--To raise the farmers' income by establishing a security commodity reserve
that will protect the market from price-depressing stocks and protect the
consumer from food scarcity.
--I shall recommend programs to help farmers bargain more effectively for
fair prices.
--I shall recommend programs for new air safety measures.
--Measures to stem the rising costs of medical care.
--Legislation to encourage our returning veterans to devote themselves to
careers in community service such as teaching, and being firemen, and
joining our police force, and our law enforcement officials.
--I shall recommend programs to strengthen and finance our anti-pollution
efforts.
--Fully funding all of the $2.18 billion poverty program that you in the
Congress had just authorized in order to bring opportunity to those who
have been left far behind.
--I shall recommend an Educational Opportunity Act to speed up our drive to
break down the financial barriers that are separating our young people from
college.
I shall also urge the Congress to act on several other vital pending
bills--especially the civil rights measures--fair jury trials, protection
of Federal rights, enforcement of equal employment opportunity, and fair
housing.
The unfinished work of the first session must be completed--the Higher
Education Act, the Juvenile Delinquency Act, conservation measures to save
the redwoods of California, and to preserve the wonders of our scenic
rivers, the Highway Beautification Act--and all the other measures for a
cleaner, and for a better, and for a more beautiful America.
Next month we'll begin our 8th year of uninterrupted prosperity. The
economic outlook for this year is one of steady growth--if we are vigilant.
True, there are some clouds on the horizon. Prices are rising. Interest
rates have passed the peak of 1966; and if there is continued inaction on
the tax bill, they will climb even higher.
I warn the Congress and the Nation tonight that this failure to act on the
tax bill will sweep us into an accelerating spiral of price increases, a
slump in homebuilding, and a continuing erosion of the American dollar.
This would be a tragedy for every American family. And I predict that if
this happens, they will all let us know about it.
We--those of us in the executive branch, in the Congress, and the leaders
of labor and business--must do everything we can to prevent that kind of
misfortune.
Under the new budget, the expenditures for 1969 will increase by $10.4
billion. Receipts will increase by $22.3 billion including the added tax
revenues. Virtually all of this expenditure increase represents the
mandatory cost of our defense efforts, $3 billion; increased interest,
almost $1 billion; or mandatory payments under laws passed by
Congress--such as those provided in the Social Security Act that you passed
in 1967, and to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, veterans, and farmers,
of about $4 1/2 billion; and the additional $1 billion 600 million next
year for the pay increases that you passed in military and civilian pay.
That makes up the $10 billion that is added to the budget. With few
exceptions, very few, we are holding the fiscal 1969 budget to last year's
level, outside of those mandatory and required increases.
A Presidential commission composed of distinguished congressional fiscal
leaders and other prominent Americans recommended this year that we adopt a
new budget approach. I am carrying out their recommendations in this year's
budget. This budget, therefore, for the first time accurately covers all
Federal expenditures and all Federal receipts, including for the first time
in one budget $47 billion from the social security, Medicare, highway, and
other trust funds.
The fiscal 1969 budget has expenditures of approximately $186 billion, with
total estimated revenues, including the tax bill, of about $178 billion.
If the Congress enacts the tax increase, we will reduce the budget deficit
by some $12 billion. The war in Vietnam is costing us about $25 billion and
we are asking for about $12 billion in taxes--and if we get that $12
billion tax bill we will reduce the deficit from about $20 billion in 1968
to about $8 billion in 1969.
Now, this is a tight budget. It follows the reduction that I made in
cooperation with the Congress--a reduction made after you had reviewed
every appropriations bill and reduced the appropriations by some $5 or $6
billion and expenditures by $1.5 billion. We conferred together and I
recommended to the Congress and you subsequently approved taking 2 percent
from payrolls and 10 percent from controllable expenditures. We therefore
reduced appropriations almost $10 billion last session and expenditures
over $4 billion. Now, that was in the budget last year.
I ask the Congress to recognize that there are certain selected programs
that meet the Nation's most urgent needs and they have increased. We have
insisted that decreases in very desirable but less urgent programs be made
before we would approve any increases. So I ask the Congress tonight:
--to hold its appropriations to the budget requests, and
--to act responsibly early this year by enacting the tax surcharge which
for the average American individual amounts to about a penny out of each
dollar's income.
This tax increase would yield about half of the $23 billion per year that
we returned to the people in the tax reduction bills of 1964 and 1965.
This must be a temporary measure, which expires in less than 2 years.
Congress can repeal it sooner if the need has passed. But Congress can
never repeal inflation.
The leaders of American business and the leaders of American labor--those
who really have power over wages and prices--must act responsibly, and in
their Nation's interest by keeping increases in line with productivity. If
our recognized leaders do not do this, they and those for whom they speak
and all of us are going to suffer very serious consequences.
