Part 10

Second, we ought to cut taxes $ 500 for families with children under 13.

Third, we ought to foster more savings and personal responsibility by permitting people to establish an individual retirement account and withdraw from it tax free for the cost of education, health care, first-time home buying or the care of a parent.

And fourth, we should pass a G.I. bill for America's workers. We propose to collapse nearly 70 Federal programs and not give the money to the states but give the money directly to the American people, offer vouchers to them so that they--if they're laid off or if they're working for a very low wage--can get a voucher worth $ 2,600 a year for up to two years to go to their local community colleges or wherever else they want to get the skills they need to improve their lives. Let's empower people in this way. Move it from the Government directly to the workers of America.

Cutting The Deficit Now

Any one of us can call for a tax cut, but I won't accept one that explodes the deficit or puts our recovery at risk. We ought to pay for our tax cuts fully and honestly. Just two years ago it was an open question whether we would find the strength to cut the deficit.

Thanks to the courage of the people who were here then, many of whom didn't return, we did cut the deficit. We began to do what others said would not be done: We cut the deficit by over $ 600 billion, about $ 10,000 for every family in this country. It's coming down three years in a row for the first time since Mr. Truman was President and I don't think anybody in America wants us to let it explode again.

In the budget I will send you, the middle-class bill of rights is fully paid for by budget cuts in bureaucracy, cuts in programs, cuts in special interest subsidies. And the spending cuts will more than double the tax cuts. My budget pays for the middle-class bill of rights without any cuts in Medicare, and I will oppose any attempts to pay for tax cuts with Medicare cuts. That's not the right thing to do.

I know that a lot of you have your own ideas about tax relief. And some of them, I find quite interesting. I really want to work with all of you.

My tests for our proposals will be: Will it create jobs and raise incomes? Will it strengthen our families and support our children? Is it paid for? Will it build the middle class and shrink the underclass?

If it does, I'll support it. But if it doesn't, I won't.

Minimum Wage

The goal of building the middle class and shrinking the underclass is also why I believe that you should raise the minimum wage.

It rewards work--two and a half million Americans, often women with children, are working out there today for four-and-a-quarter an hour. In terms of real buying power, by next year, that minimum wage will be at a 40-year low. That's not my idea of how the new economy ought to work.

Now I studied the arguments and the evidence for and against a minimum-wage increase. I believe the weight of the evidence is that a modest increase does not cost jobs and may even lure people back into the job market. But the most important thing is you can't make a living on $ 4.25 an hour. Now --especially if you have children, even with the working families tax cut we passed last year.

In the past, the minimum wage has been a bipartisan issue and I think it should be again. So I want to challenge you to have honest hearings on this, to get together to find a way to make the minimum wage a living wage.

Members of Congress have been here less than a month but by the end of the week--28 days into the new year--every member of Congress will have earned as much in congressional salary as a minimum-wage worker makes all year long.

Everybody else here, including the President, has something else that too many Americans do without and that's health care.

Health Care

Now, last year we almost came to blows over health care, but we didn't do anything. And the cold, hard fact is that since last year--since I was here--another 1.1 million Americans in working families have lost their health care. And the cold, hard fact is that many millions more--most of them farmers and small business people and self-employed people--have seen their premiums skyrocket, their co-pays and deductibles go up.

There's a whole bunch of people in this country that in the statistics have health insurance but really what they've got is a piece of paper that says they won't lose their home if they get sick.

Now I still believe our country has got to move toward providing health security for every American family, but--but I know that last year, as the evidence indicates, we bit off more than we could chew.

So I'm asking you that we work together. Let's do it step by step. Let's do whatever we have to do to get something done. Let's at least pass meaningful insurance reform so that no American risks losing coverage for facing skyrocketing prices but that nobody loses their coverage because they face high prices or unavailable insurance when they change jobs or lose a job or a family member gets sick.

I want to work together with all of you who have an interest in this: with the Democrats who worked on it last time, with the Republican leaders like Senator Dole who has a longtime commitment to health care reform and made some constructive proposals in this area last year. We ought to make sure that self-employed people in small businesses can buy insurance at more affordable rates through voluntary purchasing pools. We ought to help families provide long-term care for a sick parent to a disabled child. We can work to help workers who lose their jobs at least keep their health insurance coverage for a year while they look for work, and we can find a way--it may take some time, but we can find a way--to make sure that our children have health care.

You know, I think everybody in this room, without regard to party, can be proud of the fact that our country was rated as having the world's most productive economy for the first time in nearly a decade, but we can't be proud of the fact that we're the only wealthy country in the world that has a smaller percentage of the work force and their children with health insurance today than we did 10 years ago--the last time we were the most productive economy in the world.

So let's work together on this. It is too important for politics as usual.

Much of what the American people are thinking about tonight is what we've already talked about. A lot of people think that the security concerns of America today are entirely internal to our borders, they relate to the security of our jobs and our homes and our incomes and our children, our streets, our health and protecting those borders.

Foreign Policy

Now that the Cold War has passed, it's tempting to believe that all the security issues, with the possible exception of trade, reside here at home. But it's not so. Our security still depends on our continued world leadership for peace and freedom and democracy. We still can't be strong at home unless we're strong abroad.