I am optimistic that if we remain firm, the Soviet Union will find it in its interest to join with us in reducing the number of weapons now threatening both our peoples. But we are not going to achieve this or anything else with self-doubt and unilateral concessions. I can assure you that we are trying our hardest to convince the Soviets to bargain realistically, to reach an agreement that is fair and verifiable. And I think that Minister Gromyko has returned to the Soviet Union with a better understanding of what we are, who we are, and what we are looking forward to achieving in the way of peace in the world. It is incumbent for everyone to remember that it was not the United States that walked away from the negotiating table on arms reductions, it was the Soviet Union that walked away. Now, in situations like this, we all stand together. A stronger America does not just mean better weapons; it means having the strength of character to meet our commitments. It means having the will and the political leadership to protect our national interests. And it means not shirking our responsibility to protect our children's future, even when it might be easier to ignore a potential threat. When we got to Washington, the enemies of freedom were on the move. They were encouraged by what they saw as a lack of will in the previous administration. Central America was headed for a crisis. Well, I am proud to say that we prevented a major catastrophe, something that might have endangered the security and the well-being of our country for many years to come. In the last 4 years, not 1 square inch of territory has been lost to Communist aggression. And, in one case, with quick and decisive action, we protected hundreds of American medical students from a potential hostile situation and restored freedom to the people of Grenada. And it was so wonderful when some of those young men well, all of them came back, all of the combat forces came back-and, before they left, said it was good to see God bless America written on the walls down there instead of Yankee go home. As was true in our efforts to turn around the economy, our struggle to protect Central America from Communist aggression-that effort was hampered by obstacles thrown in our path by some liberals in the Democratic Party. And please note I said some.


They are out of step, and some of the leadership, out of step with the millions of patriotic Democrats in this land, the rank-and-file Democrats, and we are reaching out to all concerned Democrats and Independents, asking them to come walk with us down the new path of hope and opportunity and a secure America. I know they can no longer follow the advice of those who have taken this other course. I know, I think, because for a good part of my life I was a Democrat, too, and then found I could no longer follow the policies of what had developed in the leadership of that party. Now, it is important that we elect right-thinking men and women to the Congress. And that is why it is also vital for you to send Phil Gramm to the United States Senate, so Texas can have the same high quality representation that Senator John Tower has been providing you. We could not have accomplished what we have accomplished if we had not had a majority in the Senate. I need Phil Gramm. America needs Phil Gramm. We only have 1 month left. We have to work our hardest to get our message to every one of your friends and neighbors-Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. And I cannot leave here without noticing something here on either side of us these bands, these young people, these high school people, so many of you young people here in the crowd. For the rest of us who are not that young anymore and my friends and fellow senior citizens down here from the Hill Haven Nursing Home, I am delighted you are here what we know is that all I have been talking about up here and all that this election is about is what kind of country we are going to turn over to those wonderful young people of ours. So many of us started out in a country where we knew no matter how beset we were with poverty or what seemed to be lack of opportunity or anything, we knew that anything was possible in this country of ours. And we have a sacred obligation to see that every succeeding generation sees that same kind of an America where there is no ceiling on where they can go and what they can do. Do not let anyone and listen, when I say polls, I mean those voting polls. President Dewey told me not to look at the polls and get overconfident. God bless you all. And I know I have got to get back on that airplane out there.

Remarks at a Reagan-Bush Rally in Corpus Christi, Texas


I am delighted to welcome you to the White Housetemporarily. Today will certainly have proved one thing to you. Let me give you a confidential briefing on what really happened in the Pentagon today.1 First of all, the elevator was Number 13. I felt sorry for that poor elevator operator. Do you have a full load there? I was interested in his reply. The operator looked at the Secretary of Defenseand swallowed once. He looked at meand swallowed twice. I turned to Bob McNamara. What is wrong with this thing? I saidin my softest voice. Do not ask me, he replied. That is real efficiency for youhe's not even out of the building and the computers have broken down. The Secretary must have read my thoughts. I have got it, Mr. President. This is February 29th and we did not program the computer for Leap Year! As we walked away, I saw Bob McNamara whip out his famous little black book. Check elevator budget at the World Bank. Driving back to the White House , I made a note of my ownfor our Republican guests tonight. The other party has been so kind to me latelyapproving just about everything that I dothat I just wanted to give their most vocal supporters an inside tip. Standing stuck inside that elevator today, I thought of my Republican friends. I hoped they would realize that it can take a long time to get to the top in this town. Years ago our predecessors were pretty independent of one anotherthe Chief Executive of the Nation and the Chief Executive of the State. But the 20th century has imposed a partnership on the two of us. Like all partnerships, sometimes we grow restless in that arrangement, as partners frequently do. But there is one thing in the last analysis we all know, whether it is a partnership in our home or in our business or in the Government that runs our country, we have got to make it work. Now that is what I am trying so hard to do. We now have more than 450 Federal grant-in-aid programs in the United States. They amount to more than $17 billion of the taxpayers' money that is spent every year. They involve almost every major function of this Government in this society. They touch the lives, I think, of every single American. We, the leaders, the Chief Executives of America, have a responsibility to all America. It is just disgraceful for us to spend any of our time and our talent chewing on each other.

Toasts of the President and Governor John A. Volpe of Massachusetts at a Dinner Honoring the Governors


You have problems that need to be solved that I do not know much about, but if I can help I want to help because if you are a better Chief Executive, your State is a better State. I have problems and God knows they are legion. I do not know the answers to all of them. And I need help. If we solve them you have a better nation. You have a slice of this Nation and your children have a slice of this Nation. So we must never lose sight of the fact that some folks would like to take a little temporary advantage with great injury to the longtime national good. But I hope and I believe they are not in this room tonight. I want to pay public tribute to the tireless efforts of three good men who largely have inaugurated and brought this relationship to what it is today, between the Chief Executive of the Nation and the Chief Executives of the States. First, Governor Buford Ellington of Tennessee who left his home and came here and valiantly served me until I told him that he could probably do me more good as the Governor of Tennessee. Governor Bryant served his term here with great distinction and great appreciation from all of us who worked with him. Thanks to your cooperation and your understanding, all of us together have made these programs, I think, somewhat more effective than they would have been otherwise. Your own distinguished chairman, Governor Volpe, has said that this is the best working relationship that the Federal Government and the States have had together. I know of no one who tries harder to make it so than Governor Volpe, and I want to thank you, Governor. I have often spoken of Buford Ellington and Farris Bryantbut this is the first opportunity I have had to say anything about Price Daniel. State legislator, speaker, attorney general, Governor, and United States Senator. Now he sits in the Security Council with us. He was your colleague as Governor for many years; he was my colleague as a Senator for many years. He knows government, I think, at both endsthe local, State, and Federal level. I know Price Daniel as the soul of honor. Buford Ellington and Price Daniel and Governor Bryant. I doubt that there is a man in this room from any State in the Union who can do more with the Presidentand with the Cabinetthan Price Daniel. I tell you that only so you will know that you have a good lawyer retained here in Washington for you.


I am glad and gratified that Governor Daniel and his lovely wife have come here to try to bring us closer together and to serve our common interests. Last year, we made a very determined effort to put our partnership on a face-to-face basis. Cabinet officers and other high officials, at my instruction, got away from the smog of Washington and went into 44 State capitals at the request and with the approval of the Chief Executives of these States. Many other States sent their officials here to meet with us. In all, there have been more than 2,500 State and Federal officials meeting to try to better the ways to serve the people who pay all of us and entrust all of us with the responsibilities. In these meetings we explored the challenges of housing, pollution, transportation, law enforcement, New Haven railroads, education, health, job opportunities. These challenges, we know, leapfrog State boundaries. They confront us all as Americans. when a child in one area gets a better education than a child in another; when a baby in one neighborhood has a higher chance of survival than a baby in another neighborhood; when the smoke of one city poisons the air of another city; when the crowded highways in one State slow the commerce in another State. All of these start as local issues but in a very short time they stretch into national problems. The Federal Government must face up to national problems and we try to. The answers really are out there where you are, in the hinterland and hometowns of America. In the final analysis out there where Mr. and Mrs. America live, in your hometowns and in your home State We must never assume that States and cities are barren of ideas. Many of today's greatest social innovations have their roots in local government. There is no substitute that we can find for that. Local government is the living heart of the greatest ideathe American idea. It is up to us to keep it vibrant, to give it new vigor and new strength each day, to give our people new confidence. It is up to us to nourish and reawaken the pride in communities and the pride in country that made this Nation great. This can be the richest dividend of our partnership. I want to tell this story and then I will not ask your indulgence further. Sunday a week ago I spent the most delightful day, I think, that I have had since I became President.


