but you think about it. Modern science has confirmed what ancient faiths have always taught: the most important fact of life is our common humanity. Therefore, we should do more than just tolerate our diversity; we should honor it and celebrate it. My fellow Americans, every time I prepare for the State of the Union, I approach it with hope and expectation and excitement for our Nation. But tonight is very special, because we stand on the mountaintop of a new millennium. Behind us we can look back and see the great expanse of American achievement, and before us we can see even greater, grander frontiers of possibility. We should, all of us, be filled with gratitude and humility for our present progress and prosperity. We should be filled with awe and joy at what lies over the horizon. And we should be filled with absolute determination to make the most of it. You know, when the Framers finished crafting our Constitution in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin stood in Independence Hall, and he reflected on the carving of the Sun that was on the back of a chair he saw. The Sun was low on the horizon. So he said this—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." Today, because each succeeding generation of Americans has kept the fire of freedom burning brightly, lighting those frontiers of possibility, we all still bask in the glow and the warmth of Mr. Franklin's rising Sun. After 224 years, the American revolution continues. We remain a new nation. And 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.
speaker vice president members of congress honored guests my fellow americans we are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history never before has our nation enjoyed at once so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats never before have we had such a blessed opportunity and therefore such a profound obligation to build the more perfect union of our founders dreams we begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years the lowest poverty rates in 20 years the lowest and hispanic unemployment rates on record the first surpluses in 42 years and next month america will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history we have built a new economy and our economic revolution has been matched by a revival of the american spirit crime down by 20 percent to its lowest level in 25 years teen births down 7 years in a row adoptions up by 30 percent welfare rolls cut in half to their lowest levels in 30 years my fellow americans the state of our union is the strongest it has ever been as always the real credit belongs to the american people my gratitude also goes to those of you in this chamber who have worked with us to put progress over partisanship eight years ago it was not so clear to most americans there would be much to celebrate in the year 2000 then our nation was gripped by economic distress social decline political gridlock the title of a book asked america what went wrong in the best traditions of our nation americans determined to set things right we restored the vital center replacing outmoded ideologies with a new vision anchored in basic enduring values opportunity for all responsibility from all a community of all americans we reinvented government transforming it into a catalyst for new ideas that stress both opportunity and responsibility and give our people the tools they need to solve their own problems with the smallest federal work force in 40 years we turned record deficits into record surpluses and doubled our investment in education we cut crime with community police and the brady law which has kept guns out of the hands of half a million criminals we ended welfare as we knew it requiring work while protecting health care and nutrition for children and investing more in child care transportation and housing to help their parents go to work we have helped parents to succeed at home and at work with family leave which 20 million americans have now used to care for a newborn child or a sick loved one we have engaged young americans in citizen service through americorps while helping them earn money for college in 1992 we just had a roadmap today we have results even more important america again has the confidence to dream big dreams but we must not let this confidence drift into complacency for we all of us will be judged by the dreams and deeds we pass on to our children and on that score we will be held to a high standard indeed because our chance to do good is so great my fellow americans we have crossed the bridge we built to the 21st century now we must shape a 21st century american revolution of opportunity responsibility and community we must be now as we were in the beginning a new nation at the dawn of the last century theodore roosevelt said the one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight it should be the growing nation with a future that takes the long look ahead so tonight let us take our long look ahead and set great goals for our nation to 21st century america let us pledge these things every child will begin school ready to learn and graduate ready to succeed every family will be able to succeed at home and at work and no child will be raised in poverty we will meet the challenge of the aging of america we will assure quality affordable health care at last for all americans we will make america the safest big country on earth we will pay off our national debt for the first time since 1835 we will bring prosperity to every american community we will reverse the course of climate change and leave a safer cleaner planet america will lead the world toward shared peace and prosperity and the far frontiers of science and technology and we will become at last what our founders pledged us to be so long ago one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all these are great goals worthy of a great nation we will not reach them all this year not even in this decade but we will reach them let us remember that the first american revolution was not won with a single shot the continent was not settled in a single year the lesson of our history and the lesson of the last 7 years is that great goals are reached step by step always building on our progress always gaining ground of course you can not gain ground if you are standing still and for too long this congress has been standing still on some of our most pressing national priorities so let us begin tonight with them again i ask you to pass a real patients bill of rights i ask you to pass commonsense gun safety legislation i ask you to pass campaign finance reform i ask you to vote up or down on judicial nominations and other important appointees and again i ask implore you to raise the minimum wage now 2 years me try to balance the seesaw years ago as we reached across party lines to reach our first balanced budget i asked that we meet our responsibility to the next generation by maintaining our fiscal discipline because we refused to stray from that path we are doing something that would have seemed unimaginable 7 years ago we are actually paying down the national debt now if we stay on this path we can pay down the debt entirely in just 13 years now and make america for the first time since andrew jackson was president in 1835 in 1993 we began to put our fiscal house in order with the deficit reduction act which you will all remember won passages in both houses by just a single vote your former colleague my first secretary of the treasury led that effort and sparked our long boom he is here with us tonight lloyd bentsen you have served america well and we thank you beyond paying off the debt we must ensure that the benefits of debt reduction go to preserving two of the most important guarantees we make to every american social security and medicare tonight i ask you to work with me to make a bipartisan downpayment on social security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the social security trust fund so that it will be strong and sound for the next 50 years but this is just the start of our journey we must also take the right steps toward reaching our great goals first and foremost we need a 21st century revolution in education guided by our faith that every single child can learn because education is more important than ever more than ever the key to our children future we must make sure all our children have that key that means quality preschool and afterschool the best trained teachers in the classroom and college opportunities for all our children for 7 years now we have worked hard to improve our schools with opportunity and responsibility investing more but demanding more in turn reading math college entrance scores are up some of the most impressive gains are in schools in very poor neighborhoods but all successful schools have followed the same proven formula higher standards more accountability and extra help so children who need it can get it to reach those standards i have sent congress a reform plan based on that formula it holds states and school districts accountable for progress and rewards them for results each year our national government invests more than 15 billion in our schools it is time to support what works and stop supporting what does not now as we demand more from our schools we should also invest more in our schools let us double our investment to help states and districts turn around their worst performing schools or shut them down let us double our investments in and summer school programs which boost achievement and keep people off the streets and out of trouble if we do this we can give every single child in every failing school in chance to meet high standards since 1993 we have nearly doubled our investment in head start and improved its quality tonight i ask you for another 1 billion for head start the largest increase in the history of the program we know that children learn best in smaller classes with good teachers for 2 years in a row congress has supported my plan to hire new qualified teachers to lower class size in the early grades i thank you for that and i ask you to make it 3 in a row and to make sure all teachers know the subjects they teach tonight i propose a new teacher quality initiative to recruit more talented people into the classroom reward good teachers for staying there and give all teachers the training they need we know charter schools provide real public school choice when i became president there was just one independent public charter school in all america today thanks to you there are i ask you now to help us meet our goal of charter schools by next year we know we must connect all our classrooms to the internet and we are getting there in 1994 only 3 percent of our classrooms were connected today with the help of the vice president program more than half of them are and 90 percent of our schools have at least one internet connection but we can not finish the job when a third of all our schools are in serious disrepair many of them have walls and wires so old they are too old for the internet so tonight i propose to help schools a year make immediate and urgent repairs and again to help build or modernize more to get students out of trailers and into classrooms i ask all of you to help me double our bipartisan gear up program which provides mentors for disadvantaged young people if we double it we can provide mentors for million of them let us also offer these kids from disadvantaged backgrounds the same chance to take the same college courses wealthier students use to boost their test scores to make the american dream achievable for all we must make college affordable for all for 7 years on a bipartisan basis we have taken action toward that goal larger pell grants more affordable student loans education ira and our hope scholarships which have already benefited 5 million young people now 67 percent of high school graduates are going on to college that is up 10 percent since 1993 yet millions of families still strain to pay college tuition they need help so i propose a landmark 30 billion college opportunity tax cut a middle class tax deduction for up to in college tuition costs the previous actions of this congress have already made 2 years of college affordable for all it is time make 4 years of college affordable for all if we take all these steps we will move a long way toward making sure every child starts school ready to learn and graduates ready to succeed we also need a 21st century revolution to reward work and strengthen families by giving every parent the tools to succeed at work and at the most important work of all raising children that means making sure every family has health care and the support to care for aging parents the tools to bring their children up right and that no child grows up in poverty from my first days as president we have worked to give families better access to better health care in 1997 we passed the children health insurance that workers who do not have coverage through their employers at least can get it for their children so far we have enrolled 2 million children we are well on our way to our goal of 5 million but there are still more than 40 million of our fellow americans without health insurance more than there were in 1993 tonight i propose that we follow vice president gore suggestion to make low income parents eligible for the insurance that covers their children together with our children of with our children initiative this action would enable us to cover nearly a quarter of all the uninsured people in america again i want to ask you to let people between the ages of 55 and 65 the fastest growing group of uninsured buy into medicare and this year i propose to give them a tax credit to make that choice an affordable one i hope you will support that as well when the baby boomers retire medicare will be faced with caring for twice as many of our citizens yet it is far from ready to do so my generation must not ask our children generation to shoulder our burden we simply must act now to strengthen and modernize medicare my budget