PRESIDENT CLINTON'S ADDRESS

January 27, 2000
		In the final State of the Union address of his term, President Bill Clinton discusses his goals for education, health care, the environment and other issues.

Online Newshour Special Report: The 2000 State of the Union Clinton's Address Part 1 Introduction Part 2 Education and Health Care Part 3 Crime and Guns Part 4 Global Economy and Int'l Relations Part 5 Environment and Technology Part 6 The American Community GOP Response Sen. Collins Education and the Economy Sen. Frist Health Care   White House U.S. Senate U.S. House of Representatives	To keep our historic economic expansion going, we need a 21st-century revolution to open new markets, start new businesses and hire new workers right here in America -- in our inner cities, poor rural areas and on Indian reservations. Our nation's prosperity has not yet reached these places. Over the last six months, I have traveled to many of them -- joined by many of you, and many far-sighted business people -- to shine a spotlight on the enormous potential in communities from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta, from Watts to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Everywhere I've gone, I've met talented people eager for opportunity, and able to work. Let's put them to work. For business, it's the smart thing to do. For America, it's the right thing to do. And if we don't do it now, when will we ever get around to it?
	Bringing opportunity to every community
	I ask Congress to give businesses the same incentives to invest in America's new markets that they now have to invest in foreign markets. Tonight, I propose a large New Markets tax credit and other incentives to spur $22 billion in private-sector capital -- to create new businesses and new investments in inner cities and rural areas. Empowerment zones have been creating these opportunities for five years now. We should also increase incentives to invest in them and create more of them. This is not a Democratic or a Republican issue. It is an American issue. Mr. Speaker, it was a powerful moment last November when you joined me and the Rev. Jesse Jackson in your home state of Illinois, and committed to working toward our common goal, by combining the best ideas from both sides of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with you. We must maintain our commitment to community development banks and keep the Community Reinvestment Act strong so all Americans have access to the capital they need to buy homes and build businesses. We need to make special efforts to address the areas with the highest rates of poverty. My budget includes a special $110 million initiative to promote economic development in the Mississippi Delta and $1 billion to increase economic opportunity, health care, education and law enforcement for Native American communities. In this new century, we should honor our historic responsibility to empower the first Americans. I thank leaders and members from both parties who have already expressed an interest in working with us on these efforts. There's another part of our American community in trouble today -- our family farmers. When I signed the farm bill in 1996, I said there was a great danger it would work well in good times but not in bad. Well, droughts, floods and historically low prices have made times very bad for our farmers. We must work together to strengthen the farm safety net, invest in land conservation and create new markets by expanding our program for bio-based fuels and products. Today, opportunity for all requires something new: having access to a computer and knowing how to use it. That means we must close the digital divide between those who have these tools and those who don't. Connecting classrooms and libraries to the Internet is crucial, but it's just a start. My budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach 21st-century skills and creates technology centers in 1,000 communities to serve adults. This spring, I will invite high-tech leaders to join me on another New Markets tour -- to close the digital divide and open opportunity for all our people. I thank the high-tech companies that are already doing so much in this area -- and I hope the new tax incentives I have proposed will encourage others to join us. If we take these steps, we will go a long way toward our goal of bringing opportunity to every community.
