By the, by the year 2000, every child must start school ready to learn.  The United States must increase the high school graduation rate to no less than 90 percent.  And we are going to make sure our schools’ diplomas mean something.  In critical subjects, at the fourth, eighth, and 12th grades, we must assess our students’ performance.

By the, by the year 2000 U.S. students must be the first in the world in math and science achievement.  Every American adult must be a skilled, literate worker and citizen.  Every school must offer the kind of disciplined environment that makes it possible for our kids to learn.  And every school in America must be drug-free.

Ambitious aims?  Of course.  Easy to do?  Far from it.  But the future’s at stake.  The nation will not accept anything less than excellence in education.

These investments will help keep America competitive.  And I know this about the American people:  we welcome competition.  We’ll match our ingenuity, our energy, our experience, and technology our spirit and enterprise against anyone.  But let the competition be free, but let it also be fair.  America is ready.

Since we really mean it, and since we’re serious about being ready to meet our challenge, we’re getting our own house in order.  We have made real progress.  Seven years ago, the Federal deficit was 6 percent of our gross national product, 6 percent.  In the new budget I sent up two days ago the deficit is down to 1 percent of GNP.

That budget brings Federal spending under control.  It meets the Gramm-Rudman target.  It brings the deficit down further.  And balances the budget by 1993, with no new taxes.

And let me tell you, there’s still more than enough Federal spending.  For most of us, $1.2 trillion is still a lot of money.

And once the budget is balanced, we can operate the way every family must when it has bills to pay.  We won’t leave it to our children and grandchildren.  Once it’s balanced, we will start paying off the national debt.

And there’s something more, and there’s something more we owe the generations of the future:  stewardship, the safekeeping of America’s precious environmental inheritance.

As just one sign of how serious we are, we will elevate the Environmental Protection Agency to Cabinet rank.  Not, not more bureaucracy, not more red tape, but the certainty that here at home, and especially in our dealings with other nations, environmental issues have the status they deserve.

This year’s budget provides over $2 billion in new spending to protect our environment, with over $1 billion for global change research, and a new initiative I call America the Beautiful to expand our national parks and wildlife preserves and improve recreational facilities on public lands.

And something else, something that will help keep this country clean, from our forest land to the inner cities, and keep America beautiful for generations to come, the money to plant a billion trees a year.