includes a comprehensive plan to reform medicare to make it more efficient and more competitive and it dedicates nearly 400 billion of our budget surplus to keep medicare solvent past 2025 and at long last it also provides funds to give every senior a voluntary choice of affordable coverage for prescription drugs lifesaving drugs are an indispensable part of modern medicine no one creating a medicare program today would even think of excluding coverage for prescription drugs yet more than three in five of our seniors now lack dependable drug coverage which can lengthen and enrich their lives millions of older americans who need prescription drugs the most pay the highest prices for them in good conscience we can not let another year pass without extending to all our seniors this lifeline of affordable prescription drugs record numbers of americans are providing for aging or ailing loved ones at home it is a loving but a difficult and often very expensive choice last year i proposed a tax credit for care frankly it was not enough this year let us triple it to but this year let us pass it we also have to make needed investments to expand access to mental health care i want to take a moment to thank the person who led our first white house conference on mental health last year and who for 7 years has led all our efforts to break down the barriers to decent treatment of people with mental illness thank you tipper gore taken together these proposals would mark the largest investment in health care in the 35 years since medicare was largest investment in 35 years that would be a big step toward assuring quality health care for all americans young and old and i ask you to embrace them and pass them we must also make investments that reward work and support families nothing does that better than the tax credit the eitc the e in the eitc is about earning working taking responsibility and being rewarded for it in my very first address to you i asked congress to greatly expand this credit and you did as a result in 1998 alone the eitc helped more than million americans work their way out of poverty toward the middle class that is double the number in 1993 tonight i propose another major expansion of the eitc to reduce the marriage penalty to make sure it rewards marriage as it rewards work and also to expand the tax credit for families that have more than two children it punishes people with more than two children today our proposal would allow families with three or more children to get up to more in tax relief these are working families their children should not be in poverty we also can not reward work and family unless men and women get equal pay for equal work today the female unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 46 years yet women still only earn about 75 cents for every dollar men earn we must do better by providing the resources to enforce present equal pay laws training more women for jobs and passing the paycheck fairness act many working parents spend up to a their income on child care last year we helped parents provide child care for about 2 million children my child care initiative before you now along with funds already secured in welfare reform would make child care better safer and more affordable for another children i ask you to pass that they need it out there for middle income families we should also expand the child care tax credit and i believe strongly we should take the next big step and make that tax credit refundable for low income families for people making under a year that could mean up to for child care costs you know we all say we are and passing this proposal would prove it ten of millions of americans live from paycheck to paycheck as hard as they work they still do not have the opportunity to save too few can make use of ira and 401k plans we should do more to help all working families save and accumulate wealth that is the idea behind the individual development accounts the ida i ask you to take that idea to a new level with new retirement savings accounts that enable every low and moderate income family in america to save for retirement a first home a medical emergency or a college education i propose to match their contributions however small dollar for dollar every year they save and i propose to give a major new tax credit to any small business that will provide a meaningful pension to its workers those people ought to have retirement as well as the rest of us nearly one in three american children grows up without a father these children are 5 times more likely to live in poverty than children with both parents at home clearly demanding and supporting responsible fatherhood is critical to lifting all our children out of poverty we have doubled child support collections since 1992 and i am proposing to you tough new measures to hold still more fathers responsible but we should recognize that a lot of fathers want to do right by their children but need help to do it carlos rosas of paul minnesota wanted to do right by his son and he got the help to do it now he is got a good job and he supports his little boy my budget will help more fathers make the same choices carlos rosas did i thank him for being here tonight stand up carlos thank you if there is any single issue on which we should be able to reach across party lines it is in our common commitment to reward work and strengthen families just remember what we did last year we came together to help people with disabilities keep their health insurance when they go to work and i thank you for that thanks to overwhelming bipartisan support from this congress we have improved foster care we have helped those young people who leave it when they turn 18 and we have dramatically increased the number of foster care children going into adoptive homes i thank all of you for all of that of course i am forever grateful to the person who has led our efforts from the beginning and who is worked so tirelessly for children and families for 30 years now my wife hillary and i thank her if we take the steps just discussed we can go a long long way toward empowering parents to succeed at home and at work and ensuring that no child is raised in poverty we can make these vital investments in health care education support for working families and still offer tax cuts to help pay for college for retirement to care for aging parents to reduce the marriage penalty we can do these things without forsaking the path of fiscal discipline that got us to this point here tonight indeed we must make these investments and these tax cuts in the context of a balanced budget that strengthens and extends the life of social security and medicare and pays down the national debt crime in america has dropped for the past 7 is the longest decline on thanks to a national consensus we helped to forge on community police sensible gun safety laws and effective prevention but nobody nobody here nobody in america believes we are safe enough so again i ask you to set a higher goal let us make this country the safest big country in the world last fall congress supported my plan to hire in addition to the community police we have already funded more concentrated in neighborhoods i ask your continued support for that soon after the columbine tragedy congress considered commonsense gun legislation to require brady background checks at the gun shows child safety locks for new handguns and a ban on the importation of large capacity ammunition clips with courage and a vote by the vice senate faced down the gun lobby stood up for the american people and passed this legislation but the house failed to follow suit now we have all seen what happens when guns fall into the wrong hands daniel mauser was only 15 years old when he was gunned down at columbine he was an amazing kid a student a good skier like all parents who lose their children his father tom has borne unimaginable grief somehow he has found the strength to honor his son by transforming his grief into action earlier this month he took a leave of absence from his job to fight for tougher gun safety laws i pray that his courage and wisdom will at long last move this congress to make commonsense gun legislation the very next order of business tom mauser stand up we thank you for being here tonight tom thank you tom we must strengthen our gun laws and enforce those already on the books better federal gun crime prosecutions are up 16 percent since i took office but 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 dealers and we must give them the enforcement tools that they need tools to trace every gun and every bullet used in every gun crime in the united states i ask you to help us do that every state in this country already requires hunters and automobile drivers to have a license i think they ought to do the same thing for handgun purchases now specifically i propose a plan to ensure that all new handgun buyers must first have a photo license from their state showing they passed the brady background check and a gun safety course before they get the gun i hope you will help me pass that in this congress listen to to this the accidental gun accidental gun death rate of children under 15 in the united states is 9 times higher than in the other 25 industrialized countries combined now 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 into smart gun technology to save these children lives i ask responsible leaders in the gun industry to work with us on smart guns and other steps to keep guns out of the wrong hands to keep our children safe you know every parent i know worries about the impact of violence in the media on their children i want to begin by thanking the entertainment industry for accepting my challenge to put voluntary ratings on tv programs and video and internet games but frankly the ratings are too numerous diverse and confusing to be really useful to parents so tonight i ask the industry to accept the first lady challenge to develop a single voluntary rating system for all children entertainment that is easier for parents to understand and enforce the steps i outline will take us well on our way to making america the safest big country in the world now to keep our historic economic expansion going the subject of a lot of discussion in this community and others i believe we need a 21st century revolution to open new markets start new businesses hire new workers right here in america in our inner cities poor rural areas and native american reservations our nation prosperity has not yet reached these places over the last 6 months i have traveled to a lot of them joined by many of you and many business people to shine a spotlight on the enormous potential in communities from appalachia to the mississippi delta from watts to the pine ridge reservation everywhere i go i meet talented people eager for opportunity and able to work tonight i ask you let us put them to work for business it is the smart thing to do for america it is the right thing to do and let me ask you something if we do not do this now when in the wide world will we ever get around to it so i ask congress to give businesses the same incentives to invest in america new markets they now have to invest in markets overseas tonight i propose a large new markets tax credit and other incentives to spur 22 billion in capital to create new businesses and new investments in our inner cities and rural areas because empowerment zones have been creating these opportunities for 5 years now i also ask you to increase incentives to invest in them and to create more of them and let me say to all of you again what i have tried to say at every turn this is not a democratic or a republican issue giving people a chance to live their dreams is an american issue speaker it was a powerful moment last november when you joined reverend jesse jackson and me 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 i want to thank you again and to tell you speaker i look forward to working with you this is a worthy joint endeavor thank you i also ask you to make special efforts to address the areas of our nation with the highest rates of poverty our native american reservations and the mississippi delta my budget includes a 110 million initiative to promote economic development in the delta and a billion dollars to increase economic opportunity health care education and law enforcement for our native american communities we should begin this new century by honoring our historic responsibility to empower the first americans and i want to thank tonight the leaders and the members from both parties who have expressed to me an interest in working with us on these efforts they are profoundly important there is another part of our american community in trouble tonight our family farmers when i signed the farm bill in 1996 i said there was great danger it would work well in good times but not in bad well droughts floods and historically low prices have made these times very bad for the farmers we must work together to strengthen the farm safety net invest in land conservation and create some new markets for them by expanding our programs for fuels and products please they need help let us do it together opportunity for all requires something else today having access to a computer and knowing how to use it that means we must close the digital divide between those who have got the tools and those who do not connecting classrooms and libraries to the internet is crucial but it is just a start my budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach 21st century skills and it creates technology centers in communities to serve adults this spring i will invite leaders to join me on another new markets tour to close the digital divide and open opportunity for our people i want to thank the companies that already are doing so much in this area i hope the new tax incentives i have proposed will get all the rest of them to join us this is a national crusade we have got to do this and do it quickly now again i say to you these are steps but step by step we can go a long way toward