The following are excerpts from Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union Speech:

(full version can be read here, here, here, and here)

You can listen to the speech by clicking these links:

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Coverage of the speech at PBS is here.
CNN coverage.

Editor Note:

Bill Clinton had a tendency to be long-winded in his speeches, so I wanted to try to edit down his 2000 address to be more accessible. However, due to the sheer number of proposals in the speech, I find that I can only edit it down so much. (This must be a record for the number of “We will”s, “I ask you”s, and “I propose”s this speech contains). As the Washington Post observed: Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union address marked a return to the activist agenda he outlined in his first speeches to Congress, before the GOP took over Congress in the 1994 elections and the president declared in his 1996 State of the Union that the "era of big government is over."

CNN commented that Clinton was interrupted 128 times for applause during his 89-minute address — his longest yet, beating his 1995 address by eight minutes.

I have taken the liberty of bolding passages I found particularly interesting….

Bill Gordon

***

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 and 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. And next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic
growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy. And 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; adoptions up by 30 percent; welfare rolls cut in half to
their lowest levels in 30 years.

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
outmoded ideologies with a new vision anchored in basic, enduring values:
opportunity for all, responsibility from all, 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 they need 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’ve helped parents to succeed at home and at work, with family leave,
which 20 millions Americans have now used to care for a newborn child or
a sick loved one. We’ve engaged 150,000 young Americans in citizen service
through AmeriCorps, while helping them earn money for college. In 1992,
we just had a road map; today, we have results.

But even more important, America again has the confidence to dream big dreams.
But we must not let this confidence drift into complacency. For we, all
of us, 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 now, as we were in the beginning, a new nation.

To 21st century America, let us pledge these things:

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 assure quality, affordable health care, at last, for all Americans.

…We will pay off our national debt for the first time since 1835.

…We will reverse the course of climate change and leave a safer, cleaner 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.

I ask you to pass a real patients’ bill of rights.

I ask you to pass common-sense gun safety legislation.

I ask you to pass campaign finance reform.

I ask you to vote up or down on judicial nominations and other important appointees.

I ask you — I implore you — to raise the minimum wage.

Now, two years ago — let me try to balance the seesaw here — two years ago,
as we reached across party lines to reach 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. Now, if we stay on this path,
we can pay down the debt entirely in 13 just years now and make America
debt-free for the first time since Andrew Jackson was President in 1835. 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. Tonight, I ask you 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 so that it will be strong and sound for the next 50 years.

…we need a 21st century revolution in education, guided by our faith that every single
child can learn. … That means quality pre-school and after-school,
the best trained teachers in the classroom, and college opportunities
for all our children. For seven years now, we’ve worked hard to improve
our schools, with opportunity and responsibility — investing more, but
demanding more in turn. Reading, math, college entrance scores are up.
Some of the most impressive gains are in schools in very poor neighborhoods.
But all successful schools have followed the same proven formula: higher
standards, more accountability, and extra help so children who need it
can get it to 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, our national government
invests more than $15 billion in our schools. It is time to support what
works and stop supporting what doesn’t.

…Let’s double our investment to help states and districts turn around their
worst-performing schools, or shut them down.

Let’s double our investments in after-school and summer school programs, which
boost achievement and keep people off the streets and out of trouble.

Since 1993, we’ve nearly doubled our investment in Head Start and improved its
quality.

I ask you for another $1 billion for Head Start, the largest increase in
the history of the program.

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 size in the early grades. I thank you
for that, and 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,
thanks to you, there are 1,700.

I ask you now to help us meet our goal of 3,000 charter schools by next
year.

We know we must connect all our classrooms to the Internet, and we’re getting
there. In 1994, only 3 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 Internet connection.

But we cannot finish the job when a third of all our schools are in serious
disrepair. Many of them have walls and wires so old, they’re too old for
the Internet. So tonight, I propose to help 5,000 schools a year make
immediate and urgent repairs; and again, to help build or modernize 6,000
more, to get students out of trailers and into high-tech classrooms. I
ask all of you to help me double our bipartisan Gear-Up program, which
provides mentors for disadvantaged young people. If we double it, we can
provide mentors for 1.4 million of them. Let’s also offer these kids from
disadvantaged backgrounds the same chance to take the same college test-prep
courses wealthier students use to boost their test scores.

