Friday, January 28, 2000
Text of State of the Union address
(Part 1 of 5)
Text of President Clinton's prepared remarks for the State of the Union address Thursday night, as provided by the White House:
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 or 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 budget surpluses in 42 years.
Next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy. 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 seven years in a row and 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 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 above 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 We restored the vital center, replacing outdated ideologies with a new vision anchored in basic, enduring values: opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and a community of all Americans.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 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 work and at home — with family leave, which 20 million Americans have 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 also helping them earn their way through college.
In 1992, we had a road map. Today, we have results. More important, America again has the confidence to dream big dreams. But we must not let our renewed confidence grow into complacency. We 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, 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 which takes the long look ahead.”
Tonight let us take our look long ahead — and set great goals for our nation. To 21st century America, let us pledge that: 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 for all Americans. We will make America the safest big country on earth.
We will bring prosperity to every American community. We will reverse the course of climate change and leave a cleaner, safer 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 seven 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. For too long this Congress has been standing still on some of our most pressing national priorities. Let's begin with them.
I ask you again to pass a real patient's bill of rights. Pass common-sense gun-safety legislation. Pass campaign finance reform. Vote on long overdue judicial nominations and other important appointees. And, again, I ask you to raise the minimum wage.
Two years ago, as we reached 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 seven years ago: We are actually paying down the national debt. If we stay on this path, we can pay down the debt entirely in 13 years 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, winning passage in both houses by just one vote. Your former colleague, my first secretary of the treasury, led that effort. He is here tonight. Lloyd Bentsen, you have served America well.
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. I ask you tonight to work with me to make a bipartisan down payment on Social Security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the Social Security trust fund to ensure that it is strong and sound for the next 50 years.
But this is just the start of our journey. Now we must 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 child can learn. Because education is 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 after-school, the best trained teachers in every classroom, and college opportunities for all our children.
For seven years, we have worked hard to improve our schools, with opportunity and responsibility: Investing more, but demanding more in return.
Reading, math, and college entrance scores are up. And some of the most impressive gains are in schools in poor neighborhoods.
All successful schools have followed the same proven formula: Higher standards, more accountability, so all children can 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, the national government invests more than $15 billion in our schools. It's time to support what works and stop supporting what doesn't.
As we demand more than ever from our schools, we should invest more than ever 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 investment in after-school and summer school programs — boosting achievement, and keeping children off the street and out of trouble. If we do, we can give every child in every failing school in America the chance to meet high standards.
Since 1993, we've nearly doubled our investment in Head Start and improved its quality. Tonight, I ask for another $1 billion to Head Start, the largest increase in the program's history. We know that children learn best in smaller classes with good teachers. For two years in a row, Congress has supported my plan to hire 100,000 new, qualified teachers, to lower class sizes in the early grades.
This year, I ask you to make it three 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 there are 1,700. I ask you to help us meet our goal of 3,000 by next year.
We know we must connect all our classrooms to the Internet. We're getting there. In 1994, only three 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 connection to the Internet.
But we can't finish the job when a third of all schools are in serious disrepair, many with walls and wires too old for the Internet. Tonight, I propose to help 5,000 schools a year make immediate, urgent repairs. And again, to help build or modernize 6,000 schools, to get students out of trailers and into high-tech classrooms.
MORE
Text of State of the Union address (Part 1)
Text of State of the Union address (Part 2)
Text of State of the Union address (Part 3)
Text of State of the Union address (Part 4)
Text of State of the Union address (Part 5)
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