GOOD EVENING TO YOU, my very dear friends, and good evening to each American across this broad land who has allowed me into their living room on their television or their radio receiver. I prize this opportunity to meet with citizens, dedicated to the policies and objectives of this administration. These policies and objectives have been placed before the Congress in a legislative program to build a better and a stronger America. I am delighted that you have come to Washington to pledge your support to those members of the present Congress who are working for this program. Happily these are both numerous and able--and to be found not only among the leaders and the seniors who helped design the program, but among our younger friends most recently elected to that august body. Naturally, I am equally pleased that you are pledged to do your individual and collective best to see that there will be many more such men and women in the next Congress. Now, what we mean by a stronger America is a nation whose every citizen has reason for bold hope, where effort is rewarded and prosperity is shared, where freedom expands and peace is secure. The legislative program that you and I support is a broad, straight legislative highway to that kind of America. Tonight, I propose that we talk frankly, even if somewhat sketchily, about that program--now in the Congress. It was laid before the Congress last January, and was designed to protect our freedoms; to foster a growing, prosperous, peacetime economy; and to fulfill the Government's obligations in helping solve the human problems of our citizenry. Now, basic to the protection of our freedom is a strong, forthright foreign policy. This we have been developing. Our foreign policy is vigorously opposed to imperialistic ambition, but devoted to harmonious cooperation with all nations and peoples who share our will to live in peace with their neighbors. It demands, this policy, unremitting effort to create and hold friends and to encourage them in staunchness of friendship with us. It requires us to be vigilant against those who would destroy us; to be calm and confident in the face of their threats. Present world conditions require a national defense program, streamlined, effective, and economical, that takes into full account our air and nuclear might. But in the longer range, our foreign and defense policies must be directed toward world disarmament. We must seek for all mankind a release from the deadening burden of armaments. We must continue to seek sensible solutions for the fateful problems posed by the atom and hydrogen bombs.

Address at Meeting of District Chairmen, National Citizens for Eisenhower Congressional Committee.


Pursuing these purposes, we have persistently made appropriate proposals to the world--and more particularly to the Soviets--which if honestly accepted would go far toward attainment of these goals. With our friends, we must strive constantly for a freer system of world trade and investment, for strengthened trade agreement legislation, for simpler rules and regulations under which trade can be carried on. In the meantime, we must continue to render military and economic assistance abroad where our national interest is thereby served. In this way we not only build up our material and military strength so that we may oppose successfully any rash aggression by the Communists, but we help eliminate those conditions of poverty, disease, and ignorance which provide fertile breeding ground for the exploiters of discontent. It cannot be effectively described in a mere section of a general talk such as this. But because foreign affairs and foreign policy do so vitally affect the lives of each of us and all that we are attempting to do abroad, and here at home, the Secretary of State is at this moment on a trip to the West where he is delivering major addresses that will help clarify for all our citizens the position of America in world affairs. At home we have sought to preserve the sanctity of our freedoms by denying official posts of trust to the untrustworthy; by intensifying legal action against the members and leaders of the Communist conspiracy; by sharpening our weapons for dealing with sabotage. Scarcely need I assure such an audience as this that I--and my every associate in Government--will keep everlastingly at the job of uprooting subversion wherever it may be found. My friends, I do not believe that I am egotistical when I say that I believe that every American believes, at least, that about me. Now the second part of this program is a strong and a growing economy, shared in, equitably, by all our citizens! Now, we began this part of the program by uncovering and eliminating needless expenditures within the Federal Government. We proposed a reduction in taxes and reform of the tax system. Other measures involve a new farm program adjusted to current domestic and world conditions; an improved and expanded national highway system; a sound and comprehensive development of water and other natural resources; a broad housing program. We hope, also, to uproot the ingrained habit of operating the vast Post Office Department in an extravagantly wasteful and unbusinesslike manner.


We cannot permit the deliberate operation of our postal department at a gigantic loss because a few are opposed to adequate postal rates. Of course, we must have classification and promotional procedures for postal personnel that will serve the best interests of the Government, the public, and the postal workers themselves. Now the third great purpose outlined 5 months ago was sympathetic consideration of the human problems of our citizens, and practical assistance in solving them. Our goal for every American is better schooling; better housing; better health; and a reasonable assurance against the hardships of unemployment, against the impact of accident and illness, against poverty, against insecurity in old age. This threefold program--national security, economic, human--is the product of intensive effort by a multitude of technical experts and specialists, Government employees and executives, legislative leaders and committee chairmen. They labored diligently for months to evolve measures sound both in concept and in detail. These measures were-and are--badly needed to build the kind of America all of us ardently desire. There is nothing partisan, nothing sectional, nothing partial about them; they are for the security, prosperity, and happiness of all Americans. Now, my friends, in spite of highly publicized distractions, Congress has been hard at work. Not only have the difficult and time-consuming appropriation bills been acted upon much faster than usual, but the Congress has supported the administration in its efforts to reduce expenditures. Through legislation recently enacted, our people will have better highways. Stifling taxes on consumers have been eased. After more than 40 years of heated debate, the historic St. Lawrence Seaway project is now authorized by law. A mutual security treaty with the Republic of Korea has been approved. Now, these are but a few of a number of major pieces of legislation that have been enacted. But much still remains that is of vital significance to every American citizen. Tonight I am addressing myself primarily to a few of the important parts of the program that are now under discussion in the Congress and in different stages of the legislative process. I remind you of the $7 billion tax reduction already provided to our citizens. You know, this administration goes on the theory that the private citizen knows better how to spend his money than the Government. This program is designed to accomplish a fairer distribution of the tax burden. It will give more liberal tax treatment for dependent children who work, for widows or widowers with dependent children, and for medical expenses.


It will help to expand business activity and so create jobs throughout the country and will also give real encouragement to small businesses. I cannot overemphasize the importance I attach to the general policies and proposals comprehended in the tax bill, and the need for its early passage. I am sure you will agree that the Congress should enact this tax legislation, already passed by the House of Representatives. some of its benefits will begin to accrue to. the people of our country as soon as enacted, because then, with tax uncertainties removed, investors, manufacturers, and businessmen will all accelerate their activities thus creating new jobs and increasing the national income. This is an added reason for speed. Now, another pending measure, vitally necessary to every citizen, is the new farm program. Its purpose is to promote stability and prosperity in agriculture and help assure our farmers a fair share of the national income. The Nation's present farm law encourages production of great surpluses of a few commodities, and theft it prices those commodities out of their traditional markets. As a result, the Government must now spend $30,000 an hour--every hour--just to store these surpluses. In the last 12 months the Government increased its investment in price supported commodities by $2,800 million. During the next 12 months, the present law would force another increase. Now, one aspect of this amazing process appears to be little understood. Minority clamor has concealed from the majority the fact that a change from rigid price supports to flexible supports would affect less than one-fourth of the income our farmers receive. Rigid supports do not in any way affect crops that produce 77 percent of our farmers' income. Five months ago, on the advice of farm organizations, heads of agricultural colleges, a host of individual farmers, and many other experts and businessmen, I recommended that a new farm program be enacted by the Congress. This program proposes price supports with enough flexibility to encourage the production of needed supplies, and to stimulate the consumption of those commodities that are flooding and depressing the American markets. It also proposed gradualism in the adoption and application of certain phases of the new program, so that there could not possibly be an abrupt downward change in the level of price supports on basic commodities. The plan will increase markets for farm products, protect the consumers' food supply, and move food into consumption instead of into governmental storage.


I would always do everything within my power to see that the products of food produced by the sweat and toil of our farmers would never have to be thrown away or allowed to spoil when there were hungry people in the world. Now these surpluses are already getting to the point where only decisive and prompt action on our part is going to keep something of that kind from threatening us seriously, if not happening. Now this program will gradually dispose of the gigantic farm surpluses and promises our farmers a higher and steadier return over the years. This badly needed, new program has a bipartisan origin. The proposal is, in concept, the same as the law passed 5 years ago by a vast majority of the Members of each of the two parties in the Congress. And yet--despite the vast accumulation of surpluses in the hands of the Government--despite the declining markets at home and abroad, and increasing regimentation of the individual farmer--despite the fact that only a minority of American farmers are affected by price supports-despite the fact that even among this farmer minority, many are opposed to a program so obviously unsuited to the needs of our country--despite all of these painfully evident weaknesses, a vote, described to me as tentative, which was taken 2 days ago in a committee of the House of Representatives, called for continuance of the present farm program for an additional year. In my opinion, the circumstances are too critical to permit such a delay. Now, my fellow citizens, many have told me that it would not be good politics to attempt solution of the farm problem during an election year. The sensible thing to do, I have been told, over and over again, was to close my eyes to the damage the present farm program does to our farmers and to the rest of our people--and do this job of correction next year. In this matter I am completely unmoved by arguments as to what constitutes good or winning politics! And may I remark that, though I have not been in this political business very long, I know that what is right for America is politically right. In the proposal to correct the deficiencies in our farm program, the administration's concern is for all farmers, regardless of their politics, and for all America. I earnestly hope that the House of Representatives and the Senate will move promptly on these proposals, so that America may have a sound, stable, and prosperous agriculture.


