ties, a cleaner environment.
Problems that once seemed destined to deepen now bend to our efforts:
our streets are safer and record numbers of our fellow citizens have
moved from welfare to work.

And once again, we have resolved for our time a great debate over the
role of government. Today we can declare: Government is not the
problem, and government is not the solution. We--the American people--we
are the solution. Our founders understood that well and gave us a
democracy strong enough to endure for centuries, flexible enough to face
our common challenges and advance our common dreams in each new day.

As times change, so government must change. We need a new government
for a new century--humble enough not to try to solve all our problems
for us, but strong enough to give us the tools to solve our problems for
ourselves; a government that is smaller, lives within its means, and
does more with less. Yet where it can stand up for our values and
interests in the world, and where it can give Americans the power to
make a real difference in their everyday lives, government should do
more, not less. The preeminent mission of our new government is to give
all Americans an opportunity--not a guarantee, but a real
opportunity--to build better lives.

Beyond that, my fellow citizens, the future is up to us. Our founders
taught us that the preservation of our liberty and our union depends
upon responsible citizenship. And we need a new sense of responsibility
for a new century. There is work to do, work that government alone
cannot do: teaching children to read; hiring people off welfare rolls;
coming out from behind locked doors and shuttered windows to help
reclaim our streets from drugs and gangs and crime; taking time out of
our own lives to serve others.

Each and every one of us, in our own way, must assume personal
responsibility--not only for ourselves and our families, but for our
neighbors and our nation. Our greatest responsibility is to embrace a
new spirit of community for a new century. For any one of us to succeed,
we must succeed as one America.

The challenge of our past remains the challenge of our future--will we
be one nation, one people, with one common destiny, or not? Will we all
come together, or come apart?

The divide of race has been America's constant curse. And each new wave
of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and
contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religio