	Reaching beyond our borders
	To realize the full possibilities of the new economy, we must reach beyond our own borders, to shape the revolution that is tearing down barriers and building new networks among nations and individuals, economies and cultures: globalization. It is the central reality of our time. Change this profound is both liberating and threatening. But there is no turning back. And our open, creative society stands to benefit more than any other -- if we understand, and act on, the new realities of interdependence. We must be at the center of every vital global network, as a good neighbor and partner. We cannot build our future without helping others to build theirs. First, we must forge a new consensus on trade. Those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade must ensure that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating abusive child labor or a race to the bottom on the environment and worker protection. Still, open markets and rules-based trade are the best engines we know for raising living standards, reducing global poverty and environmental destruction, and assuring the free flow of ideas. There is only one direction for America on trade: We must go forward. And we must make developing economies our partners in prosperity -- which is why I ask Congress to finalize our groundbreaking African and Caribbean basin trade initiatives. Globalization is about more than economics. Our purpose must be to bring the world together around democracy, freedom and peace, and to oppose those who would tear it apart. Here are the fundamental challenges I believe America must meet to shape the 21st century world. First, we must continue to encourage our former adversaries, Russia and China, to emerge as stable, prosperous, democratic nations. Both are being held back from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy of communism, economic turmoil, a cruel and self-defeating war in Chechnya; China by the illusion that it can buy stability at the expense of freedom. But think how much has changed in the past decade: thousands of former Soviet nuclear weapons eliminated, Russian soldiers serving with ours in the Balkans, Russian people electing their leaders for the first time in a thousand years. And in China, an economy more open to the world than ever before. No one can know for sure what direction these great countries will choose. But we must do everything in our power to increase the chance they will choose wisely, to be constructive members of the global community. That is why we must support those Russians struggling for a democratic, prosperous future, continue to reduce both our nuclear arsenals and help Russia safeguard weapons and materials that remain. That is why Congress should support the agreement we negotiated to bring China into the WTO, by passing permanent normal trade relations as soon as possible this year. Our markets are already open to China. This agreement will open China's markets to us. And it will advance the cause of peace in Asia and promote the cause of change in China. A second challenge is to protect our security from conflicts that pose the risk of wider war and threaten our common humanity. America cannot prevent every conflict or stop every outrage. But where our interests are at stake and we can make a difference, we must be peacemakers. We should be proud of America's role in bringing the Middle East closer than ever to a comprehensive peace, building peace in Northern Ireland, working for peace in East Timor and Africa, promoting reconciliation between Greece and Turkey and in Cyprus, working to defuse crises between India and Pakistan, defending human rights and religious freedom. And we should be proud of the men and women of our armed forces and those of our allies who stopped the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo -- enabling a million innocent people to return to their homes. When Slobodan Milosevic unleashed his terror on Kosovo, Capt. John Cherrey was one of the brave airmen who turned the tide. And when another American plane went down over Serbia, he flew into the teeth of enemy air defenses to bring his fellow pilot home. Thanks to our armed forces' skill and bravery, we prevailed without losing a single American in combat. Capt. Cherrey, we honor you, and promise to finish the job you began. A third challenge is to keep the inexorable march of technology from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine our defenses. The same advances that have shrunk cell phones to fit in the palms of our hands can also make weapons of terror easier to conceal and easier to use. We must meet this threat: by making effective agreements to restrain nuclear and missile programs in North Korea, curbing the flow of lethal technology to Iran, preventing Iraq from threatening its neighbors, increasing our preparedness against chemical and biological attack, protecting our vital computer systems from hackers and criminals and developing a system to defend against new missile threats -- while working to preserve our Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. I hope we can have a constructive bipartisan dialogue this year to build a consensus which will lead eventually to the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
	Ensuring stability and security
	A fourth challenge is to ensure that the stability of our planet is not threatened by the huge gulf between rich and poor. We cannot accept a world in which part of humanity lives on the cutting edge of a new economy, while the rest live on the bare edge of survival. We must do our part, with expanded trade, expanded aid and the expansion of freedom. From Nigeria to Indonesia, more people won the right to choose their leaders in 1999 than in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. We must stand by democracies -- like Colombia, fighting narco-traffickers for its people's lives, and our children's lives. I have proposed a strong two-year package to help Colombia win this fight; and I ask for your support. And I will propose tough new legislation to go after what drug barons value most -- their money. In a world where 1.2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, we must do our part in the global endeavor to reduce the debts of the poorest countries so they can invest in education, health and economic growth -- as the pope and other religious leaders have urged. Last year, Congress made a down payment on America's share. And I ask for your continued support. And America must help more nations break the bonds of disease. Last year in Africa, AIDS killed 10 times as many people as war did. My budget invests $150 million more in the fight against this and other infectious killers. Today, I propose a tax credit to speed the development of vaccines for diseases like malaria, TB and AIDS. I ask the private sector and our partners around the world to join us in embracing this cause. Together, we can save millions of lives. Our final challenge is the most important: to pass a national security budget that keeps our military the best trained and best equipped in the world, with heightened readiness and 21st-century weapons, raises salaries for our servicemen and women, protects our veterans, fully funds the diplomacy that keeps our soldiers out of war, and makes good on our commitment to pay our U.N. dues and arrears. I ask you to pass this budget and I thank you for the extraordinary support you have given -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- to our men and women in uniform. I especially want to thank Secretary Cohen for symbolizing our bipartisan commitment to our national security -- and Janet Cohen, I thank you for tirelessly traveling the world to show our support for the troops. If we meet all these challenges, America can lead the world toward peace and freedom in an era of globalization.