And I hope you will join me in the determination to see that commonsense, good judgment, and fact will, from now on, guide the formulation of American agricultural policy. Now, aside from taxes and agricultural programs, other projects occupy legislative attention at this moment! Some of them are of great personal import to our individual citizens, and some have passed one or the other of the two Houses of the Congress. Extension of the benefits of unemployment insurance should be authorized, so that these benefits may be made available to more than six million additional workers. When this project becomes law, it will remove inequities and inadequacies which for years have limited the effectiveness of this form of income-insurance. In simple justice to a vast number of American citizens, it demands our enthusiastic support. Congress is considering increased social security benefits, and the extension of social security protection, to more than ten million additional Americans. Likewise, it has before it strengthened programs to rehabilitate disabled people, and to develop adequate medical facilities for those who suffer the misfortune of chronic illness. In this same health program are items for the construction of diagnostic centers, for nursing homes, and for rehabilitation facilities. Another measure provides for Government reinsurance to enable private and nonprofit insurance companies to give broader prepaid medical and hospital care, on a voluntary basis, to many more of our people. There is a bill to authorize a new housing program, so that every citizen may aspire to a decent home in a wholesome neighborhood. We are striving to help assure every willing American a practical opportunity to enjoy good health, a good job, a good education, a good home, a good country. And may I emphasize, we are trying to provide opportunity. We are not trying to be paternalistic with respect to anybody. Now let us look briefly, once again, at the domestic question of protecting our liberties, because this purpose underlies a number of specific bills now before the Congress. They will, when enacted, powerfully increase the effectiveness of the Government's effort to protect us against subversive activity. Several of these bills would plug loopholes through which spies and saboteurs can now slip. One would let us bar proven subversives from employment in or admission to any private facility, if the facility is essential to our defense. Another bill would take citizenship from those hereafter convicted of advocating or attempting violent overthrow of our Government.


Moreover, since Communist conspirators sometimes resort to telephones to plot and pass information, we believe that their own words, as learned by the FBI, should be admitted, under adequate safeguards, as evidence in security cases in Federal courts. Another bill would grant immunity from self-incrimination to selected witnesses, while requiring them to tell the truth about their associates and their fellow conspirators before courts, grand juries, and congressional hearings. All of this internal security legislation adds up to a potent package of protection against communism, without in any degree damaging or lessening the rights of the individual citizen as guaranteed by our laws and the Constitution. It will greatly assist the FBI and the Justice Department, our best weapons against the secret Communist penetration. That program now awaits congressional approval. And I know that all of us, too, await that approval. Now, I have talked frankly and simply about these matters this evening, because I want you to know why the legislative program in Congress will, when approved, make our country stronger, and help keep our people prosperous with freedoms secure. As I said earlier, many members of Congress are as deeply anxious as you and I for the passage of these essential measures. They have worked faithfully for their enactment, and I hope that they know of your support. that we shall unflaggingly pursue the enactment of the remainder of this program. We live today in an age of ceaseless trouble and danger. For all of us the challenge is clear. For all of us the future is shadowed by mushroom clouds and menaced by godless men addicted to force and violence and the continuance of anarchy among nations. Here, in our time, in our hands, and in our own courage, in our own endurance and vision, rests the future of civilization and of all moral and spiritual values of enduring meaning to mankind. Part--but only part--of our responsibility for preserving these values can be discharged through the legislative structure we propose to enact this year. May I suggest that we have less political fission and more political fusion. Let us have, in this session of the Congress, approval of this program essential to a stronger, a better, a safer America.


I want to thank the other officers and all of you who are here today for inviting me to come by. I know Secretary Rubin spoke earlier, and Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles is here; Gene Sperling, the Director of the National Economic Council; and Maria Echaveste, who is my new Assistant for Public Liaison and Alexis Herman's successor some of you may not know her. I wanted you to know because she will be relating to you. I want to thank you for the support that so many of you have given to Alexis Herman in the job that she held and in the job that I am confident she will hold as the Secretary of Labor. Over the last 4 years, I have worked with many of you in this group to grapple with a lot of great issues facing our Nation, from reducing the deficit to expanding trade, to investing in new opportunities for a new century. The Vice President talked about the record that our people together have amassed in the last 4 years, and it is an impressive one and one we can all be proud of. I understand you had a panel earlier this morning speculating on what has now become the conversation that we all have, which is, can it be possible that we have repealed the business cycle? And I think there is some argument for that if you look at the better inventory control, the changing nature of the economy, the more service jobs, the nature of global competition and technology, and the greater sophistication at the Fed. I mean, there are a lot of reasons for it, but I think there are some indications that we have had some real ability to manage this. But I think the most important thing to remember is that the underlying fundamentals have been good because of the productivity of the American people and our willingness to compete. And I think that if we want this to continue, which is the real question, we have to continue to do the things that will make it likely that success will prevail for another 4 years and into the next century. It is relatively rare for a country to have both peace and prosperity and the opportunity to shape its own destiny at a time when there are so many fundamental changes in the way we work and live and relate to each other and the rest of the world. You go back to the history of the country; that is a relatively rare opportunity.

Remarks to the Business Council


And when it comes along, it is easy to miss because when things are going generally quite well, people are either complacent or they tend to one of the unfortunate aspects of human nature they tend to either be complacent or to be all heated up over small things, not big things, to fall out over petty divisions, not larger ones. What will it take to ensure the long-term prosperity of America? What will it take to assure that America continues to be the world's leading force for peace and freedom and security in the new world of the 21st century? What will it take to guarantee a whole new generation of Americans, not a certainty but at least a fair opportunity, to be a part of this enormous, new, exciting age? What kinds of things do we have to do? It seems to me clear that we have to finish the job of balancing the budget, to keep the interest rates down and the investment up, and to keep the economy growing. And it seems clear that we have to do a lot more than we have done to dramatically improve education at every level. I'd like to talk about those two things and then mention one or two others today. I realize that whenever I talk about the skill levels of the work force to this group, I am preaching to the saved, but I think it is worth pointing out that between 1992 and 2000, 89 percent of the new jobs created in this economy will require post-high school levels of literacy and math skills. And virtually 100 percent of those jobs will pay what is now an above average wage. But only half the people entering the work force are even nominally prepared for these jobs. Our education system is still turning out millions of young people who simply are not equipped for the new world of work. We know that we lag behind the rest of the world in math and science and that this poses a severe and growing competitive disadvantage for our country. We know that our young people have to do a better job of learning basic things and of developing the capacity to learn for a lifetime. That is why in the State of the Union Address I challenged our Nation to establish national standards in every school, in every community, in every classroom in the country and to be willing to measure whether every child has met those standards in learning, beginning at the beginning with a test of every fourth grader in reading and a test of every eighth grader in math by 1999.

Remarks to the Business Council


Now, this may seem strange; for all of us who have had children come up through schools, we know that there are a lot of standardized tests out there. But what many people do not understand is that there are not tests to national standards. That is very different from a standardized test. If you have the right if you have standards that every child should know in a subject and every child is tested, then that is a test everybody could pass. You either know what you are supposed to know or you do not . And how you rank in an average is utterly irrelevant unless you know what you are supposed to know. And it is appalling that we have hidden behind a good idea, local control of our schools, to advance a very bad proposition that algebra is somehow different in Alaska than it is in south Florida, that geography is different in the northern part of Maine than it is in San Diego. And no other country which seeks to do well in the modern economy would permit its children to keep coming up through an educational system that could not tell you whether our children know what they are supposed to know. This is especially important now that so many of our young people come from other countries. Just across the river here in Fairfax County, there is one of the four school districts in America where the schoolchildren's native tongues number more than 100. And if there are 40 percent of our kids in the third grade today who cannot read a book on their own. And we will never change this until we, first of all, say what the standards are and then, second, find a way to measure everyone. Now, today, we have made some progress in this in the last 10 or 12 years. And some of you have helped me to work on it when I was a Governor. Today, through the National Assessment of Education Progress, for example, we can measure how States are doing or how school districts are doing, but still no parent can learn if a son or a daughter is actually meeting tough national standards. Our goal should be not to drive these children down but to lift them up. Today the Department of Education is releasing the annual assessment of math performance through the National Assessment of Education Progress. It is based on a sample in the States that participate, and most States do participate now. Across the country and in almost every State, our math performance has improved in the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades. Secretary Riley will release the full results today.

