"America is in trouble. Our people are hurting. The rich keep getting richer and the politicians just seem to be taking care of themselves. It's time we took care of our own. If America's not strong enough at home, we'll never be able to stand up for what we believe in around the world. National security begins at home."

BILL CLINTON OFFERS AN ECONOMIC PLAN TO COMPETE AND PROSPER IN THE WORLD ECONOMY

Bill Clinton will cut taxes for the middle class and make the rich pay their fair share.

Bill Clinton will encourage and maintain commitment to better education at every level.

Bill Clinton will make sure American workers can get training and retraining throughout their careers -- so that America can achieve a high-skill, high wage economy.

Bill Clinton will fight for tough, effective trade laws and encourage investment in research and development for emerging technologies.

Bill Clinton will make certain there are more FHA loans so middle-income families can buy homes.

Bill Clinton will speed up building and repair of our roads and bridges.

BILL CLINTON OFFERS A NEW AMERICAN HEALTH CARE PLAN

Middle-class working families are living in fear everyday that if they get sick they'll lose everything. That's wrong. In his last year as President, Bill Clinton will present a new American health care plan to:

Cover everybody.

Control costs, improve quality, expand preventive and long-term care.

Maintain consumers' choice of doctors.

Take on the insurance companies and the medical bureaucracy, and demand reform.

BILL CLINTON OFFERS A PLAN TO ENSURE WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION

The key to our economic future is education. A nationally-recognized leader in education reform, Bill Clinton will be a real "Education President As President", he will:

Fully fund Head Start for all eligible young children.

Demand accountability and quality of every school, teacher and student.

Establish a national apprenticeship program for young people who don't want to go to college but don't want to end up in dead-end jobs.

Launch a domestic GI bill to guarantee a college education to everyone if they're willing to pay it back as a small percentage of income or through two years of national service in their communities as police officers, teachers, health care personnel, and other vital professions.

BILL CLINTON

A Lifetime of Fighting for the American Dream

Bill Clinton was born in Hope, Arkansas 45 years ago. For 16 years, he has been married to Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Clintons have an 11-year-old daughter named Chelsea.

Bill Clinton is now serving his fifth term as governor of Arkansas. A former chairman of the National Governors' Association, he has been ranked by his fellow governors as the most effective governor in the country.

Bill Clinton has worked hard to improve education and increase employment, and he has served as Co-chair of the President's Education Summit with the nation's governors. He has also served as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Bill Clinton earned his law degree from Yale University and his bachelor's degree from Georgetown University. He was also a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.

"I don't want my child or your children to grow up in a world that is coming apart instead of coming together."

‘Putting People First’

It's Time to Put People First.

That is the core of our national economic strategy for America. And that will be the fundamental idea that guides every day of our Administration.

For more than a decade our government has been rigged in favor of the rich and special interests. While the wealthiest Americans get richer, middle-class Americans work harder and earn less while paying higher taxes to a government that fails to produce what we need: good jobs in a growing economy, world-class education, affordable health care, and safe streets and neighborhoods. Economic growth will not come without a national economic strategy to invest in people and meet the competition. Today we have no economic vision, no economic leadership and no economic strategy.

Our political system has failed us, too. Our government doesn't work. Hard-working Americans who play by rules have no voice in Washington.

Our National Economic Strategy puts people first by investing more than $50 billion annually over the next four years to put America back to work -- the most dramatic economic growth program since World War II. To pay for these investments and reduce our national deficit, we will save nearly $300 billion by cutting spending, closing corporate tax loopholes, and requiring the very wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes.

No one will agree with all the details of our plan. But you have a right to know what we'll do and where we stand.

Put America to Work.

To restore economic growth, we must put our people back to work and invest in our nation. Our strategy will:

Create a Rebuild America Fund with a $20 billion annual federal investment for each of the next four years, leveraged by state, local, private sector and pension fund contributions. This fund will be used to renovate roads, bridges and highways and create the world's best transportation, information and environmental protection technologies and networks.

Convert our defense-based economy to a peacetime one to ensure that the communities and workers who won the Cold War don't get left out in the cold. Create a civilian research and development agency to encourage conversion and cutting-edge technologies.

Invest in our communities by creating a nationwide network of community development banks to provide loans to entrepreneurs and homeowners; requiring companies that bid on city projects to set up shop in enterprise zones to employ local residents; and easing the inner-city credit crunch to prevent "redlining."

