Full video of the speech as published by theWhite House | |
 | |
| Date | January 25, 1994 (1994-01-25) |
|---|---|
| Time | 9:00 p.m.EST |
| Duration | 1 hour, 3 minutes |
| Venue | House Chamber,United States Capitol |
| Location | Washington, D.C. |
| Coordinates | 38°53′23″N77°00′32″W / 38.88972°N 77.00889°W /38.88972; -77.00889 |
| Type | State of the Union Address |
| Participants | |
| Previous | 1993 Joint session speech |
| Next | 1995 State of the Union Address |
The1994 State of the Union Address was given by the 42ndpresident of the United States,Bill Clinton, on January 25, 1994, at 9:00 p.m.EST, in the chamber of theUnited States House of Representatives to the103rd United States Congress. It was Clinton's firstState of the Union Address and hissecond speech to ajoint session of the United States Congress. Presiding over this joint session wasHouse speakerTom Foley, accompanied byVice PresidentAl Gore, in his capacity as thepresident of the Senate.
The president discussed the federal budget deficit, taxes, defense spending, crime, foreign affairs, education, the economy,free trade, the role of government,campaign finance reform,welfare reform, and promoting theClinton health care plan. President Clinton threatened to veto any legislation that did not guarantee every American private health insurance. He proposed for policies to fight crime: athree strikes law for repeat violent offenders; 100,000 more police officers on the streets; expandgun control to further prevent criminals from being armed andban assault weapons; additional support for drug treatment and education.
The president began the speech with an acknowledgment of formerSpeakerTip O'Neill, who died on January 5, 1994. While discussing additional community policing, the president honored Kevin Jett, a New York City cop attending the address who had been featured in aNew York Times story in December 1993.[1]
The speech lasted 63 minutes[2] and consisted of 7,432 words.[3] It was the longest State of the Union speech sinceLyndon B. Johnson's 1967 State of the Union Address. Republican RepresentativeHenry Hyde criticized the speech as "interminable".[4]
TheRepublican Party response was delivered by SenatorBob Dole ofKansas.[5] Dole argued thathealth care in the United States was not in crisis, the Republican opposition to Clinton's plans in the previous year had been popular, and the deficit reduction was the temporary result of tax increases.[4]
Mike Espy, theSecretary of Agriculture, served as thedesignated survivor.
Contrary to common belief,[6] Clinton did not have to recite the speech from memory because theteleprompter was loaded with the wrong speech. This had happened the previous year:in a speech Clinton gave to Congress on 22 September 1993 detailing theClinton health care plan, the teleprompter was loaded with the wrong speech. Specifically, the onehe gave to a joint session of Congress on 17 February 1993 shortly afterhe was sworn in. Teleprompter operators practiced with the old speech and it was accidentally left in, forcing Clinton to ad-lib for almost ten minutes.[7][8][9][10] The two incidents are often conflated. What happened is that President Clinton simply referenced the September 1993 incident.
| Preceded by | State of the Union addresses 1994 | Succeeded by |
