ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050111
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
President Clinton, declaring that Americans ``want us to be partners, not partisans,'' challenged Congress in his State of the Union address Tuesday night to give the nation's schools a big spending increase while balancing the budget by 2002.
Recycling popular ideas from his campaign, Clinton identified education as the top priority of his second term and said Americans should have ``the best education in the world.'' He challenged communities to measure their students against national standards to lift achievement in math and science.
The president's proposals would boost education spending by 20 percent, to $51 billion for fiscal 1998. The increase - including the cost of tax breaks for college - would total 40 percent by 2002.
The president lectured the Republican-led Congress to ``complete the unfinished business of our country'' - balancing the budget, enacting long-stalled campaign finance reform and reopening last year's welfare law to restore benefits to legal immigrants.
In a 60-minute speech, his tone was both conciliatory and challenging, calling for racial and political harmony but also pressuring Congress for action. He was interrupted by applause 69 times.
As Clinton stood before a joint session of Congress, the nation's attention was distracted by news of a verdict in the O.J. Simpson civil trial. Clinton completed his remarks just as the verdict was being read in California.
Balancing the budget by 2002 ``requires only your vote and my signature,'' Clinton said, brushing over the wide gulf with Republicans over how to achieve that goal.
He said the proposal for a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget was ``unnecessary and unwise,'' adding: ``We don't need a constitutional amendment. We need action.'' That line drew groans from Republicans.
Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma gave the traditional Republican response. In his prepared remarks, Watts struck GOP themes of returning power to local communities, family values and balancing the federal budget.
``The strength of America is not in Washington,'' Watts said.
For the moment, at least, Republicans and Democrats alike are stressing bipartisanship and cooperation, although neither side pretends there won't be legislative fights.
``We must work together,'' the president said. ``The people of this nation elected us all. They want us to be partners, not partisans. They put us all here in the same boat. They gave us all oars, and they told us to row.''
Clinton set a July 4 deadline for Congress to enact campaign finance reform, warning that delay ``will mean the death of reform.''
The president talked at length about national security and foreign policy. He said NATO must expand eastward toward Russia by 1999 and said the United States must pursue more dialogue with China.
``An isolated China is not good for America,'' Clinton said in defense of his policy.
He urged ratification of an international treaty banning chemical weapons, which Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., is delaying.
Education was the centerpiece of Clinton's speech. Promising to use the bully pulpit of the presidency, Clinton said, ``We can make American education, like America itself, the envy of the world.''
He said the government will pay for the development of national tests measuring fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math and will encourage every community to measure students by those standards.
The president stopped short of saying the government would require students to be measured by the tests. That will be up to individual states and school districts - although Washington will pay for preparing the exams and administering them the first time, in the spring of 1999.
``Raising standards will not be easy, and some of our children will not be able to meet them at first,'' the president said. ``The point is not to put our children down but to lift them up.''
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. President Clinton delivers his State of the Unionby CNBaddress Tuesday night. Vice President Al Gore listens from behind
him. color.