[ Delivered in person before a joint session at 9:04 p.m. ] Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the House and the Senate, my fellow Americans: I come before you tonight to report on the State of the Union for the third time. I come here to thank you and to add my tribute, once more, to the Nation's gratitude for this, the 89th Congress. This Congress has already reserved for itself an honored chapter in the history of America. Our Nation tonight is engaged in a brutal and bitter conflict in Vietnam. Later on I want to discuss that struggle in some detail with you. It just must be the center of our concerns. But we will not permit those who fire upon us in Vietnam to win a victory over the desires and the intentions of all the American people. This Nation is mighty enough, its society is healthy enough, its people are strong enough, to pursue our goals in the rest of the world while still building a Great Society here at home. And that is what I have come here to ask of you tonight. I recommend that you provide the resources to carry forward, with full vigor, the great health and education programs that you enacted into law last year. I recommend that we prosecute with vigor and determination our war on poverty. I recommend that you give a new and daring direction to our foreign aid program, designed to make a maximum attack on hunger and disease and ignorance in those countries that are determined to help themselves, and to help those nations that are trying to control population growth. I recommend that you make it possible to expand trade between the United States and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I recommend to you a program to rebuild completely, on a scale never before attempted, entire central and slum areas of several of our cities in America. I recommend that you attack the wasteful and degrading poisoning of our rivers, and, as the cornerstone of this effort, clean completely entire large river basins. I recommend that you meet the growing menace of crime in the streets by building up law enforcement and by revitalizing the entire Federal system from prevention to probation. I recommend that you take additional steps to insure equal justice to all of our people by effectively enforcing nondiscrimination in Federal and State jury selection, by making it a serious Federal crime to obstruct public and private efforts to secure civil rights, and by outlawing discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. I recommend that you help me modernize and streamline the Federal Government by creating a new Cabinet level Department of Transportation and reorganizing several existing agencies. In turn, I will restructure our civil service in the top grades so that men and women can easily be assigned to jobs where they are most needed, and ability will be both required as well as rewarded. I will ask you to make it possible for Members of the House of Representatives to work more effectively in the service of the Nation through a constitutional amendment extending the term of a Congressman to 4 years, concurrent with that of the President. II. Because of Vietnam we cannot do all that we should, or all that we would like to do. We will ruthlessly attack waste and inefficiency. We will make sure that every dollar is spent with the thrift and with the commonsense which recognizes how hard the taxpayer worked in order to earn it. We will continue to meet the needs of our people by continuing to develop the Great Society. Last year alone the wealth that we produced increased $47 billion, and it will soar again this year to a total over $720 billion. Because our economic policies have produced rising revenues, if you approve every program that I recommend tonight, our total budget deficit will be one of the lowest in many years. It will be only $1.8 billion next year. Total spending in the administrative budget will be $112.8 billion. Revenues next year will be $111 billion. On a cash basis--which is the way that you and I keep our family budget--the Federal budget next year will actually show a surplus. That is to say, if we include all the money that your Government will take in and all the money that your Government will spend, your Government next year will collect one-half billion dollars more than it will spend in the year 1967. I have not come here tonight to ask for pleasant luxuries or for idle pleasures. I have come here to recommend that you, the representatives of the richest Nation on earth, you, the elected servants of a people who live in abundance unmatched on this globe, you bring the most urgent decencies of life to all of your fellow Americans. There are men who cry out: We must sacrifice. Well, let us rather ask them: Who will they sacrifice? Are they going to sacrifice the children who seek the learning, or the sick who need medical care, or the families who dwell in squalor now brightened by the hope of home? Will they sacrifice opportunity for the distressed, the beauty of our land, the hope of our poor? Time may require further sacrifices. And if it does, then we will make them. But we will not heed those who wring it from the hopes of the unfortunate here in a land of plenty. I believe that we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam. But if there are some who do not believe this, then, in the name of justice, let them call for the contribution of those who live in the fullness of our blessing, rather than try to strip it from the hands of those that are most in need. And let no one think that the unfortunate and the oppressed of this land sit stifled and alone in their hope tonight. Hundreds of their servants and their protectors sit before me tonight here in this great Chamber. III. The Great Society leads us along