500 MB Nyheder Direkte fra Internet 11/500 MB nyheder direkte fra internet CD 11.iso/start/progs/text/1995sotu.txt

Text File | 1996-02-07 | 56KB | 1,019 lines

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                           January 24, 1995


                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                    IN STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS


                             U.S. Capitol



9:14 P.M. EST


         THE PRESIDENT:  Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of
the 104th Congress, my fellow Americans:  Again we are here in the
sanctuary of democracy, and once again, our democracy has spoken.  So
let me begin by congratulating all of you here in the 104th Congress,
and congratulating you, Mr. Speaker.  (Applause.)

         If we agree on nothing else tonight, we must agree that
the American people certainly voted for change in 1992 and in 1994.
(Applause.)  And as I look out at you, I know how some of you must
have felt in 1992.  (Laughter and applause.)

         I must say that in both years we didn't hear America
singing, we heard America shouting.  And now all of us, Republicans
and Democrats alike, must say:  We hear you.  We will work together
to earn the jobs you have given us.  (Applause.)  For we are the
keepers of the sacred trust, and we must be faithful to it in this
new and very demanding era.

         Over 200 years ago, our founders changed the entire
course of human history by joining together to create a new country
based on a single powerful idea:  "We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness."

         It has fallen to every generation since then to preserve
that idea -- the American idea -- and to deepen and expand its
meaning to new and different times:  To Lincoln and his Congress, to
preserve the Union and to end slavery.  To Theodore Roosevelt and
Woodrow Wilson, to restrain the abuses and excesses of the Industrial
Revolution, and to assert our leadership in the world.  To Franklin
Roosevelt, to fight the failure and pain of the Great Depression, and
to win our country's great struggle against fascism.  And to all our
presidents since, to fight the Cold War.

         Especially, I recall two who struggled to fight that
Cold War in partnership with congresses where the majority was of a
different party.  To Harry Truman, who summoned us to unparalleled
prosperity at home, and who built the architecture of the Cold War.
And to Ronald Reagan, whom we wish well tonight, and who exhorted us
to carry on until the twilight struggle against communism was won.
(Applause.)

         In another time of change and challenge, I had the honor
to be the first president to be elected in the post-Cold War era, an
era marked by the global economy, the information revolution,
unparalleled change and opportunity and insecurity for the American
people.

         I came to this hallowed chamber two years ago on a
mission -- to restore the American Dream for all our people and to
make sure that we move into the 21st century still the strongest
force for freedom and democracy in the entire world.  I was
determined then to tackle the tough problems too long ignored.  In
this effort I am frank to say that I have made my mistakes, and I
have learned again the importance of humility in all human endeavor.
But I am also proud to say tonight that our country is stronger than
it was two years ago.  (Applause.)

         Record numbers -- record numbers of Americans are
succeeding in the new global economy.  We are at peace and we are a
force for peace and freedom throughout the world.  We have almost six
million new jobs since I became president, and we have the lowest
combined rate of unemployment and inflation in 25 years.  (Applause.)
Our businesses are more productive and here we have worked to bring
the deficit down, to expand trade, to put more police on our streets,
to give our citizens more of the tools they need to get an education
and to rebuild their own communities.

         But the rising tide is not lifting all boats.  While our
nation is enjoying peace and prosperity, too many of our people are
still working harder and harder, for less and less.  While our
businesses are restructuring and growing more productive and
competitive, too many of our people still can't be sure of having a
job next year or even next month.  And far more than our material
riches are threatened; things far more precious too us -- our
children, our families, our values.

         Our civil life is suffering in America today.  Citizens
are working together less and shouting at each other more.  The
common bonds of community which have been the great strength of our
country from its very beginning are badly frayed.  What are we to do
about it?

         More than 60 years ago, at the dawn of another new era,
President Roosevelt told our nation, "New conditions impose new
requirements on government and those who conduct government."  And
from that simple proposition, he shaped the New Deal, which helped to
restore our nation to prosperity and define the relationship between
our people and their government for half a century.

         That approach worked in its time.  But we today, we face
a very different time and very different conditions.  We are moving
from an Industrial Age built on gears and sweat to an Information Age
demanding skills and learning and flexibility.  Our government, once
a champion of national purpose, is now seen by many as simply a
captive of narrow interests, putting more burdens on our citizens
rather than equipping them to get ahead.  The values that used to
hold us all together seem to be coming apart.

         So tonight, we must forge a new social compact to meet
the challenges of this time.  As we enter a new era, we need a new
set of understandings, not just with government, but even more
important, with one another as Americans.

         That's what I want to talk with you about tonight.  I
call it the New Covenant.  But it's grounded in a very, very old idea
-- that all Americans have not just a right, but a solid
responsibility to rise as far as their God-given talents and
determination can take them; and to give something back to their
communities and their country in return.  Opportunity and
responsibility:  They go hand in hand.  We can't have one without the
other.  And our national community can't hold together without both.
(Applause.)

         Our New Covenant is a new set of understandings for how
we can equip our people to meet the challenges of a new economy, how
we can change the way our government works to fit a different time,
and, above all, how we can repair the damaged bonds in our society
and come together behind our common purpose.  We must have dramatic
change in our economy, our government and ourselves.

