| Since 1993 our overall investment in combating HIV and AIDS had increased 60 percent, we had approved eight new AIDS drugs and nineteen others for AIDS-related conditions, and the death rate was going down in AmericaStill, we were a long way from a vaccine or a cure, and the problem had exploded in Africa, where we werent doing enoughThurman was bright, energetic, and forceful; I knew she would keep us all on our toes
On the last day of April, Hillary and I made public Chelseas decision to attend Stanford in the fallIn her typically methodical way, Chelsea had also visited Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, and Wellesley, and had been to several of them twice to get a feel for the academic and social life of each institutionGiven her excellent grades and test scores, she had been accepted by all of them, and Hillary had hoped she would stay closer to homeI always suspected Chelsea would like to get far away from WashingtonI just wanted her to go to a school where she would learn a lot, make good friends, and enjoy herselfBut her mother and I were going to miss her badlyHaving Chelsea at home in our first four years in the White House, going to her school and ballet events, and getting to know her friends and their parents had been a joy, repeatedly reminding us, no matter what else was going on, of what a blessing our daughter was
Economic growth in the first quarter of 1997 was reported to be 5 percent, which pushed the estimated deficit down to $75 billion, about a quarter of what it was when I took vintage chanel jewelry officeOn May 2, I announced that, at long last, I had reached a balanced budget agreement with Speaker Gingrich and Senator Lott and the congressional negotiators for both partiesSenator Tom Daschle also announced his support for the agreement; Dick Gephardt did not, but I was hoping he would come around once he had a chance to review itThe deal was much easier to make this time because economic growth had brought unemployment below 5 percent for the first time since 1973, boosting payrolls, profits, and tax revenues
In broad terms, the agreement extended the life of Medicare for a decade, while providing the annual mammogram and diabetes screening initiatives I wanted; extended health coverage to five million children, the largest expansion since the passage of Medicaid in the 1960s; contained the largest increase in education spending in thirty years; gave more incentives to businesses to hire welfare recipients; restored health benefits to disabled legal immigrants; funded the cleanup of five hundred more toxic waste sites; and provided tax relief close to the amount I had recommended
I met the Republicans halfway on the amount of Medicare savings, which I now believed we could achieve with good policy changes that didnt hurt senior citizens, and the Republicans accepted a smaller tax cut, the child health insurance program, and the big education increaseWe got about 95 percent of the new investments I had recommended in the State of the Union, and the Republicans took about two-thirds of the tax watch chanel j12 black with diamonds cut figure they had originally proposedThe tax cuts would now be far smaller than the Reagan tax reduction of 1981I was elated that the countless hours of meetings, begun in late 1995 under the threat of a government shutdown, had produced the first balanced budget since 1969, and a good one to bootSenator Lott and Speaker Gingrich had worked with us in good faith, and Erskine Bowles, with his negotiating skills and common sense, had kept things going with them and the principal congressional negotiators at critical moments
Later in the month, when the budget agreement was brought to a vote in a resolution, 64 percent of the House Democrats joined 88 percent of the House Republicans in voting for itIn the Senate, where Tom Daschle was supporting the agreement, Democrats were in favor of the agreement even more strongly than Republicans, 82 to 74 percent
I took some criticism from Democrats who objected to the tax cut or to the fact that we were making the agreement at allThey argued that if we did nothing, the budget would be balanced the next year or the year afterward anyway because of the 1993 plan only Democrats had voted for; now we were going to let Republicans share the creditThat was true, but we were also going to get the biggest increase in higher education aid in fifty years, health care for five million kids, and middle-class tax cuts I supported
On the fifth, Mexican Independence Day, I left for a trip to Mexico, Central America, and the CaribbeanLittle over a decade earlier, our prada stripe handbag neighbors had been plagued with civil wars, coups, dictators, closed economies, and desperate povertyNow every nation in the hemisphere except one was a democracy, and the region as a whole was our largest trading partner; we exported twice as much to the Americas as to Europe and almost 50 percent more than to AsiaStill, there was too much poverty in the region, and we had serious problems with drugs and illegal immigration
I took a number of cabinet members and a bipartisan congressional delegation to Mexico with me as we announced new agreements designed to reduce illegal immigration and the influx of drugs across the Rio GrandePresident Zedillo was an able, honest man with a strong supporting team, and I was sure he would try his best to deal with these problemsWhile I knew we could do better, I doubted there was a completely satisfactory solution to either of the two problemsThere were a number of contributing factors to take into accountMexico was poorer than the United States; the border was long; millions of Mexicans had relatives in our country; and many illegal immigrants came to the United States looking for work, often at low-paying, demanding jobs most Americans didnt want to doAs for drugs, our demand was a magnet for them, and the drug cartels had a lot of money with which to bribe Mexican officials and plenty of hired guns to intimidate or kill those who didnt want to cooperateSome Mexican border police were offered five times their annual salary to look the other way on just one drug cheap chanel purses shipmentOne honest prosecutor in northern Mexico had been shot more than one hundred times right in front of his houseThese were tough problems, but I thought the implementation of our agreements would help
In Costa Rica, a beautiful country with no permanent military organization and perhaps the most advanced environmental policy in the world, President Jos Mara Figueres hosted the Central American leaders for a meeting that focused on trade and the environmentNAFTA had inadvertently hurt Central America and the Caribbean nations by putting them at a competitive disadvantage with Mexico in trading with the United StatesI wanted to do what I could to rectify the inequityThe next day I made the same point in Bridgetown, Barbados, where Prime Minister Owen Arthur hosted the first meeting ever held between a UPresident and all the leaders of the Caribbean nations in their own territory
Immigration was also a big issue at both meetingsMany Central Americans and people from the Caribbean nations were working in the United States and sending money back home to their families, providing a major source of income in the smaller nationsThe leaders were worried about the anti-immigration stance Republicans had taken and wanted my assurances that there would be no mass deportationsI gave it to them, but also said we had to enforce our immigration laws
At the end of the month I flew to Paris for the signing of the NATO-Russia Founding ActYeltsin had kept his Helsinki commitment: NATOs Cold War adversary was now its gucci handbags discount partne |
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