our goal of bringing opportunity to every community to realize the full possibilities of this 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 and economies and cultures globalization it is the central reality of our time of course change this profound is both liberating and threatening to people 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 realities of interdependence we have to be at the center of every vital global network as a good neighbor and a good partner we have to recognize that we can not build our future without helping others to build theirs the first thing we have got to do is to forge a new consensus on trade now those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade we have to ensure that it lifts both our living standards and our values never tolerating abusive child labor or a race to the bottom in the environment and worker protection but others must recognize that open markets and trade are the best engines we know of for raising living standards reducing global poverty and environmental destruction and assuring the free flow of ideas i believe as strongly tonight as i did the first day i got here the only direction forward for america on only direction for america on trade is to keep going forward i ask you to help me forge that consensus we have to make developing economies our partners in prosperity that is why i would like to ask you again to finalize our groundbreaking african and caribbean basin trade initiatives but globalization is about more than economics our purpose must be to bring together the world around freedom and democracy 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 today from reaching their full potential russia by the legacy of communism an economy in turmoil a cruel and 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 former soviet nuclear weapons taken out of commission russian soldiers actually serving with ours in the balkans russian people electing their leaders for the first time in years and in china an economy more open to the world than ever before of course no one not a single person in this chamber tonight can know for sure what direction these great nations will take but we do know for sure that we can choose what we do and we should do everything in our power to increase the chance that they will choose wisely to be constructive members of our global community that is why we should support those russians who are struggling for a democratic prosperous future continue to reduce both our nuclear arsenals and help russia to safeguard weapons and materials that remain and that is why i believe congress should support the agreement we negotiated to bring china into the wto by passing permanent normal trade relations with china as soon as possible this year i think you ought to do it for two reasons first of all our markets are already open to china this agreement will open china markets to us and second it will plainly advance the because of peace in asia and promote the because of change in china no we do not know where it is going all we can do is decide what we are going to do but when all is said and done we need to know we did everything we possibly could to maximize the chance that china will choose the right future a second challenge we have got is to protect our own security from conflicts that pose the risk of wider war and threaten our common humanity we can not prevent every conflict or stop every outrage but where our interests are at stake and we can make a difference we should be and we must be peacemakers we should be proud of our role in bringing the middle east closer to a lasting 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 these crises between india and pakistan in 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 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 was shot 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 in kosovo without losing a single american in combat i want to introduce captain cherrey to you we honor captain cherrey and we promise you captain we will finish the job you began stand up so we can see you a third challenge we have is to keep this inexorable march of technology from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine our defenses keep in mind the same technological 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 abm missile treaty with russia we must do all these things i predict to you when most of us are long gone but some time in the next 10 to 20 years the major security threat this country will face will come from the enemies of the the narcotraffickers and the terrorists and the organized criminals who will be organized together working together with increasing access to ever more sophisticated chemical and biological weapons and i want to thank the pentagon and others for doing what they are doing right now to try to help protect us and plan for that so that our defenses will be strong i ask for your support to ensure they can succeed i also want to ask you for a constructive bipartisan dialog this year to work to build a consensus which i hope will eventually lead to the ratification of the comprehensive treaty i hope we can also have a constructive effort to meet the challenge that is presented to our planet by the huge gulf between rich and poor we can not accept a world in which part of humanity lives on the cutting edge of a new economy and the rest live on the bare edge of survival i think we have to do our part to change that with expanded trade expanded aid and the expansion of freedom this is interesting from nigeria to indonesia more people got the right to choose their leaders in 1999 than in 1989 when the berlin wall fell we have got to stand by these democracies including and especially tonight colombia which is fighting narcotraffickers for its own people lives and our children lives i have proposed a strong package to help colombia win this fight i want to thank the leaders in both parties in both houses for listening to me and the president of colombia about it we have got to pass this i want to ask your help a lot is riding on it and it is so important for the stability of our country and for what happens in latin america i also want you to know i am going to send you new legislation to go after what these drug barons value the most their money and i hope you will pass that as well in a world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day we also have got to do our part in the global endeavor to reduce the debts of the poorest countries so they can invest in education health care and economic growth that is what the pope and other religious leaders have urged us to do and last year congress made a downpayment on america share i ask you to continue that i thank you for what you did and ask you to stay the course i also want to say that america must help more nations to break the bonds of disease last year in africa 10 times as many people died from aids as were killed in times the budget i give you invests 150 million more in the fight against this and other infectious killers and 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 because we can save millions of lives together and we ought to do it i also want to mention our final challenge which as always is the most important i ask you 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 which raises salaries for our service men and women which protects our veterans which fully funds the diplomacy that keeps our soldiers out of war which makes good on our commitment to our dues and arrears i ask you to pass this budget i also want to say something if i might very personal tonight the american people watching us at home with the help of all the commentators can tell from who stands and who sits and who claps and who does not that there is still modest differences of opinion in this room but i want to thank you for something every one of you i want to thank you for the extraordinary support you have given republicans and democrats alike to our men and women in uniform i thank you for that i also want to thank especially two people first i want to thank our secretary of defense bill cohen for symbolizing our bipartisan commitment to national security thank you sir even more i want to thank his wife janet who more than any other american citizen has tirelessly traveled this world to show the support we all feel for our troops thank you janet cohen i appreciate that thank you these are the challenges we have to meet so that we can lead the world toward peace and freedom in an era of globalization i want to tell you that i am very grateful for many things as president but one of the things i am grateful for is the opportunity that the vice president and i have had to finally put to rest the bogus idea that you can not grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time as our economy has grown we have rid more than 500 neighborhoods of toxic waste ensured cleaner air and water for millions of people in the past 3 months alone we have helped preserve 40 million acres of roadless lands in the national forests created three new national monuments but as our communities grow our commitment to conservation must continue to grow tonight i propose creating a permanent conservation fund to restore wildlife protect coastlines save natural treasures from the california redwoods to the florida everglades this lands legacy endowment would represent by far the most enduring investment in land preservation ever proposed in this house i hope we can get together with all the people with different ideas and do this this is a gift we should give to our children and our grandchildren for all time across party lines we can make an agreement to do this last year the vice president launched a new effort to make communities more i know wait a minute i have got a punchline now that is this year agenda last year was livable right that is what senator lott is going to say in the commentary make our communities more livable this is big business this is a big issue what does that mean you ask anybody that lives in an unlivable community and they will tell you they want their kids to grow up next to parks not parking lots the parents do not have to spend all their time stalled in traffic when they could be home with their children tonight i ask you to support new funding for the following things to make american communities more i have done pretty well with this speech but i can not say that one i want you to help us to do three things we need more funding for advanced transit systems we need more funding for saving open spaces in places of heavy development and we need more ought to have bipartisan need more funding for helping major cities around the great lakes protect their waterways and enhance their quality of life we need these things and i want you to help us the greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global warming the scientists tell us the 1990 were the hottest decade of the entire millennium if we fail to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases deadly heat waves and droughts will become more frequent coastal areas will flood and economies will be disrupted that is going to happen unless we act many people in the united states some people in this chamber and lots of folks around the world still believe you can not cut greenhouse gas emissions without slowing economic growth in the industrial age that may well have been true but in this digital economy it is not true anymore 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 and before you know it efficient production of will give us the equivalent of hundreds of miles from a gallon of gasoline to speed innovation in these kind of technologies i think we should give a major tax incentive to business for the production of clean energy and to families for buying homes and appliances and the next generation of superefficient cars when they hit the showroom floor i also ask the auto industry to use the available technologies to make all new cars more right away and i ask this congress to do something else please help us make more of our clean energy technology available to the developing world that will create cleaner growth abroad and a lot more new jobs here in the united states of america in the new century innovations in science and technology will be 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 our fellow americans to recognize that federal tax dollars have funded much of 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 because parkinson diabetes and certain kinds of cancer they are designing precision therapies that will block the harmful effect of these genes for good researchers already are using this new technique to target and destroy cells that because breast cancer soon we may be able to use it to prevent the onset of alzheimer scientists are also working on an artificial retina to help many blind people to see to that would actually directly stimulate damaged spinal cords in a way that could allow people now paralyzed to stand up and walk these kinds of innovations are also propelling our remarkable prosperity information technology only includes 8 percent of our employment but now accounts for a third of our economic growth along with jobs that pay by the way about 80 percent above the private sector average again we ought to keep in mind 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 talk materials 10 times stronger than steel at a fraction of the weight this is unbelievable to computers the size of a teardrop with the power of today fastest supercomputers to accelerate the march of discovery across all these disciplines in science and technology i ask you to support my recommendation of an unprecedented 3 billion in the 21st century research fund the largest increase in civilian research in a generation we owe it to our future now these new breakthroughs have to be used in ways that reflect our values first and foremost we have to safeguard our citizens privacy last year we proposed to protect every citizen medical record this year we will finalize those rules