Part 13

Crime in America has dropped for the past seven years--the longest decline on record, thanks to a national consensus we helped to forge on community police, sensible gun safety laws, and effective prevention. But nobody believes America is safe enough. So let's set a higher goal: let's make America the safest big country in the world.

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

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

We've all seen what happens when guns fall into the wrong hands. Daniel Mauser was only 15 years old when he was gunned down at Columbine. He was an amazing kid, a straight-A student, a good skier. Like all parents who lose their children, his father Tom has borne unimaginable grief. Somehow Tom has found the strength to honor his son by transforming his grief into

## action. Earlier this month, he took a leave of absence from his job to

fight for tougher gun safety laws. I pray that his courage and wisdom will move this Congress to make common-sense gun safety legislation the very next order of business. Tom, thank you for being here tonight.

We must strengthen gun laws and better enforce laws already on the books. Federal gun crime prosecutions are up 16 percent since I took office. But again, we must do more. I propose to hire more federal and local gun prosecutors, and more ATF agents to crack down on illegal gun traffickers and bad-apple dealers. And we must give law enforcement the tools to trace every gun--and every bullet--used in a crime in America.

Listen to this: the accidental gun death rate of children under 15 in the United States is nine times higher than in the other 25 industrialized nations--combined. Technologies now exist that could lead to guns that can only be fired by the adults who own them. I ask Congress to fund research in Smart Gun technology. I also call on responsible leaders in the gun industry to work with us on smart guns and other steps to keep guns out of the wrong hands and keep our children safe.

Every parent I know worries about the impact of violence in the media on their children. I thank the entertainment industry for accepting my challenge to put voluntary ratings on TV programs and video and Internet games. But the ratings are too numerous, diverse, and confusing to be really useful to parents. Therefore, I now ask the industry to accept the First Lady's challenge--to develop a single, voluntary rating system for all children's entertainment, one that is easier for parents to understand and enforce.

If we take all these steps, we will be well on our way to making America the safest big country in the world.

Opening New Markets

To keep our historic economic expansion going, we need a 21st Century revolution to open new markets, start new businesses, and hire new workers right here in America--in our inner cities, poor rural areas, and on Indian reservations.

Our nation's prosperity has not yet reached these places. Over the last six months, I have traveled to many of them--joined by many of you, and many far-sighted business people--to shine a spotlight on the enormous potential in communities from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta, from Watts to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Everywhere I've gone, I've met talented people eager for opportunity, and able to work. Let's put them to work.

For business, it's the smart thing to do. For America, it's the right thing to do. And if we don't do it now, when will we ever get around to it?

I ask Congress to give businesses the same incentives to invest in America's new markets that they now have to invest in foreign markets. Tonight, I propose a large New Markets Tax Credit and other incentives to spur $22 billion in private-sector capital--to create new businesses and new investments in inner cities and rural areas.

Empowerment Zones have been creating these opportunities for five years now. We should also increase incentives to invest in them and create more of them.

This is not a Democratic or a Republican issue. It is an American issue. Mr. Speaker, it was a powerful moment last November when you joined me and the Reverend Jesse Jackson in your home state of Illinois, and committed to working toward our common goal, by combining the best ideas from both sides of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with you.

We must maintain our commitment to community development banks and keep the community reinvestment act strong so all Americans have access to the capital they need to buy homes and build businesses.

We need to make special efforts to address the areas with the highest rates of poverty. My budget includes a special $110 million initiative to promote economic development in the Mississippi Delta; and $1 billion to increase economic opportunity, health care, education and law enforcement for Native American communities. In this new century, we should honor our historic responsibility to empower the first Americans. I thank leaders and members from both parties who have already expressed an interest in working with us on these efforts.

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

Today, opportunity for all requires something new: having access to a computer and knowing how to use it. That means we must close the digital divide between those who have these tools and those who don't.

Connecting classrooms and libraries to the Internet is crucial, but it's just a start. My budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach 21st Century skills and creates technology centers in 1,000 communities to serve adults. This spring, I will invite high-tech leaders to join me on another New Markets tour--to close the digital divide and open opportunity for all our people. I thank the high-tech companies that are already doing so much in this area--and I hope the new tax incentives I have proposed will encourage others to join us.

If we take these steps, we will go a long way toward our goal of bringing opportunity to every community.

Global Change and American Leadership

To realize the full possibilities of the new economy, we must reach beyond our own borders, to shape the revolution that is tearing down barriers and building new networks among nations and individuals, economies and cultures: globalization.

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

First, we must forge a new consensus on trade. Those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade must ensure that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating abusive child labor or a race to the bottom on the environment and worker protection. Still, open markets and rules-based trade are the best engines we know for raising living standards, reducing global poverty and environmental destruction, and assuring the free flow of ideas. There is only one direction for America on trade: we must go forward.

And we must make developing economies our partners in prosperity--which is why I ask Congress to finalize our groundbreaking African and Caribbean Basin trade initiatives.

Globalization is about more than economics. Our purpose must be to bring the world together around democracy, freedom, and peace, and to oppose those who would tear it apart.

