Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30 Issue 4 (Monday, January 31, 1994)

[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 4 (Monday, January 31, 1994)]
[Pages 148-157]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union

January 25, 1994

Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the 103d
Congress, my fellow Americans:
I'm not at all sure what speech is in the TelePrompTer tonight--
[laughter]--but I hope we can talk about the state of the Union.
I ask you to begin by recalling the memory of the giant who presided
over this Chamber with such force and grace. Tip O'Neill liked to call
himself ``a man of the House.'' And he surely was that. But even more,
he was a man of the people, a bricklayer's son who helped to build the
great American middle class. Tip O'Neill never forgot who he was, where
he came from, or who sent him here. Tonight he's smiling down on us for
the first time from the Lord's gallery. But in his honor, may we, too,
always remember who we are, where we come from, and who sent us here. If
we do that we will return over and over again to the principle that if
we simply give ordinary people equal opportunity, quality education, and
a fair shot at the American dream, they will do extraordinary things.
We gather tonight in a world of changes so profound and rapid that
all nations are tested. Our American heritage has always been to master
such change, to use it to expand opportunity at home and our leadership
abroad. But for too long and in too many ways, that heritage was
abandoned, and our country drifted.
For 30 years, family life in America has been breaking down. For 20
years, the wages of working people have been stagnant or declining. For
the 12 years of trickle-down economics, we built a false prosperity on a
hollow base as our national debt quadrupled. From 1989 to 1992, we
experienced the slowest growth in a half century. For too many families,
even when both parents were working, the American dream has been
slipping away.
In 1992, the American people demanded that we change. A year ago I
asked all of you to join me in accepting responsibility for the future
of our country. Well, we did. We replaced drift and deadlock with
renewal and reform. And I want to thank every one of you here who heard
the American people, who broke gridlock, who gave them the most
successful teamwork between a President and a Congress in 30 years.
This Congress produced a budget that cut the deficit by half a
trillion dollars, cut spending, and raised income taxes on only the
wealthiest Americans. This Congress produced tax relief for millions of
low-income workers to reward work over welfare. It produced NAFTA. It
produced the Brady bill, now the Brady law. And thank you, Jim Brady,
for being here, and God bless you, sir.
This Congress produced tax cuts to reduce the taxes of 9 out of 10
small businesses who use the money to invest more and create more jobs.
It produced more research and treatment for AIDS, more childhood
immunizations, more support for women's health research, more affordable
college loans for the middle class, a new national service program for
those who want to give something back to their country and their
communities for higher education, a dramatic increase in high-tech
investments to move us from a defense to a domestic high-tech economy.
This Congress produced a new law, the motor voter bill, to help millions
of people register to vote. It produced family and medical leave. All
passed. All signed into law with not one single veto. These
accomplishments were all commitments I made when I sought this office.
And in fairness, they all had to be passed by you in this Congress. But
I am persuaded that the real credit belongs to the people who sent us
here, who pay our salaries, who hold our feet to the fire.
But what we do here is really beginning to change lives. Let me just
give you one example. I will never forget what the family and medical
leave law meant to just one father I met early one Sunday morning in the

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White House. It was unusual to see a family there touring early Sunday
morning, but he had his wife and his three children there, one of them
in a wheelchair. I came up, and after we had our picture taken and had a
little visit, I was walking off and that man grabbed me by the arm and
he said, ``Mr. President, let me tell you something. My little girl here
is desperately ill. She's probably not going to make it. But because of
the family leave law, I was able to take time off to spend with her, the
most important time I ever spent in my life, without losing my job and
hurting the rest of my family. It means more to me than I will ever be
able to say. Don't you people up here ever think what you do doesn't
make a difference. It does.''
Though we are making a difference, our work has just begun. Many
Americans still haven't felt the impact of what we've done. The recovery
still hasn't touched every community or created enough jobs. Incomes are
still stagnant. There's still too much violence and not enough hope in
too many places. Abroad, the young democracies we are strongly
supporting still face very difficult times and look to us for
leadership. And so tonight, let us resolve to continue the journey of
renewal, to create more and better jobs, to guarantee health security
for all, to reward work over welfare, to promote democracy abroad, and
to begin to reclaim our streets from violent crime and drugs and gangs,
to renew our own American community.