         My fellow Americans, without regard to party, let us
rise to the occasion.  Let us put aside partisanship and pettiness
and pride.  As we embark on this new course, let us put our country
first, remembering that regardless of party label, we are all
Americans.  And let the final test of everything we do be a simple
one:  Is it good for the American people?  (Applause.)

         Let me begin by saying that we cannot ask Americans to
be better citizens if we are not better servants.  You made a good
start by passing that law which applies to Congress all the laws you
put on the private sector, and I was proud to sign it yesterday.
(Applause.)

         But we have a lot more to do before people really trust
the way things work around here.  Three times as many lobbyists are
in the streets and corridors of Washington as were here 20 years ago.
The American people look at their capital and they see a city where
the well-connected and the well-protected can work the system, but
the interests of ordinary citizens are often left out.

         As the new Congress opened its doors, lobbyists were
still doing business as usual -- the gifts, the trips, all the things
that people are concerned about haven't stopped.  Twice this month
you missed opportunities to stop these practices.  I know there were
other considerations in those votes, but I want to use something that
I've heard my Republican friends say from time to time -- there
doesn't have to be a law for everything.  So tonight, I ask you to
just stop taking the lobbyists' perks.  Just stop.  (Applause.)

         We don't have to wait for legislation to pass to send a
strong signal to the American people that things are really changing.
But I also hope you will send me the strongest possible lobby reform
bill, and I'll sign that, too.  (Applause.)

         We should require lobbyists to tell the people for whom
they work what they're spending, what they want.  We should also curb
the role of big money in elections by capping the cost of campaigns
and limiting the influence of PACs.  (Applause.)

         And as I have said for three years, we should work to
open the airwaves so that they can be an instrument of democracy, not
a weapon of destruction by giving free TV time to candidates for
public office.  (Applause.)

         When the last Congress killed political reform last
year, it was reported in the press that the lobbyists actually stood
in the halls of this sacred building and cheered.  This year, let's
give the folks at home something to cheer about.  (Applause.)

         More important, I think we all agree that we have to
change the way the government works.  Let's make it smaller, less
costly and smaller -- leaner, not meaner.  (Applause.)

         I just told the Speaker the equal time doctrine is alive
and well.  (Laughter.)

         The New Covenant approach to governing is as different
from the old bureaucratic way as the computer is from the manual
typewriter.  The old way of governing around here protected organized
interests.  We should look out for the interests of ordinary people.
The old way divided us by interest, constituency or class.  The New
Covenant way should unite us behind a common vision of what's best
for our country.  The old way dispensed services through large, top-
down, inflexible bureaucracies.  The New Covenant way should shift
these resources and decision-making from bureaucrats to citizens,
injecting choice and competition and individual responsibility into
national policy.  (Applause.)

         The old way of governing around here actually seemed to
reward failure.  The New Covenant way should have built-in incentives
to reward success.  The old way was centralized here in Washington.
The New Covenant way must take hold in the communities all across
America.  And we should help them to do that.  (Applause.)

         Our job here is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy;
to empower people to make the most of their own lives; and to enhance
our security here at home and abroad.  We must not ask government to
do what we should do for ourselves.  We should rely on government as
a partner to help us to do more for ourselves and for each other.
(Applause.)

         I hope very much that as we debate these specific and
exciting matters, we can go beyond the sterile discussion between the
illusion that there is somehow a program for every problem on the one
hand, and the other illusion that the government is a source of every
problem we have.  Our job is to get rid of yesterday's government so
that our own people can meet today's and tomorrow's needs.  And we
ought to do it together.  (Applause.)

         You know, for years before I became president, I heard
others say they would cut government and how bad it was.  But not
much happened.  We actually did it.  We cut over a quarter of a
trillion dollars in spending, more than 300 domestic programs, more
than 100,000 positions from the federal bureaucracy in the last two
years alone.  Based on decisions already made, we will have cut a
total of more than a quarter of a million positions from the federal
government, making it the smallest it has been since John Kennedy was
president, by the time I come here again next year.  (Applause.)

         Under the leadership of Vice President Gore, our
initiatives have already saved taxpayers $63 billion.  The age of the
$500 hammer and the ashtray you can break on David Letterman is gone.
Deadwood programs, like mohair subsidies, are gone.  We've
streamlined the Agriculture Department by reducing it by more than
1,200 offices.  We've slashed the small business loan form from an
inch thick to a single page.  We've thrown away the government's
10,000-page personnel manual.  And the government is working better
in important ways:  FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
has gone from being a disaster to helping people in disasters.
(Applause.)

         You can ask the farmers in the Middle West who fought
the flood there or the people in California who have dealt with
floods and earthquakes and fires, and they'll tell you that.
Government workers, working hand in hand with private business,
rebuilt Southern California's fractured freeways in record time and
under budget.  And because the federal government moved fast, all but
one of the 5,600 schools damaged in the earthquake are back in
business.

         Now, there are a lot of other things that I could talk
about.  I want to just mention one because it will be discussed here
in the next few weeks.  University administrators all over the
country have told me that they are saving weeks and weeks of
bureaucratic time now because of our direct college loan program,
which makes college loans cheaper and more affordable, with better
repayment terms for students, costs the government less, and cuts out
paperwork and bureaucracy for the government and for the
universities.  We shouldn't cap that program.  We should give every
college in America the opportunity to be a part of it.  (Applause.)