we have also taken the first steps to protect the privacy of bank and credit card records and other financial statements soon i will send legislation to you to finish that job we must also act to prevent any genetic discrimination whatever by employers or insurers i hope you will support that these steps will allow us to lead toward the far frontiers of science and technology they will enhance our health the environment the economy in ways we can not even imagine today but we all know that at a time when science technology and the forces of globalization are bringing so many changes into all our lives it is more important than ever that we strengthen the bonds that root us in our local communities and in our national community no tie binds different people together like citizen service there is a new spirit of service in america a movement we have tried to support with americorps expanded peace corps unprecedented new partnerships with businesses foundations community groups partnerships for example like the one that enlisted companies which have now moved of our fellow citizens from welfare to work partnerships to battle drug abuse aids teach young people to read save america treasures strengthen the arts fight teen pregnancy prevent violence among young people promote racial healing the american people are working together but we should do more to help americans help each other first we should help faithbased organizations to do more to fight poverty and drug abuse and help people get back on the right track with initiatives like second chance homes that do so much to help unwed teen mothers second we should support americans who tithe and contribute to charities but do not earn enough to claim a tax deduction for it tonight i propose new tax incentives that would allow low and middle income citizens who do not itemize to get that deduction it is nothing but fair and it will get more people to give we should do more to help new immigrants to fully participate in our community that is why i recommend spending more to teach them civics and english and since everybody in our community counts we have got to make sure everyone is counted in this year census within 10 10 will be no majority race in our largest state of 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 look around we have members in this congress from virtually every racial ethnic and religious background and i think you would agree that america is stronger because of it you also have to agree that all those differences you just clapped for all too often spark hatred and division even here at home just in the last couple of years we have seen a man dragged to death in texas just because he was black we saw a young man murdered in wyoming just because he was gay last year we saw the shootings of and jewish children just because of who they were this is not the american way and we must draw the line i ask you to draw that line by passing without delay the hate crimes prevention act and the employment act and i ask you to reauthorize the violence against women act finally tonight i propose the largest ever investment in our civil rights laws for enforcement because no american should be subjected to discrimination in finding a home getting a job going to school or securing a loan protections in law should be protections in fact last february because i thought this was so important i created the white house office of one america to promote racial reconciliation that is what one of my personal heroes hank aaron has done all his life from his days as our home run king to his recent acts of healing he has always brought people together we should follow his example and we are honored to have him with us tonight stand up hank aaron i just want to say one more thing about this and i want every one of you to think about this the next time you get mad at one of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle this fall at the white house hillary had one of her millennium dinners and we had this very distinguished scientist there who is an expert in this whole work in the human genome and he said that we are all regardless of race genetically percent the same now you may find that uncomfortable when you look around here but it is worth remembering we can laugh about this but you think about it modern science has confirmed what ancient faiths have always taught the most important fact of life is our common humanity therefore we should do more than just tolerate our diversity we should honor it and celebrate it my fellow americans every time i prepare for the state of the union i approach it with hope and expectation and excitement for our nation but tonight is very special because we stand on the mountaintop of a new millennium behind us we can look back and see the great expanse of american achievement and before us we can see even greater grander frontiers of possibility we should all of us be filled with gratitude and humility for our present progress and prosperity we should be filled with awe and joy at what lies over the horizon and we should be filled with absolute determination to make the most of it you know when the framers finished crafting our constitution in philadelphia benjamin franklin stood in independence hall and he reflected on the carving of the sun that was on the back of a chair he saw the sun was low on the horizon so he said 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 today because each succeeding generation of americans has kept the fire of freedom burning brightly lighting those frontiers of possibility we all still bask in the glow and the warmth of franklin rising sun after 224 years the american revolution continues we remain a new nation and 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
speaker vice president members congress honored guests fellow americans fortunate alive moment history never nation enjoyed much prosperity social progress little internal crisis external threats never blessed opportunity therefore profound obligation build perfect union founders dreams begin new century 20 million new jobs fastest economic growth 30 years lowest unemployment rates 30 years lowest poverty rates 20 years lowest hispanic unemployment rates record first surpluses 42 years next month america achieve longest period economic growth entire history built new economy economic revolution matched revival american spirit crime 20 percent lowest level 25 years teen births 7 years row adoptions 30 percent welfare rolls cut half lowest levels 30 years fellow americans state union strongest ever always real credit belongs american people gratitude also goes chamber worked us put progress partisanship eight years ago clear americans would much celebrate year 2000 nation gripped economic distress social decline political gridlock title book asked america went wrong best traditions nation americans determined set things right restored vital center replacing outmoded ideologies new vision anchored basic enduring values opportunity responsibility community americans reinvented government transforming catalyst new ideas stress opportunity responsibility give people tools need solve problems smallest federal work force 40 years turned record deficits record surpluses doubled investment education cut crime community police brady law kept guns hands half million criminals ended welfare knew requiring work protecting health care nutrition children investing child care transportation housing help parents go work helped parents succeed home work family leave 20 million americans used care newborn child sick loved one engaged young americans citizen service americorps helping earn money college 1992 roadmap today results even important america confidence dream big dreams must let confidence drift complacency us judged dreams deeds pass children score held high standard indeed chance good great fellow americans crossed bridge built 21st century must shape 21st century american revolution opportunity responsibility community must beginning new nation dawn last century theodore roosevelt said one characteristic essential foresight growing nation future takes long look ahead tonight let us take long look ahead set great goals nation 21st century america let us pledge things every child begin school ready learn graduate ready succeed every family able succeed home work child raised poverty meet challenge aging america assure quality affordable health care last americans make america safest big country earth pay national debt first time since 1835 bring prosperity every american community reverse course climate change leave safer cleaner planet america lead world toward shared peace prosperity far frontiers science technology become last founders pledged us long ago one nation god indivisible liberty justice great goals worthy great nation reach year even decade reach let us remember first american revolution single shot continent settled single year lesson history lesson last 7 years great goals reached step step always building progress always gaining ground course gain ground standing still long congress standing still pressing national priorities let us begin tonight ask pass real patients bill rights ask pass commonsense gun safety legislation ask pass campaign finance reform ask vote judicial nominations important appointees ask implore raise minimum wage 2 years try balance seesaw years ago reached across party lines reach first balanced budget asked meet responsibility next generation maintaining fiscal discipline refused stray path something would seemed unimaginable 7 years ago actually paying national debt stay path pay debt entirely 13 years make america first time since andrew jackson president 1835 1993 began put fiscal house order deficit reduction act remember passages houses single vote former colleague first secretary treasury led effort sparked long boom us tonight lloyd bentsen served america well thank beyond paying debt must ensure benefits debt reduction go preserving two important guarantees make every american social security medicare tonight ask work make bipartisan downpayment social security reform crediting interest savings debt reduction social security trust fund strong sound next 50 years start journey must also take right steps toward reaching great goals first foremost need 21st century revolution education guided faith every single child learn education important ever ever key children future must make sure children key means quality preschool afterschool best trained teachers classroom college opportunities children 7 years worked hard improve schools opportunity responsibility investing demanding turn reading math college entrance scores impressive gains schools poor neighborhoods successful schools followed proven formula higher standards accountability extra help children need get reach standards sent congress reform plan based formula holds states school districts accountable progress rewards results year national government invests 15 billion schools time support works stop supporting demand schools also invest schools let us double investment help states districts turn around worst performing schools shut let us double investments summer school programs boost achievement keep people streets trouble give every single child every failing school chance meet high standards since 1993 nearly doubled investment head start improved quality tonight ask another 1 billion head start largest increase history program know children learn best smaller classes good teachers 2 years row congress supported plan hire new qualified teachers lower class size early grades thank ask make 3 row make sure teachers know subjects teach tonight propose new teacher quality initiative recruit talented people classroom reward good teachers staying give teachers training need know charter schools provide real public school choice became president one independent public charter school america today thanks ask help us meet goal charter schools next year know must connect classrooms internet getting 1994 3 percent classrooms connected today help vice president program half 90 percent schools least one internet connection finish job third schools serious disrepair many walls wires old old internet tonight propose help schools year make immediate urgent repairs help build modernize get students trailers classrooms ask help double bipartisan gear program provides mentors disadvantaged young people double provide mentors million let us also offer kids disadvantaged backgrounds chance take college courses wealthier students use boost test scores make american dream achievable must make college affordable 7 years bipartisan basis taken action toward goal larger pell grants affordable student loans education ira hope scholarships already benefited 5 million young people 67 percent high school graduates going college 10 percent since 1993 yet millions families still strain pay college tuition need help propose landmark 30 billion college opportunity tax cut middle class tax deduction college tuition costs previous actions congress already made 2 years college affordable time make 4 years college affordable take steps move long way toward making sure every child starts school ready learn graduates ready succeed also need 21st century revolution reward work strengthen families giving every parent tools succeed work important work raising children means making sure every family health care support care aging parents tools bring children right child grows poverty first days president worked give families better access better health care 1997 passed children health insurance workers coverage employers least get children far enrolled 2 million children well way goal 5 million still 40 million fellow americans without health insurance 1993 tonight propose follow vice president gore suggestion make low income parents eligible insurance covers children together children children initiative action would enable us cover nearly quarter uninsured people america want ask let people ages 55 65 fastest growing group uninsured buy medicare year propose give tax