State of the Union Address Essay President Clinton has declared that "the enemy of our time is inaction," pledging to forge bipartisan agreements on a balanced budget and campaign finance reform within months, and to lead a "national crusade" to improve education by the turn of the century. Education, Clinton vowed, would be his "number-one priority for the next four years," and he devoted the longest portion of his address to this. He appealed for "national standards" to improve student performance and pledged to promote such standards with voluntary tests prepared by the federal government. Most of the ideas Clinton pr