Remarks to the Business Council


The scores are getting better, but they also show you why every child should be tested based on these standards, for about 30 to 35 percent of the children tested still have not mastered basic math skills, those which must be known in order to continue to learn for a lifetime. So what I'd like to do is to just remind you of how you could not function if you could not measure and how things that you take for granted in the day-to-day operations of your business have literally been avoided in education under the guise of preserving local control. This has nothing to do with local control. Dick Riley, since he is been the Secretary of Education, has done more in 4 years, I believe, than any of his predecessors to try to relax unnecessary Federal rules and regulations that hamstring how local school districts spend Federal money. This is not what this is about. This is about whether you really believe if a child reads The Little Engine That Could, it is the same in New Orleans as it is in Minneapolis. No election to a school board or no State legislative action can change the fundamental elements on a chemistry table. And yet we have never been willing to subject ourselves to this sort of rigorous examination in an appropriate way. We should begin at the beginning with fourth grade reading tests and the eighth grade math tests and then build it up. I think it is highly unlikely that we can do this unless we have strong support from the business community. I know that the Business Roundtable last month endorsed the concept of tests. I am grateful for that. I am profoundly grateful for it. But what I want you to understand is, we are going to go and make sure that they are developed. The standards-based tests that are out there now, which are basically the Third International Math and Science Survey and the National Assessment of Education Progress, are very good. We just have to find a way to either take them or a variant of them and then fix it so all the so a State could get them and give them to school districts and all the students could take them and they could be properly scored. But what I need you to know is that we still need your support. The Vice President and First Lady and I, we are going to go make a lot of State legislative trips. We are going to try to advocate this around the country. But we still do not have the power to require States to do this.

Remarks to the Business Council


But the business community can create the conditions in which every State will have to embrace this challenge and no one can run away. And again I say, we have to create the mentality that failing is not bad. What is bad is hiding the truth. What is bad is not taking the available tools to find out what the truth is, because we know that way over 90 percent of the kids in this country can learn what they need to know, but you have to start with where you are. And we know that if we have high expectations and then we measure them, we will eventually see people rise to them. So I thank you for the endorsement, but you have got to stay with us, and you have got to help us. And when we need business leadership to help convince this State or that State or the other State to do this, we have got to have you there, because it will not work unless all 50 States do it and everybody recognizes that this has nothing to do with local control and everything to do with international competitiveness and giving our children, every single one of them, a chance to live the life that they ought to have the chance to live. And we need you very much. Let me also say, with regard to the balanced budget we do not have to have a long conversation about this today, but it now seems clear that the balanced budget amendment will not pass. I think that is a good thing, for the reasons that I have said elsewhere. But I think it must also be clear to the American people that we must make sure that a balanced budget does pass, passes this year, and passes as soon as we can reasonably pass it. We have to now go beyond the constitutional debate to get to the specifics. I am convinced that if we pass a balanced budget plan this year, it will moderate interest rates, spur more investment, and keep growth going. I believe that. All the indicators we see that have been shown to me by Frank Raines and the Office of Management and Budget, supported by Secretary Rubin, indicate that if we can pass a balanced budget this year, dealing with the fundamentals that we are talking about trying to better manage the Medicare program, the Medicaid program, looking at the long-term health of all the other programs that we could keep it more or less in balance for two decades, based on what we now know. But you can look at the fundamentals and the demographics of things over two decades and pretty well know where you are.

Remarks to the Business Council


So it is very important that we do this. Now, I believe that we have shown, this administration, that we care about this and that we are willing to work with the Congress. Before I took office the administration's budget projections had usually been an illusion to avoid the difficult decisions that administrations did not want to make so that Congress would have to make them. Of course very often Congress did not make them, either, and each side took what the other wanted. So if one wanted tax cuts and the other wanted spending programs and, oh, by the way, they wanted to control spending, the tax cuts and the spending programs took preference over the controlling of the spending, and we wound up with a $290 billion a year deficit and a quadruple Federal debt in 12 years. Last year the deficit was $107 billion, proportionately the smallest of any major economy in the world, 63 percent lower than it had been in 1992. We have been working together first with the Democratic Congress, then with the Republican Congress, always driving it down. What has made it possible are conservative, realistic budget projections that every year have been more conservative for the deficit than what actually occurred. In other words, the deficit was even lower than we projected it to be in every year with our economic assessments. And sometimes when you read in the press, there is a difference between the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget and it looks big in one year, the truth is that we have narrowed these differences dramatically now. They are not breathtaking differences, and it is enabled us to get together and work together to have budgets that make sense. The other thing I think is important is, you hear a lot of criticism saying, Well, whenever they have one of these plans, all the savings are in the out years. But if you look at the way Medicare or Medicaid works, particularly in the Medicare program, if you look at the way some of these other programs work, the savings, by definition, compound themselves in a way that will always make the savings look bigger in the out years. The trick is to pass a plan that legally locks in tomorrow's savings today and that places strict limits on the amounts of money Congress can spend each year. If you do that, then the framework will be created which will permit us to get to balance in 2002. And it will have great credibility in the market.

Remarks to the Business Council


I know that is true because of things we have tried to do with entitlements, including placing a cap, a per capita cap on Medicaid, and extending the life of the Medicare Trust Fund for a decade by having very rigorous spending controls that will facilitate the movement to managed care, have elicited I mean, it is just it is not easy to do this. You all face these kind of decisions all the time. But I do want to say, you will see a lot of our differences aired publicly the executive, the Congress, the parties within the Congress. But this budget is well within reach. This is well within reach. And it is well within reach in a way that also would permit us to create a bipartisan process to deal with the long-term challenges of the entitlements in Medicare and Social Security as well. So you should feel positive about that. But my advice would be here and my appeal to you is to tell every one of us, every time you get a chance to say it, that you cannot celebrate Thanksgiving this year without a balanced budget. If you do not , it will have a destructive impact on the markets. If you do, it will have a positive one. But you should know, when you hear all the debates, it is in the nature of the things for the differences to be amplified. The fact is that we are well within range of being able to get this done if we will all just hunker down and kind of turn down the rhetoric and treat each other with good faith. We can get this job done in a way that I think is very good for the economy. Let me just mention two other things I'd like to ask for your help on. The first is to help in getting a budget out and in supporting a policy in both parties that fulfills our responsibilities in the world today as the world's indispensable nation. We had a bipartisan foreign policy during most of the cold war because we knew our neck was on the line, and politics stopped at the water's edge. Now it is more difficult to build a bipartisan foreign policy because the elements of it are more diverse. For example, economic policy and trade has a lot more to do with it than previously, or at least we are aware that it does I think it was always a big part of our foreign policy and because no one perceives that our neck is on the line.

Remarks to the Business Council


But the truth is that the whole world is looking to see whether America will fulfill its responsibilities to lead in an increasingly interdependent world, not only economically interdependent but environmentally interdependent and politically interdependent. Increasingly, the security threats we face are those that cross borders, like terrorism and narcotrafficking. We are in the process of building new structures, new understandings, new ways of working together. That begins with trade. We had great victories in 1993 with NAFTA and with the GATT, and in the last 4 years we have had 200 separate trade agreements. We had a great victory the other day for the cause of global trade and for the American economy. When Ambassador Barshefsky concluded the telecommunications agreement, it was a great thing. But we have been now 2 years without fast-track authority for the President. Latin America is looking at us. President Frei in Chile they just had three Asian heads of government paid visits to Chile in the last 3 or 4 months. And the whole world in Latin America is looking to see what we are going to do. So we really need to pass the fast-track authority. We need to do it this year, and we need to do it as soon as possible. And I hope that all of you will help us do this. I think most Members of Congress understand let me just give you two examples how China defines its greatness over the next 20 years will shape the next 50 years of life in America and the world. I think most Members of Congress understand that how we work through this business of trying to create a united, democratic Europe and a relationship between NATO and Russia, that that will have a lot to do with the way we live in the next 50 years. But we must understand that our neighbors to the south of us are still our greatest opportunity for the future. All but one of them are democracies. They are committed to free market economics. Other people around the world are looking to them, and we cannot pass up the chance to build closer trade ties with them. This will benefit America and will help us to deal, as I said, not just with economic matters but with political matters, with environmental matters, with a whole host of other issues. So I implore you to do what you can to help us get this done this year. Beyond that, we have to pass a balanced budget plan that still has a diplomatic budget for the United States.

