Our economic plan also bolsters our strength and our credibility around the
world. Once we reduced the deficit and put the steel back into our
competitive edge, the world echoed with the sound of falling trade
barriers. In one year, with NAFTA, with GATT, with our efforts in Asia and
the national export strategy, we did more to open world markets to American
products than at any time in the last two generations. That means more jobs
and rising living standards for the American people, low deficits, low
inflation, low interest rates, low trade barriers and high investments.
These are the building blocks of our recovery. But if we want to take full
advantage of the opportunities before us in the global economy, you all
know we must do more.
As we reduce defense spending, I ask Congress to invest more in the
technologies of tomorrow. Defense conversion will keep us strong militarily
and create jobs for our people here at home.
As we protect our environment, we must invest in the environmental
technologies of the future which will create jobs. This year we will fight
for a revitalized Clean Water Act and a Safe Drinking Water Act and a
reformed Superfund program.
And the vice president is right; we must also work with the private sector
to connect every classroom, every clinic, every library, every hospital in
America into a national information superhighway by the year 2000. Think of
it. Instant access to information will increase productivity. It will help
to educate our children. It will provide better medical care. It will
create jobs. And I call on the Congress to pass legislation to establish
that information superhighway this year.
As we expand opportunity and create jobs, no one can be left out. We must
continue to enforce fair lending and fair housing and all civil rights
laws, because America will never be complete in its renewal until everyone
shares in its bounty. But we all know, too, we can do all these things--
put our economic house in order, expand world trade, target the jobs of the
future, guarantee equal opportunity.
But if we're honest, we'll all admit that this strategy still cannot work
unless we also give our people the education, training and skills they need
to seize the opportunities of tomorrow. We must set tough, world-class
academic and occupational standards for all our children and give our
teachers and students the tools they need to meet them.