State of Union to Be a Show of Strength

Determined to show that his embattled presidency is alive and kicking, President Clinton plans to use tonight’s State of the Union address to push for an ambitious agenda of education programs, Social Security reform and tax cuts.

Facing an audience of congressmen who already have voted to impeach him and senators who are weighing the evidence of perjury and obstruction of justice against him, Clinton has prepared an hourlong oration intended to demonstrate that he has not been crippled by the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal.

“He wants . . . to show that there’s still energy and ideas in this administration and that the president is still the person who can push them forward,” said Don Baer, a former White House communications director who has worked with the president on this speech.

The president and his aides worked on an outline and then drafts of the speech for the last several weeks. Over the weekend, he had two full rehearsals of the address for several hours each day in the White House family theater. The rehearsals will continue until just before the speech is delivered.

“There is a lot riding on it,” said one outside advisor who has worked on the president’s speech. “It’s the opportunity for the president to demonstrate that he can still lead the country.”

Some Republicans May Boycott Speech

Some Republicans were considering skipping the State of the Union address, although GOP leadership aides predicted that only a handful would do so.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) circulated a letter to representatives urging them to maintain proper decorum in the chamber, despite the “extraordinary times.”

“Out of respect for the office of the presidency and for the state of our union, we will listen to the president’s remarks soberly and with the dignity that befits the United States Congress,” Hastert said.

White House officials conceded that the impeachment trial has placed additional pressure on the president’s performance but stressed that he has become accustomed to giving well-received State of the Union speeches despite distracting events. In fact, this is the third year in a row that outside events have threatened to upstage his speech.

Two years ago, the verdict was being read at the O.J. Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles as Clinton started his address, prompting television networks to split their screens. Last year, news of the president’s relationship with Lewinsky was less than a week old when he took the podium, winning widespread credit for grit in the face of adversity.

“We’re getting used to it,” said White House Communications Director Ann Lewis. The Senate trial? “That made no difference in the preparations,” she said. “This is about doing the people’s business.”

Detailing the Compact Between Generations

The theme of the speech will be strengthening the compact among the generations for a new era, White House aides said. It will map out new responsibilities for society both to its children, as more students fill America’s schools than ever before, and to its elderly, as the population becomes increasingly older.

The cornerstone of this effort would be reforming Social Security. Although details are being closely held, White House officials said that the president will propose that enough of the budget surplus be preserved to finance the changes in the Social Security system, which is projected to have insufficient funds to pay promised benefits starting in 2032.

Social Security is “central to what he’s going to be proposing for the whole country,” a senior administration official said.

Among the proposals that the White House has been weighing, according to outside experts, are ones that retain enough of the surplus--estimated to be at least $76 billion this year--to help create a new personal savings account for every worker. The money would come from the budget surplus.

The buildup in these new accounts would provide added savings for all workers and could make it possible sometime in the future to scale back some of the benefits in the existing Social Security program.

“What the president is worried about is making sure that the sum of money piling up in the surplus is available” to ease the way toward a modified Social Security system, said Clint Stretch, a managing partner at Deloitte & Touche, a leading accounting and consulting firm.

A Concession as Battle Begins

The concept of these personal accounts is favored by most Republicans and likely would be seen as an early concession to congressional leaders at what is likely to be the beginning of a long battle.

On education, the president will propose a new federal role to guarantee that schools are accountable to students and parents. Under the plan, schools no longer would pass students who have not mastered their work and states would have to identify and turn around their lowest-achieving schools.

States would also be required to test and certify all new teachers on both teaching skills and knowledge of their subjects. And, to help put parents in control of their children’s educations, states would be required to distribute to all parents annual report cards for each school and school district, which would include ratings for student performance and class size.

“We can’t . . . say this is the way you do it or that’s the way you do it,” said Marshall Smith, deputy secretary of the Education Department. “There are a general set of conditions that we can spell out and people have got to figure out a way to meet.”

White House officials are aware that congressional Republicans will give them a fight on these initiatives but are ready to do battle.

“We think somebody has got to stand up and say enough,” Smith said.

Many of Clinton’s domestic programs are being packaged as tax cuts, including tax credits for long-term care of elderly or disabled persons and for school construction.

But Clinton will not limit himself to a few high-profile programs. Food safety, environmental cleanup and chemical warfare are but a few of the other topics on his list.

“It’s what we expect from this president,” said Maria Echaveste, deputy White House chief of staff. “But it’s not what most people would expect from the seventh year of an eight-year administration.”

Clinton took a break from his preparations Monday to visit the Regency House, a home for the elderly. To mark Martin Luther King Day, Clinton took a crowbar and hammer and helped knock down a wall to create a bigger space for a health clinic. The demolition was part of a project by an Americorps team, his signature national-service program.

The president, who appeared to be in a good mood, said that the exertion was “therapeutic.” On the way back to the White House, he stopped at a popular Washington bookstore to browse and chat with other shoppers.

Brainstorming Session Scrapped

Although he was trying to project a business-as-usual image, there were some indications that his State of the Union routine was altered because of the impeachment trial. Clinton did not conduct his usual pre-speech brainstorming session with intellectuals this year.

“Certainly from where we stand it looks like a kind of insulation or cocooning” of the president, said Benjamin R. Barber, director of the Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy at Rutgers University and a participant in several such past sessions. “It certainly seems odd, because he’s done it over and over again.”

White House officials said there was just no time this year for such a gathering. The academics were asked to draft memos for the president, assessing the health of the nation and proposing ideas for the future, the officials said.

Times staff writers Alissa J. Rubin and Robert A. Rosenblatt contributed to this story.