three roads--growth and justice and liberation. [1.] First is growth--the national prosperity which supports the well-being of our people and which provides the tools of our progress. I can report to you tonight what you have seen for yourselves already--in every city and countryside. This Nation is flourishing. Workers are making more money than ever--with after-tax income in the past 5 years up 33 percent; in the last year alone, up 8 percent. More people are working than ever before in our history--an increase last year of 2 1/2 million jobs. Corporations have greater after-tax earnings than ever in history. For the past 5 years those earnings have been up over 65 percent, and last year alone they had a rise of 20 percent. Average farm income is higher than ever. Over the past 5 years it is up 40 percent, and over the past year it is up 22 percent alone. I was informed this afternoon by the distinguished Secretary of the Treasury that his preliminary estimates indicate that our balance of payments deficit has been reduced from $2.8 billion in 1964 to $1.3 billion, or less, in 1965. This achievement has been made possible by the patriotic voluntary cooperation of businessmen and bankers working with your Government. We must now work together with increased urgency to wipe out this balance of payments deficit altogether in the next year. And as our economy surges toward new heights we must increase our vigilance against the inflation which raises the cost of living and which lowers the savings of every family in this land. It is essential, to prevent inflation, that we ask both labor and business to exercise price and wage restraint, and I do so again tonight. I believe it desirable, because of increased military expenditures, that you temporarily restore the automobile and certain telephone excise tax reductions made effective only 12 days ago. Without raising taxes--or even increasing the total tax bill paid--we should move to improve our withholding system so that Americans can more realistically pay as they go, speed up the collection of corporate taxes, and make other necessary simplifications of the tax structure at an early date. I hope these measures will be adequate. But if the necessities of Vietnam require it, I will not hesitate to return to the Congress for additional appropriations, or additional revenues if they are needed. [2.] The second road is justice. Justice means a man's hope should not be limited by the color of his skin. I propose legislation to establish unavoidable requirements for nondiscriminatory jury selection in Federal and State courts--and to give the Attorney General the power necessary to enforce those requirements. I propose legislation to strengthen authority of Federal courts to try those who murder, attack, or intimidate either civil rights workers or others exercising their constitutional rights--and to increase penalties to a level equal to the nature of the crime. Legislation, resting on the fullest constitutional authority of the Federal Government, to 'prohibit racial discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. For that other nation within a Nation--the poor--whose distress has now captured the conscience of America, I will ask the Congress not only to continue, but to speed up the war on poverty. And in so doing, we will provide the added energy of achievement with the increased efficiency of experience. To improve the life of our rural Americans and our farm population, we will plan for the future through the establishment of several new Community Development Districts, improved education through the use of Teacher Corps teams, better health measures, physical examinations, and adequate and available medical resources. For those who labor, I propose to improve unemployment insurance, to expand minimum wage benefits, and by the repeal of section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act to make the labor laws in all our States equal to the laws of the 31 States which do not have tonight right-to-work measures. And I also intend to ask the Congress to consider measures which, without improperly invading State and local authority, will enable us effectively to deal with strikes which threaten irreparable damage to the national interest. [3.] The third path is the path of liberation. It is to use our success for the fulfillment of our lives. A great nation is one which breeds a great people. A great people flower not from wealth and power, but from a society which spurs them to the fullness of their genius. That alone is a Great Society. Yet, slowly, painfully, on the edge of victory, has come the knowledge that shared prosperity is not enough. In the midst of abundance modern man walks oppressed by forces which menace and confine the quality of his life, and which individual abundance alone will not overcome. We can subdue and we can master these forces--bring increased meaning to our lives--if all of us, Government and citizens, are bold enough to change old ways, daring enough to assault new dangers, and if the dream is dear enough to call forth the limitless capacities of this great people. This year we must continue to improve the quality of American life. Let us fulfill and improve the great health and education programs of last year, extending special opportunities to those who risk their lives in our Armed Forces. I urge the House of Representatives to complete action on three programs already passed by the Senate--the Teacher Corps, rent assistance, and home rule for the District of Columbia. In some of our urban areas we must help rebuild entire sections and neighborhoods containing, in some cases, as many as 100,000 people. Working together, private enterprise and government must press forward with the task of