Enacting a Budget that Invests in Education, Health Care, and America's New Markets

Enacting a Budget that Invests in Education, Health Care, and America's New Markets

December 21, 2000

Today, President Clinton signed the last budget legislation of his Administration. The budget reflects the President's eight-year emphasis on educating our children. It includes the largest increase ever for the Department of Education and invests more than twice as many federal resources in education as eight years ago. The budget includes legislation to strengthen our health care system by improving service to Medicare beneficiaries, providing health coverage to vulnerable populations, and restoring reimbursements to Medicare and Medicaid providers disproportionately impacted by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Today's legislation includes the New Markets and Renewal Communities Initiatives to help poor urban and rural communities to participate in our economic prosperity, based upon the agreement that President Clinton and Speaker Hastert reached in November 1999.

Investing in America's Students. The education budget is a landmark achievement, providing a $6.5 billion (or 18 percent) increase for the Department of Education, the largest ever and a 76 percent increase since 1993. It enacts the President's emergency school repair initiative and provides the largest increases ever for after-school programs, Head Start, school accountability, and Pell Grants for low-income college students (since they were fully implemented in 1974).

Strengthening Health Care. The President's budget will strengthen and improve the Medicare, Medicaid, and State Children's Health Insurance Program by investing nearly $35 billion to improve coverage and assure quality, as well as increase investments in public health programs by $5 billion. Highlights include:

Revitalizing America's Underserved Communities. Today's legislation includes the historic new bipartisan New Markets and Community Renewal initiative. This initiative resulted from the commitment President Clinton and Speaker Hastert made in Chicago last November to develop a bipartisan legislative initiative on New Markets to revitalize impoverished communities. This initiative will help encourage private sector equity investment in underserved communities throughout the country to ensure that all Americans share in our nation's economic prosperity. This New Markets Initiative was originally proposed in President Clinton and Vice-President Gore's FY 2000 budget. President Clinton has highlighted the potential of the nation's New Markets in three separate trips across America to underserved inner city and rural communities like Newark, NJ, Hartford, CT, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia, and rural Arkansas, and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in S. Dakota. The key elements of the legislation are:

Investing in the Mississippi Delta. Today's legislation also includes authorization for the Delta Regional Authority (DRA), a newly created agency that will focus $20 million for area development and technical assistance on distressed counties in the Mississippi Delta Region. The authorization will permit the establishment of the DRA, which will work to improve the economic status of some of our Nation's most impoverished communities.

Preparing America's Workers for the 21st Century. The budget invests in worker training to raise productivity and help Americans compete in the global economy.

Fighting Crime and Gun Violence and Making Our Communities Safer. To continue the nationwide decline in gun violence, President Clinton fought for the largest national gun enforcement initiative ever. Today's legislation includes:

Supporting Working Families. The final budget helps all families balance their responsibilities at home and at work by improving access to quality child care and helping them save for the future.



What's New at the White House

What's New - December 2000

What's New - November 2000

What's New - October 2000

What's New - September 2000

What's New - July 2000

What's New - June 2000

What's New - May 2000

What's New - April 2000

What's New - March 2000

What's New - February 2000

What's New - January 2000

What's New Archives 1997-1999

What's New Archives: 1994-1996

Presidential Webcast: Meeting the Challenge of Global Warming

President Clinton Joins International Religious and Domestic Aids Policy Leaders to Mark World Aids Day

Urging Congress to Keep its Commitment and Complete this Year's Education Budget

To Implement Title V of the Trade and Development Act of 2000 and to Modify the Generalized System of Preferences

Preserving America's Coral Reefs

Human Rights Day: The Eleanor Roosevelt Award and The Presidential Medal of Freedom

President Clinton Launches New Effort to Increase Immunization Rates Among Children

President Clinton and Vice President Gore: Restoring an American Natural Treasure

Progress in Efforts to Combat International Crime

President Clinton's New Markets Initiative: Revitalizing America's Underserved Communities

President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Congressional Democrats Win a Landmark Budget

Announcing Welfare Reform Achievements and Budget Wins for America's Families

President Clinton Issues Strong New Consumer Protections to Ensure the Privacy of Medical Records

Enacting a Budget that Invests in Education, Health Care, and America'

President Clinton Appoints Roger Gregory to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

President Clinton Announces New Steps to Improve Nutrition and Education for Children in Developing Countries

The United States on Track to Pay Off the Debt by End of the Decade

President Clinton: Strengthening the Federal Government-University Research Partnership

Keeping the Heat and Lights On During Unusually Cold Weather


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