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The challenge to us is to build a new and firmer foundation for the future--for a sound economy, for a more effective government, for more political trust, and for a stable peace--so that the America our children inherit will be even stronger and even better than it is today.
We cannot resort to simplistic or extreme solutions which substitute myths for common sense.
In our economy, it is a myth that we must choose endlessly between inflation and recession. Together, we build the foundation for a strong economy, with lower inflation, without contriving either a recession with its high unemployment or unworkable, mandatory government controls.
In our government, it is a myth that we must choose between compassion and competence. Together, we build the foundation for a government that works, and works for people.
In our relations with our potential adversaries, it is a myth that we must choose between confrontation and capitulation. Together, we build the foundation for a stable world of both diversity and peace.
Together, we've already begun to build the foundation for confidence in our economic system. During the last 2 years, in bringing our economy out of the deepest recession since the 1930's, we've created 7,100,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate has gone down 25 percent. And now we must redouble our fight against the persistent inflation that has wracked our country for more than a decade. That's our important domestic issue, and we must do it together.
… No American family should be forced to choose among food, warmth, health care, or decent housing because the cost of any of these basic necessities has climbed out of reach.
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This year, we will take our first steps to develop a national health plan.
We must never accept a permanent group of unemployed Americans, with no hope and no stake in building our society. For those left out of the economy because of discrimination, a lack of skills, or poverty, we must maintain high levels of training, and we must continue to provide jobs.
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I call on Congress to take other anti-inflation action--to expand our exports to protect American jobs threatened by unfair trade, to conserve energy, to increase production and to speed development of solar power, and to reassess our Nation's technological superiority. American workers who enlist in the fight against inflation deserve not just our gratitude, but they deserve the protection of the real wage insurance proposal that I have already made to the Congress.
To be successful, we must change our attitudes as well as our policies. We cannot afford to live beyond our means. We cannot afford to create programs that we can neither manage nor finance, or to waste our natural resources, and we cannot tolerate mismanagement and fraud. Above all, we must meet the challenges of inflation as a united people.
With the support of the American people, government in recent decades has helped to dismantle racial barriers, has provided assistance for the jobless and the retired, has fed the hungry, has protected the safety, health, and bargaining rights of American workers, and has helped to preserve our natural heritage.
But it's not enough to have created a lot of government programs. Now we must make the good programs more effective and improve or weed out those which are wasteful or unnecessary.
With the support of the Congress, we've begun to reorganize and to get control of the bureaucracy. We are reforming the civil service system, so that we can recognize and reward those who do a good job and correct or remove those who do not.
This year, we must extend major reorganization efforts to education, to economic development, and to the management of our natural resources. We need to enact a sunshine [sunset] law that when government programs have outlived their value, they will automatically be terminated.
There's no such thing as an effective and a noncontroversial reorganization and reform. But we know that honest, effective government is essential to restore public faith in our public action.
None of us can be satisfied when two-thirds of the American citizens chose not to vote last year in a national election. Too many Americans feel powerless against the influence of private lobbying groups and the unbelievable flood of private campaign money which threatens our electoral process.
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A strong economy and an effective government will restore confidence in America. But the path of the future must be charted in peace. We must continue to build a new and a firm foundation for a stable world community.
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In such a world, we seek not to stifle inevitable change, but to influence its course in helpful and constructive ways that enhance our values, our national interests, and the cause of peace.
Towering over this volatile, changing world, like a thundercloud on a summer day, looms the awesome power of nuclear weapons.
We will continue to help shape the forces of change, to anticipate emerging problems of nuclear proliferation and conventional arms sales, and to use our great strength parts of the world before they erupt and spread.
We have no desire to be the world's policeman. But America does want to be the world's peacemaker.
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I've outlined some of the changes that have transformed the world and which are continuing as we meet here tonight. But we in America need not fear change. The values on which our Nation was founded: individual liberty, self-determination, the potential for human fulfillment in freedom, all of these endure. We find these democratic principles praised, even in books smuggled out of totalitarian nations and on wallposters in lands which we thought were closed to our influence. Our country has regained its special place of leadership in the worldwide struggle for human rights. And that is a commitment that we must keep at home, as well as abroad.
The civil rights revolution freed all Americans, black and white, but its full promise still remains unrealized. I will continue to work with all my strength for equal opportunity for all Americans--and for affirmative action for those who carry the extra burden of past denial of equal opportunity.