providing homes and shops, parks and hospitals, and all the other necessary parts of a flourishing community where our people can come to live the good life. I will offer other proposals to stimulate and to reward planning for the growth of entire metropolitan areas. Of all the reckless devastations of our national heritage, none is really more shameful than the continued poisoning of our rivers and our air. We must undertake a cooperative effort to end pollution in several river basins, making additional funds available to help draw the plans and construct the plants that are necessary to make the waters of our entire river systems clean, and make them a source of pleasure and beauty for all of our people. To attack and to overcome growing crime and lawlessness, I think we must have a stepped-up program to help modernize and strengthen our local police forces. Our people have a right to feel secure in their homes and on their streets--and that right just must be secured. Nor can we fail to arrest the destruction of life and property on our highways. I will propose a Highway Safety Act of 1966 to seek an end to this mounting tragedy. We must also act to prevent the deception of the American consumer--requiring all packages to state clearly and truthfully their contents--all interest and credit charges to be fully revealed--and keeping harmful drugs and cosmetics away from our stores. It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention. We must change to master change. I propose to take steps to modernize and streamline the executive branch, to modernize the relations between city and State and Nation. A new Department of Transportation is needed to bring together our transportation activities. The present structure--35 Government agencies, spending $5 billion yearly--makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing demands of this great Nation or the needs of the industry, or the right of the taxpayer to full efficiency and real frugality. I will propose in addition a program to construct and to flight-test a new supersonic transport airplane that will fly three times the speed of sound--in excess of 2,000 miles per hour. I propose to examine our Federal system-the relation between city, State, Nation, and the citizens themselves. We need a commission of the most distinguished scholars and men of public affairs to do this job. I will ask them to move on to develop a creative federalism to best use the wonderful diversity of our institutions and our people to solve the problems and to fulfill the dreams of the American people. As the process of election becomes more complex and more costly, we must make it possible for those without personal wealth to enter public life without being obligated to a few large contributors. Therefore, I will submit legislation to revise the present unrealistic restriction on contributions--to prohibit the endless proliferation of committees, bringing local and State committees under the act--to attach strong teeth and severe penalties to the requirement of full disclosure of contributions-and to broaden the participation of the people, through added tax incentives, to stimulate small contributions to the party and to the candidate of their choice. To strengthen the work of Congress I strongly urge an amendment to provide a 4-year term for Members of the House of Representatives-which should not begin before 1972. The present 2-year term requires most Members of Congress to divert enormous energies to an almost constant process of campaigning--depriving this Nation of the fullest measure of both their skill and their wisdom. Today, too, the work of government is far more complex than in our early years, requiring more time to learn and more time to master the technical tasks of legislating. And a longer term will serve to attract more men of the highest quality to political life. The Nation, the principle of democracy, and, I think, each congressional district, will all be better served by a 4-year term for Members of the House. And I urge your swift action. IV. Tonight the cup of peril is full in Vietnam. That conflict is not an isolated episode, but another great event in the policy that we have followed with strong consistency since World War II. The touchstone of that policy is the interest of the United States--the welfare and the freedom of the people of the United States. But nations sink when they see that interest only through a narrow glass. In a world that has grown small and dangerous, pursuit of narrow aims could bring decay and even disaster. An America that is mighty beyond description-yet living in a hostile or despairing world--would be neither safe nor free to build a civilization to liberate the spirit of man. In this pursuit we helped rebuild Western Europe. We gave our aid to Greece and Turkey, and we defended the freedom of Berlin. In this pursuit we have helped new nations toward independence. We have extended the helping hand of the Peace Corps and carried forward the largest program of economic assistance in the world. And in this pursuit we work to build a hemisphere of democracy and of social justice. In this pursuit we have defended against Communist aggression--in Korea under President Truman--in the Formosa Straits under President Eisenhower--in Cuba under President Kennedy--and again in Vietnam. Tonight Vietnam must hold the center of our attention, but across the world problems and opportunities crowd in on the American Nation. I will discuss them fully in the months to come, and I will follow the five continuing lines of policy that America has followed under its last four Presidents. [1.] The first principle is strength. Tonight I can tell you that we are strong enough to keep all of our commitments. We will