Here are the fundamental challenges I believe America must meet to shape the 21st Century world.

First, we must continue to encourage our former adversaries, Russia and China, to emerge as stable, prosperous, democratic nations. Both are being held back from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy of communism, economic turmoil, a cruel and self-defeating war in Chechnya; China by the illusion that it can buy stability at the expense of freedom. But think how much has changed in the past decade: thousands of former Soviet nuclear weapons eliminated; Russian soldiers serving with ours in the Balkans; Russian people electing their leaders for the first time in a thousand years. And in China, an economy more open to the world than ever before. No one can know for sure what direction these great countries will choose. But we must do everything in our power to increase the chance they will choose wisely, to be constructive members of the global community.

That is why we must support those Russians struggling for a democratic, prosperous future; continue to reduce both our nuclear arsenals; and help Russia safeguard weapons and materials that remain.

That is why Congress should support the agreement we negotiated to bring China into the WTO, by passing Permanent Normal Trade Relations as soon as possible this year. Our markets are already open to China. This agreement will open China's markets to us. And it will advance the cause of peace in Asia and promote the cause of change in China.

A second challenge is to protect our security from conflicts that pose the risk of wider war and threaten our common humanity. America cannot prevent every conflict or stop every outrage. But where our interests are at stake and we can make a difference, we must be peacemakers.

We should be proud of America's role in bringing the Middle East closer than ever to a comprehensive peace; building peace in Northern Ireland; working for peace in East Timor and Africa; promoting reconciliation between Greece and Turkey and in Cyprus; working to defuse crises between India and Pakistan; defending human rights and religious freedom.

And we should be proud of the men and women of our armed forces and those of our allies who stopped the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo--enabling a million innocent people to return to their homes.

When Slobodan Milosevic unleashed his terror on Kosovo, Captain John Cherrey was one of the brave airmen who turned the tide. And when another American plane went down over Serbia, he flew into the teeth of enemy air defenses to bring his fellow pilot home. Thanks to our armed forces' skill and bravery, we prevailed without losing a single American in combat. Captain Cherrey, we honor you, and promise to finish the job you began.

A third challenge is to keep the inexorable march of technology from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine our defenses. The same advances that have shrunk cell phones to fit in the palms of our hands can also make weapons of terror easier to conceal and easier to use.

We must meet this threat: by making effective agreements to restrain nuclear and missile programs in North Korea, curbing the flow of lethal technology to Iran; preventing Iraq from threatening its neighbors; increasing our preparedness against chemical and biological attack; protecting our vital computer systems from hackers and criminals; and developing a system to defend against new missile threats--while working to preserve our Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

I hope we can have a constructive bipartisan dialogue this year to build a consensus which will lead eventually to the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

A fourth challenge is to ensure that the stability of our planet is not threatened by the huge gulf between rich and poor. We cannot accept a world in which part of humanity lives on the cutting edge of a new economy, while the rest live on the bare edge of survival. We must do our part, with expanded trade, expanded aid, and the expansion of freedom.

From Nigeria to Indonesia, more people won the right to choose their leaders in 1999 than in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. We must stand by democracies--like Colombia, fighting narco-traffickers for its people's lives, and our children's lives. I have proposed a strong two-year package to help Colombia win this fight; and I ask for your support. And I will propose tough new legislation to go after what drug barons value most-- their money.

In a world where 1.2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, we must do our part in the global endeavor to reduce the debts of the poorest countries so they can invest in education, health and economic growth--as the Pope and other religious leaders have urged. Last year, Congress made a down payment on America's share. And I ask for your continued support.

And America must help more nations break the bonds of disease. Last year in Africa, AIDS killed ten times as many people as war did. My budget invests $150 million more in the fight against this and other infectious killers. Today, I propose a tax credit to speed the development of vaccines for diseases like malaria, TB and AIDS. I ask the private sector and our partners around the world to join us in embracing this cause. Together, we can save millions of lives.

Our final challenge is the most important: to pass a national security budget that keeps our military the best trained and best equipped in the world, with heightened readiness and 21st Century weapons; raises salaries for our service men and women; protects our veterans; fully funds the diplomacy that keeps our soldiers out of war; and makes good on our commitment to pay our UN dues and arrears. I ask you to pass this budget and I thank you for the extraordinary support you have given--Republicans and Democrats alike--to our men and women in uniform. I especially want to thank Secretary Cohen for symbolizing our bipartisan commitment to our national security--and Janet Cohen, I thank you for tirelessly traveling the world to show our support for the troops.

If we meet all these challenges, America can lead the world toward peace and freedom in an era of globalization.

Responsibility, Opportunity, and the Environment

I am grateful for the opportunities the Vice President and I have had to work hard to protect the environment and finally to put to rest the notion that you can't expand the economy while protecting the environment. As our economy has grown, we have rid more than 500 neighborhoods of toxic waste and ensured cleaner air and water for millions of families. In the past three months alone, we have acted to preserve more than 40 million acres of roadless lands in our National Forests and created three new National Monuments.