credit make choice affordable one hope support well baby boomers retire medicare faced caring twice many citizens yet far ready generation must ask children generation shoulder burden simply must act strengthen modernize medicare budget includes comprehensive plan reform medicare make efficient competitive dedicates nearly 400 billion budget surplus keep medicare solvent past 2025 long last also provides funds give every senior voluntary choice affordable coverage prescription drugs lifesaving drugs indispensable part modern medicine one creating medicare program today would even think excluding coverage prescription drugs yet three five seniors lack dependable drug coverage lengthen enrich lives millions older americans need prescription drugs pay highest prices good conscience let another year pass without extending seniors lifeline affordable prescription drugs record numbers americans providing aging ailing loved ones home loving difficult often expensive choice last year proposed tax credit care frankly enough year let us triple year let us pass also make needed investments expand access mental health care want take moment thank person led first white house conference mental health last year 7 years led efforts break barriers decent treatment people mental illness thank tipper gore taken together proposals would mark largest investment health care 35 years since medicare largest investment 35 years would big step toward assuring quality health care americans young old ask embrace pass must also make investments reward work support families nothing better tax credit eitc e eitc earning working taking responsibility rewarded first address asked congress greatly expand credit result 1998 alone eitc helped million americans work way poverty toward middle class double number 1993 tonight propose another major expansion eitc reduce marriage penalty make sure rewards marriage rewards work also expand tax credit families two children punishes people two children today proposal would allow families three children get tax relief working families children poverty also reward work family unless men women get equal pay equal work today female unemployment rate lowest 46 years yet women still earn 75 cents every dollar men earn must better providing resources enforce present equal pay laws training women jobs passing paycheck fairness act many working parents spend income child care last year helped parents provide child care 2 million children child care initiative along funds already secured welfare reform would make child care better safer affordable another children ask pass need middle income families also expand child care tax credit believe strongly take next big step make tax credit refundable low income families people making year could mean child care costs know say passing proposal would prove ten millions americans live paycheck paycheck hard work still opportunity save make use ira 401k plans help working families save accumulate wealth idea behind individual development accounts ida ask take idea new level new retirement savings accounts enable every low moderate income family america save retirement first home medical emergency college education propose match contributions however small dollar dollar every year save propose give major new tax credit small business provide meaningful pension workers people ought retirement well rest us nearly one three american children grows without father children 5 times likely live poverty children parents home clearly demanding supporting responsible fatherhood critical lifting children poverty doubled child support collections since 1992 proposing tough new measures hold still fathers responsible recognize lot fathers want right children need help carlos rosas paul minnesota wanted right son got help got good job supports little boy budget help fathers make choices carlos rosas thank tonight stand carlos thank single issue able reach across party lines common commitment reward work strengthen families remember last year came together help people disabilities keep health insurance go work thank thanks overwhelming bipartisan support congress improved foster care helped young people leave turn 18 dramatically increased number foster care children going adoptive homes thank course forever grateful person led efforts beginning worked tirelessly children families 30 years wife hillary thank take steps discussed go long long way toward empowering parents succeed home work ensuring child raised poverty make vital investments health care education support working families still offer tax cuts help pay college retirement care aging parents reduce marriage penalty things without forsaking path fiscal discipline got us point tonight indeed must make investments tax cuts context balanced budget strengthens extends life social security medicare pays national debt crime america dropped past 7 longest decline thanks national consensus helped forge community police sensible gun safety laws effective prevention nobody nobody nobody america believes safe enough ask set higher goal let us make country safest big country world last fall congress supported plan hire addition community police already funded concentrated neighborhoods ask continued support soon columbine tragedy congress considered commonsense gun legislation require brady background checks gun shows child safety locks new handguns ban importation large capacity ammunition clips courage vote vice senate faced gun lobby stood american people passed legislation house failed follow suit seen happens guns fall wrong hands daniel mauser 15 years old gunned columbine amazing kid student good skier like parents lose children father tom borne unimaginable grief somehow found strength honor son transforming grief action earlier month took leave absence job fight tougher gun safety laws pray courage wisdom long last move congress make commonsense gun legislation next order business tom mauser stand thank tonight tom thank tom must strengthen gun laws enforce already books better federal gun crime prosecutions 16 percent since took office must propose hire federal local gun prosecutors atf agents crack illegal gun traffickers dealers must give enforcement tools need tools trace every gun every bullet used every gun crime united states ask help us every state country already requires hunters automobile drivers license think ought thing handgun purchases specifically propose plan ensure new handgun buyers must first photo license state showing passed brady background check gun safety course get gun hope help pass congress listen accidental gun accidental gun death rate children 15 united states 9 times higher 25 industrialized countries combined technologies exist could lead guns fired adults ask congress fund research smart gun technology save children lives ask responsible leaders gun industry work us smart guns steps keep guns wrong hands keep children safe know every parent know worries impact violence media children want begin thanking entertainment industry accepting challenge put voluntary ratings tv programs video internet games frankly ratings numerous diverse confusing really useful parents tonight ask industry accept first lady challenge develop single voluntary rating system children entertainment easier parents understand enforce steps outline take us well way making america safest big country world keep historic economic expansion going subject lot discussion community others believe need 21st century revolution open new markets start new businesses hire new workers right america inner cities poor rural areas native american reservations nation prosperity yet reached places last 6 months traveled lot joined many many business people shine spotlight enormous potential communities appalachia mississippi delta watts pine ridge reservation everywhere go meet talented people eager opportunity able work tonight ask let us put work business smart thing america right thing let ask something wide world ever get around ask congress give businesses incentives invest america new markets invest markets overseas tonight propose large new markets tax credit incentives spur 22 billion capital create new businesses new investments inner cities rural areas empowerment zones creating opportunities 5 years also ask increase incentives invest create let say tried say every turn democratic republican issue giving people chance live dreams american issue speaker powerful moment last november joined reverend jesse jackson home state illinois committed working toward common goal combining best ideas sides aisle want thank tell speaker look forward working worthy joint endeavor thank also ask make special efforts address areas nation highest rates poverty native american reservations mississippi delta budget includes 110 million initiative promote economic development delta billion dollars increase economic opportunity health care education law enforcement native american communities begin new century honoring historic responsibility empower first americans want thank tonight leaders members parties expressed interest working us efforts profoundly important another part american community trouble tonight family farmers signed farm bill 1996 said great danger would work well good times bad well droughts floods historically low prices made times bad farmers must work together strengthen farm safety net invest land conservation create new markets expanding programs fuels products please need help let us together opportunity requires something else today access computer knowing use means must close digital divide got tools connecting classrooms libraries internet crucial start budget ensures new teachers trained teach 21st century skills creates technology centers communities serve adults spring invite leaders join another new markets tour close digital divide open opportunity people want thank companies already much area hope new tax incentives proposed get rest join us national crusade got quickly say steps step step go long way toward goal bringing opportunity every community realize full possibilities economy must reach beyond borders shape revolution tearing barriers building new networks among nations individuals economies cultures globalization central reality time course change profound liberating threatening people turning back open creative society stands benefit understand act realities interdependence center every vital global network good neighbor good partner recognize build future without helping others build first thing got forge new consensus trade us believe passionately power open trade ensure lifts living standards values never tolerating abusive child labor race bottom environment worker protection others must recognize open markets trade best engines know raising living standards reducing global poverty environmental destruction assuring free flow ideas believe strongly tonight first day got direction forward america direction america trade keep going forward ask help forge consensus make developing economies partners prosperity would like ask finalize groundbreaking african caribbean basin trade initiatives globalization economics purpose must bring together world around freedom democracy peace oppose would tear apart fundamental challenges believe america must meet shape 21st century world first must continue encourage former adversaries russia china emerge stable prosperous democratic nations held back today reaching full potential russia legacy communism economy turmoil cruel war chechnya china illusion buy stability expense freedom think much changed past decade former soviet nuclear weapons taken commission russian soldiers actually serving balkans russian people electing leaders first time years china economy open world ever course one single person chamber tonight know sure direction great nations take know sure choose everything power increase chance choose wisely constructive members global community support russians struggling democratic prosperous future continue reduce nuclear arsenals help russia safeguard weapons materials remain believe congress support agreement negotiated bring china wto passing permanent normal trade relations china soon possible year think ought two reasons first markets already open china agreement open china markets us second plainly advance peace asia promote change china know going decide going said done need know everything possibly could maximize chance china choose right future second challenge got protect security conflicts pose risk wider war threaten common humanity prevent every conflict stop every outrage interests stake make difference must peacemakers proud role bringing middle east closer lasting peace building peace northern ireland working peace east timor africa promoting reconciliation greece turkey cyprus working defuse crises india pakistan defending human rights religious freedom proud men women armed forces allies stopped ethnic cleansing kosovo enabling million people return homes slobodan milosevic unleashed terror kosovo captain john cherrey one brave airmen turned tide another american plane shot serbia flew teeth enemy air defenses bring fellow pilot home thanks armed forces skill bravery prevailed kosovo without losing single american combat want introduce captain cherrey honor captain cherrey promise captain finish job began stand see third challenge keep inexorable march technology giving terrorists potentially hostile nations means undermine defenses keep mind technological advances shrunk cell phones fit palms hands also make weapons terror easier conceal easier use must meet threat making effective agreements restrain nuclear missile programs north korea curbing flow lethal technology iran preventing iraq threatening neighbors increasing preparedness chemical biological attack protecting vital computer systems hackers criminals developing system defend new missile threats working preserve abm missile treaty russia must things predict us long gone time next 10 20 years major security threat country face come enemies narcotraffickers terrorists organized criminals organized