Last year we began to put our house in order by tackling the budget
deficit that was driving us toward bankruptcy. We cut $255 billion in
spending, including entitlements, and over 340 separate budget items. We
froze domestic spending and used honest budget numbers.
Led by the Vice President, we launched a campaign to reinvent
Government. We cut staff, cut perks, even trimmed the fleet of Federal
limousines. After years of leaders whose rhetoric attacked bureaucracy
but whose action expanded it, we will actually reduce it by 252,000
people over the next 5 years. By the time we have finished, the Federal
bureaucracy will be at its lowest point in 30 years.
Because the deficit was so large and because they benefited from tax
cuts in the 1980's, we did ask the wealthiest Americans to pay more to
reduce the deficit. So on April the 15th, the American people will
discover the truth about what we did last year on taxes. Only the top
1--[applause]--yes, listen, the top 1.2 percent of Americans, as I said
all along, will pay higher income tax rates. Let me repeat: Only the
wealthiest 1.2 percent of Americans will face higher income tax rates,
and no one else will. And that is the truth.
Of course, there were, as there always are in politics, naysayers
who said this plan wouldn't work. But they were wrong. When I became
President, the experts predicted that next year's deficit would be $300
billion. But because we acted, those same people now say the deficit is
going to be under $180 billion, 40 percent lower than was previously
predicted.
Our economic program has helped to produce the lowest core inflation
rate and the lowest interest rates in 20 years. And because those
interest rates are down, business investment and equipment is growing at
7 times the rate of the previous 4 years. Auto sales are way up. Home
sales are at a record high. Millions of Americans have refinanced their
homes, and our economy has produced 1.6 million private sector jobs in
1993, more than were created in the previous 4 years combined.
The people who supported this economic plan should be proud of its
early results. Proud. But everyone in this Chamber should know and
acknowledge that there is more to do.
Next month I will send you one of the toughest budgets ever
presented to Congress. It will cut spending in more than 300 programs,
eliminate 100 domestic programs, and reform the ways in which
governments buy goods and services. This year we must again make the
hard choices to live within the hard spending ceilings we have set. We
must do it. We have proved we can bring the deficit down without choking
off recovery, without punishing seniors or the middle class, and without
putting our national security at risk. If you will stick with this plan,
we will post 3 consecutive years of declining deficits for the first
time since Harry Truman

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lived in the White House. And once again, the buck stops here.
Our economic plan also bolsters our strength and our credibility
around the world. Once we reduced the deficit and put the steel back
into our competitive edge, the world echoed with the sound of falling
trade barriers. In one year, with NAFTA, with GATT, with our efforts in
Asia and the National Export Strategy, we did more to open world markets
to American products than at any time in the last two generations. That
means more jobs and rising living standards for the American people, low
deficits, low inflation, low interest rates, low trade barriers, and
high investments. These are the building blocks of our recovery. But if
we want to take full advantage of the opportunities before us in the
global economy, you all know we must do more.
As we reduce defense spending, I ask Congress to invest more in the
technologies of tomorrow. Defense conversion will keep us strong
militarily and create jobs for our people here at home. As we protect
our environment, we must invest in the environmental technologies of the
future which will create jobs. This year we will fight for a revitalized
Clean Water Act and a Safe Drinking Water Act and a reformed Superfund
program. And the Vice President is right, we must also work with the
private sector to connect every classroom, every clinic, every library,
every hospital in America into a national information super highway by
the year 2000.
Think of it, instant access to information will increase
productivity, will help to educate our children. It will provide better
medical care. It will create jobs. And I call on the Congress to pass
legislation to establish that information super highway this year.
As we expand opportunity and create jobs, no one can be left out. We
must continue to enforce fair lending and fair housing and all civil
rights laws, because America will never be complete in its renewal until
everyone shares in its bounty.
