Statement Triage

Though they sat on opposite sides of the aisle, Representatives Walter Capps and Sonny Bono shared a deep love for this House and an unshakable commitment to improving the lives of all our people.

Tonight I think we should begin by sending a message to their families and their friends that we celebrate their lives and give thanks for their service to our nation.

Ladies and gentlemen, the state of our Union is strong.

My fellow Americans, we have found a third way.

You can all be proud of that, because turning a sea of red ink into black is no miracle.

Here's the really good news: If we maintain our resolve, we will produce balanced budgets as far as the eye can see.

We must not go back to unwise spending or untargeted tax cuts that risk reopening the deficit.

My plan to balance the budget next year includes both new investments and new tax cuts targeted to the needs of working families, for education, for child care, for the environment.

What should we do with this projected surplus?

Thank you.

We'll start by conducting nonpartisan forums in every region of the country, and I hope that lawmakers of both parties will participate.

We'll hold a White House conference on Social Security in December.

Thank you.

In an economy that honors opportunity, all Americans must be able to reap the rewards of prosperity.

You did that, and you should be very proud of it.

And my friends, that will change the face and future of America.

Now we must make our public elementary and secondary schools the world's best as well by raising standards, raising expectations, and raising accountability.

Thank you.

We must also demand greater accountability.

Let's say to them: Stop promoting children who don't learn, and we will give you the tools to make sure they do.

I also ask this Congress to support our efforts to enlist colleges and universities to reach out to disadvantaged children, starting in the sixth grade, so that they can get the guidance and hope they need so they can know that they, too, will be able to go on to college.

We must shape this global economy, not shrink from it.

I have listened carefully, and I believe that the opposition is rooted in two fears: first, that our trading partners will have lower environmental and labor standards which will give them an unfair advantage in our market and do their own people no favors, even if there's more business; and, second, that if we have more trade, more of our workers will lose their jobs and have to start over.

I think we should seek to advance worker and environmental standards around the world.

I have made it abundantly clear that it should be a part of our trade agenda.

That's why we must do more, and more quickly, to help workers who lose their jobs for whatever reason.

Now, why should Americans be concerned about this?

So if their currencies lose their value and go down, then the price of their goods will drop, flooding our market and others with much cheaper goods, which makes it a lot tougher for our people to compete.

But when nations are willing to undertake serious economic reform, we should help them do it.

A society rooted in responsibility must first promote the value of work, not welfare.

We can be proud that after decades of finger-pointing and failure, together we ended the old welfare system.

And I'm happy she could join the First Lady tonight.

Elaine, we're very proud of you.

Please stand up.

It won't add a dime to the deficit, but the peace of mind it will provide will be priceless.

Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face: an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns.

I challenge Congress: Let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers, and change the way tobacco companies do business forever.

Child care is the next frontier we must face to enable people to succeed at home and at work.

I think this is such a big issue with me because of my own personal experience.

A society rooted in responsibility must provide safe streets, safe schools, and safe neighborhoods.

We must exercise responsibility not just at home but around the world.

America must stand against the poisoned appeals of extreme nationalism.

We must combat an unholy axis of new threats from terrorists, international criminals, and drug traffickers.

And they will be all the more lethal if weapons of mass destruction fall into their hands.

Next, I will ask Congress to continue its support of our troops and their mission in Bosnia.

They're very proud of what they're doing in Bosnia, and we're all very proud of them.

Thank you very much, Sergeant, for what you represent.

Please stand up.

In Bosnia and around the world, our men and women in uniform always do their mission well.

Our mission must be to keep them well-trained and ready, to improve their quality of life, and to provide the 21st century weapons they need to defeat any enemy.

Thank you.

Together, we must confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them.

Now we must act to prevent the use of disease as a weapon of war and terror.

We must strengthen it with a new international inspection system to detect and deter cheating.

In the months ahead, I will pursue our security strategy with old allies in Asia and Europe and new partners from Africa to India and Pakistan, from South America to China.

And from Belfast to Korea to the Middle East, America will continue to stand with those who stand for peace.

Thank you.

This bill must not now languish in the Senate.

A nation that lives as a community must value all its communities.

Under the continued leadership of the Vice President, we propose to triple the number of empowerment zones to give business incentives to invest in those areas.

We should— —thank you—we should also give poor families more help to move into homes of their own, and we should use tax cuts to spur the construction of more low-income housing.

Let us renew our resolve to make our capital city a great city for all who live and visit here.