together working together increasing access ever sophisticated chemical biological weapons want thank pentagon others right try help protect us plan defenses strong ask support ensure succeed also want ask constructive bipartisan dialog year work build consensus hope eventually lead ratification comprehensive treaty hope also constructive effort meet challenge presented planet huge gulf rich poor accept world part humanity lives cutting edge new economy rest live bare edge survival think part change expanded trade expanded aid expansion freedom interesting nigeria indonesia people got right choose leaders 1999 1989 berlin wall fell got stand democracies including especially tonight colombia fighting narcotraffickers people lives children lives proposed strong package help colombia win fight want thank leaders parties houses listening president colombia got pass want ask help lot riding important stability country happens latin america also want know going send new legislation go drug barons value money hope pass well world billion people live less dollar day also got part global endeavor reduce debts poorest countries invest education health care economic growth pope religious leaders urged us last year congress made downpayment america share ask continue thank ask stay course also want say america must help nations break bonds disease last year africa 10 times many people died aids killed times budget give invests 150 million fight infectious killers today propose tax credit speed development vaccines diseases like malaria tb aids ask private sector partners around world join us embracing save millions lives together ought also want mention final challenge always important ask pass national security budget keeps military best trained best equipped world heightened readiness 21st century weapons raises salaries service men women protects veterans fully funds diplomacy keeps soldiers war makes good commitment dues arrears ask pass budget also want say something might personal tonight american people watching us home help commentators tell stands sits claps still modest differences opinion room want thank something every one want thank extraordinary support given republicans democrats alike men women uniform thank also want thank especially two people first want thank secretary defense bill cohen symbolizing bipartisan commitment national security thank sir even want thank wife janet american citizen tirelessly traveled world show support feel troops thank janet cohen appreciate thank challenges meet lead world toward peace freedom era globalization want tell grateful many things president one things grateful opportunity vice president finally put rest bogus idea grow economy protect environment time economy grown rid 500 neighborhoods toxic waste ensured cleaner air water millions people past 3 months alone helped preserve 40 million acres roadless lands national forests created three new national monuments communities grow commitment conservation must continue grow tonight propose creating permanent conservation fund restore wildlife protect coastlines save natural treasures california redwoods florida everglades lands legacy endowment would represent far enduring investment land preservation ever proposed house hope get together people different ideas gift give children grandchildren time across party lines make agreement last year vice president launched new effort make communities know wait minute got punchline year agenda last year livable right senator lott going say commentary make communities livable big business big issue mean ask anybody lives unlivable community tell want kids grow next parks parking lots parents spend time stalled traffic could home children tonight ask support new funding following things make american communities done pretty well speech say one want help us three things need funding advanced transit systems need funding saving open spaces places heavy development need ought bipartisan need funding helping major cities around great lakes protect waterways enhance quality life need things want help us greatest environmental challenge new century global warming scientists tell us 1990 hottest decade entire millennium fail reduce emission greenhouse gases deadly heat waves droughts become frequent coastal areas flood economies disrupted going happen unless act many people united states people chamber lots folks around world still believe cut greenhouse gas emissions without slowing economic growth industrial age may well true digital economy true anymore new technologies make possible cut harmful emissions provide even growth example last week automakers unveiled cars get 70 80 miles gallon fruits unique research partnership government industry know efficient production give us equivalent hundreds miles gallon gasoline speed innovation kind technologies think give major tax incentive business production clean energy families buying homes appliances next generation superefficient cars hit showroom floor also ask auto industry use available technologies make new cars right away ask congress something else please help us make clean energy technology available developing world create cleaner growth abroad lot new jobs united states america new century innovations science technology key health environment miraculous improvements quality lives advances economy later year researchers complete first draft entire human genome blueprint life important fellow americans recognize federal tax dollars funded much research wise investments science leading revolution ability detect treat prevent disease example researchers identified genes parkinson diabetes certain kinds cancer designing precision therapies block harmful effect genes good researchers already using new technique target destroy cells breast cancer soon may able use prevent onset alzheimer scientists also working artificial retina help many blind people see would actually directly stimulate damaged spinal cords way could allow people paralyzed stand walk kinds innovations also propelling remarkable prosperity information technology includes 8 percent employment accounts third economic growth along jobs pay way 80 percent private sector average ought keep mind research brought supercomputers internet communications satellites soon researchers bring us devices translate foreign languages fast talk materials 10 times stronger steel fraction weight unbelievable computers size teardrop power today fastest supercomputers accelerate march discovery across disciplines science technology ask support recommendation unprecedented 3 billion 21st century research fund largest increase civilian research generation owe future new breakthroughs used ways reflect values first foremost safeguard citizens privacy last year proposed protect every citizen medical record year finalize rules also taken first steps protect privacy bank credit card records financial statements soon send legislation finish job must also act prevent genetic discrimination whatever employers insurers hope support steps allow us lead toward far frontiers science technology enhance health environment economy ways even imagine today know time science technology forces globalization bringing many changes lives important ever strengthen bonds root us local communities national community tie binds different people together like citizen service new spirit service america movement tried support americorps expanded peace corps unprecedented new partnerships businesses foundations community groups partnerships example like one enlisted companies moved fellow citizens welfare work partnerships battle drug abuse aids teach young people read save america treasures strengthen arts fight teen pregnancy prevent violence among young people promote racial healing american people working together help americans help first help faithbased organizations fight poverty drug abuse help people get back right track initiatives like second chance homes much help unwed teen mothers second support americans tithe contribute charities earn enough claim tax deduction tonight propose new tax incentives would allow low middle income citizens itemize get deduction nothing fair get people give help new immigrants fully participate community recommend spending teach civics english since everybody community counts got make sure everyone counted year census within 10 10 majority race largest state california little 50 years majority race america interconnected world diversity greatest strength look around chamber look around members congress virtually every racial ethnic religious background think would agree america stronger also agree differences clapped often spark hatred division even home last couple years seen man dragged death texas black saw young man murdered wyoming gay last year saw shootings jewish children american way must draw line ask draw line passing without delay hate crimes prevention act employment act ask reauthorize violence women act finally tonight propose largest ever investment civil rights laws enforcement american subjected discrimination finding home getting job going school securing loan protections law protections fact last february thought important created white house office one america promote racial reconciliation one personal heroes hank aaron done life days home run king recent acts healing always brought people together follow example honored us tonight stand hank aaron want say one thing want every one think next time get mad one colleagues side aisle fall white house hillary one millennium dinners distinguished scientist expert whole work human genome said regardless race genetically percent may find uncomfortable look around worth remembering laugh think modern science confirmed ancient faiths always taught important fact life common humanity therefore tolerate diversity honor celebrate fellow americans every time prepare state union approach hope expectation excitement nation tonight special stand mountaintop new millennium behind us look back see great expanse american achievement us see even greater grander frontiers possibility us filled gratitude humility present progress prosperity filled awe joy lies horizon filled absolute determination make know framers finished crafting constitution philadelphia benjamin franklin stood independence hall reflected carving sun back chair saw sun low horizon said said often wondered whether sun rising setting today franklin said happiness know rising sun today succeeding generation americans kept fire freedom burning brightly lighting frontiers possibility still bask glow warmth franklin rising sun 224 years american revolution continues remain new nation long dreams outweigh memories america forever young destiny moment thank god bless god bless america
speaker vice president member congress honored guest fellow american fortunate alive moment history never nation enjoy much prosperity social progress little internal crisis external threat never bless opportunity therefore profound obligation build perfect union founder dream begin new century 20 million new job fast economic growth 30 year low unemployment rate 30 year low poverty rate 20 year lowest hispanic unemployment rate record first surpluses 42 year next month america achieve long period economic growth entire history build new economy economic revolution match revival american spirit crime 20 percent low level 25 year teen births 7 year row adoption 30 percent welfare roll cut half low level 30 year fellow american state union strong ever always real credit belongs american people gratitude also go chamber worked u put progress partisanship eight year ago clear american would much celebrate year 2000 nation grip economic distress social decline political gridlock title book ask america go wrong best tradition nation american determine set thing right restore vital center replace outmoded ideology new vision anchor basic endure value opportunity responsibility community american reinvented government transform catalyst new idea stress opportunity responsibility give people tool need solve problem small federal work force 40 year turn record deficit record surpluses doubled investment education cut crime community police brady law keep gun hand half million criminal end welfare know require work protect health care nutrition child invest child care transportation housing help parent go work help parent succeed home work family leave 20 million american use care newborn child sick love one engage young american citizen service americorps help earn money college 1992 roadmap today result even important america confidence dream big dream must let confidence drift complacency u judge dream deed pass child score hold high standard indeed chance good great fellow american cross bridge build 21st century must shape 21st century american revolution opportunity responsibility community must begin new nation dawn last century theodore roosevelt say one characteristic essential foresight grow nation future take long look ahead tonight let u take long look ahead set great goal nation 21st century america let u pledge thing every child begin school ready learn graduate ready succeed every family able succeed home work child raise poverty meet challenge age america assure quality affordable health care last american make america safe big country earth pay national debt first time since 1835 bring prosperity every american community reverse course climate change leave safer cleaner planet america lead world toward share peace prosperity far frontier science technology become last founder pledge u long ago one nation god indivisible liberty justice great goal worthy great nation reach year even decade reach let u remember first american revolution single shot continent settle single year lesson history lesson last 7 year great goal reach step step always build progress always gain ground course gain ground stand still long congress stand still press national priority let u begin tonight ask pas real patient bill right ask pas commonsense gun safety legislation ask pas campaign finance reform ask