         Previous government programs gather dust.  The
reinventing government report is getting results.  And we're not
through.  There's going to be a second round of reinventing
government.  We propose to cut $130 billion in spending by shrinking
departments, extending our freeze on domestic spending, cutting 60
public housing programs down to three, getting rid of over 100
programs we do not need, like the Interstate Commerce Commission and
the Helium Reserve Program.  (Applause.)  And we're working on
getting rid of unnecessary regulations and making them more sensible.
The programs and regulations that have outlived their usefulness
should go.  We have to cut yesterday's government to help solve
tomorrow's problems.  (Applause.)

         And we need to get government closer to the people its
meant to serve.  We need to help move programs down to the point
where states and communities and private citizens in the private
sector can do a better job.  If they can do it, we ought to let them
do it.  We should get out of the way and let them do what they can do
better.  (Applause.)

         Taking power away from federal bureaucracies and giving
it back to communities and individuals is something everyone should
be able to be for.  It's time for Congress to stop passing on to the
state the cost of decisions we make here in Washington.  (Applause.)

         I know there are still serious differences over the
details of the unfunded mandates legislation, but I want to work with
you to make sure we pass a reasonable bill which will protect the
national interests and give justified relief where we need to give
it.  (Applause.)

         For years, Congress concealed in the budget scores of
pet spending projects.  Last year was no different.  There was a $1
million to study stress in plants, and $12 million for a tick removal
program that didn't work.  It's hard to remove ticks; those of us who
have had them know.  (Laughter.)  But, I'll tell you something; if
you'll give me the line-item veto, I'll remove some of that
unnecessary spending.  (Applause.)

         But I think we should all remember, and almost all of us
would agree, that government still has important responsibilities.
Our young people -- we should think of this when we cut -- our young
people hold our future in their hands.  We still owe a debt to our
veterans.  (Applause.)  And our senior citizens have made us what we
are.

         Now, my budget cuts a lot.  But it protects education,
veterans, Social Security and Medicare -- (applause) -- and I hope
you will do the same thing.  (Applause.)  You should, and I hope you
will.  (Applause.)

         And when we give more flexibility to the states, let us
remember that there are certain fundamental national needs that
should be addressed in every state, north and south, east and west --
immunization against childhood disease -- (applause) -- school
lunches in all our schools -- (applause) -- Head Start, medical care
and nutrition for pregnant women and infants -- (applause) -- medical
care and nutrition for pregnant women and infants.  (Applause.)  All
these things -- (applause) -- all these things are in the national
interest.

         I applaud your desire to get rid of costly and
unnecessary regulations.  But when we deregulate, let's remember what
national action in the national interest has given us:  safer foods
for our families, safer toys for our children, safer nursing homes
for our parents, safer cars and highways, and safer workplaces, clean
air and cleaner water.  Do we need common sense and fairness in our
regulations?  You bet we do.  But we can have common sense and still
provide for safe drinking water.  We can have fairness and still
clean up toxic dumps, and we ought to do it.  (Applause.)

         Should we cut the deficit more?  Well, of course, we
should.  Of course, we should.  (Applause.)  But we can bring it down
in a way that still protects our economic recovery and does not
unduly punish people who should not be punished, but instead should
be helped.

         I know many of you in this chamber support the balanced
budget amendment.  (Applause.)  I certainly want to balance the
budget.  Our administration has done more to bring the budget down
and to save money than any in a very, very long time.  (Applause.)
If you believe passing this amendment is the right thing to do, then
you have to be straight with the American people.  They have a right
to know what you're going to cut -- (applause) -- and how it's going
to affect them.  (Applause.)

         We should be doing things in the open around here.  For
example, everybody ought to know if this proposal is going to
endanger Social Security.  (Applause.)  I would oppose that, and I
think most Americans would.

         Nothing is done more to undermine our sense of common
responsibility than our failed welfare system.  This is one of the
problems we have to face here in Washington in our New Covenant.  It
rewards welfare over work.  It undermines family values.  It lets
millions of parents get away without paying their child support.  It
keeps a minority, but a significant minority of the people on welfare
trapped on it for a very long time.

         I worked on this problem for a long time, nearly 15
years now.  As a governor I had the honor of working with the Reagan
administration to write the last welfare reform bill back in 1988.
In the last two years we made a good start in continuing the work of
welfare reform.  Our administration gave two dozen states the right
to slash through federal rules and regulations to reform their own
welfare systems, and to try to promote work and responsibility over
welfare and dependency.

         Last year I introduced the most sweeping welfare reform
plan ever presented by an administration.  We have to make welfare
what it was meant to be -- a second chance, not a way of life.  We
have to help those on welfare move to work as quickly as possible, to
provide child care and teach them skills if that's what they need for
up to two years.  And after that, there ought to be a simple hard
rule:  anyone who can work must go to work.  (Applause.)  If a parent
isn't paying child support, they should be forced to pay.
(Applause.)  We should suspend drivers' licenses, track the across
state lines, make them work off what they owe.  That is what we
should do.  Governments do not raise children, people do.  And the
parents must take responsibility for the children they bring into
this world.  (Applause.)

