We must not go back to unwise spending or untargeted tax cuts that risk reopening the deficit.  Last year, together, we enacted targeted tax cuts so that the typical middle class family will now have the lowest tax rates in 20 years.

My plan to balance the budget next year includes both new investments and new tax cuts targeted to the needs of working families:  for education, for child care, for the environment.

But whether the issue is tax cuts or spending, I ask all of you to meet this test:  approve only those priorities that can actually be accomplished without adding a dime to the deficit.

Now, if we balance the budget for next year, it is projected that we’ll then have a sizeable surplus in the years that immediately follow.  What should we do with this projected surplus?

I have a simple four-word answer:  Save Social Security first.

Tonight, I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the surplus—­that’s every penny of any surplus—­until we have taken all the necessary measures to strengthen the Social Security system for the 21st century.

Let us say—­let us say to all Americans watching tonight, whether you’re 70 or 50, or whether you just started paying into the system, Social Security will be there when you need it.  Let us make this commitment:  Social Security first.  Let’s do that—­together.

I also want to say that all the American people who are watching us tonight should be invited to join in this discussion, in facing these issues squarely and forming a true consensus on how we should proceed.  We’ll start by conducting nonpartisan forums in every region of the country, and I hope that lawmakers of both parties will participate.  We’ll hold a White House conference on Social Security in December.  And one year from now, I will convene the leaders of Congress to craft historic bipartisan legislation to achieve a landmark for our generation, a Social Security system that is strong in the 21st century.

In an economy that honors opportunity, all Americans must be able to reap the rewards of prosperity.  Because these times are good, we can afford to take one simple, sensible step to help millions of workers struggling to provide for their families.  We should raise the minimum wage.

The information age is first and foremost an education age, in which education will start at birth and continue throughout a lifetime.  Last year, from this podium, I said that education has to be our highest priority.  I laid out a 10-point plan to move us forward, and urged all of us to let politics stop at the schoolhouse door.

Since then, this Congress—­across party lines—­and the American people have responded, in the most important year for education in a generation—­ expanding public school choice, opening the way to 3,000 charter schools, working to connect every classroom in the country to the information superhighway, committing to expand Head Start to a million children, launching America Reads, sending literally thousands of college students into our elementary schools to make sure all our 8-year-olds can read.