To make the American Dream achievable for all, we must make college affordable
for all. For seven years, on a bipartisan basis, we have taken action toward
that goal: larger Pell grants, more affordable student loans, education
IRAs, and our HOPE scholarships, which have already benefitted 5 million
young people.

…I propose a landmark $30-billion college opportunity tax cut — a middle
class tax deduction for up to $10,000 in college tuition costs.

We need a 21st century revolution to reward work and strengthen families,
by giving every parent the tools to succeed at work and at the most important
work of all — raising children. That means making sure every family has
health care and the support to care for aging parents, the tools to bring
their children up right, and that no child grows up in poverty.

From my first days as President, we’ve worked to give families better access
to better health care. In 1997, we passed the Children’s Health Insurance
Program — CHIP — so that workers who don’t have coverage through their
employers at least can get it for their children. So far, we’ve enrolled
2 million children; we’re well on our way to our goal of 5 million. But
there are still more than 40 million of our fellow Americans without health
insurance — more than there were in 1993. Tonight I propose that we
follow Vice President Gore’s suggestion to make low income parents eligible
for the insurance that covers their children.

I want to ask you to let people between the ages of 55 and 65 — the fastest
growing group of uninsured — buy into Medicare. And this year I propose
to give them a tax credit to make that choice an affordable one.

When the baby boomers retire, Medicare will be faced with caring for twice as
many of our citizens; yet, it is far from ready to do so. My generation
must not ask our children’s generation to shoulder our burden. We simply
must act now to strengthen and modernize Medicare. My budget includes a
comprehensive plan to reform Medicare, to make it more efficient and competitive.
And it dedicates nearly $400 billion of our budget surplus to keep Medicare
solvent past 2025.

And, at long last, it also provides funds to give every senior a voluntary choice
of affordable coverage for prescription drugs. Lifesaving drugs are an
indispensable part of modern medicine. No one creating a Medicare program
today would even think of excluding coverage for prescription drugs. Yet
more than three in five of our seniors now lack dependable drug coverage
which can lengthen and enrich their lives. Millions of older Americans
who need prescription drugs the most pay the highest prices for them. In
good conscience, we cannot let another year pass without extending to all
our seniors this lifeline of affordable prescription drugs.

Record numbers of Americans are providing for aging or ailing loved ones at home.
It’s a loving, but a difficult and often very expensive choice. Last year,
I proposed a $1,000 tax credit for long-term care. Frankly, it wasn’t enough.
This year, let’s triple it, to $3,000. But this year, let’s pass it.

We also have to make needed investments to expand access to mental health
care. Taken together, these proposals would mark the largest investment
in health care in the 35 years since Medicare was created — the largest
investment in 35 years.

We must also make investments that reward work and support families. Nothing
does that better than the Earned Income Tax Credit — the EITC.

In my very first address to you, I asked Congress to greatly expand this credit;
and you did. As a result, in 1998 alone, the EITC helped more than 4.3
million Americans work their way out of poverty toward the middle class.
That’s double the number in 1993.

I propose another major expansion of the EITC: to reduce the marriage penalty,
to make sure it rewards marriage as it rewards work and also, to expand
the tax credit for families that have more than two children. It punishes people
with more than two children today. Our proposal would allow families
with three or more children to get up to $1,100 more in tax relief.

Today, the female unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 46 years. Yet,
women still only earn about 75 cents for every dollar men earn. We must
do better, by providing the resources to enforce present equal pay laws;
training more women for high-paying, high-tech jobs; and passing the Paycheck
Fairness Act.

Many working parents spend up to a quarter — a quarter — of their income on
child care. Last year, we helped parents provide child care for about 2
million children. My child care initiative, before you now, along with
funds already secured in welfare reform, would make child care better,
safer and more affordable for another 400,000 children. For hard-pressed
middle-income families, we should also expand the child care tax credit.
And I believe strongly we should take the next big step and make that tax
credit refundable for low-income families. For people making under $30,000
a year, that could mean up to $2,400 for child care costs.