         I want to work with you, with all of you, to pass
welfare reform.  But our goal must be to liberate people and lift
them up, from dependence to independence, from welfare to work, from
mere childbearing to responsible parenting.  Our goal should not be
to punish them because they happen to be poor.  (Applause.)

         We should -- we should require work and mutual
responsibility.  But we shouldn't cut people off just because they're
poor, they're young, or even because they're unmarried.  We should
promote responsibility by requiring young mothers to live at home
with their parents or in other supervised settings, by requiring them
to finish school.  But we shouldn't put them and their children out
on the street.  (Applause.)

         And I know all the arguments, pro and con, and I have
read and thought about this for a long time.  I still don't think we
can in good conscious punish poor children for the mistakes of their
parents.  (Applause.)  My fellow Americans, every single survey shows
that all the American people care about this without regard to party
or race or region.  So let this be the year we end welfare as we know
it.  But also let this be the year that we are all able to stop using
this issue to divide America.

         No one is more eager to end welfare -- (applause.)  I
may be the only president who has actually had the opportunity to sit
in a welfare office, who's actually spent hours and hours talking to
people on welfare.  And I am telling you, people who are trapped on
it know it doesn't work.  They also want to get off.  So we can
promote together education and work and good parenting.  I have no
problem with punishing bad behavior or the refusal to be a worker or
a student, or a responsible parent.  I just don't want to punish
poverty and past mistakes.  All of us have made our mistakes, and
none of us can change our yesterdays.  But every one of us can change
our tomorrows.  (Applause.)

         And America's best example of that may be Lynn Woolsey,
who worked her way off welfare to become a congresswoman from the
state of California.  (Applause.)

         I know the members of this Congress are concerned about
crime, as are all the citizens of our country.  And I remind you that
last year, we passed a very tough crime bill -- longer sentences,
three strikes and you're out, almost 60 new capital punishment
offenses, more prisons, more prevention, 100,000 more police.  And we
paid for it all by reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy and
giving the money back to local communities to lower the crime rate.

         There may be other things we can do to be tougher on
crime, to be smarter with crime, to help to lower that rate first.
Well, if there are, let's talk about them and let's do them.  But
let's not go back on the things that we did last year that we know
work; that we know work because the local law enforcement officers
tell us that we did the right things, because local community leaders
who have worked for years and years to lower the crime rate tell us
that they work.

         Let's look at the experience of our cities and our rural
areas where the crime rate has gone down and ask the people who did
it how they did it.  And if what we did last year supports the
decline in the crime rate -- and I am convinced that it does -- let
us not go back on it.  Let's stick with it, implement it.  We've got
four more hard years of work to do to do that.  (Applause.)

         I don't want to destroy the good atmosphere in the room
or in the country tonight, but I have to mention one issue that
divided this body greatly last year.  The last Congress also passed
the Brady Bill and, in the crime bill, the ban on 19 assault weapons.
I don't think it's a secret to anybody in this room that several
members of the last Congress who voted for that aren't here tonight
because they voted for it.  (Applause.)  And I know, therefore, that
some of you who are here because they voted for it are under enormous
pressure to repeal it.  I just have to tell you how I feel about it.

         The members of Congress who voted for that bill and I
would never do anything to infringe on the right to keep and bear
arms to hunt and to engage in other appropriate sporting activities.
I've done it since I was a boy, and I'm going to keep right on doing
it until I can't do it anymore.  But a lot of people laid down their
seats in Congress so that police officers and kids wouldn't have to
lay down their lives under a hail of assault weapon attack -- and I
will not let that be repealed.  (Applause.)  I will not let it be
repealed.  (Applause.)

         I'd like to talk about a couple of other issues we have
to deal with.  I want us to cut more spending, but I hope we won't
cut government programs that help to prepare us for the new economy,
promote responsibility and are organized from the grass roots up, not
by federal bureaucracy.  The very best example of this is the
National Service Corps -- AmeriCorps.  (Applause.)

         It passed with strong bipartisan support.  And now there
are 20,000 Americans, more than every served in one year in the Peace
Corps, working all over this country, helping people person to person
in local, grass-roots volunteer groups, solving problems and, in the
process, earning some money for their education.  This is citizenship
at its best.  It's good for the AmeriCorps members, but it's good for
the rest of us, too.  It's the essence of the New Covenant, and we
shouldn't stop it.  (Applause.)

         All Americans, not only in the states most heavily
affected, but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed
by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country.  The
jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal
immigrants.  The public service they use impose burdens on our
taxpayers.  That's why our administration has moved aggressively to
secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border
guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by
cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to
illegal aliens.

         In the budget I will present to you we will try to do
more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for
crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as
recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara
Jordan.

         We are a nation of immigrants.  But we are also a nation
of laws.  It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of
immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we
have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.
(Applause.)

         The most important job of our government in this new era
is to empower the American people to succeed in the global economy.
America has always been a land of opportunity, a land where, if you
work hard, you can get ahead.  We've become a great middle class
country.  Middle class values sustain us.  We must expand that middle
class, and shrink the underclass, even as we do everything we can to
support the millions of Americans who are already successful in the
new economy.