Make our streets safer and create jobs by adding 100,000 new police officers, with incentives for military personnel to join.

Demand Corporate Responsibility.

Our National Economic Strategy will make large corporations accountable to the American people and provide incentives for entrepreneurs and small businesses, which create most of the jobs in our nation. We will:

Ensure tax fairness by cracking down on foreign companies that manipulate our laws to evade taxes. Eliminate deductions for companies that ship American jobs overseas and reward outrageous executive pay.

Encourage private investment with tax credits that reward companies that make long-term commitments to new business, and reward those who invest in research and development.

Open up world markets by passing tougher trade legislation, creating a national Economic Security Council and stopping our trade representatives from cashing in on their contacts when they leave government.

Ensure worker retraining by requiring every employer to spend 1.5 percent of payroll on training for all workers -- not just executives.

Reward Work and Families.

Our National Economic Strategy will put people first by rewarding work, demanding responsibility and ending welfare as we know it. We will:

Make welfare a second chance, not a way of life by scrapping the current system and empowering those on welfare by providing the education, training and child care they need to go to work.

Reduce the middle-class tax burden by giving working families a choice between a children's tax credit and a rate cut -- and pay for it by making the rich pay their fair share.

Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit so that no one with a family who works full time has to raise children on poverty.

Sign the Family and Medical Leave Act to give American parents the right to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn or a sick relative.

Crack down on deadbeat parents by reporting those delinquent in child support payments to credit agencies, using the IRS to collect child support and starting a national deadbeat databank.

Lifetime Learning.

Governments fail when our schools fail. Education today is more than the key to climbing the ladder of opportunity, it is an imperative for our nation. Our strategy will:

Prepare children for school by helping disadvantaged parents build a learning ethic at home and fully funding programs like Head Start and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program that save taxpayers several dollars for every one spent.

Overhaul America's public schools with tough standards and national exams in core subjects, and provide public school choice. Enact a "Safe Schools Initiative" to help ensure a positive learning environment.

Giving dropouts a second chance by giving them a chance to develop skills and learn self-discipline through a Youth Opportunity Corps.

Develop a national apprenticeship program that brings business, labor, and educators together to offer non-college-bound students valuable training.

Give every American the right to borrow for college by establishing a National Service Trust Fund, maintaining Pell Grants, and scrapping the current student loan program. Students will repay their loans either as a small percentage of their income after graduation or by going home to do community service as teachers, counselors or police officers.

Provide Affordable Quality Health Care.

Our health care system costs too much and does not work. Washington has favored the insurance companies, drug manufacturers and health care bureaucracies. Putting people first means guaranteeing every American the right to affordable quality health care. We will:

Control health care costs to ensure that they do not rise faster than the rate of inflation.

Eliminate tax breaks for drug companies that raise their prices faster than Americans' incomes.

Take on the powerful insurance lobby to prevent consumers from subsidizing billions in administrative waste.

Guarantee a core benefits package that includes ambulatory physician care, inpatient hospital care, prescription drugs, basic mental health, and expanded prenatal, preventive, and long-term care. The package will be set by a health standards board made up of consumers, providers, business, labor and government.

Make health care a right, not a privilege, by giving employers and employees the right to buy private insurance or opt for a public package.

Streamline the health care bureaucracy and protect small business by instituting a "community rating" program.

Break the Washington Stalemate.

No plan to put our people first, no strategy to make the economy grow, can succeed unless we break the stalemate in Washington. It is time to cut the bureaucracy, limit the special interests, stop the revolving door and cut off the unrestricted flow of campaign funds. We will:

Cut 100,000 unnecessary bureaucratic positions through attrition and mandate 3 percent across-the-board savings in every federal agency.

Eliminate taxpayer subsidies for lobbyists and special interests. Toughen and streamline disclosure requirements.

Reduce the White House staff by 25 percent, and challenge Congress to do the same.

Stop the revolving door from public service to private enrichment by requiring senior Administration officials pledge never to become registered agents for foreign governments, and challenging Congress to do the same.

Enact strong campaign reform legislation that caps spending on Congressional campaigns: slashes political action committee (PAC) contributions to the individual legal limit of $1,000; and lowers the cost of air time so that TV becomes an instrumentation of education, not a weapon of political assassination.

If you're ready to put people first, join our cause.