And we should also work hard to open the doors of college even wider.  I challenge Congress to expand work-study and help one million young Americans work their way through college by the year 2000; to provide a $1000 merit scholarship for the top five percent of graduates in every high school in the United States; to expand Pell Grant scholarships for deserving and needy students; and to make up to $10,000 a year of college tuition tax deductible.  It’s a good idea for America.

Our third challenge is to help every American who is willing to work for it, achieve economic security in this new age.  People who work hard still need support to get ahead in the new economy.  They need education and training for a lifetime.  They need more support for families raising children.  They need retirement security.  They need access to health care.  More and more Americans are finding that the education of their childhood simply doesn’t last a lifetime.

G.I.  Bill For Workers

So I challenge Congress to consolidate 70 overlapping, antiquated job-training programs into a simple voucher worth $2,600 for unemployed or underemployed workers to use as they please for community college tuition or other training.  This is a G.I.  Bill for America’s workers we should all be able to agree on.

More and more Americans are working hard without a raise.  Congress sets the minimum wage.  Within a year, the minimum wage will fall to a 40-year low in purchasing power.  Four dollars and 25 cents an hour is no longer a living wage, but millions of Americans and their children are trying to live on it.  I challenge you to raise their minimum wage.

In 1993, Congress cut the taxes of 15 million hard-pressed working families to make sure that no parents who work full-time would have to raise their children in poverty, and to encourage people to move from welfare to work.  This expanded earned income tax credit is now worth about $1,800 a year to a family of four living on $20,000.  The budget bill I vetoed would have reversed this achievement and raised taxes on nearly 8 million of these people.  We should not do that.

I also agree that the people who are helped under this initiative are not all those in our country who are working hard to do a good job raising their children and at work.  I agree that we need a tax credit for working families with children.  That’s one of the things most of us in this Chamber, I hope, can agree on.  I know it is strongly supported by the Republican majority.  And it should be part of any final budget agreement.

I want to challenge every business that can possibly afford it to provide pensions for your employees.  And I challenge Congress to pass a proposal recommended by the White House Conference on Small Business that would make it easier for small businesses and farmers to establish their own pension plans.  That is something we should all agree on.