Remarks to the Business Council


We have continued to lower our spending on diplomacy dramatically, in a way that I think has been very counterproductive for our interests. Our request is simply to give us one penny of every Federal dollar to promote peace, to fight problems like drug trafficking and terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and to meet our obligations to the international community through the World Bank, the IMF, the other international financial institutions. My budget does reverse a downward spiral in foreign affairs spending that is been going on a long time. But you know, our Embassies around the world are working around the clock. We have had to close a lot of our consulates. We have had to weaken the efforts that we were making to help American firms win contracts and protect intellectual property rights and fight unfair business practices. We live in an interdependent world. We cannot afford to say that we just simply will see the United States Government quit the field. And I feel very strongly about this. I know that many of you do. But I ask you to help us do that. It is not a big deal in the budget, but it is a part that always, always gets cut, and it is not in our interest to cut it. The last thing I would like to do is to ask you, as I have before, to help us finish the job of welfare reform. Over the last 4 years, with 11 1/2 million new jobs in the economy, about 2 1/4 million people moved off welfare. That is the largest reduction in the welfare rolls in history. That is below the historic average since 1972. From 1972 to 1990 the historic average was 4.8 percent of the population on public assistance. In 1994 we got up to 5.4 percent. So in a booming economy, we got down to 4.6 percent, and of that, 2.25 million people who have moved off welfare, approximately a million of them moved into jobs. Depending on whose study you read, the average welfare family has between 2.3 and 2.8 people. It is mostly one child or two children in the families.

Remarks to the Business Council


Now, in the new law, the new law says that the States can let people who are able-bodied stay on welfare for 5 years and no longer; that they are not supposed to stay on welfare more than 2 years at a pop without being in the work force; that the States can establish sort of a contingency fund of about 20 percent to take care of people who are not physically or mentally able to work or who live in areas of very high unemployment. It is obvious to me that if you look at all the studies and the Council of Economic Advisers gave me a report on this, by the way, estimating that of the 2 1/4 million people that moved off the welfare rolls, about half of them moved off because of the good economy, about 30 percent of them moved off because 43 States were making extra efforts to move people from welfare to work, and about 20 percent of them moved off for we do not know why maybe because there was a 50 percent increase in child support payments, collections. And that will always lift some people off welfare. But the point I am trying to make is that to meet the requirements of this new law, which is graduated in the standards that it applies to these timetables I just mentioned, we have to move another million people into the work force from the welfare rolls in the next 4 years. And there is a law that requires it, so we have to do it whether or not the private economy produces 11 1/2 million jobs. Now, five companies, including members of this organization, Monsanto, Sprint who else Federal Express, United Airlines, and Burger King, I think, agreed to head up a national coalition to get other companies to hire people from welfare to work. If you look at what is been done in Kansas City, you see that every State has the option to offer companies the welfare check as a cash subsidy for people who will pay well above the minimum wage as an employment and training subsidy. We are trying to get more small businesses into this. We are also trying to pass through Congress a 50 percent tax credit for salaries of up to $10,000 a year, tied much more tightly than any of these jobs tax credits have in the past to just people who move from public assistance that is, from welfare to work, or single men who cannot get welfare who move from food stamps to work. There are a lot of things which can be done which lower the marginal cost to companies of hiring new people.

Remarks to the Business Council


Let me just say a few words. And I, first of all, thank you -- thank the leader, Bob Dole, and Don Nickles and everybody for this hospitality. We have got a big and good domestic agenda. I just was up here to get your views, but to urge your support for Fast Track, which is overseas, but it is also domestic because I am convinced that it can create jobs in this country, and I think it is going to be good for the economy of the United States. I was talking to Senator Thurmond about the crime bill. I am very interested in getting a comprehensive crime package through, and I hope that, with your help, we can do it. I wanted to mention the veto strategy that Bob Dole and Al Simpson and so many of you have been active in. And it is very important because when we are in a minority, the only way we are going to get something done is to beat down the bad idea before they give us a shot at a good idea. Last year, we were very successful, thanks to the work of everybody around this table. And I just would urge your continued cooperation with the leadership. Sometimes you cannot join us, but for the most part, we have been very good about it, and I just urge your strong support for this veto strategy. It is the only way we can get decent Republican ideas -- and if we do not do it -- kind of disarray and all the chipping away on the Democrat ideas and joining up on something that we know in our hearts is not good. So, I would strongly urge your support for that. I know we are moving on transportation and energy. I know Chairman Wallop is working here -- Malcolm's working with us on that. I am leaving out some. I would make a pitch for our education strategy, America 2000. Actually, that is being received very, very well across the country. And the Governors, regardless of party, are extraordinarily supportive. I think at the grassroots level, people are beginning to understand that we are not just trying to add more money to a program in Washington, but we have got to revolutionize these schools -- create brand-new schools. It is an exciting prospect, and I urge your strong support. Later, we will have a chance to visit a little bit on what is happening overseas. But I just wanted to click off these domestic items because they are vital.

Remarks on the Administration's Domestic Agenda


I want to thank you for this fine gift to the people of the United States. I am honored to accept it as a symbol of the strong and faithful friendship between our two nations. Ireland has given many gifts to America throughout our history. This very house was designed by an Irish immigrant, based on your own Leinster House in Dublin, and has since been occupied by more than a dozen Presidents of Irish descent. One of them, President John Kennedy, said on a visit to Ireland, When my great grandfather left here to become a copper in east Boston, he carried nothing with him except two things, a strong religious faith and a strong desire for liberty. The Kennedys were among millions of immigrants who came to America with that same faith and the same love of freedom. As much as any other immigrant group, Irish Americans have shaped this country for the better. They have fought in our wars, like the five Sullivan brothers who died together on one day on one ship in World War II. They helped settle our territories, like David Crockett. They helped build our cities and to this day still embody the spirit of public service. When the rollcall-when the roll was called of the policemen and firemen and emergency workers who died on September the 11th, it included many names like Donnelly and Duffy and Kelly and Sullivan. Tens of millions of Americans trace their lineage to Ireland, and so many came here in times of grief for a country they left behind. Today, we are glad to see a strong and free and rising Ireland with so much to offer its people and the entire world. The ties of family and values are adding ties of diplomacy and trade, with commerce between our nations quadrupling in just the last 7 years. September the 11th has reinforced these bonds of friendship. Ireland is a valued member of the international coalition against terrorism. Ireland has allowed American military planes to use its airports and has helped to rebuild Afghanistan. We appreciate your help in a just and vital cause. America stands with you in another cause, bringing security and stability to the people of Northern Ireland. We have seen great progress since we gathered here a year ago. Many challenges lie ahead, but I am so optimistic that by working together we can meet these challenges and help create a lasting peace. This morning we remember a good man who spread a gospel of peace. The greatest of Irish names, Saint Patrick, was brought to Ireland a slave and died there a saint. His courage and kindness helped to shape a great and noble culture.

Remarks at a Shamrock Presentation Ceremony With Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland


Thank you, Deena, for the wonderful introduction and for the way you represent our country-and for the little local reference to Arkansas. I liked that. Thank you, Bill Hybl, for the work you do with the Olympic Committee. And I want to say a special word of thanks to Pat Milkovich for the wonderful tour of the training center today. We had a great time, and I thank you so much. I want to thank Representative Bob Filner, the Congressman from this district, for being with me today and for his support. Someone just thanked him on the way for being against having all that cargo noise coming over here and interrupting your training center. So, I figure he will take a lot of heat for that position. So, somebody who likes it might as well clap. I want to thank the Bonita Vista High School Marching Band for playing. Let us give them a hand; they are great. Some of their members have been selected to perform at the opening ceremonies in Sydney, and I know they will have a good time. I'd like to thank Mayor Horton from Chula Vista and the Chula Vista council members who are here and the county officials who are here. I am glad to see all of you here. Most of all, I'd like to thank the athletes and the coaches and the trainers that gave me a tour around this magnificent facility today. I had a great time. And I realize that most of these things I cannot do anymore but I really had a great time. Deena talked about perseverance and hard work, but I want to tell you a little something about her. She was too humble to mention her own experience with cross country championships in Portugal this year. About 100 yards into the race her throat closed up, and she could not breathe. After 5 kilometers, she blacked out and fell. It turned out a bee had flown into her mouth and stung her in the throat. But she got up and kept going, and thanks to her, the women's team still left Portugal with a medal. She gave new meaning to the term making a beeline. Give her a hand; she was great. One of the real highlights of our White House years for Hillary, Chelsea, and me has been the chance to be a part of the Olympic experience, cheering on our teams from Lillehammer to Atlanta to Nagano and now to Sydney, where at least I know my daughter is going.