We should do more to help all working families save and accumulate wealth.
That’s the idea behind the Individual Development Accounts, the IDAs. I
ask you to take that idea to a new level, with new Retirement Savings Accounts
that enable every low- and moderate-income family in America to save for
retirement, a first home, a medical emergency, or a college education. I
propose to match their contributions, however small, dollar for dollar,
every year they save. And I propose to give a major new tax credit to any
small business that will provide a meaningful pension to its workers.

Clearly, demanding and supporting responsible fatherhood is critical to lifting
all children out of poverty. We’ve doubled child support collections since
1992. And I’m proposing to you tough new measures to hold still more fathers
responsible.

If we take the steps I’ve just discussed, we can go a long, long way toward
empowering parents to succeed at home and at work, and ensuring that
no child is raised in poverty. We can make these vital investments in
health care, education, support for working families, and still offer
tax cuts to help pay for college, for retirement, to care for aging parents,
to reduce the marriage penalty. We can do these things without forsaking
the path of fiscal discipline that got us to this point here tonight. Indeed, we must make these investments and
these tax cuts in the context of a balanced budget that strengthens and
extends the life of Social Security and Medicare and pays down the national
debt.

Crime in America has dropped for the past seven years — that’s the longest decline
on record — thanks to a national consensus we helped to forge on community
police, sensible gun safety laws, and effective prevention. But nobody
— nobody here, nobody in America — believes we’re safe enough.

So again, I ask you to set a higher goal.

Last fall, Congress supported my plan to hire, in addition to the 100,000 community
police we’ve already funded, 50,000 more, concentrated in high-crime neighborhoods.
I ask your continued support for that.

Soon after the Columbine tragedy, Congress considered common-sense gun legislation,
to require Brady background checks at the gun shows, child safety locks
for new handguns, and a ban on the importation of large-capacity ammunition
clips. With courage and a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President, the
Senate faced down the gun lobby, stood up for the American people, and
passed this legislation. But the House failed to follow suit.

We must strengthen our gun laws and enforce those already on the books better. Federal gun crime
prosecutions are up 16 percent since I took office. But we must do more.

I propose to hire more federal and local gun prosecutors and more ATF agents
to crack down on illegal gun traffickers and bad-apple dealers.

…Every state in this country already requires hunters and automobile drivers to
have a license. I think they ought to do the same thing for handgun purchases.

Now, specifically, I propose a plan to ensure that all new handgun buyers
must first have a photo license from their state showing they passed
the Brady background check and a gun safety course, before they get the
gun.

…the accidental gun death rate of children under 15 in the United States is
nine times higher than in the other 25 industrialized countries combined.
Now, technologies now exist that could lead to guns that can only be fired
by the adults who own them.

I ask Congress to fund research into smart gun technology, to save these children’s
lives.

You know, every parent I know worries about the impact of violence in the media
on their children. I want to begin by thanking the entertainment industry
for accepting my challenge to put voluntary ratings on TV programs and
video and Internet games. But, frankly, the ratings are too numerous, diverse
and confusing to be really useful to parents.

So tonight, I ask the industry to accept the First Lady’s challenge to develop
a single voluntary rating system for all children’s entertainment that
is easier for parents to understand and enforce.

Now, to keep our historic economic expansion going — the subject of a lot of
discussion in this community and others — I believe we need a 21st century
revolution to open new markets, start new businesses, hire new workers
right here in America — in our inner cities, poor rural areas, and Native
American reservations. … I ask Congress to give businesses the same incentives
to invest in America’s new markets they now have to invest in markets overseas.

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
our inner cities and rural areas.

I also ask you to make special efforts to address the areas of our nation
with the highest rates of poverty — our Native American reservations and
the Mississippi Delta. My budget includes $110-million initiative to
promote economic development in the Delta, and a billion dollars to increase
economic opportunity, health care, education and law enforcement for our
Native American communities. In this new century — we should begin
this new century by honoring our historic responsibility to empower the
first Americans.