         America is once again the world's strongest economic
power, almost six million new jobs in the last two years, exports
booming, inflation down, high-wage jobs are coming back.  A record
number of American entrepreneurs are living the American Dream.  If
we want it to stay that way, those who work and lift our nation must
have more of its benefits.

         Today, too many of those people are being left out.
They're working harder for less.  They have less security, less
income, less certainty that they can even afford a vacation, much
less college for their kids or retirement for themselves.  We cannot
let this continue.

         If we don't act, our economy will probably keep doing
what it's been doing since about 1978, when the income growth began
to go to those at the very top of our economic scale and the people
in the vast middle got very little growth, and people who worked like
crazy but were on the bottom then fell even further and further
behind in the years afterward -- no matter how hard they worked.

         We've got to have a government that can be a real
partner in making this new economy work for all of our people; a
government that helps each and every one of us to get an education,
and to have the opportunity to renew our skills.  That's why we
worked so hard to increase educational opportunities in the last two
years -- from Head Start to public schools, to apprenticeships for
young people who don't go to college, to making college loans more
available and more affordable.  That's the first thing we have to do.
We've got to do something to empower people to improve their skills.

         The second thing we ought to do is to help people raise
their incomes immediately by lowering their taxes.  (Applause.)  We
took the first step in 1993 with a working family tax cut for 15
million families with incomes under $27,000; a tax cut that this year
will average about $1,000 a family.  And we also gave tax reductions
to most small and new businesses.

         Before we could do more than that, we first had to bring
down the deficit we inherited, and we had to get economic growth up.
Now we've done both.  And now we can cut taxes in a more
comprehensive way.  But tax cuts should reinforce and promote our
first obligation -- to empower our citizens through education and
training to make the most of their own lives.

         The spotlight should shine on those who make the right
choices for themselves, their families and their communities.  I have
proposed the Middle Class Bill of Rights, which should properly be
called the Bill of Rights and Responsibilities because its provisions
only benefit those who are working to educate and raise their
children and to educate themselves.  It will, therefore, give needed
tax relief and raise incomes in both the short run and the long run
in a way that benefits all of us.

         There are four provisions.  First, a tax deduction for
all education and training after high school.  (Applause.)  If you
think about it, we permit businesses to deduct their investment, we
permit individuals to deduct interest on their home mortgages, but
today an education is even more important to the economic well-being
of our whole country than even those things are.  We should do
everything we can to encourage it.  And I hope you will support it.

         Second, we ought to cut taxes, $500 for families with
children under 13.  (Applause.)

         Third, we ought to foster more savings and personal
responsibility by permitting people to establish an Individual
Retirement Account and withdraw from it tax free for the cost of
education, health care, first-time home-buying or the care of a
parent.  (Applause.)

         And fourth, we should pass a G.I. Bill for America's
workers.  We propose to collapse nearly 70 federal programs and not
give the money to the states, but give the money directly to the
American people; offer vouchers to them so that they, if they're laid
off or if they're working for a very low wage, can get a voucher
worth $2,600 a year for up to two years to go to their local
community colleges or wherever else they want to get the skills they
need to improve their lives.  Let's empower people in this way.  Move
it from the government directly to the workers of America.
(Applause.)

         Now, any one of us can call for a tax cut, but I won't
accept one that explodes the deficit or puts our recovery at risk.
We ought to pay for our tax cuts fully and honestly.  (Applause.)

         Just two years ago, it was an open question whether we
would find the strength to cut the deficit.  Thanks to the courage of
the people who were here then, many of whom didn't return, we did cut
the deficit.  We began to do what others said would not be done.  We
cut the deficit by over $600 billion, about $10,000 for every family
in this country.  It's coming down three years in a row for the first
time since Mr. Truman was president, and I don't think anybody in
America wants us to let it explode again.  (Applause.)

         In the budget I will send you, the Middle Class Bill of
Rights is fully paid for by budget cuts in bureaucracy, cuts in
programs, cuts in special interest subsidies.  And the spending cuts
will more than double the tax cuts.  My budget pays for the Middle
Class Bill of Rights without any cuts in Medicare.  And I will oppose
any attempts to pay for tax cuts with Medicare cuts.  That's not the
right thing to do.  (Applause.)

         I know that a lot of you have your own ideas about tax
relief, and some of them I find quite interesting.  I really want to
work with all of you.  My test for our proposals will be:  Will it
create jobs and raise incomes?  Will it strengthen our families and
support our children?  Is it paid for?  Will it build the middle
class and shrink the underclass?  If it does, I'll support it.  But
if it doesn't, I won't.

         The goal of building the middle class and shrinking the
underclass is also why I believe that you should raise the minimum
wage.  (Applause.)  It rewards work.  Two and a half million
Americans -- 2.5 million Americans, often women with children, are
working out there today for $4.25 an hour.  In terms of real buying
power, by next year that minimum wage will be at a 40-year low.
That's not my idea of how the new economy ought to work.

         Now, I've studied the arguments and the evidence for and
against a minimum wage increase.  I believe the weight of the
evidence is that a modest increase does not cost jobs, and may even
lure people back into the job market.  But the most important thing
is, you can't make a living on $4.25 an hour.  (Applause.)
Especially if you have children, even with the working families tax
cut we passed last year.  In the past, the minimum wage has been a
bipartisan issue, and I think it should be again.  So I want to
challenge you to have honest hearings on this; to get together; to
find a way to make the minimum wage a living wage.