But we all know, too, we can do all these things, put our economic
house in order, expand world trade, target the jobs of the future,
guarantee equal opportunity, but if we're honest, we'll all admit that
this strategy still cannot work unless we also give our people the
education, training, and skills they need to seize the opportunities of
tomorrow.
We must set tough, world-class academic and occupational standards
for all our children and give our teachers and students the tools they
need to meet them. Our Goals 2000 proposal will empower individual
school districts to experiment with ideas like chartering their schools
to be run by private corporations or having more public school choice,
to do whatever they wish to do as long as we measure every school by one
high standard: Are our children learning what they need to know to
compete and win in the global economy? Goals 2000 links world-class
standards to grassroots reforms. And I hope Congress will pass it
without delay.
Our school to work initiative will for the first time link school to
the world of work, providing at least one year of apprenticeship beyond
high school. After all, most of the people we're counting on to build
our economic future won't graduate from college. It's time to stop
ignoring them and start empowering them.
We must literally transform our outdated unemployment system into a
new reemployment system. The old unemployment system just sort of kept
you going while you waited for your old job to come back. We've got to
have a new system to move people into new and better jobs, because most
of those old jobs just don't come back. And we know that the only way to
have real job security in the future, to get a good job with a growing
income, is to have real skills and the ability to learn new ones. So
we've got to streamline today's patchwork of training programs and make
them a source of new skills for our people who lose their jobs.
Reemployment, not unemployment, must become the centerpiece of our
economic renewal. I urge you to pass it in this session of Congress.
And just as we must transform our unemployment system, so must we
also revolutionize our welfare system. It doesn't work. It defies our
values as a Nation. If we value work, we can't justify a system that
makes welfare more attractive than work if people are worried about
losing their health care. If we value responsibility, we can't ignore
the $34 billion in child support absent parents ought to be paying to
millions of parents who

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are taking care of their children. If we value strong families, we can't
perpetuate a system that actually penalizes those who stay together. Can
you believe that a child who has a child gets more money from the
Government for leaving home than for staying home with a parent or a
grandparent? That's not just bad policy, it's wrong. And we ought to
change it.
I worked on this problem for years before I became President, with
other Governors and with Members of Congress of both parties and with
the previous administration of another party. I worked on it with people
who were on welfare, lots of them. And I want to say something to
everybody here who cares about this issue. The people who most want to
change this system are the people who are dependent on it. They want to
get off welfare. They want to go back to work. They want to do right by
their kids.
I once had a hearing when I was a Governor, and I brought in people
on welfare from all over America who had found their way to work. The
woman from my State who testified was asked this question: What's the
best thing about being off welfare and in a job? And without blinking an
eye, she looked at 40 Governors, and she said, ``When my boy goes to
school and they say what does you mother do for a living, he can give an
answer.'' These people want a better system, and we ought to give it to
them.
Last year we began this. We gave the States more power to innovate
because we know that a lot of great ideas come from outside Washington,
and many States are already using it. Then this Congress took a dramatic
step. Instead of taxing people with modest incomes into poverty, we
helped them to work their way out of poverty by dramatically increasing
the earned-income tax credit. It will lift 15 million working families
out of poverty, rewarding work over welfare, making it possible for
people to be successful workers and successful parents. Now that's real
welfare reform.
But there is more to be done. This spring I will send you a
comprehensive welfare reform bill that builds on the Family Support Act
of 1988 and restores the basic values of work and responsibility. We'll
say to teenagers, ``If you have a child out of wedlock, we will no
longer give you a check to set up a separate household. We want families
to stay together;'' say to absent parents who aren't paying their child
support, ``If you're not providing for your children, we'll garnish your
wages, suspend your license, track you across State lines, and if
necessary, make some of you work off what you owe.'' People who bring
children into this world cannot and must not walk away from them. But to
all those who depend on welfare, we should offer ultimately a simple
compact. We'll provide the support, the job training, the child care you
need for up to 2 years. But after that, anyone who can work, must, in
the private sector wherever possible, in community service, if
necessary. That's the only way we'll ever make welfare what it ought to
be, a second chance, not a way of life.