vote judicial nomination important appointee ask implore raise minimum wage 2 year try balance seesaw year ago reach across party line reach first balanced budget ask meet responsibility next generation maintain fiscal discipline refuse stray path something would seem unimaginable 7 year ago actually pay national debt stay path pay debt entirely 13 year make america first time since andrew jackson president 1835 1993 begin put fiscal house order deficit reduction act remember passage house single vote former colleague first secretary treasury lead effort spark long boom u tonight lloyd bentsen serve america well thank beyond pay debt must ensure benefit debt reduction go preserve two important guarantee make every american social security medicare tonight ask work make bipartisan downpayment social security reform credit interest saving debt reduction social security trust fund strong sound next 50 year start journey must also take right step toward reach great goal first foremost need 21st century revolution education guide faith every single child learn education important ever ever key child future must make sure child key mean quality preschool afterschool best trained teacher classroom college opportunity child 7 year work hard improve school opportunity responsibility invest demand turn read math college entrance score impressive gain school poor neighborhood successful school follow proven formula high standard accountability extra help child need get reach standard send congress reform plan base formula hold state school district accountable progress reward result year national government invest 15 billion school time support work stop support demand school also invest school let u double investment help state district turn around bad perform school shut let u double investment summer school program boost achievement keep people street trouble give every single child every fail school chance meet high standard since 1993 nearly double investment head start improve quality tonight ask another 1 billion head start large increase history program know child learn best small class good teacher 2 year row congress support plan hire new qualified teacher low class size early grade thank ask make 3 row make sure teacher know subject teach tonight propose new teacher quality initiative recruit talented people classroom reward good teacher stay give teacher train need know charter school provide real public school choice become president one independent public charter school america today thanks ask help u meet goal charter school next year know must connect classroom internet get 1994 3 percent classroom connect today help vice president program half 90 percent school least one internet connection finish job third school serious disrepair many wall wire old old internet tonight propose help school year make immediate urgent repair help build modernize get student trailer classrooms ask help double bipartisan gear program provide mentor disadvantage young people double provide mentor million let u also offer kid disadvantage background chance take college course wealthy student use boost test score make american dream achievable must make college affordable 7 year bipartisan basis take action toward goal large pell grant affordable student loan education ira hope scholarship already benefit 5 million young people 67 percent high school graduate go college 10 percent since 1993 yet million family still strain pay college tuition need help propose landmark 30 billion college opportunity tax cut middle class tax deduction college tuition cost previous action congress already make 2 year college affordable time make 4 year college affordable take step move long way toward make sure every child start school ready learn graduate ready succeed also need 21st century revolution reward work strengthen family give every parent tool succeed work important work raise child mean make sure every family health care support care age parent tool bring child right child grows poverty first day president work give family well access well health care 1997 pass child health insurance worker coverage employer least get child far enrol 2 million child well way goal 5 million still 40 million fellow american without health insurance 1993 tonight propose follow vice president gore suggestion make low income parent eligible insurance cover child together child child initiative action would enable u cover nearly quarter uninsured people america want ask let people age 55 65 fast grow group uninsured buy medicare year propose give tax credit make choice affordable one hope support well baby boomer retire medicare face care twice many citizen yet far ready generation must ask child generation shoulder burden simply must act strengthen modernize medicare budget include comprehensive plan reform medicare make efficient competitive dedicates nearly 400 billion budget surplus keep medicare solvent past 2025 long last also provide fund give every senior voluntary choice affordable coverage prescription drug lifesaving drug indispensable part modern medicine one create medicare program today would even think exclude coverage prescription drug yet three five senior lack dependable drug coverage lengthen enrich live million old american need prescription drug pay high price good conscience let another year pas without extend senior lifeline affordable prescription drug record number americans provide age ail love one home loving difficult often expensive choice last year propose tax credit care frankly enough year let u triple year let u pass also make needed investment expand access mental health care want take moment thank person lead first white house conference mental health last year 7 year lead effort break barrier decent treatment people mental illness thank tipper gore take together proposal would mark large investment health care 35 year since medicare large investment 35 year would big step toward assure quality health care americans young old ask embrace pas must also make investment reward work support family nothing well tax credit eitc e eitc earn work take responsibility reward first address ask congress greatly expand credit result 1998 alone eitc help million american work way poverty toward middle class double number 1993 tonight propose another major expansion eitc reduce marriage penalty make sure reward marriage reward work also expand tax credit family two child punishes people two child today proposal would allow family three child get tax relief work family child poverty also reward work family unless men woman get equal pay equal work today female unemployment rate low 46 year yet woman still earn 75 cent every dollar men earn must better provide resource enforce present equal pay law train woman job pass paycheck fairness act many work parent spend income child care last year help parent provide child care 2 million child child care initiative along fund already secure welfare reform would make child care well safer affordable another child ask pas need middle income family also expand child care tax credit believe strongly take next big step make tax credit refundable low income family people make year could mean child care cost know say pass proposal would prove ten million american live paycheck paycheck hard work still opportunity save make use ira 401k plan help work family save accumulate wealth idea behind individual development account ida ask take idea new level new retirement saving account enable every low moderate income family america save retirement first home medical emergency college education propose match contribution however small dollar dollar every year save propose give major new tax credit small business provide meaningful pension worker people ought retirement well rest u nearly one three american child grow without father child 5 time likely live poverty child parent home clearly demand support responsible fatherhood critical lifting child poverty double child support collection since 1992 propose tough new measure hold still father responsible recognize lot father want right child need help carlos rosa paul minnesota want right son get help get good job support little boy budget help father make choice carlos rosa thank tonight stand carlos thank single issue able reach across party line common commitment reward work strengthen family remember last year come together help people disability keep health insurance go work thank thanks overwhelm bipartisan support congress improve foster care help young people leave turn 18 dramatically increased number foster care child go adoptive home thank course forever grateful person lead effort begin work tirelessly child family 30 year wife hillary thank take step discuss go long long way toward empower parent succeed home work ensure child raise poverty make vital investment health care education support work family still offer tax cut help pay college retirement care age parent reduce marriage penalty thing without forsake path fiscal discipline get u point tonight indeed must make investment tax cut context balance budget strengthens extend life social security medicare pay national debt crime america drop past 7 long decline thanks national consensus help forge community police sensible gun safety law effective prevention nobody nobody nobody america believe safe enough ask set high goal let u make country safe big country world last fall congress support plan hire addition community police already fund concentrate neighborhood ask continued support soon columbine tragedy congress consider commonsense gun legislation require brady background check gun show child safety lock new handgun ban importation large capacity ammunition clip courage vote vice senate face gun lobby stand american people pass legislation house fail follow suit see happen gun fall wrong hand daniel mauser 15 year old gun columbine amaze kid student good skier like parent lose child father tom borne unimaginable grief somehow find strength honor son transform grief action earlier month take leave absence job fight tough gun safety law pray courage wisdom long last move congress make commonsense gun legislation next order business tom mauser stand thank tonight tom thank tom must strengthen gun law enforce already book well federal gun crime prosecution 16 percent since take office must propose hire federal local gun prosecutor atf agent crack illegal gun trafficker dealer must give enforcement tool need tool trace every gun every bullet use every gun crime united state ask help u every state country already require hunter automobile driver license think ought thing handgun purchase specifically propose plan ensure new handgun buyer must first photo license state show pass brady background check gun safety course get gun hope help pass congress listen accidental gun accidental gun death rate child 15 united state 9 time high 25 industrialized country combine technology exist could lead gun fire adult ask congress fund research smart gun technology save child live ask responsible leader gun industry work u smart gun step keep gun wrong hand keep child safe know every parent know worry impact violence medium child want begin thank entertainment industry accept challenge put voluntary rating tv program video internet game frankly rating numerous diverse confuse really useful parent tonight ask industry accept first lady challenge develop single voluntary rating system child entertainment easy parent understand enforce step outline take u well way make america safe big country world keep historic economic expansion go subject lot discussion community others believe need 21st century revolution open new market start new business hire new worker right america inner city poor rural area native american reservation nation prosperity yet reach place last 6 month travel lot join many many business people shine spotlight enormous potential community appalachia mississippi delta watt pine ridge reservation everywhere go meet talented people eager opportunity able work tonight ask let u put work business smart thing america right thing let ask something wide world ever get around ask congress give business incentive invest america new market invest market overseas tonight propose large new market tax credit incentive spur 22 billion capital create new business new investment inner city rural area empowerment zone create opportunity 5 year also ask increase incentive invest create let say try say every turn democratic republican issue give people chance live dream american issue speaker powerful moment last november join reverend jesse jackson home state illinois commit work toward common goal combine best idea side aisle want thank tell speaker look forward work worthy joint endeavor thank also ask make special effort address area nation high rate poverty native american reservation mississippi delta budget include 110 million initiative promote economic development delta billion dollar increase economic opportunity health care education law enforcement native american community begin new century honor historic responsibility empower first american want thank tonight leader member party express interest work u effort profoundly important another part american community trouble tonight family farmer sign farm bill 1996 say great danger would work well good time bad well drought flood historically low price make time bad farmer must work together strengthen farm safety net invest land conservation create new market expand program fuel product please need help let u together opportunity require something else today access computer know use mean must close digital divide get tool connect classroom library internet crucial start budget ensure new teacher train teach 21st century skill create technology center community serve adult spring invite leader join another new market tour close digital divide open opportunity people want thank company already much area hope new tax incentive propose get rest join u national crusade get quickly say step step step go long way toward goal bring opportunity every community