The President’s Plan

Highlights of proposals in President Clinton’s State of the Union address:

SOCIAL SECURITY

* Transfer 62% of the projected federal budget surpluses over the next 15 years ($2.7 trillion out of a projected $4.4 trillion) to the Social Security system.

* Allow the Social Security system, which must now buy Treasury bonds with its surplus funds, to invest nearly one-quarter of these new funds in the stock market.

* Give another 11% of the budget surpluses (a projected $500 billion over 15 years) to individual workers for investment in their own retirement accounts.

* Match a portion of each dollar deposited into these retirement accounts with an additional government contribution, with greater percentage matches for lower-income workers.

* Allow workers to invest their funds in any of three or four stock and bond index funds.

EDUCATION

* Hold schools, students and teachers to higher standards of accountability, partly by linking federal funds to satisfactory results.

* Require states and school districts to end “social promotion,” the practice of advancing students to the next grade regardless of whether they have mastered the material.

* Demand that states adopt examinations for teachers to demonstrate knowledge of subject matter and teaching techniques; and that states end the use of “emergency certificates” to employ unqualified teachers.

* Continue the seven-year effort to reduce class sizes by approving funds for new teachers and by enacting federal tax credits to encourage states and districts to build and renovate public schools.

FAMILY and LABOR ISSUES

* Expand child care for working families by proposing $7.5 billion in new subsidies over five years, reaching 1.2 million children.

* Triple funds available for after-school and summer programs.

* Provide tax relief to stay-at-home parents through a $1.3-billion program that would offer an average $178 tax credit to any parent who stays at home with a child younger than 1.

* Support an increase of $1 in the minimum wage over the next two years, raising it to $6.15.

* Improve the literacy of about 44 million Americans by offering a 10% tax credit to employers who provide workplace education.

* Provide $1 billion for the Welfare-to-Work program to help find jobs for those remaining on welfare rolls and to increase child-support collections.

* Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to guarantee that employees at firms with more than 25 workers get up to 12 weeks of leave to care for a newborn or adopted child or attend to family health problems. Currently, the law covers employees at firms with more than 50 workers.

CRIME and LAW ENFORCEMENT

* Help communities hire and redeploy as many as 50,000 police officers over five years and give them better crime-fighting technology as part of a $1.3-billion program.

* Toughen “zero tolerance” drug policies by committing $215 million to help communities test, treat and punish drug offenders.

* Reenact the five-day “cooling off” period for purchase of handguns under the recently expired Brady Bill; and ban youths convicted of violent crimes from ever buying guns.

* Require federally licensed firearms dealers to sell a child-safety lock with every handgun.

* Expand the federal hate-crimes statute to include prosecution of crimes based on the victim’s sexual orientation, gender or disability.

MILITARY

* Increase funds by 68% for the federal program aimed at safeguarding the Russian weapons arsenal, which has been a source of growing international concern. Additional funding of $4.2 billion over five years would go toward dismantling warheads and destroying radioactive material; tightening controls over chemical, biological and missile materials and know-how; helping relocate Russian troops now living abroad; and redirecting Russian scientists who might otherwise share their dangerous knowledge with arms-seeking countries.

* Better protect the United States from the threat of chemical and biological attack through increased funds for vaccines and a national preparedness office, among other measures.

* Spend an additional $12 billion to improve military readiness.

ENVIRONMENT

* Promote tax incentives and investments to address changes in global climate through energy-efficient technology and new research.

* Commit $6.1 billion for public transit, as well as billions more for programs aimed at easing congestion and promoting “smart growth” and “livable communities.”

* Promise a $1-billion investment for the protection of local green spaces and historic treasures, a 125% increase in funds over last year.

TOBACCO

* The Justice Dept. is preparing a litigation plan to take the tobacco companies to court and to use the funds collected to strengthen Medicare.