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White Paper

February 27, 2001

A Summary of the Policy Initiatives Made by President Bush in the State of the Union Address

In 1999, former President Clinton proposed 95 new or expanded government initiatives. Last year, he surpassed that total with 104 new or expanded government regulations or spending programs in 89 minutes. In his address to Congress earlier tonight, President Bush proposed 38 new or expanded policy initiatives in a 49-minute speech.

Here is a list of the initiatives proposed by President Bush:

Education

1. Reading
 "Reading is the foundation of all learning, so during the next 5 years, we triple spending, adding another $5 billion to help every child in America learn to read."

2. Character
 "Values are important, so we have tripled funding for character education to teach our children not only reading and writing, but right from wrong."

3. Teacher Recruitment
 "We have increased funding to train and recruit teachers,"

4. Streamline Federal Education Programs
"So we must streamline the dozens of federal education programs into five"

5. Local Control of Federal Education Money
"and let the states spend money in those categories as they see fit."

6. National Testing
"Children should be tested on basic reading and math skills every year"

7. Vouchers
"Yet if they do not, if they continue to fail, we must give parents and students different options."

8. Accountability Standards
"So we must tie funding to higher standards and accountability for results."

Health Care

9. Double Medicare Budget
"To meet the health care needs of all America's seniors, we double the Medicare budget over the next 10 years."

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