Our cities are the vibrant hubs of great metropolitan areas.

Thank you.

And when it comes to global warming, we'll do it again.

Do you believe we can become one nation?

Let us begin by recognizing what we still must overcome.

We must vigorously enforce the laws that make it illegal.

Sixty thousand of our fellow citizens are waiting in line for justice, and we should act now to end their wait.

We, in this chamber and in this government, must do all we can to address the continuing American challenge to build one America.

We must work together, learn together, live together, serve together.

We are many; we must be one.

How will we mark that passage?

We should protect them.

I am proposing a public-private partnership to advance our arts and humanities and to celebrate the millennium by saving American's treasures, great and small.

And while we honor the past, let us imagine the future.

Within a decade, "gene chips" will offer a roadmap for prevention of illnesses throughout a lifetime.

Soon we'll be able to carry all the phone calls on Mother's Day on a single strand of fiber the width of a human hair.

I ask you to support this initiative so ours will be the generation that finally wins the war against cancer and begins a revolution in our fight against all deadly diseases.

As important as all this scientific progress is, we must continue to see that science serves humanity, not the other way around.

We must prevent the misuse of genetic tests to discriminate against any American.

And we must ratify the ethical consensus of the scientific and religious communities and ban the cloning of human beings.

We should enable all the world's people to explore the far reaches of cyberspace.

We must give parents the tools they need to help protect their children from inappropriate material on the Internet, but we also must make sure that we protect the exploding global commercial potential of the Internet.

Even as we explore this inner space in the new millennium, we're going to open new frontiers in outer space.

With its vast expanses, scientists and engineers will actually set sail on an uncharted sea of limitless mystery and unlimited potential.

John, you will carry with you America's hopes.

And on your uniform, once again, you will carry America's flag, marking the unbroken connection between the deeds of America's past and the daring of America's future.

God bless you, and God bless the United States.

In the past few weeks they've both been eulogized.

Because of the hard work and high purpose of the American people, these are good times for America.

Our leadership in the world is unrivaled.

But with barely 700 days left in the 20th century, this is not a time to rest.

It is a time to build, to build the America within reach, an America where everybody has a chance to get ahead with hard work; where every citizen can live in a safe community; where families are strong, schools are good, and all our young people can go on to college; an America where scientists find cures for diseases, from diabetes to Alzheimer's to AIDS; an America where every child can stretch a hand across a keyboard and reach every book ever written, every painting ever painted, every symphony ever composed; where government provides opportunity and citizens honor the responsibility to give something back to their communities; an America which leads the world to new heights of peace and prosperity.

This is the America we have begun to build; this is the America we can leave to our children if we join together to finish the work at hand.

Let us strengthen our nation for the 21st century.

Rarely have Americans lived through so much change in so many ways in so short a time.

Quietly, but with gathering force, the ground has shifted beneath our feet as we have moved into an information age, a global economy, a truly new world.

For five years now, we have met the challenge of these changes, as Americans have at every turning point in our history, by renewing the very idea of America: widening the circle of opportunity, deepening the meaning of our freedom, forging a more perfect Union.

We shaped a new kind of government for the information age.

I thank the Vice President for his leadership and the Congress for its support in building a government that is leaner, more flexible, a catalyst for new ideas, and most of all, a government that gives the American people the tools they need to make the most of their own lives.

We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say government is the enemy and those who say government is the answer.

We have a smaller government, but a stronger nation.

We are moving steadily toward an even stronger America in the 21st century: an economy that offers opportunity, a society rooted in responsibility, and a nation that lives as a community.

First, Americans in this chamber and across our nation have pursued a new strategy for prosperity: fiscal discipline to cut interest rates and spur growth; investments in education and skills, in science and technology and transportation, to prepare our people for the new economy; new markets for American products and American workers.

And if we hold fast to fiscal discipline, we may balance the budget this year—four years ahead of schedule.

But whether the issue is tax cuts or spending, I ask all of you to meet this test: Approve only those priorities that can actually be accomplished without adding a dime to the deficit.

I have a simple four-word answer: Save Social Security first.

Tonight I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the surplus—that's every penny of any surplus—until we have taken all the necessary measures to strengthen the Social Security system for the 21st century.

Let us say to all Americans watching tonight—whether you're 70 or 50, or whether you just started paying into the system—Social Security will be there when you need it.

Let us make this commitment: Social Security first.

Let's do that together.

