State of Union: America firm, strong
Excerpts of President Bush's State of the Union address last night:
Associated Press
You and I serve our country in a time of great consequence. During this session of Congress, we have the duty to reform domestic programs vital to our country. We have the opportunity to save millions of lives abroad from a terrible disease. We will work for a prosperity that is broadly shared, and we will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people.
President Bush delivering his State of the Union speech last night.
In all these days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident. In a whirlwind of change and hope and peril, our faith is sure, our resolve is firm and our union is strong.
This country has many challenges. We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations. We will confront them with focus and clarity and courage.
Strengthen the economy
Our first goal is clear: We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job.
I am proposing that all the income tax reductions set for 2004 and 2006 be made permanent and effective this year. And under my plan, as soon as I've signed the bill, this extra money will start showing up in workers' paychecks. Instead of gradually reducing the marriage penalty, we should do it now. Instead of slowly raising the child credit to $1,000, we should send the checks to American families now.
To boost investor confidence, and to help the nearly 10 million seniors who receive dividend income, I ask you to end the unfair double taxation of dividends.
A growing economy, and a focus on essential priorities, will be crucial to the future of Social Security. As we continue to work together to keep Social Security sound and reliable, we must offer younger workers a chance to invest in retirement accounts that they will control and they will own.
Affordable healthcare
Our second goal is high-quality, affordable health for all Americans.
We must work toward a system in which all Americans have a good insurance policy, choose their own doctors, and seniors and low-income Americans receive the help they need. Instead of bureaucrats, and trial lawyers and HMOs, we must put doctors, and nurses, and patients back in charge of American medicine.
Medicare is a binding commitment of a caring society. We must renew that commitment by giving seniors access to preventive medicine and new drugs that are transforming healthcare in America.
My budget will commit an additional $400 billion over the next decade to reform and strengthen Medicare.
Because of excessive litigation, everybody pays more for healthcare, and many parts of America are losing fine doctors. No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit. I urge the Congress to pass medical liability reform.
Energy independence
Our third goal is to promote energy independence for our country, while dramatically improving the environment.
I ask you to take a crucial step, and protect our environment in ways that generations before us could not have imagined. In this century, the greatest environmental progress will come about through technology and innovation. Tonight I am proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.
Compassionate America
Our fourth goal is to apply the compassion of America to the deepest problems of America.
I propose a $450 million initiative to bring mentors to more than a million disadvantaged junior high students and children of prisoners. Government will support the training and recruiting of mentors, yet it is the men and women of America who will fill the need.
Too many Americans in search of (drug) treatment cannot get it. So tonight I propose a new $600 million program to help an additional 300,000 Americans receive treatment over the next three years.
I ask you to protect infants at the very hour of their birth and end the practice of partial-birth abortion. And because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity and pass a law against all human cloning.
Foreign affairs
In Afghanistan, we helped to liberate an oppressed people and we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society and educate all their children.
Today, on the continent of Africa, nearly 30 million people have the AIDS virus, including 3 million children under the age of 15. I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years, including nearly $10 billion in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.
War on terrorism
This nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature. And this nation is leading the world in confronting and defeating the manmade evil of international terrorism.
We have the terrorists on the run. We're keeping them on the run. One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.
I ask (Congress) tonight to add to our future security with a major research and production effort to guard our people against bioterrorism, called Project Bioshield. The budget I send you will propose almost $6 billion to quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola and plague. We must assume that our enemies would use these diseases as weapons and we must act before the dangers are upon us.
Tonight I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, the CIA, the Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location.
Whatever the duration of this struggle and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men. Free people will set the course of history.
Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror — the gravest danger facing America and the world — is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Once again, this nation and all our friends are all that stand between a world at peace and a world of chaos and constant alarm. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility.
Freedom for Iran
Different threats require different strategies. In Iran, we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government and determine their own destiny and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.
No North Korean blackmail
On the Korean Peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that the regime was deceiving the world and developing those weapons all along. And today, the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed.
America is working with the countries of the region — South Korea, Japan, China and Russia — to find a peaceful solution, and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation and continued hardship. The North Korean regime will find respect in the world and revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions.
Iraq, a brutal dictatorship
Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.
Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons — not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities. Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead his utter contempt for the United Nations and for the opinion of the world.
The 108 U.N. inspectors were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.