Remarks to the United States Olympic Training Center Community in Chula Vista, California


My wife is in a competition of her own, and I am informed that my services may be needed elsewhere; but our daughter informed us that she would be in Sydney to cheer the teams on. I am so glad to have this chance to see all the work that you are doing to prepare for the games here. You know, just moments before he won one of his gold medals, the legendary Jesse Owens said, A lifetime of training for just 10 seconds. the years and years of getting up before the Sun, the time away from your loved ones, the hard work, the sacrifice, and something that is often overlooked, the pain. I'd like to just say more than anything else, I wanted to come here to say to these team members and those who want to make the Olympic teams, we appreciate you; we thank you; and we are very, very proud of you. I have thought a lot, especially in the Olympic season, about why the Olympics mean so much to people all over the world, and especially why the American people get so completely caught up in them, why they capture our imagination and our hearts. Obviously, we love athletics. And we are highly competitive people, as that little in-your-face rap that Deena gave us showed about the American team. But I think there is even more to it than the love of competition and athletics. Everybody gets an opportunity to play, regardless of race or station in life-and increasingly, thank goodness, regardless of gender. People are valued based on their performance and their effort, not their posturing. People get a chance to do their best, and also to bring out the best in one another. And everybody, including those that do not win medals, is better off for having tried and given his or her best. You win by playing by the rules and by doing it well. I think we like the Olympics because we all think the world ought to work that way. And we know if other forms of human endeavor worked that way, we'd be better off. One of the reasons I ran for President 8 years ago is that I thought that Washington ought to work more like that. I thought it ought to be more about production and less about posturing. And it is tough for people in politics, because they know that if they produce, they may not get on the evening news.


medicine for our seniors on Medicare and a Patients' Bill of Rights and an increase in the minimum wage, a lot of other things we could be doing that we could actually reach agreement on across party lines, even though it may cost everybody a few seconds on the evening news. The rules of the game there are too often, I have got an idea. You have got an idea. And you give us all a good sober reminder that in the end, when it is all said and done, we are going to be judged not by what we said but by what we have done. And I thank you for that. Now, let me just say, this day is special for a lot of reasons. On this day more than 100 years ago, the modern Olympic games were founded. It was also 100 years ago this summer that women were first allowed to compete in the Olympic games, and they did, all 11 of them. This year more than 4,000 women will compete in the Olympic games, the largest number ever. Let me say a couple of other things about this day. On this day 60 years ago one of the greatest Olympians of all time was born, Wilma Rudolph. She won her first medal the last time the Olympics were held in Australia, in 1956. And finally, today is special because it is also on this day 28 years ago that Title IX became the law of the land. Now, it is interesting that all this stuff happened on this day. But Title IX has really enabled America to live up to the Olympic spirit to give everybody a chance, to give everybody a chance to play by the rules, everybody a chance to live up to his and her God-given abilities. It is not a coincidence that in Atlanta, the first generation of women to grow up under Title IX-literally to have their whole lives in Title IX-went on to win the gold medal in soccer, the gold medal in softball, the gold medal in gymnastics, and the gold medal in basketball. Believe it or not, I found out not long ago that Title IX's requirement for equal opportunity in sports and in education does not apply to the education and training programs run by the Federal Government itself. So on this anniversary of Title IX, I am actually signing an Executive order that applies Title IX to the Federal Government's programs and prohibits discrimination of any kind in federally conducted education and training programs. Let me just say one other thing about the importance of broadening opportunities here.


I would like to ask all of you who are presently athletes or who have been or who are otherwise involved in this Olympic movement to continue to share your gifts, not only on the field of competition but in the playing field of life, and especially with our young people-and with those whose job it is to raise them well. Let me just give you one example of something that really concerns me. Over the last 20 years, too many of our schools have abandoned their music, their arts, and their physical education programs. You may have noticed that last week I went to New York City to be on the Today Show to talk about the VH1 music in school program, where they worked so hard to get instruments back into schools so schools can start their school music programs again. There is so much evidence that a lot of young people learn better if they have access early to music and arts programs. But it is also really troubling to me that so many schools have just completely abandoned physical education programs for all kids, while maintaining team sports. Now, a lot of the athletes behind me may be going to the Olympics in sports for which there was no competition in their schools. And they would not necessarily have been football or basketball players, or even soccer players, if their schools had competitive soccer. The percentage of high school students in daily physical education has declined more than 30 percent in the last 10 years. Today, fewer than one in three students are enrolled in phys-ed every day. Meanwhile, the percentage of young people who are overweight has doubled in the same time period. And we know that it has an effect on learning, on self-image, on self-esteem, on a sense of what you can do. Today I am directing our Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, and Donna Shalala, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to work with the U.S. Olympic Committee, our physical fitness council, and others to try to find ways to encourage more young people to get fit and stay fit. And I am asking Congress to establish a foundation that will leverage the energy, creativity, and resources of the private sector in furthering the mission of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, to help every young person in America to live an active, safe, and healthy life. I hope you will help us do that.


When Nancy and I celebrate Thanksgiving weekend each year in California's Santa Ynez Mountains, we find it a wonderful opportunity to be together with family and friends and, like so many Americans, a chance to reflect on all the Lord's blessings to our country. We have been particularly conscious this year of one blessing that has made this holiday season a happy one for countless more Americans, Americans who in years past were trapped in want and poverty. Only 4 years ago, as our economic policies were just taking effect, we began what became the second-longest peacetime expansion since World War II. This year the stock market has hit all-time highs, while inflation continues near all-time lows. Only this week new figures show inflation running at less than 1 percent in 1986, the trade deficit continues its substantial decline, and, above all, today more Americans are working than ever before. So, contrary to those many predictions over the last 4 years-some of them still being heard as late as last August-there is no recession. Our expansion is not only with us but continues gaining momentum, and, of course, that means more jobs for more Americans. In the past 4 years we have created more than 12 million payroll jobs, and that means 2.2 million people have lifted themselves out of poverty since 1983. As perhaps you know, it is budget preparation time in Washington. And recently, in reviewing these statistics, I reflected back on some of the solutions suggested a few years ago to our economic problems-they have been the worst since the Great Depression. I can especially remember one make-work jobs program that Congress came up with, a $5.4 billion extravaganza that would have helped a relatively tiny number of people. Because it was just this sort of marketplace intrusion and government boondoggle that had put our economy in trouble in the first place, I decided that, Thanksgiving or not, this was one turkey we did not need. And to resounding criticism from Congress and the media, I put a stop to it. Well, instead, we continued with an economic policy that lowered tax rates, cut spending, and abolished unnecessary regulations-and what a jobs program that turned out to be. We have averaged over 250,000 people finding jobs each and every month. And last month alone, close to 300,000 Americans went to work. It is people, not government, who create wealth, provide growth, and ensure prosperity.

Radio Address to the Nation on the Deficit


That may sound elementary enough, but the history or our economic difficulties, especially the terribly big deficits we run each year, stem directly from our failure to remember that government consumes wealth, it does not create it. You see, it is a kind of legacy from a period when I was back in college studying economics. Following the theories of a noted English economist of the period, John Maynard Keynes, economists and politicians used to say that when bad times occur the only way to restore prosperity is to spend our way out of it with massive new government programs paid for by borrowing. We owe it to ourselves! But everybody knows you cannot spend yourself rich any more than you can drink yourself sober. And you cannot prime the pump without pumping the prime. And that is why the automatic recourse to government spending sent interest rates and inflation skyrocketing, slowed the economy, caused unemployment, and gave us what they call today a structural deficit-that is a deficit that goes up automatically each year because of a vast array of Federal programs that Congress refuses to reduce and, under the law, the President cannot cut back by himself. Since our first day in office, we have been going after this structural deficit by, first, asking for major spending cuts and, second, asking for reforms like the line-item veto and balanced budget amendment that would, well, unstructure the structured deficit. So, while we have been occupied with the Iranian issue over the past 2 weeks, let us not forget that there are many other issues that concern us. In order to pursue this issue and all the others like it on our domestic and foreign agenda, we must be certain to maintain peace in the world and keep our defenses strong while, of course, sparking our domestic economy to even greater growth. As Jefferson once said, his one fear about our Constitution was that it permitted government to borrow. Well, government has borrowed too much and spent too much. So, believe me, I will be back in Washington next week, determined to work with the Congress to get deficit spending under control and keep America growing with record numbers of jobs for American people. Until next week, thanks for listening, God bless you.