But as our communities grow, our commitment to conservation must grow as well. Tonight, I propose creating a permanent conservation fund to restore wildlife, protect coastlines, and save natural treasures from California redwoods to the Everglades. This Lands Legacy endowment represents by far the most enduring investment in land preservation ever proposed.

Last year, the Vice President launched a new effort to help make communities more livable--so children will grow up next to parks, not parking lots, and parents can be home with their children instead of stuck in traffic. Tonight, we propose new funding for advanced transit systems-- for saving precious open spaces--for helping major cities around the Great Lakes protect their waterways and enhance their quality of life.

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

Many people in the United States and around the world still believe we can't cut greenhouse gas pollution without slowing economic growth. In the Industrial Age that may have been true. In the digital economy, it isn't. New technologies make it possible to cut harmful emissions and provide even more growth. For example, just last week, automakers unveiled cars that get 70 to 80 miles a gallon--the fruits of a unique research partnership between government and industry. Before you know it, efficient production of biofuels will give us the equivalent of hundreds of miles from a gallon of gas.

To speed innovations in environmental technologies, I propose giving major tax incentives to businesses for the production of clean energy--and to families for buying energy-saving homes and appliances and the next generation of super-efficient cars when they hit the showroom floor. I also call on the auto industry to use available technologies to make all new cars more fuel efficient right away. And on Congress to make more of our clean-energy technologies available to the developing world--creating cleaner growth abroad and new jobs at home.

The Opportunity and Responsibility of Science and Technology

In the new century, innovations in science and technology will be the key not only to the health of the environment but to miraculous improvements in the quality of our lives and advances in the economy.

Later this year, researchers will complete the first draft of the entire human genome--the very blueprint of life. It is important for all Americans to recognize that your tax dollars have fueled this research-- and that this and other wise investments in science are leading to a revolution in our ability to detect, treat, and prevent disease.

For example, researchers have identified genes that cause Parkinson's Disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer--and they are designing precision therapies that will block the harmful effects of these faulty genes for good. Researchers are already using this new technique to target and destroy cells that cause breast cancer. Soon, we may be able to use it to prevent the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. Scientists are also working on an artificial retina to help many blind people to see and microchips that would directly stimulate damaged spinal cords and allow people who are now paralyzed to stand up and walk.

Science and engineering innovations are also propelling our remarkable prosperity. Information technology alone now accounts for a third of our economic growth, with jobs that pay almost 80 percent above the private sector average. Again, we should keep in mind: government-funded research brought supercomputers, the Internet, and communications satellites into being. Soon researchers will bring us devices that can translate foreign languages as fast as you can speak; materials 10 times stronger than steel at a fraction of the weight; and molecular computers the size of a teardrop with the power of today's fastest supercomputers.

To accelerate the march of discovery across all disciplines of science and technology, my budget includes an unprecedented $3 billion increase in the 21st Century Research Fund, the largest increase in civilian research in a generation.

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

These steps will allow America to lead toward the far frontiers of science and technology--enhancing our health, environment, and economy in ways we cannot even imagine today.

Community

At a time when science, technology and the forces of globalization are bringing so many changes into our lives, it is more important than ever that we strengthen the bonds that root us in our local communities and in our national communities.

No tie binds different people together like citizen service. There is a new spirit of service in America--a movement we have supported with AmeriCorps, an expanded Peace Corps, and unprecedented new partnerships with businesses, foundations, and community groups. Partnerships to enlist 12,000 companies in moving 650,000 of our fellow citizens from welfare to work. To battle drug abuse and AIDS. To teach young people to read. To Save America's Treasures. To strengthen the arts. To fight teen pregnancy. To prevent youth violence. To promote racial healing.

We can do even more to help Americans help each other. We should help faith-based organizations do more to fight poverty and drug abuse and help young people get back on the right track with initiatives like Second Chance Homes to help unwed teen mothers. We should support Americans who tithe and contribute to charities, but don't earn enough to claim a tax deduction for it. Tonight, I propose new tax incentives to allow low- and middle-income citizens to get that deduction.

We should do more to help new immigrants fully participate in the American community--investing more to teach them civics and English. And since everyone in our community counts, we must make sure everyone is counted in this year's census.

Within ten years there will be no majority race in our largest state, California. In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in America. In a more interconnected world, this diversity can be our greatest strength. Just look around this chamber. We have members from virtually every racial, ethnic, and religious background. And America is stronger for it. But as we have seen, these differences all too often spark hatred and division, even here at home.

We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line. Without delay, we must pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And we should reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

No American should be subjected to discrimination in finding a home, getting a job, going to school, or securing a loan. Tonight, I propose the largest ever investment to enforce America's civil rights laws. Protections in law must be protections in fact.

Last February, I created the White House Office of One America to promote racial reconciliation. That's what Hank Aaron, has done all his life. From his days as baseball's all-time homerun king to his recent acts of healing, he has always brought Americans together. We're pleased he's with us tonight.

This fall, at the White House, one of America's leading scientists said something we should all remember. He said all human beings, genetically, are 99.9 percent the same. So modern science affirms what ancient faith has always taught: the most important fact of life is our common humanity.

Therefore, we must do more than tolerate diversity--we must honor it and celebrate it.