I know it will be difficult to tackle welfare reform in 1994 at the
same time we tackle health care. But let me point out, I think it is
inevitable and imperative. It is estimated that one million people are
on welfare today because it's the only way they can get health care
coverage for their children. Those who choose to leave welfare for jobs
without health benefits, and many entry-level jobs don't have health
benefits, find themselves in the incredible position of paying taxes
that help to pay for health care coverage for those who made the other
choice to stay on welfare. No wonder people leave work and go back to
welfare to get health care coverage. We've got to solve the health care
problem to have real welfare reform.
So this year, we will make history by reforming the health care
system. And I would say to you, all of you, my fellow public servants,
this is another issue where the people are way ahead of the politicians.
That may not be popular with either party, but it happens to be the
truth.
You know, the First Lady has received now almost a million letters
from people all across America and from all walks of life. I'd like to
share just one of them with you. Richard Anderson of Reno, Nevada, lost
his job and with it, his health insurance. Two weeks later his wife,
Judy, suffered a cerebral aneurysm. He rushed her to the hospital, where
she stayed in intensive care for 21 days. The Andersons' bills were over
$120,000. Although

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Judy recovered and Richard went back to work at $8 an hour, the bills
were too much for them, and they were literally forced into bankruptcy.
``Mrs. Clinton,'' he wrote to Hillary, ``no one in the United States of
America should have to lose everything they've worked for all their
lives because they were unfortunate enough to become ill.'' It was to
help the Richard and Judy Andersons of America that the First Lady and
so many others have worked so hard and so long on this health care
reform issue. We owe them our thanks and our action.
I know there are people here who say there's no health care crisis.
Tell it to Richard and Judy Anderson. Tell it to the 58 million
Americans who have no coverage at all for some time each year. Tell it
to the 81 million Americans with those preexisting conditions. Those
folks are paying more, or they can't get insurance at all. Or they can't
ever change their jobs because they or someone in their family has one
of those preexisting conditions. Tell it to the small businesses
burdened by the skyrocketing cost of insurance. Most small businesses
cover their employees, and they pay on average 35 percent more in
premiums than big businesses or Government. Or tell it to the 76 percent
of insured Americans, three out of four whose policies have lifetime
limits. And that means they can find themselves without any coverage at
all just when they need it the most. So if any of you believe there's no
crisis, you tell it to those people, because I can't.
There are some people who literally do not understand the impact of
this problem on people's lives. And all you have to do is go out and
listen to them. Just go talk to them anywhere in any congressional
district in this country. They're Republicans and Democrats and
independents; it doesn't have a lick to do with party. They think we
don't get it. And it's time we show them that we do get it.
From the day we began, our health care initiative has been designed
to strengthen what is good about our health care system: the world's
best health care professionals, cutting-edge research and wonderful
research institutions, Medicare for older Americans. None of this, none
of it should be put at risk.
But we're paying more and more money for less and less care. Every
year fewer and fewer Americans even get to choose their doctors. Every
year doctors and nurses spend more time on paperwork and less time with
patients because of the absolute bureaucratic nightmare the present
system has become. This system is riddled with inefficiency, with abuse,
with fraud, and everybody knows it. In today's health care system,
insurance companies call the shots. They pick whom they cover and how
they cover them. They can cut off your benefits when you need your
coverage the most. They are in charge.
What does it mean? It means every night millions of well-insured
Americans go to bed just an illness, an accident, or a pink slip away
from having no coverage or financial ruin. It means every morning
millions of Americans go to work without any health insurance at all,
something the workers in no other advanced country in the world do. It
means that every year, more and more hard-working people are told to
pick a new doctor because their boss has had to pick a new plan. And
countless others turn down better jobs because they know if they take
the better job, they will lose their health insurance. If we just let
the health care system continue to drift, our country will have people
with less care, fewer choices, and higher bills.
Now, our approach protects the quality of care and people's choices.