On January 1st, I outlined a program to reduce our balance of payments
deficit sharply this year. We will ask the Congress to help carry out those
parts of the program which require legislation. We must restore equilibrium
to our balance of payments.
We must also strengthen the international monetary system. We have assured
the world that America's full gold stock stands behind our commitment to
maintain the price of gold at $35 an ounce. We must back this commitment by
legislating now to free our gold reserves.
Americans, traveling more than any other people in history, took $4 billion
out of their country last year in travel costs. We must try to reduce the
travel deficit that we have of more than $2 billion. We are hoping that we
can reduce it by $500 million--without unduly penalizing the travel of
teachers, students, business people who have essential and necessary
travel, or people who have relatives abroad whom they want to see. Even
with this reduction of $500 million, the American people will still be
traveling more overseas than they did in 1967, 1966, or 1965 or any other
year in their history.
If we act together as I hope we can, I believe we can continue our economic
expansion which has already broken all past records. And I hope that we can
continue that expansion in the days ahead.
Each of these questions I have discussed with you tonight is a question of
policy for our people. Therefore, each of them should be--and doubtless
will be--debated by candidates for public office this year.
I hope those debates will be marked by new proposals and by a seriousness
that matches the gravity of the questions themselves.
These are not appropriate subjects for narrow partisan oratory. They go to
the heart of what we Americans are all about--all of us, Democrats and
Republicans.
Tonight I have spoken of some of the goals I should like to see America
reach. Many of them can be achieved this year--others by the time we
celebrate our Nation's 200th birthday--the bicentennial of our
independence.
Several of these goals are going to be very hard to reach. But the State of
our Union will be much stronger 8 years from now on our 200th birthday if
we resolve to reach these goals now. They are more important--much more
important--than the identity of the party or the President who will then be
in office.
These goals are what the fighting and our alliances are really meant to
protect.
Can we achieve these goals?
Of course we can--if we will.
If ever there was a people who sought more than mere abundance, it is our
people.
If ever there was a nation that was capable of solving its problems, it is
this Nation.
If ever there were a time to know the pride and the excitement and the hope
of being an American--it is this time.
So this, my friends, is the State of our Union: seeking, building, tested
many times in this past year--and always equal to the test.
Thank you and good night.
***
State of the Union Address
Lyndon B. Johnson
January 14, 1969
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress and my fellow
Americans:
For the sixth and the last time, I present to the Congress my assessment of
the State of the Union.
I shall speak to you tonight about challenge and opportunity--and about the
commitments that all of us have made together that will, if we carry them
out, give America our best chance to achieve the kind of great society that
we all want. Every President lives, not only with what is, but with what
has been and what could be.
Most of the great events in his Presidency are part of a larger sequence
extending back through several years and extending back through several
other administrations.
Urban unrest, poverty, pressures on welfare, education of our people, law
enforcement and law and order, the continuing crisis in the Middle East,
the conflict in Vietnam, the dangers of nuclear war, the great difficulties
of dealing with the Communist powers, all have this much in common: They
and their causes--the causes that gave rise to them--all of these have
existed with us for many years. Several Presidents have already sought to
try to deal with them. One or more Presidents will try to resolve them or
try to contain them in the years that are ahead of us.
But if the Nation's problems are continuing, so are this great Nation's
assets:
--our economy,
--the democratic system,
--our sense of exploration, symbolized most recently by the wonderful
flight of the Apollo 8, in which all Americans took great pride,
--the good commonsense and sound judgment of the American people, and
--their essential love of justice.
We must not ignore our problems. But .neither should we ignore our
strengths. Those strengths are available to sustain a President of either
party--to support his progressive efforts both at home and overseas.
Unfortunately, the departure of an administration does not mean the end of
the problems that this administration has faced. The effort to meet the
problems must go on, year after year, if the momentum that we have all
mounted together in these past years is not to be lost.
Although the struggle for progressive change is continuous, there are times
when a watershed is reached--when there is--if not really a break with the
past--at least the fulfillment of many of its oldest hopes, and a stepping
forth into a new environment, to seek new goals. I think the past 5 years
have been such a time.
We have finished a major part of the old agenda.
Some of the laws that we wrote have already, in front of our eyes, taken on
the flesh of achievement.
Medicare that we were unable to pass for so many years is now a part of
American life.
Voting rights and the voting booth that we debated so long back in the
riffles, and the doors to public service, are open at last to all Americans
regardless of their color.
Schools and school children all over America tonight are receiving Federal
assistance to go to good schools.
Preschool education--Head Start--is already here to stay and, I think, so
are the Federal programs that tonight are keeping more than a million and a
half of the cream of our young people in the colleges and the universities
of this country.
