Tax reduction alone, however, is not enough to strengthen our society, to
provide opportunities for the four million Americans who are born every
year, to improve the lives of 32 million Americans who live on the
outskirts of poverty.
The quality of American life must keep pace with the quantity of American
goods.
This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.
Therefore, by holding down the budgetary cost of existing programs to keep
within the limitations I have set, it is both possible and imperative to
adopt other new measures that we cannot afford to postpone.
These measures are based on a series of fundamental premises, grouped under
four related headings:
First, we need to strengthen our Nation by investing in our youth.
The future of any country which is dependent upon the will and wisdom of
its citizens is damaged, and irreparably damaged, whenever any of its
children is not educated to the full extent of his talent, from grade
school through graduate school. Today, an estimated 4 out of every 10
students in the 5th grade will not even finish high school--and that is a
waste we cannot afford.
In addition, there is no reason why one million young Americans, out of
school and out of work, should all remain unwanted and often untrained on
our city streets when their energies can be put to good use.
Finally, the overseas success of our Peace Corps volunteers, most of them
young men and women carrying skills and ideas to needy people, suggests the
merit of a similar corps serving our own community needs: in mental
hospitals, on Indian reservations, in centers for the aged or for young
delinquents, in schools for the illiterate or the handicapped. As the
idealism of our youth has served world peace, so can it serve the domestic
tranquility.
Second, we need to strengthen our Nation by safeguarding its health.
Our working men and women, instead of being forced to beg for help from
public charity once they are old and ill, should start contributing now to
their own retirement health program through the Social Security System.
Moreover, all our miracles of medical research will count for little if
we cannot reverse the growing nationwide shortage of doctors, dentists, and
nurses, and the widespread shortages of nursing homes and modern urban
hospital facilities. Merely to keep the present ratio of doctors and
dentists from declining any further, we must over the next 10 years
increase the capacity of our medical schools by 50 percent and our dental
schools by 100 percent.
Finally, and of deep concern, I believe that the abandonment of the
mentally ill and the mentally retarded to the grim mercy of custodial
institutions too often inflicts on them and on their families a needless
cruelty which this Nation should not endure. The incidence of mental
retardation in this country is three times as high as that of Sweden, for
example--and that figure can and must be reduced.
Third, we need to strengthen our Nation by protecting the basic rights of
its citizens.
The right to competent counsel must be assured to every man accused of
crime in Federal court, regardless of his means.
And the most precious and powerful right in the world, the right to vote
in a free American election, must not be denied to any citizen on grounds
of his race or color. I wish that all qualified Americans permitted to vote
were willing to vote, but surely in this centennial year of Emancipation
all those who are willing to vote should always be permitted.
Fourth, we need to strengthen our Nation by making the best and the most
economical use of its resources and facilities.
Our economic health depends on healthy transportation arteries; and I
believe the way to a more modern, economical choice of national
transportation service is through increased competition and decreased
regulation. Local mass transit, faring even worse, is as essential a
community service as hospitals and highways. Nearly three-fourths of our
citizens live in urban areas, which occupy only 2 percent of our land--and
if local transit is to survive and relieve the congestion of these cities,
it needs Federal stimulation and assistance.
Next, this Government is in the storage and stockpile business to the
melancholy tune of more than $16 billion. We must continue to support farm
income, but we should not pile more farm surpluses on top of the $7.5
billion we already own. We must maintain a stockpile of strategic
materials, but the $8.5 billion we have acquired--for reasons both good and
bad--is much more than we need; and we should be empowered to dispose of
the excess in ways which will not cause market disruption.
Finally, our already overcrowded national parks and recreation areas will
have twice as many visitors 10 years from now as they do today. If we do
not plan today for the future growth of these and other great natural
assets--not only parks and forests but wildlife and wilderness preserves,
and water projects of all kinds--our children and their children will be
poorer in every sense of the word.
These are not domestic concerns alone. For upon our achievement of greater
vitality and strength here at home hang our fate and future in the world:
our ability to sustain and supply the security of free men and nations, our
ability to command their respect for our leadership, our ability to expand
our trade without threat to our balance of payments, and our ability to
adjust to the changing demands of cold war competition and challenge.
We shall be judged more by what we do at home than by what we preach
abroad. Nothing we could do to help the developing countries would help
them half as much as a booming U.S. economy. And nothing our opponents
could do to encourage their own ambitions would encourage them half as much
as a chronic, lagging U.S. economy. These domestic tasks do not divert
energy from our security--they provide the very foundation for freedom's
survival and success.