There’s another part of our American community in trouble tonight — our family
farmers. When I signed the Farm Bill in 1996, I said there was great danger
it would work well in good times, but not in bad. Well, droughts, floods,
and historically low prices have made these times very bad for the farmers.
We must work together to strengthen the farm safety net, invest in land
conservation, and create some new markets for them by expanding our programs
for bio-based fuels and products.

Opportunity for all requires something else today — having access to a computer and
knowing how to use it …My budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach 21st century
skills, and it creates technology centers in 1,000 communities to serve
adults.

To realize the full possibilities of this 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, and economies
and cultures: globalization.

It’s the central reality of our time. Of course, change this profound is both
liberating and threatening to people. But there’s no turning back. And
our open, creative society stands to benefit more than any other — if we
understand, and act on, the realities of interdependence. We have to be
at the center of every vital global network, as a good neighbor and a good
partner. We have to recognize that we cannot build our future without helping
others to build theirs.

…those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade, we have to ensure
that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating
abusive child labor or a race to the bottom in the environment and worker
protection. But others must recognize that open markets and rule-based
trade are the best engines we know of for raising living standards, reducing
global poverty and environmental destruction, and assuring the free flow
of ideas.

We have to make developing economies our partners in prosperity. That’s
why I would like to ask you again to finalize our groundbreaking African
and Caribbean Basin trade initiatives. But globalization is about more
than economics. Our purpose must be to bring together the world around
freedom and democracy 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.

…we must continue to encourage our former adversaries, Russia and China,
to emerge as stable, prosperous, democratic nations. Both are being
held back today from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy
of communism, an economy in 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: 5,000
former Soviet nuclear weapons taken out of commission; Russian soldiers
actually 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.

…we should support those Russians who are struggling for a democratic, prosperous
future; continue to reduce both our nuclear arsenals; and help Russia to
safeguard weapons and materials that remain. …I believe Congress should
support the agreement we negotiated to bring China into the WTO, by passing
Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China as soon as possible this year. I
think you ought to do it for two reasons. First of all, our markets are
already open to China; this agreement will open China’s markets to us.
And, second, it will plainly advance the cause of peace in Asia and promote
the cause of change in China.

We should be proud of our role in bringing the Middle East closer to a lasting
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 these crises between India and Pakistan; in defending
human rights and religious freedom.

…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
people to return to their homes.

A third challenge we have is to keep this inexorable march of technology
from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine
our defenses. Keep in mind, the same technological 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 ABM missile treaty with Russia. I
predict to you, when most of us are long gone, but some time in the next
10 to 20 years, the major security threat this country will face will
come from the enemies of the nation state: the narco-traffickers
and the terrorists and the organized criminals, who will be organized
together, working together, with increasing access to ever-more sophisticated
chemical and biological weapons. I also want to ask you for a constructive
bipartisan dialogue this year to work to build a consensus which I hope
will eventually lead to the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty.

I hope we can also have a constructive effort to meet the challenge that
is presented to our planet 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,
and the rest live on the bare edge of survival.

This is interesting — from Nigeria to Indonesia, more people got the right to
choose their leaders in 1999 than in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. We’ve
got to stand by these democracies — including, and especially tonight,
Colombia, which is fighting narco-traffickers, for its own people’s lives
and our children’s lives. I have proposed a strong two-year package
to help Colombia win this fight.

…I’m going to send you new legislation to go after what these drug barons value
the most — their money.

In a world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day, we
also have got to do our part in the global endeavor to reduce the debts
of the poorest countries, so they can invest in education, health care
and economic growth.

I also want to say that America must help more nations to break the bonds
of disease. Last year in Africa, 10 times as many people died from AIDS
as were killed in wars — 10 times. The budget I give you invests $150 million
more in the fight against this and other infectious killers. And today,
I propose a tax credit to speed the development of vaccines for diseases
like malaria, TB and AIDS.

I also want to mention our final challenge, which, as always, is the most
important. I ask you 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; which raises salaries for our servicemen
and women; which protects our veterans; which fully funds the diplomacy
that keeps our soldiers out of war; which makes good on our commitment
to pay our U.N. dues and arrears.