need expenditures of $58.3 billion for the next fiscal year to maintain this necessary defense might. While special Vietnam expenditures for the next fiscal year are estimated to increase by $5.8 billion, I can tell you that all the other expenditures put together in the entire Federal budget will rise this coming year by only $.6 billion. This is true because of the stringent cost-conscious economy program inaugurated in the Defense Department, and followed by the other departments of Government. [2.] A second principle of policy is the effort to control, and to reduce, and to ultimately eliminate the modern engines of destruction. We will vigorously pursue existing proposals-and seek new ones--to control arms and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. [3.] A third major principle of our foreign policy is to help build those associations of nations which reflect the opportunities and the necessities of the modern world. By strengthening the common defense, by stimulating world commerce, by meeting new hopes, these associations serve the cause of a flourishing world. We will take new steps this year to help strengthen the Alliance for Progress, the unity of Europe, the community of the Atlantic, the regional organizations of developing continents, and that supreme association--the United Nations. We will work to strengthen economic cooperation, to reduce barriers to trade, and to improve international finance. [4.] A fourth enduring strand of policy has been to help improve the life of man. From the Marshall plan to this very moment tonight, that policy has rested on the claims of compassion, and the certain knowledge that only a people advancing in expectation will build secure and peaceful lands. This year I propose major new directions in our program of foreign assistance to help those countries who will help themselves. We will conduct a worldwide attack on the problems of hunger and disease and ignorance. We will place the matchless skill and the resources of our own great America, in farming and in fertilizers, at the service of those countries committed to develop a modern agriculture. We will aid those who educate the young in other lands, and we will give children in other continents the same head start that we are trying to give our own children. To advance these ends I will propose the International Education Act of 1966. I will also propose the International Health Act of 1966 to strike at disease by a new effort to bring modern skills and knowledge to the uncared-for, those suffering in the world, and by trying to wipe out smallpox and malaria and control yellow fever over most of the world during this next decade; to help countries trying to control population growth, by increasing our research--and we will earmark funds to help their efforts. In the next year, from our foreign aid sources, we propose to dedicate $1 billion to these efforts, and we call on all who have the means to join us in this work in the world. [5.] The fifth and most important principle of our foreign policy is support of national independence--the right of each people to govern themselves--and to shape their own institutions. For a peaceful world order will be possible only when each country walks the way that it has chosen to walk for itself. We follow this principle by encouraging the end of colonial rule. We follow this principle, abroad as well as at home, by continued hostility to the rule of the many by the few--or the oppression of one race by another. We follow this principle by building bridges to Eastern Europe. And I will ask the Congress for authority to remove the special tariff restrictions which are a barrier to increasing trade between the East and the West. The insistent urge toward national independence is the strongest force of today's world in which we live. In Africa and Asia and Latin America it is shattering the designs of those who would subdue others to their ideas or their will. It is eroding the unity of what was once a Stalinist empire. In recent months a number of nations have east out those who would subject them to the ambitions of mainland China. History is on the side of freedom and is on the side of societies shaped from the genius of each people. History does not favor a single system or belief--unless force is used to make it so. That is why it has been necessary for us to defend this basic principle of our policy, to defend it in Berlin, in Korea, in Cuba-and tonight in Vietnam. For tonight, as so many nights before, young Americans struggle and young Americans die in a distant land. Tonight, as so many nights before, the American Nation is asked to sacrifice the blood of its children and the fruits of its labor for the love of its freedom. How many times--in my lifetime and in yours--have the American people gathered, as they do now, to hear their President tell them of conflict and tell them of danger? Each time they have answered. They have answered with all the effort that the security and the freedom of this Nation required. And they do again tonight in Vietnam. Not too many years ago Vietnam was a peaceful, if troubled, land. In the North was an independent Communist government. In the South a people struggled to build a nation, with the friendly help of the United States. There were some in South Vietnam who wished to force Communist rule on their own people. But their progress was slight. Their hope of success was dim. Then, little more than 6 years ago, North Vietnam decided on conquest. And from that day to this, soldiers and supplies have moved from North to South in a swelling stream that is swallowing the remnants of revolution in aggression. As the assault mounted, our choice gradually became clear. We could leave, abandoning South Vietnam