I also want to say that all the American people who are watching us tonight should be invited to join in this discussion, in facing these issues squarely and forming a true consensus on how we should proceed.

And one year from now I will convene the leaders of Congress to craft historic, bipartisan legislation to achieve a landmark for our generation: a Social Security system that is strong in the 21st century.

Because these times are good, we can afford to take one simple, sensible step to help millions of workers struggling to provide for their families: We should raise the minimum wage.

The information age is, first and foremost, an education age, in which education must start at birth and continue throughout a lifetime.

And because of these actions, I have something to say to every family listening to us tonight: Your children can go on to college.

If you know a child from a poor family, tell her not to give up; she can go on to college.

If you know a young couple struggling with bills, worried they won't be able to send their children to college, tell them not to give up; their children can go on to college.

If you know somebody who's caught in a dead-end job and afraid he can't afford the classes necessary to get better jobs for the rest of his life, tell him not to give up; he can go on to college.

Because of the things that have been done, we can make college as universal in the 21st century as high school is today.

We have opened wide the doors of the world's best system of higher education.

Parents have a right to know whether their children are mastering the basics.

And every parent already knows the key: good teachers and small classes.

Tonight I propose the first ever national effort to reduce class size in the early grades.

My balanced budget will help to hire 100,000 new teachers who've passed a state competency test.

If I've got the math right, more teachers teaching smaller classes requires more classrooms.

So I also propose a school construction tax cut to help communities modernize or build 5,000 schools.

When we promote a child from grade to grade who hasn't mastered the work, we don't do that child any favors.

It is time to end social promotion in America's schools.

I propose to help other communities follow Chicago's lead.

As we enter the 21st century, the global economy requires us to seek opportunity not just at home but in all the markets of the world.

I want to keep them going, because that's the way to keep America growing and to advance a safer, more stable world.

All of you know, whatever your views are, that I think this is a great opportunity for America.

I know there is opposition to more comprehensive trade agreements.

But we cannot influence other countries' decisions if we send them a message that we're backing away from trade with them.

This year I will send legislation to Congress, and ask other nations to join us, to fight the most intolerable labor practice of all: abusive child labor.

We should also offer help and hope to those Americans temporarily left behind by the global marketplace or by the march of technology, which may have nothing to do with trade.

And if my new budget is adopted, we will triple funding.

You know, we help communities in a special way when their military base closes; we ought to help them in the same way if their factory closes.

Again, I ask the Congress to continue its bipartisan work to consolidate the tangle of training programs we have today into one single "GI bill" for workers, a simple skills grant so people can, on their own, move quickly to new jobs, to higher incomes, and brighter futures.

We all know, in every way in life, change is not always easy, but we have to decide whether we're going to try to hold it back and hide from it or reap its benefits.

So this year we will forge new partnerships with Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

And we should pass the new "African Trade Act"; it has bipartisan support.

I will also renew my request for the fast-track negotiating authority necessary to open more new markets, create more new jobs, which every President has had for two decades.

You know, whether we like it or not, in ways that are mostly positive, the world's economies are more and more interconnected and interdependent.

Today, an economic crisis anywhere can affect economies everywhere.

First, these countries are our customers.

If they sink into recession, they won't be able to buy the goods we'd like to sell them.

Second, they're also our competitors.

And finally, they are our strategic partners.

Their stability bolsters our security.

The American economy remains sound and strong, and I want to keep it that way.

But because the turmoil in Asia will have an impact on all the world's economies, including ours, making that negative impact as small as possible is the right thing to do for America and the right thing to do for a safer world.

Our policy is clear: No nation can recover if it does not reform itself.

So I call on Congress to renew America's commitment to the International Monetary Fund.

And I think we should say to all the people we're trying to represent here that preparing for a far-off storm that may reach our shores is far wiser than ignoring the thunder till the clouds are just overhead.

A strong nation rests on the rock of responsibility.

This is a grand achievement, the sum of many acts of individual courage, persistence, and hope.

Elaine Kinslow and all those like her are the real heroes of the welfare revolution.

There are millions like her all across America.

We still have a lot more to do, all of us, to make welfare reform a success—providing child care, helping families move closer to available jobs, challenging more companies to join our welfare-to-work partnership, increasing child support collections from deadbeat parents who have a duty to support their own children.

I also want to thank Congress for restoring some of the benefits to immigrants who are here legally and working hard, and I hope you will finish that job this year.

We have to make it possible for all hard-working families to meet their most important responsibilities.

This year, I challenge Congress to take the next historic steps.

