National Family Week, 1999

Proclamation 7253 of November 19, 1999

National Family Week, 1999

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Families are the foundation of our individual lives and
the life of our Nation. We turn to our families for the
nurturing, guidance, and unconditional love that
sustain us; from them we learn the values and
convictions that sustain our society.

I am proud of my Administration's commitment to
providing families with the resources they need to
flourish. We have strengthened family incomes through
the Child Tax Credit and by increasing the minimum wage
and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, and today
the yearly income of a typical American family is
higher than it has ever been in our Nation's history.
We have opened the doors of higher education by making
student loans less expensive and easier to repay and by
providing new tax credits and larger Pell Grant
scholarships. We are also working to ensure that
parents have access to quality and affordable child
care for their children. These and other family-
friendly policies, such as the Family and Medical Leave
Act I signed into law in 1993, have helped parents to
balance the demands of work and family and have brought
increased financial security, expanded opportunity, and
renewed hope for the future to families across America.

As we look to that future, we must not forget our rich
history. We are fast approaching the dawn of a new
millennium, and my Administration is marking this
historic milestone with family-oriented programs that
honor the past and imagine the future. Through ``My
History is America's History,'' a project sponsored by
the White House Millennium Council and the National
Endowment for the Humanities, we are encouraging our
Nation's families to rediscover America's history by
recording and preserving their own stories and passing
them on to the next generation. Through remembered
conversations, restored photographs, treasured letters,
diaries, or other keepsakes, each family can recognize
and preserve its part in America's rich and complex
story and give a priceless gift to the future.

As we gather in our homes once again at this time of
thanksgiving, let us recognize that the family members
who surround us are among the most precious blessings
in our lives, and let us pledge to keep their stories
alive for the benefit of generations to come.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim November 21 through November
27, 1999, as National Family Week. I call upon Federal,
State, and local officials to honor American families
with appropriate programs and activities, and I urge
all the people of the United States to reaffirm their
family ties and to share their family histories.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
nineteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord
nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two
hundred and twenty-fourth.