It builds on what works today in the private sector, to expand employer-
based coverage, to guarantee private insurance for every American. And I
might say, employer-based private insurance for every American was
proposed 20 years ago by President Richard Nixon to the United States
Congress. It was a good idea then, and it's a better idea today.
Why do we want guaranteed private insurance? Because right now 9 out
of 10 people who have insurance get it through their employers. And that
should continue. And if your employer is providing good benefits at
reasonable prices, that should continue, too. That ought to make the
Congress and the President feel better.
Our goal is health insurance everybody can depend on: comprehensive
benefits that cover preventive care and prescription drugs; health
premiums that don't just explode

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when you get sick or you get older; the power, no matter how small your
business is, to choose dependable insurance at the same competitive
rates governments and big business get today; one simple form for people
who are sick; and most of all, the freedom to choose a plan and the
right to choose your own doctor.
Our approach protects older Americans. Every plan before the
Congress proposes to slow the growth of Medicare. The difference is
this: We believe those savings should be used to improve health care for
senior citizens. Medicare must be protected, and it should cover
prescription drugs, and we should take the first steps in covering long-
term care. To those who would cut Medicare without protecting seniors, I
say the solution to today's squeeze on middle-class working people's
health care is not to put the squeeze on middle-class retired people's
health care. We can do better than that.
When it's all said and done, it's pretty simple to me. Insurance
ought to mean what it used to mean: You pay a fair price for security,
and when you get sick, health care's always there, no matter what.
Along with the guarantee of health security, we all have to admit,
too, there must be more responsibility on the part of all of us in how
we use this system. People have to take their kids to get immunized. We
should all take advantage of preventive care. We must all work together
to stop the violence that explodes our emergency rooms. We have to
practice better health habits, and we can't abuse the system. And those
who don't have insurance under our approach will get coverage, but
they'll have to pay something for it, too. The minority of businesses
that provide no insurance at all and in so doing shift the cost of the
care of their employees to others, should contribute something. People
who smoke should pay more for a pack of cigarettes. Everybody can
contribute something if we want to solve the health care crisis. There
can't be any more something for nothing. It will not be easy but it can
be done.
Now, in the coming months I hope very much to work with both
Democrats and Republicans to reform a health care system by using the
market to bring down costs and to achieve lasting health security. But
if you look at history we see that for 60 years this country has tried
to reform health care. President Roosevelt tried. President Truman
tried. President Nixon tried. President Carter tried. Every time the
special interests were powerful enough to defeat them. But not this
time.
I know that facing up to these interests will require courage. It
will raise critical questions about the way we finance our campaigns and
how lobbyists yield their influence. The work of change, frankly, will
never get any easier until we limit the influence of well-financed
interests who profit from this current system. So I also must now call
on you to finish the job both Houses began last year by passing tough
and meaningful campaign finance reform and lobby reform legislation this
year.
You know, my fellow Americans, this is really a test for all of us.
The American people provide those of us in Government service with
terrific health care benefits at reasonable costs. We have health care
that's always there. I think we need to give every hard-working, tax-
paying American the same health care security they have already given to
us.
I want to make this very clear. I am open, as I have said
repeatedly, to the best ideas of concerned Members of both parties. I
have no special brief for any specific approach, even in our own bill,
except this: If you send me legislation that does not guarantee every
American private health insurance that can never be taken away, you will
force me to take this pen, veto the legislation, and we'll come right
back here and start all over again.
But I don't think that's going to happen. I think we're ready to act
now. I believe that you're ready to act now. And if you're ready to
guarantee every American the same health care that you have, health care
that can never be taken away, now, not next year or the year after, now
is the time to stand with the people who sent us here. Now.
As we take these steps together to renew our strength at home, we
cannot turn away from our obligation to renew our leadership abroad.
This is a promising moment. Because of the agreements we have reached
this year,

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last year, Russia's strategic nuclear missiles soon will no longer be
pointed at the United States, nor will we point ours at them. Instead of
building weapons in space, Russian scientists will help us to build the
international space station.