I would not be here without your guidance and friendship. It is truly an honor to stand at this desk, which was once held by another great Illinoisan by the name of Barack Obama, delivering my maiden speech from the floor of the United States Senate to the people of Illinois, the same state that is been represented in Washington by other impressive leaders like Paul Simon and Abraham Lincoln. And it is an honor to address the people of the United States of America; the greatest nation in the world. Though we have occasionally made choices as a society that do not reflect our best selves, we are today the greatest nation in the world because of the founding ideals that have anchored our nation and because of the shared values that have guided the development and strength of our economy and people. Values like treating each other equally, showing strength and resilience in the face of hardship, and embracing the diversity that makes us who we are. They are shared values that have helped us to strive toward that more perfect union the Constitution's framers envisioned. A more perfect union that offers everyone a chance to reach his or her potential, a more perfect union that will not give up on its people, and a more perfect union whose people do not give up on themselves. We face a great deal of challenges and threats-threats I know well-but we cannot allow today's hardships to change who we are as a people, to tear down the pillars that make our nation great. Falling victim to fear and demagoguery will only ensure a weaker America for our children, and that is not a future that I want for my two-year-old daughter Abigail. When we as a society think about the future we want for all our children, it is important to remember how we got here. Our nation was not founded as the dominant global economic and military force it is today. We were not founded as the leader of the free world. Our people built that. Americans understood that when we invest in ourselves, the fabric that holds our country together only grows stronger. A scrappy gang of patriots in the American Revolution-my own family included-won us our liberty, which we used to push for greater civil and human rights and to make investments in agricultural and educational systems that sparked our economy allowing us to strengthen our military into the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen. From our founding, the United States of America was forged through fierce debates and stark divisions.

Duckworth in First Speech on Senate Floor: America's Prosperity & Strength Depend On Our Values


Slavery led to bloodshed across the country-including in the Senate chamber-and culminated in brothers killing brothers during our civil war. Yet our union made it through our greatest challenges and emerged stronger. Our strength has been on display outside of our military as well when heroes like Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman risked everything to help bring an end to slavery. When Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream and when the children of the Little Rock Nine braved harassment and abuse to bring an end to segregated schools and ensure educational opportunity for all. And when the backbreaking work of Asian and American laborers united our nation from sea to shining sea with the completion of the transcontinental railroad. America catalyzed the industrial revolution, helped rescue the global community from fascism during World War II, promoted civil and human rights around the globe, explored space, launched the internet revolution, helped feed the world, built a world-class infrastructure network, developed a gold standard education system, and grew the strongest economy ever seen. We were able to win World War II not only because of the brave troops in our Armed Forces, but also because our nation's manufacturers and steel mills were able to produce the tanks, planes, firearms and other tools we needed to defeat the Nazis. We were only able to build those weapons, launch the internet revolution and send a man to the moon because we had a well-educated workforce made of people from around the globe who all had an opportunity to attend the world-class colleges and universities we'd spent generations strengthening. Our economy was able to grow to its current strength not only because of our well-educated workforce and those who came from distant lands and stayed to contribute to our society, but also because we'd invested heavily in infrastructure and built an interstate system and air and rail networks that enabled our farmers, ranchers and other producers to get their goods to market inside and outside of this country's borders. We were able to feed the world not only because of our strong agricultural sector and infrastructure, but also because of the scientific advances, supported by our educational institutions, that helped increase farm production and yields. Throughout our history, we pushed to expand human and civil rights, from the abolitionists to the suffragettes, learning from people like the Tuskegee Airmen, the Selma marchers and the LGBTQ leaders today that being inclusive and enabling people to reach their full potential only strengthens the American core.


We did all of these things as a result of our shared values, and we have reaped their rewards for generations. We have seen our nation's strength in our prouder moments like when America chose to go to the moon - not because it was easy but, as President Kennedy said, because it was hard. And we have seen our strength in tragedy, reuniting under a common purpose in the rubble of the Pentagon and Ground Zero on 9/11. We might get knocked down, but the America that I know-that I fought for and love-does not give up. America's greatness has never depended on the strength of any individual person, but on all of us, working together towards a common goal. But when we have failed to stay true to our core values - when we deny another person our nation's promise of opportunity - our national strength suffers. When a child cannot access the tools to succeed in school, when a woman cannot afford basic health care, when refugees fleeing terror see the door slammed in their face, when we deny civil rights on the basis of skin color or sexual orientation or religion, and when a working family cannot put food on the table, our whole nation suffers. At the end of the day, America's greatness depends on each of us remaining true to the common values of our nation. But we have lost sight of those values. The nation that built an interstate highway system, that was a refuge for immigrants who became the foundation of our economy, that pushed humanity to new heights, first with planes and helicopters and then into space. That same nation seems to have forgotten how to invest in itself. Our country that ushered in the era of aviation is now home to aging airports that struggle to compete with their global competitors. Our country, which took on the herculean task of reversing the flow of the Chicago River to protect the city's drinking water, can no longer muster the resources to modernize public water systems to prevent our children from being poisoned by lead. And our country that built the greatest military the world has ever seen-sending a signal that we will not cower to anyone-now finds itself with leaders who believe in the misguided notion that it is better for us to hide behind walls than to help lead with strength. Make no mistake, America has not lost her greatness-our nation remains the dominant force on the global stage-but if we do not act, our adversaries are positioned to overtake us.


Though some may try to convince us the path forward is less engagement with the world, less acceptance of others and less investment in ourselves. I know that the path forward for our country cannot include-does not include-turning our backs on the shared values that built our nation. Perhaps more than any other state, Illinois knows this. We represent all the strengths of our nation, from our dynamic cities to our strong rural and industrial communities and everything in between. We are the realization of the values that have created a robust American economy, bolstered by a strong agricultural community and manufacturing sector, both of which innovate and strengthen our nation with the help of wise public policy and investments. Those investments enabled Illinois steelworkers to help us develop our farm land, build our cities and secure our military strength. American manufacturing literally built this nation. But too many of the steel mills we relied on to win World War II have been idled or shuttered completely. After years of illegal trade practices like dumping of cheap foreign products and currency manipulation by our competitors, our manufacturing base has been weakened. That hurts not only American jobs, but also our nation's military strength as well the resilience of our entire economy. We need to do a better job of keeping manufacturing jobs within our borders and we need to make the investments necessary to ensure we have a workforce trained for our 21st Century jobs. We can do better by Illinois's tens of thousands of farmers, ranchers and agricultural workers as well. They all wake up with a purpose, each farm feeding nearly 170 people every year while supporting an industry that is developing cutting-edge biofuels and other technologies. I have seen firsthand the painful price our nation pays because of our over-reliance on oil imported from our competitors and the simple fact is that American farmers are helping us improve our national security, helping strengthen our Armed Forces and our entire country every day. Our farmers are already helping produce billions of gallons of clean fuel for our cars, our factories and our military - and every single one of them helps bring us closer to energy independence. We cannot afford to leave them behind. We should be working to preserve policies like the Renewable Fuel Standard that support agriculture jobs and to open new markets, like Cuba, for their goods. For generations, our manufacturers and agricultural sector have relied on a strong infrastructure network-including roads, bridges, waterways, railways and air transportation-to get their goods to market, both domestically and internationally.


Illinois has often led the way, having built the nation's first elevated electric rail line in the 1800s. But today, far too much of that infrastructure is crumbling-in dire need of the investments our society once understood the need for. The down-payments previous generations made pay dividends to us all in the form of increased tourism revenue, lower-cost and more efficient shipments, easier travel and many other benefits. If we fail to continue the investments past generations have made, we risk falling behind our global competitors, hurting not only our tourism industry, but also our manufacturers and our hardworking ranchers, farmers, and producers who will find it harder and more expensive to move their goods to market. If we choose to disregard our infrastructure much longer, we simply will not be able to compete in the 21st century global economy. Improving our infrastructure is not a partisan issue; it is common sense. This is something we can all work on together, and I am proud to say that the first bill I proposed after arriving in the Senate passed unanimously-with bipartisan support-and it will cut red tape and help streamline efforts to modernize our infrastructure while helping create jobs in Illinois and around the country. Modernizing our nation's infrastructure will allow our economy to continue growing for generations to come. That is also true of supporting our schools, colleges and universities. We have developed a global gold standard of education that enabled our manufacturers, agricultural workers, engineers and brilliant Americans across all sectors to push our economy even further. There is a reason that wealthy elites across the globe, including world leaders, still send their children to our shores to be educated at world class institutions like the University of Illinois and University of Chicago. Our education system is widely recognized as the best in the world. Our teachers and institutions continue to produce some of the best trained and most skilled professionals in every field imaginable, both American and international students. But more and more Americans are no longer able to access those same educational opportunities. We have priced too many of our own children out of the market for the colleges and universities that we have developed to ensure our nation's workforce remains more skilled than our competitors. And we are failing to make the necessary investments in K-12 public institutions that - regardless of zip code - should be preparing every single one of our children to lead our country into the future. Quality primary education should not be a privilege only for the wealthy, and it should not depend on rolling the dice on receiving a voucher.


