We need to make special efforts to address the areas with the highest rates of poverty.  My budget includes a special $110 million initiative to promote economic development in the Mississippi Delta; and $1 billion to increase economic opportunity, health care, education and law enforcement for Native American communities.  In this new century, we should honor our historic responsibility to empower the first Americans.  I thank leaders and members from both parties who have already expressed an interest in working with us on these efforts.

There’s another part of our American community in trouble today—­our family farmers.  When I signed the Farm Bill in 1996, I said there was a great danger it would work well in good times but not in bad.  Well, droughts, floods, and historically low prices have made times very bad for our farmers.  We must work together to strengthen the farm safety net, invest in land conservation, and create new markets by expanding our program for bio-based fuels and products.

Today, opportunity for all requires something new:  having access to a computer and knowing how to use it.  That means we must close the digital divide between those who have these tools and those who don’t.

Connecting classrooms and libraries to the Internet is crucial, but it’s just a start.  My budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach 21st Century skills and creates technology centers in 1,000 communities to serve adults.  This spring, I will invite high-tech leaders to join me on another New Markets tour—­to close the digital divide and open opportunity for all our people.  I thank the high-tech companies that are already doing so much in this area—­and I hope the new tax incentives I have proposed will encourage others to join us.

If we take these steps, we will go a long way toward our goal of bringing opportunity to every community.

Global Change and American Leadership

To realize the full possibilities of the new economy, we must reach beyond our own borders, to shape the revolution that is tearing down barriers and building new networks among nations and individuals, economies and cultures:  globalization.

It is the central reality of our time.  Change this profound is both liberating and threatening.  But there is no turning back.  And our open, creative society stands to benefit more than any other—­if we understand, and act on, the new realities of interdependence.  We must be at the center of every vital global network, as a good neighbor and partner.  We cannot build our future without helping others to build theirs.

First, we must forge a new consensus on trade.  Those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade must ensure that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating abusive child labor or a race to the bottom on the environment and worker protection.  Still, open markets and rules-based trade are the best engines we know for raising living standards, reducing global poverty and environmental destruction, and assuring the free flow of ideas.  There is only one direction for America on trade:  we must go forward.