Of course, there are still dangers in the world: rampant arms
proliferation, bitter regional conflicts, ethnic and nationalist
tensions in many new democracies, severe environmental degradation the
world over, and fanatics who seek to cripple the world's cities with
terror. As the world's greatest power, we must, therefore, maintain our
defenses and our responsibilities.
This year, we secured indictments against terrorists and sanctions
against those who harbor them. We worked to promote environmentally
sustainable economic growth. We achieved agreements with Ukraine, with
Belarus, with Kazahkstan to eliminate completely their nuclear arsenal.
We are working to achieve a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. We
will seek early ratification of a treaty to ban chemical weapons
worldwide. And earlier today, we joined with over 30 nations to begin
negotiations on a comprehensive ban to stop all nuclear testing.
But nothing, nothing is more important to our security than our
Nation's Armed Forces. We honor their contributions, including those who
are carrying out the longest humanitarian air lift in history in Bosnia,
those who will complete their mission in Somalia this year and their
brave comrades who gave their lives there. Our forces are the finest
military our Nation has ever had. And I have pledged that as long as I
am President, they will remain the best equipped, the best trained, and
the best prepared fighting force on the face of the Earth.
Last year I proposed a defense plan that maintains our post-cold-war
security at a lower cost. This year many people urged me to cut our
defense spending further to pay for other Government programs. I said,
no. The budget I send to Congress draws the line against further defense
cuts. It protects the readiness and quality of our forces. Ultimately,
the best strategy is to do that. We must not cut defense further. I hope
the Congress, without regard to party, will support that position.
Ultimately, the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a
durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere.
Democracies don't attack each other, they make better trading partners
and partners in diplomacy. That is why we have supported, you and I, the
democratic reformers in Russia and in the other states of the former
Soviet bloc. I applaud the bipartisan support this Congress provided
last year for our initiatives to help Russia, Ukraine, and the other
states through their epic transformations.
Our support of reform must combine patience for the enormity of the
task and vigilance for our fundamental interest and values. We will
continue to urge Russia and the other states to press ahead with
economic reforms. And we will seek to cooperate with Russia to solve
regional problems, while insisting that if Russian troops operate in
neighboring states, they do so only when those states agree to their
presence and in strict accord with international standards.
But we must also remember as these nations chart their own futures--
and they must chart their own futures--how much more secure and more
prosperous our own people will be if democratic and market reforms
succeed all across the former Communist bloc. Our policy has been to
support that move, and that has been the policy of the Congress. We
should continue it.
That is why I went to Europe earlier this month, to work with our
European partners, to help to integrate all the former Communist
countries into a Europe that has a possibility of becoming unified for
the first time in its entire history, its entire history, based on the
simple commitments of all nations in Europe to democracy, to free
markets, and to respect for existing borders.
With our allies we have created a Partnership For Peace that invites
states from the former Soviet bloc and other non-NATO members to work
with NATO in military cooperation. When I met with Central Europe's
leaders, including Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, men who put their lives
on the line for freedom, I told them that the security of their region
is important to our country's security.
This year we must also do more to support democratic renewal and
human rights and

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sustainable development all around the world. We will ask Congress to
ratify the new GATT accord. We will continue standing by South Africa as
it works its way through its bold and hopeful and difficult transition
to democracy. We will convene a summit of the Western Hemisphere's
democratic leaders from Canada to the tip of South America. And we will
continue to press for the restoration of true democracy in Haiti. And as
we build a more constructive relationship with China, we must continue
to insist on clear signs of improvement in that nation's human rights
record.
We will also work for new progress toward the Middle East peace.
Last year the world watched Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat at the White
House when they had their historic handshake of reconciliation. But
there is a long, hard road ahead. And on that road I am determined that
I and our administration will do all we can to achieve a comprehensive
and lasting peace for all the peoples of the region.
Now, there are some in our country who argue that with the cold war,
America should turn its back on the rest of the world. Many around the
world were afraid we would do just that. But I took this office on a
pledge that had no partisan tinge, to keep our Nation secure by
remaining engaged in the rest of the world. And this year, because of
our work together, enacting NAFTA, keeping our military strong and
prepared, supporting democracy abroad, we have reaffirmed America's
leadership, America's engagement. And as a result, the American people
are more secure than they were before.
