Clinton Urges Nation to Look Forward to ‘Age of Possibility’

President Clinton, delivering his third State of the Union address to a skeptical and at times sullen Republican majority in Congress, urged the nation Tuesday night to look forward to an “age of possibility” rather than backward at his sometimes rocky tenure in office.

Clinton gave a brief catalog of his accomplishments--a strong economy, a falling crime rate and progress toward peace in Bosnia, the Middle East and Haiti--but used most of his hour in the House chamber to issue a series of challenges to lawmakers and the nation at large.

While declaring the nation fundamentally “strong,” Clinton said that the country’s economy and social fabric must be strengthened.

But, sounding very much the centrist, he laid much of the burden on families and communities, saying that the central government no longer can be called on to cushion all the blows of a rapidly changing economy.

“We know big government does not have all the answers,” he said. “There is not a program for every problem.”

His long list of policy proposals included a call for a new “war on gangs,” steps to ensure temporary health insurance for employees who lose their jobs, campaign finance reform and new scholarship programs.

But most of Clinton’s policy prescriptions were not new and officials were careful to note that they would impose no new financial burden that would hurt the cause of balancing the budget.

Clinton made clear that he is squarely behind key goals of the GOP agenda--balancing the budget, lowering taxes, reforming welfare, shrinking government and stanching illegal immigration. But he parted company with Republicans again and again, asserting that the GOP would trim what he considers the government’s essential role in education, environmental protection, Medicare and Medicaid.

“The era of big government is over,” he said, drawing loud applause. But he drew more applause when he went on to say: “But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.”

White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta said that Clinton hoped in the speech to draw a sharp contrast between his vision of a caring and compassionate society and what Panetta called the “survival-of-the-fittest mentality, which is what you’re seeing in the Congress.”

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), delivering the Republican response to the president’s speech, tried to match Clinton’s overall positive tone, saying that the nation’s “best days are still ahead of us.”

But Dole--the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination who appointed himself to give the GOP response Tuesday night--said that the two parties remain divided on the role of government and the means to achieve social progress. “We have different ways to achieve the goals, different values, different priorities,” Dole said.

The president, as is his custom, worked on the speech right up to the moment that he began to deliver it.

Appeals to GOP

Taking up the most divisive issue he faces, Clinton declared that a deal to balance the budget is still within reach. And he urged Republicans to join him in seeking such an agreement.

“I am convinced that we will balance the budget and make permanent deficits yesterday’s legacy,” he said. Clinton went out of his way to praise Republicans in opposition for “the energy and determination they have brought to this task.”

But he brushed past this still-unresolved issue after a relatively brief discussion and returned to his broader assessment of the country’s prospects.

Clinton’s speech came at a moment when the unresolved budget issue is stirring bitter partisan feeling. Many GOP members registered their disapproval of Clinton by wearing buttons reading: “Deeds not words.”

But they were instructed before the speech by their leaders to refrain from impolite demonstrations, lest it backfire and help Clinton.

Clinton cited progress on a number of social problems but said that substantial challenges remain. He cited seven areas where government, families and communities can make progress toward national goals:

Families

Clinton insisted that even in a time of strained federal resources, government must provide a safety net for distressed families and individuals. Clinton called for enactment of welfare reform and proposed new measures to direct capital to impoverished urban areas. He urged Hollywood to reduce violence on television and in the movies. He proposed steps to restrict tobacco sales and advertising to minors. He repeated past calls for programs to reduce teen pregnancy, domestic violence and delinquent child support payments.

Education

The president proposed a new scholarship program for college-bound high school students who graduate in the top 5% of their classes. The program would provide $1,000 grants to these students at an estimated annual cost of $125 million. He offered support for charter schools, publicly funded institutions run by parents and teachers. He asked Congress and corporations to fund his goal of providing Internet access to every school in the nation by the year 2000 and called on states to raise their standards for pupils and teachers.

Economic Security

Clinton asked Congress to pass legislation to consolidate job-training programs, raise the minimum wage and expand pension benefits to employees of small firms. He supported a bipartisan measure that would provide health insurance for the temporarily unemployed and make health care benefits portable from job to job. He also made a blatantly political appeal to “protect and strengthen” Medicare and Medicaid.

Crime

Clinton announced a new anti-gang initiative that includes a request that the FBI coordinate a nationwide war on gangs and youth violence. He named Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a star of the Persian Gulf war and now head of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama, as the new director of the White House office of drug control policy. He announced a “one-strike-you’re-out” policy that would give public housing authorities the power to evict any tenant found with guns or drugs or continually involved in drug trafficking.

The Environment

The president warned Congress not to undo two decades of bipartisan efforts to protect the nation’s land, air and water. He supported a plan to reward companies who clean up polluted industrial sites in impoverished urban areas. He noted that the administration had streamlined environmental compliance and enforcement and asked business and communities to find cheaper and more efficient ways to protect the ecology.

Foreign Policy

Clinton repeated his assertion that, while the United States cannot solve all the world’s problems, the sole remaining superpower has an obligation to lead where “our values and our interests” demand it. He touted his role in bringing warring parties to the peace table in Northern Ireland as well as the Balkans and the Middle East. He spoke of the sharply diminished threat of nuclear warfare and progress toward slowing the nuclear weapons programs of North Korea and other rogue states.

Political Reform

Against the advice of several top congressional Democrats, Clinton raised the topic of campaign finance reform, a subject of much talk and little action on Capitol Hill for many years. He advocated passage of a reform measure introduced by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) that would reward political candidates who limit their campaign spending and attempt to outlaw political action committees.

Early in the speech, Clinton acknowledged the contributions to society of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is under subpoena by a federal grand jury investigating the Whitewater controversy. He characterized Mrs. Clinton, who observed the speech from the House gallery, as “a wonderful wife . . . and a great first lady.”

Following a tradition started by President Ronald Reagan, Clinton invited a handful of guests to share front-row seats with the first lady.

Among them were Sgt. Jennifer Rodgers, 30, one of the first police officers to reach the site of the federal building bombing in Oklahoma City last year, Massachusetts mill owner Aaron Fuerstein, who kept his employees on the payroll despite a fire that destroyed his factory and the wife and daughter of an Army sergeant serving with the U.S. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzogovina.

Others included Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Mayors Norman Rice of Seattle and Richard M. Daley of Chicago.

The Republican National Committee, fearing that Clinton would use the high-profile address to bash the GOP congressional agenda, began faxing out statements challenging the president’s assertions even as Clinton spoke.

“There’s a big gap between his rhetoric and his actions . . . and how he represents what we Republicans are doing,” said Mary Mead Crawford, an RNC spokeswoman.

Clinton cruised through a long inventory of positive indicators for the nation, the economy, foreign policy, education and even living standards and moral character.

“We are gaining ground in restoring fundamental values,” he said.

Those assessments contrasted with the gloomy evaluations of the American condition and the prospects of a large part of the population, that Clinton has made through much of his term.

Yet as an incumbent seeking reelection, Clinton badly needs to convince Americans that the nation is on the right course. In recent surveys, they have told pollsters by a 2-1 margin that they believe the country is on the wrong course.