realize full possibility economy must reach beyond border shape revolution tear barrier build new network among nation individual economy culture globalization central reality time course change profound liberate threaten people turn back open creative society stand benefit understand act reality interdependence center every vital global network good neighbor good partner recognize build future without help others build first thing get forge new consensus trade u believe passionately power open trade ensure lift living standard value never tolerate abusive child labor race bottom environment worker protection others must recognize open market trade best engine know raise living standard reduce global poverty environmental destruction assure free flow idea believe strongly tonight first day get direction forward america direction america trade keep go forward ask help forge consensus make develop economy partner prosperity would like ask finalize groundbreaking african caribbean basin trade initiative globalization economics purpose must bring together world around freedom democracy peace oppose would tear apart fundamental challenge believe america must meet shape 21st century world first must continue encourage former adversary russia china emerge stable prosperous democratic nation hold back today reach full potential russia legacy communism economy turmoil cruel war chechnya china illusion buy stability expense freedom think much change past decade former soviet nuclear weapon take commission russian soldier actually serve balkan russian people elect leader first time year china economy open world ever course one single person chamber tonight know sure direction great nation take know sure choose everything power increase chance choose wisely constructive member global community support russians struggle democratic prosperous future continue reduce nuclear arsenal help russia safeguard weapon material remain believe congress support agreement negotiate bring china wto pass permanent normal trade relation china soon possible year think ought two reason first market already open china agreement open china market u second plainly advance peace asia promote change china know go decide go say do need know everything possibly could maximize chance china choose right future second challenge get protect security conflict pose risk wide war threaten common humanity prevent every conflict stop every outrage interest stake make difference must peacemakers proud role bring middle east closer lasting peace building peace northern ireland work peace east timor africa promote reconciliation greece turkey cyprus work defuse crisis india pakistan defend human right religious freedom proud men woman arm force ally stop ethnic cleanse kosovo enable million people return home slobodan milosevic unleashed terror kosovo captain john cherrey one brave airman turn tide another american plane shot serbia fly teeth enemy air defenses bring fellow pilot home thanks arm force skill bravery prevail kosovo without lose single american combat want introduce captain cherrey honor captain cherrey promise captain finish job begin stand see third challenge keep inexorable march technology give terrorist potentially hostile nation mean undermine defense keep mind technological advance shrink cell phone fit palm hand also make weapon terror easy conceal easy use must meet threat make effective agreement restrain nuclear missile program north korea curb flow lethal technology iran prevent iraq threaten neighbor increase preparedness chemical biological attack protect vital computer system hacker criminal develop system defend new missile threat work preserve abm missile treaty russia must thing predict u long go time next 10 20 year major security threat country face come enemy narcotraffickers terrorist organize criminal organize together work together increase access ever sophisticated chemical biological weapon want thank pentagon others right try help protect u plan defenses strong ask support ensure succeed also want ask constructive bipartisan dialog year work build consensus hope eventually lead ratification comprehensive treaty hope also constructive effort meet challenge present planet huge gulf rich poor accept world part humanity live cut edge new economy rest live bare edge survival think part change expand trade expand aid expansion freedom interest nigeria indonesia people get right choose leader 1999 1989 berlin wall fell get stand democracy include especially tonight colombia fight narcotraffickers people live child life propose strong package help colombia win fight want thank leader party house listen president colombia get pas want ask help lot rid important stability country happen latin america also want know go send new legislation go drug baron value money hope pas well world billion people live less dollar day also get part global endeavor reduce debt poor country invest education health care economic growth pope religious leader urge u last year congress make downpayment america share ask continue thank ask stay course also want say america must help nation break bond disease last year africa 10 time many people die aid kill time budget give invest 150 million fight infectious killer today propose tax credit speed development vaccine disease like malaria tb aid ask private sector partner around world join u embrace save million live together ought also want mention final challenge always important ask pass national security budget keep military best train best equipped world heighten readiness 21st century weapon raise salary service men woman protects veteran fully fund diplomacy keep soldier war make good commitment due arrears ask pas budget also want say something might personal tonight american people watch u home help commentator tell stand sits clap still modest difference opinion room want thank something every one want thank extraordinary support give republican democrat alike men woman uniform thank also want thank especially two people first want thank secretary defense bill cohen symbolize bipartisan commitment national security thank sir even want thank wife janet american citizen tirelessly travel world show support feel troop thank janet cohen appreciate thank challenge meet lead world toward peace freedom era globalization want tell grateful many thing president one thing grateful opportunity vice president finally put rest bogus idea grow economy protect environment time economy grown rid 500 neighborhood toxic waste ensure clean air water million people past 3 month alone help preserve 40 million acre roadless land national forest create three new national monument community grow commitment conservation must continue grow tonight propose create permanent conservation fund restore wildlife protect coastline save natural treasure california redwood florida everglades land legacy endowment would represent far endure investment land preservation ever propose house hope get together people different idea gift give child grandchildren time across party line make agreement last year vice president launch new effort make community know wait minute get punchline year agenda last year livable right senator lott go say commentary make community livable big business big issue mean ask anybody live unlivable community tell want kid grow next park park lots parent spend time stall traffic could home child tonight ask support new funding follow thing make american community do pretty well speech say one want help u three thing need fund advanced transit system need fund save open space place heavy development need ought bipartisan need fund help major city around great lake protect waterway enhance quality life need thing want help u great environmental challenge new century global warming scientist tell u 1990 hot decade entire millennium fail reduce emission greenhouse gas deadly heat wave drought become frequent coastal area flood economy disrupt go happen unless act many people united state people chamber lots folk around world still believe cut greenhouse gas emission without slow economic growth industrial age may well true digital economy true anymore new technology make possible cut harmful emission provide even growth example last week automaker unveil car get 70 80 mile gallon fruit unique research partnership government industry know efficient production give u equivalent hundred mile gallon gasoline speed innovation kind technology think give major tax incentive business production clean energy family buy home appliance next generation superefficient car hit showroom floor also ask auto industry use available technology make new car right away ask congress something else please help u make clean energy technology available develop world create cleaner growth abroad lot new job unite state america new century innovation science technology key health environment miraculous improvement quality live advance economy later year researcher complete first draft entire human genome blueprint life important fellow american recognize federal tax dollar fund much research wise investment science lead revolution ability detect treat prevent disease example researcher identify gene parkinson diabetes certain kind cancer design precision therapy block harmful effect gene good researcher already use new technique target destroy cell breast cancer soon may able use prevent onset alzheimer scientist also work artificial retina help many blind people see would actually directly stimulate damage spinal cord way could allow people paralyzed stand walk kind innovation also propel remarkable prosperity information technology include 8 percent employment account third economic growth along job pay way 80 percent private sector average ought keep mind research bring supercomputer internet communication satellite soon researcher bring u device translate foreign language fast talk material 10 time strong steel fraction weight unbelievable computer size teardrop power today fast supercomputer accelerate march discovery across discipline science technology ask support recommendation unprecedented 3 billion 21st century research fund large increase civilian research generation owe future new breakthrough use way reflect value first foremost safeguard citizen privacy last year propose protect every citizen medical record year finalize rule also take first step protect privacy bank credit card record financial statement soon send legislation finish job must also act prevent genetic discrimination whatever employer insurer hope support step allow u lead toward far frontier science technology enhance health environment economy way even imagine today know time science technology force globalization bring many change life important ever strengthen bond root u local community national community tie bind different people together like citizen service new spirit service america movement tried support americorps expand peace corp unprecedented new partnership business foundation community group partnerships example like one enlisted company move fellow citizen welfare work partnership battle drug abuse aid teach young people read save america treasure strengthen art fight teen pregnancy prevent violence among young people promote racial healing american people work together help american help first help faithbased organization fight poverty drug abuse help people get back right track initiative like second chance home much help unwed teen mother second support americans tithe contribute charity earn enough claim tax deduction tonight propose new tax incentive would allow low middle income citizen itemize get deduction nothing fair get people give help new immigrant fully participate community recommend spend teach civics english since everybody community count get make sure everyone count year census within 10 10 majority race large state california little 50 year majority race america interconnected world diversity great strength look around chamber look around member congress virtually every racial ethnic religious background think would agree america strong also agree difference clap often spark hatred division even home last couple year see man drag death texas black saw young man murder wyoming gay last year saw shooting jewish child american way must draw line ask draw line pass without delay hate crime prevention act employment act ask reauthorize violence woman act finally tonight propose large ever investment civil right law enforcement american subject discrimination find home get job go school secure loan protection law protection fact last february think important create white house office one america promote racial reconciliation one personal hero hank aaron do life day home run king recent act heal always bring people together follow example honor u tonight stand hank aaron want say one thing want every one think next time get mad one colleague side aisle fall white house hillary one millennium dinner distinguish scientist expert whole work human genome say regardless race genetically percent may find uncomfortable look around worth remember laugh think modern science confirm ancient faith always teach important fact life common humanity therefore tolerate diversity honor celebrate fellow american every time prepare state union approach hope expectation excitement nation tonight special stand mountaintop new millennium behind u look back see great expanse american achievement u see even great grander frontier possibility u fill gratitude humility present progress prosperity fill awe joy lie horizon fill absolute determination make know framer finish craft constitution philadelphia benjamin franklin stand independence hall reflect carve sun back chair saw sun low horizon say say often wonder whether sun rise set today franklin say happiness know rise sun today succeed generation american keep fire freedom burn brightly light frontier possibility still bask glow warmth franklin rise sun 224 year american revolution continue remain new nation long dreams outweigh memory america forever young destiny moment thank god bless god bless america