But while Americans are more secure from threats abroad, I think we
all know that in many ways we are less secure from threats here at home.
Every day the national peace is shattered by crime. In Petaluma,
California, an innocent slumber party gives way to agonizing tragedy for
the family of Polly Klaas. An ordinary train ride on Long Island ends in
a hail of 9-millimeter rounds. A tourist in Florida is nearly burned
alive by bigots simply because he is black. Right here in our Nation's
Capital, a brave young man named Jason White, a policeman, the son and
grandson of policemen, is ruthlessly gunned down. Violent crime and the
fear it provokes are crippling our society, limiting personal freedom,
and fraying the ties that bind us.
The crime bill before Congress gives you a chance to do something
about it, a chance to be tough and smart. What does that mean? Let me
begin by saying I care a lot about this issue. Many years ago, when I
started out in public life, I was the attorney general of my State. I
served as a Governor for a dozen years. I know what it's like to sign
laws increasing penalties, to build more prison cells, to carry out the
death penalty. I understand this issue. And it is not a simple thing.
First, we must recognize that most violent crimes are committed by a
small percentage of criminals who too often break the laws even when
they are on parole. Now those who commit crimes should be punished. And
those who commit repeated, violent crimes should be told, ``When you
commit a third violent crime, you will be put away, and put away for
good. Three strikes, and you are out.''
Second, we must take serious steps to reduce violence and prevent
crime, beginning with more police officers and more community policing.
We know right now that police who work the streets, know the folks, have
the respect of the neighborhood kids, focus on high crime areas, we know
that they are more likely to prevent crime as well as catch criminals.
Look at the experience of Houston, where the crime rate dropped 17
percent in one year when that approach was taken.
Here tonight is one of those community policemen, a brave, young
detective, Kevin Jett, whose beat is eight square blocks in one of the
toughest neighborhoods in New York. Every day he restores some sanity
and safety and a sense of values and connections to the people whose
lives he protects. I'd like to ask him to stand up and be recognized
tonight. Thank you, sir. [Applause]
You will be given a chance to give the children of this country, the
law-abiding working people of this country--and don't forget, in the
toughest neighborhoods in this country, in the highest crime
neighborhoods in this country, the vast majority of people get up every
day and obey the law, pay their taxes, do their best to raise their
kids. They deserve people like Kevin Jett. And you're going to

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be given a chance to give the American people another 100,000 of them,
well trained. And I urge you to do it.
You have before you crime legislation which also establishes a
police corps to encourage young people to get an education and pay it
off by serving as police officers; which encourages retiring military
personnel to move into police forces, an inordinate resource for our
country; one which has a safe schools provision which will give our
young people the chance to walk to school in safety and to be in school
in safety instead of dodging bullets. These are important things.
The third thing we have to do is to build on the Brady bill, the
Brady law, to take further steps to keep guns out of the hands of
criminals. I want to say something about this issue. Hunters must always
be free to hunt. Law-abiding adults should always be free to own guns
and protect their homes. I respect that part of our culture; I grew up
in it. But I want to ask the sportsmen and others who lawfully own guns
to join us in this campaign to reduce gun violence. I say to you, I know
you didn't create this problem, but we need your help to solve it. There
is no sporting purpose on Earth that should stop the United States
Congress from banishing assault weapons that out-gun police and cut down
children.
Fourth, we must remember that drugs are a factor in an enormous
percentage of crimes. Recent studies indicate, sadly, that drug use is
on the rise again among our young people. The crime bill contains--all
the crime bills contain--more money for drug treatment for criminal
addicts and boot camps for youthful offenders that include incentives to
get off drugs and to stay off drugs. Our administration's budget, with
all its cuts, contains a large increase in funding for drug treatment
and drug education. You must pass them both. We need them desperately.
My fellow Americans, the problem of violence is an American problem.