         Members of Congress have been here less than a month,
but by the end of the week, 28 days into the new year, every member
of Congress will have earned as much in congressional salary as a
minimum wage worker makes all year long.  (Applause.)

         Everybody else here, including the President, has
something else that too many Americans do without, and that's health
care.  Now, last year, we almost came to blows over health care.  But
we didn't do anything.  And the cold, hard fact is that, since last
year, since I was here, another 1.1 million Americans in working
families have lost their health care.  And the cold, hard fact is
that many millions more, most of them farmers and small
businesspeople and self-employed people, have seen their premiums
skyrocket, their co-pays and deductibles go up.  There's a whole
bunch of people in this country that, in the statistics have health
insurance, but really what they've got is a piece of paper that says
they won't lose their home if they get sick.

         Now, I still believe our country has got to move toward
providing health security for every American family.  (Applause.)
But I know that last year, as the evidence indicates, we bit off more
than we could chew.  So I'm asking you that we work together.  Let's
do it step by step.  Let's do whatever we have to do to get something
done.  Let's at least pass meaningful insurance reform so that no
American risks losing coverage for facing skyrocketing prices.
(Applause.)  That nobody loses their coverage because they face high
prices or unavailable insurance, when they change jobs and lose a
job, or a family member gets sick.

         I want to work together with all of you who have an
interest in this -- with the Democrats who worked on it last time,
with the Republican leaders like Senator Dole who has a longtime
commitment to health care reform and made some constructive proposals
in this area last year.  We ought to make sure that self-employed
people in small businesses can buy insurance at more affordable rates
through voluntary purchasing pools.  We ought to help families
provide long-term care for a sick parent or a disabled child.  We can
work to help workers who lose their jobs at least keep their health
insurance coverage for a year while they look for work.  And we can
find a way -- it may take some time, but we can find a way -- to make
sure that our children have health care. (Applause.)

         You know, I think everybody in this room, without regard
to party, can be proud of the fact that our country was rated as
having the world's most productive economy for the first time in
nearly a decade.  But we can't be proud of the fact that we're the
only wealthy country in the world that has a smaller percentage of
the work force and their children with health insurance today than we
did 10 years ago, the last time we were the most productive economy
in the world.  So let's work together on this.  It is too important
for politics as usual.  (Applause.)

         Much of what the American people are thinking about
tonight is what we've already talked about.  A lot of people think
that the security concerns of America today are entirely internal to
our borders.  They relate to the security of our jobs and our homes,
and our incomes and our children, our streets, our health and
protecting those borders.  Now that the Cold War has passed, it's
tempting to believe that all the security issues, with the possible
exception of trade, reside here at home.  But it's not so.  Our
security still depends upon our continued world leadership for peace
and freedom and democracy.  We still can't be strong at home unless
we're strong abroad.

         The financial crisis in Mexico is a case in point.  I
know it's not popular to say it tonight, but we have to act.  Not for
the Mexican people, but for the sake of the millions of Americans
whose livelihoods are tied to Mexico's well-being.  If we want to
secure American jobs, preserve American exports, safeguard America's
borders, then we must pass the stabilization program and help to put
Mexico back on track.

         Now let me repeat:  it's not a loan, it's not foreign
aid, it's not a bail out.  We will be given a guarantee like co-
signing a note with good collateral that will cover our risks.  This
legislation is the right thing for America.  That's why the
bipartisan leadership has supported it.  And I hope you in Congress
will pass it quickly.  It is in our interest, and we can explain it
to the American people, because we're going to do it in the right
way.  (Applause.)

         You know, tonight, this is the first State of the Union
address ever delivered since the beginning of the Cold War when not a
single Russian missile is pointed at the children of America.
(Applause.)  And along with the Russians, we're on the way to
destroying the missiles and the bombers that carry 9,000 nuclear
warheads.  We've come so far so fast in this post-Cold War world that
it's easy to take the decline of the nuclear threat for granted.  But
it's still there, and we aren't finished yet.

         This year I'll ask the Senate to approve START II, to
eliminate weapons that carry 5,000 more warheads.  The United States
will lead the charge to extend indefinitely the nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty -- (applause); to enact a comprehensive
nuclear test ban -- (applause); and to eliminate chemical weapons.
(applause.)  To stop and roll back North Korea's potentially deadly
nuclear program, we'll continue to implement the agree we have
reached with that nation.  It's smart; it's tough; it's a deal based
on continuing inspection with safeguards for our allies and
ourselves.  (Applause.)

         This year I'll submit to Congress comprehensive
legislation to strengthen our hand in combatting terrorists --whether
they strike at home or abroad.  As the coward's who bombed the World
Trade Center found out, this country will hunt down terrorists and
bring them to justice.  (Applause.)

         Just this week, another horrendous terrorist act in
Israel killed 19 and injured scores more.  On behalf of the American
people and all of you, I send our deepest sympathy to the families of
the victims.  I know that in the face of such evil, it is hard for
the people in the Middle East to go forward.  But the terrorists
represent the past, not the future.  We must and we will pursue a
comprehensive peace between Israel and all her neighbors in the
Middle East.  (Applause.)