…one of the things I’m grateful for is the opportunity that the Vice President
and I have had to finally put to rest the bogus idea that you cannot
grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time.

As our economy has grown, we’ve rid more than 500 neighborhoods of toxic waste,
ensured cleaner air and water for millions of people. In the past three
months alone, we’ve helped preserve 40 million acres of roadless lands
in the national forests, created three new national monuments. But as our
communities grow, our commitment to conservation must continue to grow.

Tonight, I propose creating a permanent conservation fund, to restore wildlife,
protect coastlines, save natural treasures, from the California redwoods
to the Florida Everglades. This
Lands Legacy endowment would represent by far the most enduring investment
in land preservation ever proposed in this House.

Last year, the Vice President launched a new effort to make communities more
liberal — livable — liberal, I know. Wait a minute, I’ve got a punchline
now. That’s this year’s agenda; last year was livable, right? That’s what
Senator Lott is going to say in the commentary afterwards. To make our
communities more livable. This is big business. This is a big issue. What
does that mean? You ask anybody that lives in an unlivable community, and
they’ll tell you. They want their kids to grow up next to parks, not parking
lots; the parents don’t have to spend all their time stalled in traffic
when they could be home with their children. Tonight, I ask you to support
new funding for the following things, to make American communities for
liberal — livable. I’ve done pretty well with this speech, but I can’t
say that.

We need more funding for advanced transit systems.

We need more funding for saving open spaces in places of heavy development.

We need more funding for helping major cities around the Great Lakes protect
their waterways and enhance their quality of life.

The greatest environmental challenge of the new century is global warming. The scientists tell
us the 1990s were the hottest decade of the entire millennium. If we
fail to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, deadly heat waves and
droughts will become more frequent, coastal areas will flood, and economies
will be disrupted.

Many people in the United States — some people in this chamber — and lots of
folks around the world still believe you cannot cut greenhouse gas emissions
without slowing economic growth. In the Industrial Age that may well have
been true. But in this digital economy, it is not true anymore.

New technologies make it possible to cut harmful emissions and provide even
more growth.

For example, just last week, automakers unveiled cars that get 70 to 80 miles
a gallon — the fruits of a unique research partnership between government
and industry. And before you know it, efficient production of bio-fuels
will give us the equivalent of hundreds of miles from a gallon of gasoline.

To speed innovation in these kind of technologies, I think we should give
a major tax incentive to business for the production of clean energy,
and to families for buying energy-saving homes and appliances and the
next generation of super-efficient cars when they hit the showroom floor. I also ask the auto
industry to use the available technologies to make all new cars more
fuel-efficient right away.

In the new century, innovations in science and technology will be the key
not only to the health of the environment, but to miraculous improvements
in the quality of our lives and advances in the economy. Later this year, researchers will complete
the first draft of the entire human genome, the very blueprint of life.
It is important for all our fellow Americans to recognize that federal
tax dollars have funded much of this research, and that this and other
wise investments in science are leading to a revolution in our ability
to detect, treat, and prevent disease.

For example, researchers have identified genes that cause Parkinson’s, diabetes,
and certain kinds of cancer — they are designed precision therapies that
will block the harmful effect of these genes for good. Researchers already
are using this new technique to target and destroy cells that cause breast
cancer. Soon, we may be able to use it to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s.
Scientists are also working on an artificial retina to help many blind
people to see — and listen to this — microchips that would actually directly
stimulate damaged spinal cords in a way that could allow people now paralyzed
to stand up and walk.

Information technology only includes 8 percent of our employment, but now it counts
for a third of our economic growth — along with jobs that pay, by the
way, about 80 percent above the private sector average. Again, we ought
to keep in mind, government-funded research brought supercomputers, the
Internet, and communications satellites into being.

Soon researchers will bring us devices that can translate foreign languages
as fast as you can talk; materials 10 times stronger than steel at a fraction
of the weight; and — this is unbelievable to me — molecular computers the
size of a tear drop with the power of today’s fastest supercomputers.