It has no partisan or philosophical element. Therefore, I urge you to
find ways as quickly as possible to set aside partisan differences and
pass a strong, smart, tough crime bill. But further, I urge you to
consider this: As you demand tougher penalties for those who choose
violence, let us also remember how we came to this sad point. In our
toughest neighborhoods, on our meanest streets, in our poorest rural
areas, we have seen a stunning and simultaneous breakdown of community,
family, and work, the heart and soul of civilized society. This has
created a vast vacuum which has been filled by violence and drugs and
gangs. So I ask you to remember that even as we say ``no'' to crime, we
must give people, especially our young people, something to say ``yes''
to.
Many of our initiatives, from job training to welfare reform to
health care to national service, will help to rebuild distressed
communities, to strengthen families, to provide work. But more needs to
be done. That's what our community empowerment agenda is all about,
challenging businesses to provide more investment through empowerment
zones, ensuring banks will make loans in the same communities their
deposits come from, passing legislation to unleash the power of capital
through community development banks to create jobs, opportunity, and
hope where they're needed most.
I think you know that to really solve this problem, we'll all have
to put our heads together, leave our ideological armor aside, and find
some new ideas to do even more. And let's be honest, we all know
something else too: Our problems go way beyond the reach of Government.
They're rooted in the loss of values, in the disappearance of work, and
the breakdown of our families and our communities.
My fellow Americans, we can cut the deficit, create jobs, promote
democracy around the world, pass welfare reform and health care, pass
the toughest crime bill in history, but still leave too many of our
people behind. The American people have got to want to change from
within if we're going to bring back work and family and community. We
cannot renew our country when within a decade more than half of the
children will be born into families where there has been no marriage. We
cannot renew this country when 13-year-old boys get semi-automatic
weapons to shoot 9-year-olds for kicks. We can't renew our country when
children are having children, and the fathers walk away as if the kids
don't amount to anything. We can't renew the country when our businesses

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eagerly look for new investments and new customers abroad but ignore
those people right here at home who would give anything to have their
jobs and would gladly buy their products if they had the money to do it.
We can't renew our country unless more of us--I mean, all of us--are
willing to join the churches and the other good citizens, people like
all the ministers I've worked with over the years or the priests and the
nuns I met at Our Lady of Help in east Los Angeles or my good friend
Tony Campollo in Philadelphia, unless we're willing to work with people
like that, people who are saving kids, adopting schools, making streets
safer. All of us can do that. We can't renew our country until we
realize that governments don't raise children, parents do.
Parents who know their children's teachers and turn off the
television and help with the homework and teach their kids right from
wrong, those kinds of parents can make all the difference. I know, I had
one. I'm telling you, we have got to stop pointing our fingers at these
kids who have no future and reach our hands out to them. Our country
needs it, we need it, and they deserve it.
So I say to you tonight, let's give our children a future. Let us
take away their guns and give them books. Let us overcome their despair
and replace it with hope. Let us, by our example, teach them to obey the
law, respect our neighbors, and cherish our values. Let us weave these
sturdy threads into a new American community that can once more stand
strong against the forces of despair and evil because everybody has a
chance to walk into a better tomorrow.
Oh, there will be naysayers who fear that we won't be equal to the
challenges of this time. But they misread our history, our heritage.
Even today's headlines, all those things tell us we can and we will
overcome any challenge.
When the Earth shook and fires raged in California, when I saw the
Mississippi deluge the farmlands of the Midwest in a 500-year flood,
when the century's bitterest cold swept from North Dakota to Newport
News, it seemed as though the world itself was coming apart at the
seams. But the American people, they just came together. They rose to
the occasion, neighbor helping neighbor, strangers risking life and limb
to save total strangers, showing the better angels of our nature.
Let us not reserve the better angels only for natural disasters,
leaving our deepest and most profound problems to petty political
fighting. Let us instead be true to our spirit, facing facts, coming
together, bringing hope, and moving forward.
Tonight, my fellow Americans, we are summoned to answer a question
as old as the Republic itself: What is the state of our Union? It is
growing stronger, but it must be stronger still. With your help, and
God's help, it will be.
Thank you, and God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 9:15 p.m. in the House Chamber of the
Capitol.