We remain committed to improving our labor laws to better protect the rights of American workers. And our Nation must make it clear that the legal rights of women as citizens are guaranteed under the laws of our land by ratifying the equal rights amendment.
As long as I'm President, at home and around the world America's examples and America's influence will be marshaled to advance the cause of human rights.
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The new foundation I've discussed tonight can help us build a nation and a world where every child is nurtured and can look to the future with hope, where the resources now wasted on war can be turned towards meeting human needs, where all people have enough to eat, a decent home, and protection against disease.
It can help us build a nation and a world where all people are free to seek the truth and to add to human understanding, so that all of us may live our lives in peace.
Portions of Jimmy Carter's State of the Union Address from 1979. Hmmm anyone remember how that presidential reign turned out?
I remember the Carter years. 2 words come to mind. MISERY INDEX!
ReplyDeleteI loved Jimmy Carter. Look at him now he is a good humanitarian. Was he a good politician no. Ronald Reagan who everyone loved was the teflong president.
ReplyDeleteRonald Reagan led everyone to believe they could be a millionaire. They can't. They like to think that they can but they can't. He brought in the greed and the me ness that has taken over.
It is going to take years to recover from that mentality.
GOOD HUMANITARIAN????? When Carter went down to Venezuela while Chavez used the military to threaten voters and told the press that Chavez won legitimately, was that humanitarian? Does taking the rights of Venezuelans qualify to you as "humanitarian"? That's not the only dictator Carter supported. Remember how Carter gave so much assistance to Yasser Arafat? Are the Palestinians living large now? From the ground Habitiat for Humanity does good things. But at the top, the money they take in is used to support authoritarian government agendas both here and overseas.(like ACORN and FATAH).
ReplyDeleteReagan, on the other hand only ended the division of Germany, freed eastern Europe from the grip of russian communism and took down the Narco-terrorist state known as Panama. Reagan did all that without going to war. More than that, he brought pride in America back at a time when we needed it most. Obama is Carter on steroids, and the same backlash that happened to Carter is already starting with Obama. Looking at history, the start of a Presidency decides the success or failure of the President. Carters was horrible. Reagan got a few hundred American hostages freed in Iran his first day and Reagan was a successful President, like it or not. Based on the start of Obama's presidency, it will be an abysmal failure. Don't even think about talking about what Obama inherited because during his campaign he claimed to know what America's problems were and he could fix them. He got elected and continued and doubled the same bad policies Bush started. On top of that, he doesn't have a single advisor that doesn't have corruption issues or unpaid taxes. You are as good as the company you keep and Obama's is the worst of any President in history. I was not a Bush fan, but Obama has wasted such a historic opportunity and now the people are turning against him. It is shameful.
I forgot to say that Reagan didn't say everyone could become a millionaire, just that they deserve the opportunity to try. That was the same those who founded our country believed. Unfortunately, the liberal mindset is based on the fairy tale known as "fairness." It is unfair that some people are good at some things and not at others so people should live only as well as the poorest. The problem with that is, a poor man never gave me a job or put food on the table. The other problem with the liberal mindset the liberal elites know what's best for everyone else. Why don't we just pick a king or emperor and be done with it. As someone who is starting a small business, I want the opportunity for success that my parents and grandparents had. Liberal Socialism takes that away and I will stand and fight to keep the rights and freedoms of all Americans to be strong and free rather than spoon fed by the government.
ReplyDeleteLook I didnt say I wouldn't drink a beer with the man. I said he sucked as a president. He may have good intentions, but we all know what good intentions gets us.
ReplyDeleteReagan didn't try to giver everyone the notion that they could be millionaire's he tried to get out of the way and let each person reach their OWN potential. The only group trying to give everyone a false hope of a man made utopia, and trying to ENSURE that we cannot make it are the Weasels (Ass and Elephant) in the Fed right now.
Janice,
ReplyDeleteYou are certainly entitled to your opinion, as long as it is "your" opinion and you are welcome to share it here. All I ask of you is to READ things for yourself. LEARN the history of how we got where we are. QUESTION what you have heard, and been taught all your life, take things two steps past what you were told to their Logical outcome. And for the love of God THINK. Use your own mind; come to YOUR decision. Never anyone else's. As long as you do that, and do not become R rated, you can comment here.