These plans save money, and they can improve care.

But medical decisions ought to be made by medical doctors, not insurance company accountants.

I urge this Congress to reach across the aisle and write into law a consumer bill of rights that says this: You have the right to know all your medical options, not just the cheapest.

You have the right to choose the doctor you want for the care you need.

You have the right to emergency room care, wherever and whenever you need it.

You have the right to keep your medical records confidential.

Traditional care or managed care, every American deserves quality care.

Some are retired; some are laid off; some lose their coverage when their spouses retire.

After a lifetime of work, they are left with nowhere to turn.

So I ask the Congress, let these hard-working Americans buy into the Medicare system.

Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down.

Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to a dollar and a half a pack over the next 10 years, with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children.

Let this Congress be remembered as the Congress that saved their lives.

They face a constant struggle to balance their obligations to be good workers and their even more important obligations to be good parents.

I ask you to extend that law to cover 10 million more workers and to give parents time off when they have to go see their children's teachers or take them to the doctor.

From all corners of America, we heard the same message, without regard to region or income or political affiliation: We've got to raise the quality of child care.

We've got to make it safer.

We've got to make it more affordable.

So here's my plan: Help families to pay for child care for a million more children; scholarships and background checks for child care workers, and a new emphasis on early learning; tax credits for businesses that provide child care for their employees; and a larger child care tax credit for working families.

Now, if you pass my plan, what this means is that a family of four with an income of $35,000 and high child care costs will no longer pay a single penny of Federal income tax.

I have often wondered how my mother, when she was a young widow, would have been able to go away to school and get an education and come back and support me if my grandparents hadn't been able to take care of me.

She and I were really very lucky.

How many other families have never had that same opportunity?

The truth is, we don't know the answer to that question.

But we do know what the answer should be: Not a single American family should ever have to choose between the job they need and the child they love.

We pursued a strategy of more police, tougher punishment, smarter prevention, with crimefighting partnerships with local law enforcement and citizen groups, where the rubber hits the road.

I can report to you tonight that it's working.

We need to finish the job of putting 100,000 more police on our streets.

Again, I ask Congress to pass a juvenile crime bill that provides more prosecutors and probation officers, to crack down on gangs and guns and drugs, and bar violent juveniles from buying guns for life.

And I ask you to dramatically expand our support for after-school programs.

We can keep so many of our children out of trouble in the first place if we give them someplace to go other than the streets, and we ought to do it.

Now I ask you to join me in a groundbreaking effort to hire 1,000 new Border Patrol agents and to deploy the most sophisticated available new technologies to help close the door on drugs at our borders.

Police, prosecutors, and prevention programs, as good as they are, they can't work if our court system doesn't work.

I simply ask the United States Senate to heed this plea and vote on the highly qualified judicial nominees before you, up or down.

On the eve of a new century, we have the power and the duty to build a new era of peace and security.

But make no mistake about it, today's possibilities are not tomorrow's guarantees.

These 21st century predators feed on technology and the free flow of information and ideas and people.

To meet these challenges, we are helping to write international rules of the road for the 21st century, protecting those who join the family of nations and isolating those who do not.

Within days, I will ask the Senate for its advice and consent to make Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic the newest members of NATO.

I ask the Senate to say yes to them, our new allies.

By taking in new members and working closely with new partners, including Russia and Ukraine, NATO can help to assure that Europe is a stronghold for peace in the 21st century.

The shops are filled with food; the cafes were alive with conversation.

The progress there is unmistakable, but it is not yet irreversible.

To take firm root, Bosnia's fragile peace still needs the support of American and allied troops when the current NATO mission ends in June.

I think Senator Dole actually said it best.

He said, "This is like being ahead in the fourth quarter of a football game.

Now is not the time to walk off the field and forfeit the victory."

I wish all of you could have seen our troops in Tuzla.

I ask Congress to join me in pursuing an ambitious agenda to reduce the serious threat of weapons of mass destruction.

By ending nuclear testing, we can help to prevent the development of new and more dangerous weapons and make it more difficult for non-nuclear states to build them.

And I ask the Senate to approve it this year.

We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again."

The rules are good, but the enforcement is weak.

Finally, it's long past time to make good on our debt to the United Nations.

More and more, we are working with other nations to achieve common goals.

If we want America to lead, we've got to set a good example.

As we see so clearly in Bosnia, allies who share our goals can also share our burdens.

In this new era, our freedom and independence are actually enriched, not weakened, by our increasing interdependence with other nations.