         Accordingly, last night I signed an executive order that
will block the assets in the United States of terrorist organizations
that threaten to disrupt the peace process.  It prohibits financial
transactions with these groups.  And tonight I call on our allies and
peace-loving nations throughout the world to join us with renewed
fervor in a global effort to combat terrorism.  We cannot permit the
future to be marred by terror and fear and paralysis.  (Applause.)

         From the day I took the oath of office, I pledged that
our nation would maintain the best-equipped, best-trained and best-
prepared military on Earth.  We have, and they are.  They have
managed the dramatic downsizing of our forces after the Cold War with
remarkable skill and spirit.  But to make sure our military is ready
for action, and to provide the pay and the quality of life the
military and their families deserve, I'm asking the Congress to add
$25 billion in defense spending over the next six years.  (Applause.)

         I have visited many bases at home and around the world,
since I became president.  Tonight, I repeat that request with
renewed conviction.  We ask a very great deal of our Armed Forces.
Now that they are smaller in number, we ask more of them.  They go
out more often to more different places and stay longer.  They are
called to service in many, many ways.  And we must give them and
their families what the times demand and what they have earned.
(Applause.)

         Just think about what our troops have done in the last
year, showing America at its best -- helping to save hundreds of
thousands of people in Rwanda, moving with lightning speech to head
off another threat to Kuwait, giving freedom and democracy back to
the people of Haiti.  (Applause.)

         We have proudly supported peace and prosperity and
freedom from South Africa to Northern Ireland, from Central and
Eastern Europe to Asia, from Latin America to the Middle East.  All
these endeavors are good in those places, but they make our future
more confident and more secure.

         Well, my fellow Americans, that's my agenda for
America's future:  Expanding opportunity, not bureaucracy; enhancing
security at home and abroad; empowering our people to make the most
of their own lives.  It's ambitious and achievable, but it's not
enough.  We even need more than new ideas for changing the world or
equipping Americans to compete in the new economy; more than a
government that's smaller, smarter and wiser; more than all the
changes we can make in government and in the private sector from the
outside in.

         Our fortunes and our posterity also depend upon our
ability to answer some questions from within -- from the values and
voices that speak to our hearts as well as our heads; voices that
tell us we have to do more to accept responsibility for ourselves and
our families, for our communities, and, yes, for our fellow citizens.
We see our families and our communities all over this country coming
apart.  And we feel the common ground shifting from under us.  The
PTA, the town hall meeting, the ball park -- it's hard for a lot of
overworked parents to find the time and space for those things that
strengthen the bonds of trust and cooperation.  Too many of our
children don't even have parents and grandparents who can give them
those experiences that they need to build their own character and
their sense of identity.

         We all know what while we here in this chamber can make
a difference on those things, that the real differences will be made
by our fellow citizens -- where they work and where they live.  And
it will be made almost without regard to party.  When I used to go to
the softball park in Little Rock to watch my daughter's league, and
people would come up to me, fathers and mothers, and talk to me, I
can honestly say I had no idea whether 90 percent of them were
Republicans or Democrats.  When I visited the relief centers after
the floods in California -- Northern California -- last week, a woman
came up to me and did something that very few of you would do -- she
hugged me and said, "Mr. President, I'm a Republican, but I'm glad
you're here."  (Laughter and applause.)

         Now, why?  We can't wait for disasters to act the way we
used to act every day.  Because as we move into this next century,
everybody matters; we don't have a person to waste.  And a lot of
people are losing a lot of chances to do better.  That means that we
need a New Covenant for everybody.

         For our corporate and business leaders, we're going to
work here to keep bringing the deficit down, to expand markets, to
support their success in every possible way.  But they have an
obligation when they're doing well to keep jobs in our communities
and give their workers a fair share of the prosperity they generate.
(Applause.)

         For people in the entertainment industry in this
country, we applaud your creativity and your world-wide success, and
we support your freedom of expression.  But you do have a
responsibility to assess the impact of your work and to understand
the damage that comes from the incessant, repetitive, mindless
violence and irresponsible conduct that permeates our media all the
time.  (Applause.)

         We've got to ask our community leaders and all kinds of
organizations to help us stop our most serious social problem:  the
epidemic of teen pregnancies and births where there is no marriage.
I have sent to Congress a plan to targets schools all over this
country with anti-pregnancy programs that work.  But government can
only do so much.  Tonight, I call on parents and leaders all across
this country to join together in a national campaign against teen
pregnancy to make a difference.  We can do this, and we must.
(Applause.)

         And I would like to say a special word to our religious
leaders.  You know, I'm proud of the fact the United States has more
houses of worship per capita than any country in the world.  These
people who lead our houses of worship can ignite their congregations
to carry their faith into action; can reach out to all of our
children, to all of the people in distress, to those who have been
savaged by the breakdown of all we hold dear.  Because so much of
what we've done must come from the inside out, and our religious
leaders and their congregations can make all the difference.  They
have a role in the New Covenant as well.