In the greatest and wealthiest nation in the world, a quality education should be a right for every single American child. Our nation's promise of opportunity should be a reality for every child in America, not just for those whose parents can afford it. We already have some of the world's greatest teachers, brightest students and best facilities within our own borders. All we need to do is ensure they have the resources they need to succeed. That means our kids should not have to worry about going to school hungry. Or getting the help they need after school. Or about being able to pay for college when they graduate high school. That is why I have focused on common-sense solutions to help increase access to educational opportunity, whether by helping lead the charge to make college more affordable or doing more to ensure the education we are providing people actually helps them find good-paying jobs when they graduate. In that vein, I am also disheartened by the recent erosion of civil rights protections in our nation. The calls for bigger walls and closed doors are not only bad, costly policies, they run counter to our society's shared value for inclusion over exclusion. Too many of us seem to forget the immigrant roots within our own families. If we lose sight of our nation's founding principles, as some in Washington would like us to do, we will lose out on the innovations we have seen from immigrants and immigrant families. If we had rejected immigrants years ago, Apple might never have been founded by the son of a Syrian man. I worry that, at a time when we still have so much work to do to make our union more perfect and to provide truly equal rights for all, under the current Administration we are at risk of backtracking on hard-fought progress made by civil rights leaders who bled - and even died - for the right of all Americans, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, income, or zip code to have the right to vote, to have equal protection under the law, to have basic worker protections and for the everyday rights and privileges so many of us take for granted. We still have so much progress left to make if we want the American Dream to be accessible to all Americans; equal pay for equal work, a criminal justice system that truly provides justice for all, nation-wide leave policies that enable everyone to take time to care for a sick family member or start a family, a society that is accessible for disabled Americans and truly equal for LGBTQ Americans.


I worry that we are at risk of going backward rather than forward. Failing to continue our nation's inclusive nature weakens our global standing as well, as the rest of the world begin to look elsewhere for moral leadership. That would be a failure for America, and a weakening of our nation that I will fight to prevent. And, of course, I also know how much our military has contributed to our nation's greatness throughout our history. We must do a better job of recognizing those contributions. Not just by purchasing equipment and technology, though what our skilled workforce has developed for them is the envy of the world, but also by ensuring that we recognize and respect the sacrifices made by our troops, our military families and our Veterans. Servicemembers embody our values of shared sacrifice and perseverance, of loyalty and selfless service-and they each make great sacrifices to protect us. They deserve from their leaders in Washington a clear sense of mission and strategy and they deserve to know we fully support them. So, when the drums of war are beating in the White House or in Congress, you can bet that I am going to be right here on the floor of the Senate asking the tough questions and making sure our leaders in Washington, especially those who have never served in uniform, fully consider the true costs of war-not just in dollars and cents but in human lives. I will also be there to remind my colleagues that we are all dishonored when any Veteran is forced lay their head down to sleep on the same streets they defended. And when our troops come home, I will be working to ensure that our Veterans receive the care and support they have earned from the sacrifices they have made. our military, our values, our infrastructure, our agriculture, our manufacturers, and our world-class educational system. If we fall prey to our fears, to our worst demons, and allow any of these pillars to fall, we will lose our opportunity to remain the envy of the world. We can rebuild the foundation of our nation's strength and revamp it for the 21st century. But we cannot simply rest on our past successes and act like our greatness is guaranteed forever. This is deeply personal for me-I would not be here today without the education that enabled me to serve in our military for more than two decades and give back to my country, both in and out of uniform. And our nation would not be as strong as it is today without the millions of individuals who sacrificed to build it.


We have just completed the first working session of our summit on trade and economic integration. We are off to an excellent start. The 34 democratically elected leaders of our hemisphere have agreed to establish a free trade area of the Americas. This historic step will produce real opportunities for more jobs and solid, lasting prosperity for our peoples. We have set the year 2005 as our deadline for negotiating a free trade area, and we have agreed that there will be real progress before the end of the century. The agreement will cover a comprehensive list of areas, from tariffs on goods to services to agricultural and intellectual property. We have set a highly detailed timetable that will include regular meetings of our ministers for trade. In less than a decade, if current trends continue, this hemisphere will be the world's largest market, more than 850 million consumers buying $13 trillion worth of goods and services. When our work is done, the free trade area of the Americas will stretch from Alaska to Argentina. It is the key building block in our creation of a partnership for prosperity. It will build upon the many bilateral and multilateral agreements already existing between our nations. We want to replace the many conflicting and different trade and other regulatory agreements with one that is consistent, while making sure to assist smaller economies in transition. We will ask the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Development Bank to assist in this transition and integration. And we have pledged that our free trade area of the Americas will not raise new barriers to nations outside our region and will be fully consistent with the rules of the World Trade Organization. We have reaffirmed our commitment to make our individual trade and environmental policies mutually supportive and to further secure the observance and promotion of workers' rights. Let me emphasize, none of us none of us underestimates the hard work ahead. But from the leaders of our hemisphere's largest economies to the smallest, we believe the rewards will be great and very much worth the effort. We believe the agreement we have made today to launch the free trade area of the Americas will produce more jobs, higher incomes, and greater opportunities for all of our people. From here we are going to a working lunch, where we will discuss issues affecting sustainable development. Our final session this afternoon will focus on the steps we will take to strengthen our democracies. I can think of no more appropriate way to end this day, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Remarks Following the First Session of the Summit of the Americas in Miami


All this past week a chorus of voices has been rising to urge the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Yesterday our Nation's military leaders and our leading nuclear experts, including a large number of Nobel laureates, came here to say that we can maintain the integrity of our nuclear stockpile without testing, and that we would be safer with the test ban treaty. Today religious leaders from across the spectrum and across the Nation are urging America to seize the higher ground of leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. I want to thank those who are here, including Bishop John Glynn of the U.S. Catholic Bishop's Conference, Reverend Elenora Giddings Ivory of the Presbyterian Church, Reverend Jay Lintner of the National Council of Churches of Christ, Mark Pelavin of the Religious Action Center of Reformed Judaism, Bishop Theodore Schneider of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Joe Volk of the Friends Committee, Dr. James Dunn; there are others here, as well. And I would like to say a special word of thanks to Reverend Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches, as she concludes her responsibilities, for all the support she has given to our administration over the years. And let me express my special gratitude to Senator Jim Jeffords from Vermont and Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota for their presence here and for their leadership in this cause. Will we do everything in our power to reduce the likelihood that someday somewhere nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of someone with absolutely no compunction about using them; or will we instead, send a signal to those who have nuclear weapons, or those who want them, that we will not test but that they can test now or they can test when they develop or acquire the weapons? We have a moral responsibility to future generations to answer that question correctly. And future generations will not forgive us if we fail that responsibility. We all recognize that no treaty by itself can guarantee our security, and there is always the possibility of cheating. But this treaty, like the Chemical Weapons Convention, gives us tools to strengthen our security, a global network of sensors to detect nuclear tests by others, the right to demand inspections, the means to mobilize the whole world against potential violators.

Remarks on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and an Exchange With Reporters


You know, I told the folks at the coffee shop in Crawford, Texas, that Ted Kennedy was all right. I have come to admire him. You want him on your side, I can tell you that. And as a result of his hard work, we put together a good piece of legislation that has put Republicans and Democrats on the side of the schoolchildren in America. On September the 11th, my wife was heading to-was on Capitol Hill to testify in front of Senator Kennedy. And before she could go testify in front of his committee, obviously the evildoers hit America. And I want to thank him publicly, in front of his home folks, for providing such comfort to Laura during an incredibly tough time. Ironically enough, Judd Gregg was there, as well, and both those men went out of their way to put their arm around Laura and let her know all would be right. Speaking about September the 11th, I want the young folks here to know that the mission we are on to rid the world of terror is a noble and just mission. I long for peace. But we learned a terrible lesson, and that lesson is, we must rout out terror wherever it exists, in order for you and your children to grow up in a free and peaceful society. This Nation will not tire; we will not rest until we bring those who are willing to harm Americans to justice. And that is exactly what we intend to do. We have a job to do overseas, and our military is performing brilliantly. For those of you who have got relatives in the military or those of you who are in the military, thank you from the bottom of our Nation's collective heart. And we have got a job to do here at home, as well, and that is to make sure every child in America-every child-receives a good education. Senator Kennedy and I, on the way in here, were talking about the Latin School. And I want to thank the headmistress Kelley for having us here. After he had finished the litany of all the Kennedys that had gone to school here--we talked about the quality of education that the kids receive here. And the truth of the matter is, if you look at this bill that I signed this morning in Ohio, it says this is the way-this is Boston Latin all over again. This is what Boston Latin is about.

Remarks at Boston Latin School in Boston, Massachusetts