Part of the American earth--not only in description on a map, but in the
reality of our shores, our hills, our parks, our forests, and our
mountains--has been permanently set aside for the American public and for
their benefit. And there is more that will be set aside before this
administration ends.
Five million Americans have been trained for jobs in new Federal programs.
I think it is most important that we all realize tonight that this Nation
is close to full employment--with less unemployment than we have had at any
time in almost 20 years. That is not in theory; that is in fact. Tonight,
the unemployment rate is down to 3.3 percent. The number of jobs has grown
more than 8 1/2 million in the last 5 years. That is more than in all the
preceding 12 years.
These achievements completed the full cycle, from idea to enactment and,
finally, to a place in the lives of citizens all across this country.
I wish it were possible to say that everything that this Congress and the
administration achieved during this period had already completed that
cycle. But a great deal of what we have committed needs additional funding
to become a tangible realization.
Yet the very existence of these commitments--these promises to the American
people, made by this Congress and by the executive branch of the
Government--are achievements in themselves, and failure to carry through on
our commitments would be a tragedy for this Nation.
This much is certain: No one man or group of men made these commitments
alone. Congress and the executive branch, with their checks and balances,
reasoned together and finally wrote them into the law of the land. They now
have all the moral force that the American political system can summon when
it acts as one.
They express America's common determination to achieve goals. They imply
action.
In most cases, you have already begun that action--but it is not fully
completed, of course.
Let me speak for a moment about these commitments. I am going to speak in
the language which the Congress itself spoke when it passed these measures.
I am going to quote from your words.
In 1966, Congress declared that "improving the quality of urban life is the
most critical domestic problem facing the United States." Two years later
it affirmed the historic goal of "a decent home . . . for every American
family." That is your language.
Now to meet these commitments, we must increase our support for the model
cities program, where blueprints of change are already being prepared in
more than 150 American cities.
To achieve the goals of the Housing Act of 1968 that you have already
passed, we should begin this year more than 500,000 homes for needy
families in the coming fiscal year. Funds are provided in the new budget to
do just this. This is almost 10 times--10 times--the average rate of the
past 10 years.
Our cities and our towns are being pressed for funds to meet the needs of
their growing populations. So I believe an urban development bank should be
created by the Congress. This bank could obtain resources through the
issuance of taxable bonds and it could then lend these resources at reduced
rates to the communities throughout the land for schools, hospitals, parks,
and other public facilities.
Since we enacted the Social Security Act back in 1935, Congress has
recognized the necessity to "make more adequate provision for aged persons
. . . through maternal and child welfare . . . and public health." Those
are the words of the Congress--"more adequate."
The time has come, I think, to make it more adequate. I believe we should
increase social security benefits, and I am so recommending tonight.
I am suggesting that there should be an overall increase in benefits of at
least 13 percent. Those who receive only the minimum of $55 should get $80
a month.
Our Nation, too, is rightfully proud of our medical advances. But we should
remember that our country ranks 15th among the nations of the world in its
infant mortality rate.
I think we should assure decent medical care for every expectant mother and
for their children during the first year of their life in the United States
of America.
I think we should protect our children and their families from the costs of
catastrophic illness.
As we pass on from medicine, I think nothing is clearer to the Congress
than the commitment that the Congress made to end poverty. Congress
expressed it well, I think, in 1964, when they said: "It is the policy of
the United States to eliminate the paradox of poverty in the midst of
plenty in this nation."
This is the richest nation in the world. The antipoverty program has had
many achievements. It also has some failures. But we must not cripple it
after only 3 years of trying to solve the human problems that have been
with us and have been building up among us for generations.
I believe the Congress this year will want to improve the administration of
the poverty program by reorganizing portions of it and transferring them to
other agencies. I believe, though, it will want to continue, until we have
broken the back of poverty, the efforts we are now making throughout this
land.
I believe, and I hope the next administration--I believe they believe--that
the key to success in this effort is jobs. It is work for people who want
to work.
In the budget for fiscal 1970, I shall recommend a total of $3.5 billion
for our job training program, and that is five times as much as we spent in
1964 trying to prepare Americans where they can work to earn their own
living.
The Nation's commitment in the field of civil rights began with the
Declaration of Independence. They were extended by the 13th, 14th, and 15th
amendments. They have been powerfully strengthened by the enactment of
three far-reaching civil rights laws within the past 5 years, that this
Congress, in its wisdom, passed.
On January 1 of this year, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 covered over 20
million American homes and apartments. The prohibition against racial
discrimination in that act should be remembered and it should be vigorously
enforced throughout this land.
I believe we should also extend the vital provisions of the Voting Rights
Act for another 5 years.
In the Safe Streets Act of 1968, Congress determined "To assist state and
local governments in reducing the incidence of crime."
This year I am proposing that the Congress provide the full $300 million
that the Congress last year authorized to do just that.