         There must be more responsibility for all of our
citizens.  You know, it takes a lot of people to help all the kids in
trouble stay off the streets and in school.  It takes a lot of people
to build the Habitat for Humanity houses that the Speaker celebrates
on his lapel pin.  It takes a lot of people to provide the people
power for all of the civic organizations in this country that made
our communities mean so much to most of us when we were kids.   It
takes every parent to teach the children the difference between right
and wrong and to encourage them to learn and grow; and to say no to
the wrong things, but also to believe that they can be whatever they
want to be.

         I know it's hard when you're working harder for less,
when you're under great stress to do these things.  A lot of our
people don't have the time or the emotional stress they think to do
the work of citizenship.

         Most of us in politics haven't helped very much.  For
years, we've mostly treated citizens like they were consumers or
spectators, sort of political couch potatoes who were supposed to
watch the TV ads, either promise them something for nothing or play
on their fears and frustrations.  And more and more of our citizens
now get most of their information in very negative and aggressive
ways that are hardly conducive to honest and open conversations.  But
the truth is, we have got to stop seeing each other as enemies, just
because we have different views.

         If you go back to the beginning of this country, the
great strength of America, as de Tocqueville pointed out when he came
here a long time ago, has always been our ability to associate with
people who were different from ourselves and to work together to find
common ground.  And in this day, everybody has a responsibility to do
more of that.  We simply cannot wait for a tornado, a fire, or a
flood to behave like Americans ought to behave in dealing with one
another.  (Applause.)

         I want to finish up here by pointing out some folks that
are up with the First Lady that represent what I'm trying to talk
about -- citizens.  I have no idea what their party affiliation is or
who they voted for in the last election.  But they represent what we
ought to be doing.

         Cindy Perry teaches second graders to read in AmeriCorps
in rural Kentucky.  She gains when she gives.  She's a mother of
four.  She says that her service inspired her to get her high school
equivalency last year.  (Applause.)  She was married when she was a
teenager.  Stand up, Cindy.  (Applause.)  She was married when she
was a teenager.  She had four children, but she had time to serve
other people, to get her high school equivalency.  And she's going to
use her AmeriCorps money to go back to college.  (Applause.)

         Stephen Bishop is the police chief of Kansas City.
(Applause.)  He's been a national leader.  (Applause.)  Stand up --
(applause).  He's been a national leader in using more police in
community policing, and he's worked with AmeriCorps to do it.  And
the crime rate in Kansas City has gone down as a result of what he
did.

         Corporal Gregory Depestre went to Haiti as part of his
adopted country's force to help secure democracy in his native land.
(Applause.)  And I might add, we must be the only country in the
world that could have gone to Haiti and taken Haitian-Americans there
who could speak the language and talk to the people.  And he was one
of them, and we're proud of him.  (Applause.)

         The next two folks I've had the honor of meeting and
getting to know a little bit, the Reverend John and the Reverend
Diana Cherry of the AME Zion Church in Temple Hills, Maryland.  I'd
like to ask them to stand.  (Applause.)  I want to tell you about
them.  In the early '80s, they left government service and formed a
church in a small living room in a small house, in the early '80s.
Today that church has 17,000 members.  It is one of the three or four
biggest churches in the entire United States.  It grows by 200 a
month.  They do it together.  And the special focus of their ministry
is keeping families together.  (Applause.)

         Two things they did make a big impression on me.  I
visited their church once, and I learned they were building a new
sanctuary closer to the Washington, D.C., line in a higher crime,
higher drug rate area because they thought it was part of their
ministry to change the lives of the people who needed them.
(Applause.)

         The second thing I want to say is, that once Reverend
Cherry was at a meeting at the White House with some other religious
leaders, and he left early to go back to his church to minister to
150 couples that he had brought back to his church from all over
America to convince them to come back together, to save their
marriages, and to raise their kids.  This is the kind of work that
citizens are doing in America.  We need more of it, and it ought to
be lifted up and supported.  (Applause.)

         The last person I want to introduce is Jack Lucas from
Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  Jack, would you stand up?  (Applause.)
Fifty years ago, in the sands of Iwo Jima, Jack Lucas taught and
learned the lessons of citizenship.  On February the 20th, 1945, he
and three of his buddies encountered the enemy and two grenades at
their feet.  Jack Lucas threw himself on both of them.  In that
moment, he saved the lives of his companions, and miraculously in the
next instant, a medic saved his life.  He gained a foothold for
freedom, and at the age of 17, just a year older than his grandson,
who is up there with him today, and his son, who is a West Point
graduate and a veteran, at 17, Jack Lucas became the youngest Marine
in history and the youngest soldier in this century to win the
Congressional Medal of Honor.  (Applause.)

         All these years later, yesterday, here's what he said
about that day:  "It didn't matter where you were from or who you
were, you relied on one another.  You did it for your country."

         We all gain when we give, and we reap what we sow.
That's at the heart of this New Covenant -- responsibility,
opportunity and citizenship.  More than stale chapters in some remote
civics book; they're still the virtue by which we can fulfill
ourselves and reach our God-given potential and be like them; and
also to fulfill the eternal promise of this country -- the enduring
dream from that first and most sacred covenant.

         I believe every person in this country still believes
that we are created equal, and given by our Creator, the right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  This is a very, very
great country.  And our best days are still to come.

         Thank you, and God bless you all.  (Applause.)

                                 END10:35 P.M. EST