But we have to do our part.

Our Founders set America on a permanent course toward a more perfect Union.

To all of you I say, it is a journey we can only make together, living as one community.

First, we have to continue to reform our government, the instrument of our national community.

Everyone knows elections have become too expensive, fueling a fundraising arms race.

Let's be clear: A vote against McCain-Feingold is a vote for soft money and for the status quo.

I ask you to strengthen our democracy and pass campaign finance reform this year.

At least equally important, we have to address the real reason for the explosion in campaign costs: the high cost of media advertising.

To the folks watching at home, those were the groans of pain in the audience.

I will formally request that the Federal Communications Commission act to provide free or reduced-cost television time for candidates who observe spending limits voluntarily.

The airwaves are a public trust, and broadcasters also have to help us in this effort to strengthen our democracy.

But we can do more.

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

We need some changes there: new citizen advocacy panels, a stronger taxpayer advocate, phone lines open 24 hours a day, relief for innocent taxpayers.

Tonight I ask the Senate: Follow the House; pass the bipartisan package as your first order of business.

I hope to goodness before I finish I can think of something to say "follow the Senate" on, so I'll be out of trouble.

They are still the gateways for new immigrants, from every continent, who come here to work for their own American dreams.

Let's keep our cities going strong into the 21st century; they're a very important part of our future.

Our communities are only as healthy as the air our children breathe, the water they drink, the Earth they will inherit.

Tonight I ask you to join me in launching a new clean water initiative, a far-reaching effort to clean our rivers, our lakes, and our coastal waters for our children.

Our overriding environmental challenge tonight is the worldwide problem of climate change, global warming, the gathering crisis that requires worldwide action.

We have it in our power to act right here, right now.

I propose $6 billion in tax cuts and research and development to encourage innovation, renewable energy, fuel-efficient cars, energy-efficient homes.

Every time we have acted to heal our environment, pessimists have told us it would hurt the economy.

We have always found a way to clean the environment and grow the economy at the same time.

Finally, community means living by the defining American value, the ideal heard 'round the world that we are all created equal.

Throughout our history, we haven't always honored that ideal and we've never fully lived up to it.

Often it's easier to believe that our differences matter more than what we have in common.

It may be easier, but it's wrong.

What we have to do in our day and generation to make sure that America becomes truly one nation—what do we have to do?

We're becoming more and more and more diverse.

The answer cannot be to dwell on our differences but to build on our shared values.

We all cherish family and faith, freedom and responsibility.

We all want our children to grow up in a world where their talents are matched by their opportunities.

Discrimination against any American is un-American.

I ask your help to end the backlog at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

We also should recognize that the greatest progress we can make toward building one America lies in the progress we make for all Americans, without regard to race.

When we open the doors of college to all Americans, when we rid all our streets of crime, when there are jobs available to people from all our neighborhoods, when we make sure all parents have the child care they need, we're helping to build one nation.

But we'll only move forward if all our fellow citizens, including every one of you at home watching tonight, is also committed to this cause.

On the forge of common enterprise, Americans of all backgrounds can hammer out a common identity.

We see it today in the United States military, in the Peace Corps, in AmeriCorps.

Wherever people of all races and backgrounds come together in a shared endeavor and get a fair chance, we do just fine.

With shared values and meaningful opportunities and honest communication and citizen service, we can unite a diverse people in freedom and mutual respect.

In that spirit, let us lift our eyes to the new millennium.

It just happens once every 1,000 years.

Our culture lives in every community, and every community has places of historic value that tell our stories as Americans.

A child born in 1998 may well live to see the 22nd century.

Tonight, as part of our gift to the millennium, I propose a 21st century research fund for path-breaking scientific inquiry, the largest funding increase in history for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Cancer Institute.

We can do the kinds of things that we need to do and still protect our kids.

For one thing, I ask Congress to step up support for building the next-generation Internet.

Throughout all history, humankind has had only one place to call home, our planet, Earth.

Godspeed, John Glenn.

They are America's treasures, and we must also save them for the ages.

I ask all Americans to support our project to restore all our treasures so that the generations of the 21st century can see for themselves the images and the words that are the old and continuing glory of America; an America that has continued to rise through every age, against every challenge, a people of great works and greater possibilities, who have always, always found the wisdom and strength to come together as one nation—to widen the circle of opportunity, to deepen the meaning of our freedom, to form that more perfect Union.

Let that be our gift to the 21st century.