From the day I took the oath of office, I pledged that our nation would
maintain the best-equipped, best-trained and best-prepared military on
earth. We have and they are. They have managed the dramatic downsizing of
our forces after the cold war with remarkable skill and spirit. But to make
sure our military is ready for action and to provide the pay and the
quality of life the military and their families deserve, I'm asking the
Congress to add $ 25 billion in defense spending over the next six years.
I have visited many bases at home and around the world since I became
President. Tonight I repeat that request with renewed conviction. We ask a
very great deal of our armed forces. Now that they are smaller in number,
we ask more of them. They go out more often to more different places and
stay longer. They are called to service in many, many ways, and we must
give them and their families what the times demand and what they have
earned.
Just think about what our troops have done in the last year, showing
America at its best, helping to save hundreds of thousands of people in
Rwanda, moving with lightning speed to head off another threat to Kuwait,
giving freedom and democracy back to the people of Haiti.
We have proudly supported peace and prosperity and freedom from South
Africa to Northern Ireland, from Central and Eastern Europe to Asia, from
Latin America to the Middle East. All these endeavors are good in those
places but they make our future more confident and more secure.
Well, my fellow Americans, that's my agenda for America's future: expanding
opportunity not bureaucracy, enhancing security at home and abroad,
empowering our people to make the most of their own lives.
It's ambitious and achievable. But it's not enough.
We even need more than new ideas for changing the world or equipping
Americans to compete in the new economy, more than a Government that's
smaller, smarter and wiser, more than all the changes we can make in
Government and in the private sector from the outside in.