To accelerate the march of discovery across all these disciplines in science
and technology, I ask you to support my recommendation of an unprecedented
$3 billion in the 21st Century Research Fund, the largest increase in
civilian research in a generation.

Now, these new breakthroughs have to be used in ways that reflect our values.
First and foremost, we have to safeguard our citizens’ privacy. Last year,
we proposed to protect every citizen’s medical record. This year, we will
finalize those rules. We’ve also taken the first steps to protect the privacy
of bank and credit card records and other financial statements. Soon I
will send legislation to you to finish that job. We must also act to prevent
any genetic discrimination whatever by employers or insurers.

…No tie binds different people together like citizen service. There’s a new
spirit of service in America — a movement we’ve tried to support with AmeriCorps,
expanded Peace Corps, unprecedented new partnerships with businesses, foundations,
community groups. Partnerships, for example, like the one that enlisted
12,000 companies which have now moved 650,000 of our fellow citizens from
welfare to work. Partnerships to battle drug abuse, AIDS, teach young people
to read, save America’s treasures, strengthen the arts, fight teen pregnancy,
prevent violence among young people, promote racial healing.

But we should do more to help Americans help each other.

First, we should help faith-based organizations to do more to fight poverty and
drug abuse, and help people get back on the right track, with initiatives
like Second Chance Homes that do so much to help unwed teen mothers.

Second, we should support Americans who tithe and contribute to charities, but
don’t earn enough to claim a tax deduction for it. Tonight, I propose new
tax incentives that would allow low- and middle-income citizens who don’t
itemize to get that deduction.

We should do more to help new immigrants to fully participate in our community.
That’s why I recommend spending more to teach them civics and English.

And since everybody in our community counts, we’ve got to make sure everyone
is counted in this year’s census.

Within 10 years there will be no majority race in our largest state of California.
In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in America.
In a more interconnected world, this diversity can be our greatest strength.

Just in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a man dragged to death in Texas
just because he was black. We saw a young man murdered in Wyoming just
because he was gay. Last year, we saw the shootings of African Americans,
Asian Americans, and Jewish children just because of who they were. This
is not the American way, and we must draw the line.

I ask you to draw that line by passing without delay the Hate Crimes Prevention
Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And I ask you to reauthorize
the Violence Against Women Act.

Finally tonight, I propose the largest-ever investment in our civil rights laws
for enforcement,
because no American should be subjected to discrimination in finding
a home, getting a job, going to school, or securing a loan.

This fall, at the White House, Hillary had one of her millennium dinners, and
we had this very distinguished scientist there, who is an expert in this
whole work in the human genome. And he said that we are all, regardless
of race, genetically 99.9 percent the same. Now, you may find that uncomfortable
when you look around here. But it is worth remembering. We can laugh about
this, but you think about it. Modern science has confirmed what ancient
faiths has always taught: the most important fact of life is our common
humanity. Therefore, we should do more than just tolerate our diversity
— we should honor it and celebrate it.

My fellow Americans, every time I prepare for the State of the Union, I approach
it with hope and expectation and excitement for our nation. But tonight
is very special, because we stand on the mountain top of a new millennium.
Behind us we can look back and see the great expanse of American achievement;
and before us we can see even greater, grander frontiers of possibility.
We should, all of us, be filled with gratitude and humility for our present
progress and prosperity. We should be filled with awe and joy at what lies
over the horizon. And we should be filled with absolute determination to
make the most of it.

You know, when the framers finished crafting our Constitution in Philadelphia,
Benjamin Franklin stood in Independence Hall and he reflected on the carving
of the sun that was on the back of a chair he saw. The sun was low on the
horizon. So he said this — he said, “I’ve often wondered whether that sun
was rising or setting. Today,” Franklin said, “I have the happiness to
know it’s a rising sun.” Today, because each succeeding generation of Americans
has kept the fire of freedom burning brightly, lighting those frontiers
of possibility, we all still bask in the glow and the warmth of Mr. Franklin’s
rising sun.

After 224 years, the American revolution continues. We remain a new nation. And
as long as our dreams outweigh our memories, America will be forever young.
That is our destiny. And this is our moment.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

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