Video: 'The 1993 State of the Union (Address to a Joint Session of the Congress)'

(Wednesday, February 17, 1993, 9 p.m. EST) — U.S. President Bill Clinton tonight proposed a comprehensive program of tax increases and spending cuts designed to trim the Federal deficit over the next four years by $500 billion, or 38 percent, and to revitalize the nation’s economy.

In a speech to a joint session of Congress that is expected to shape at least the early stages of his Presidency, Mr. Clinton outlined a series of new taxes that would fall most heavily on business and on relatively wealthy individuals, both active and retired.

But families earning as little as $20,000 a year — members of the “forgotten middle class” whose taxes he promised during his campaign to cut — will also be asked to send more dollars to Washington under the President’s plan.