to its attackers and to certain conquest, or we could stay and fight beside the people of South Vietnam. We stayed. And we will stay until aggression has stopped. We will stay because a just nation cannot leave to the cruelties of its enemies a people who have staked their lives and independence on America's solemn pledge--a pledge which has grown through the commitments of three American Presidents. We will stay because in Asia and around the world are countries whose independence rests, in large measure, on confidence in America's word and in America's protection. To yield to force in Vietnam would weaken that confidence, would undermine the independence of many lands, and would whet the appetite of aggression. We would have to fight in one land, and then we would have to fight in another--or abandon much of Asia to the domination of Communists. And we do not intend to abandon Asia to conquest. Last year the nature of the war in Vietnam changed again. Swiftly increasing numbers of armed men from the North crossed the borders to join forces that were already in the South. Attack and terror increased, spurred and encouraged by the belief that the United States lacked the will to continue and that their victory was near. Despite our desire to limit conflict, it was necessary to act: to hold back the mounting aggression, to give courage to the people of the South, and to make our firmness clear to the North. Thus. we began limited air action against military targets in North Vietnam. We increased our fighting force to its present strength tonight of 190,000 men. These moves have not ended the aggression but they have prevented its success. The aims of the enemy have been put out of reach by the skill and the bravery of Americans and their allies--and by the enduring courage of the South Vietnamese who, I can tell you, have lost eight men last year for every one of ours. The enemy is no longer close to victory. Time is no longer on his side. There is no cause to doubt the American commitment. Our decision to stand firm has been matched by our desire for peace. In 1965 alone we had 300 private talks for peace in Vietnam, with friends and adversaries throughout the world. Since Christmas your Government has labored again, with imagination and endurance, to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement. For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in North Vietnam. Able and experienced spokesmen have visited, in behalf of America, more than 40 countries. We have talked to more than a hundred governments, all 113 that we have relations with, and some that we don't. We have talked to the United Nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace. In public statements and in private communications, to adversaries and to friends, in Rome and Warsaw, in Paris and Tokyo, in Africa and throughout this hemisphere, America has made her position abundantly clear. We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military alliance in Vietnam. We fight for the principle of self-determination--that the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course, choose it in free elections without violence, without terror, and without fear. The people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification. This is all we want for South Vietnam. It is all the people of South Vietnam want. And if there is a single nation on this earth that desires less than this for its own people, then let its voice be heard. We have also made it clear--from Hanoi to New York--that there are no arbitrary limits to our search for peace. We stand by the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962. We will meet at any conference table, we will discuss any proposals--four points or fourteen or forty--and we will consider the views of any group. We will work for a cease-fire now or once discussions have begun. We will respond if others reduce their use of force, and we will withdraw our soldiers once South Vietnam is securely guaranteed the right to shape its own future. We have said all this, and we have asked-and hoped--and we have waited for a response. So far we have received no response to prove either success or failure. We have carried our quest for peace to many nations and peoples because we share this planet with others whose future, in large measure, is tied to our own action, and whose counsel is necessary to our own hopes. We have found understanding and support. And we know they wait with us tonight for some response that could lead to peace. I wish tonight that I could give you a blueprint for the course of this conflict over the coming months, but we just cannot know what the future may require. We may have to face long, hard combat or a long, hard conference, or even both at once. Until peace comes, or if it does not come, our course is clear. We will act as we must to help protect the independence of the valiant people of South Vietnam. We will strive to limit the conflict, for we wish neither increased destruction nor do we want to invite increased danger. But we will give our fighting men what they must have: every gun, and every dollar, and every decision--whatever the cost or whatever the challenge. And we will continue to help the people of South Vietnam care for those that are ravaged by battle, create progress in the villages, and carry forward the healing hopes of peace as best they can amidst the uncertain terrors of war. And let me be absolutely clear: The days may become months, and the months may become years, but we will stay as long as aggression commands us to battle. There may be some who do not want peace, whose ambitions stretch so far that war in Vietnam is but a welcome and convenient episode in an immense design to subdue history to their will. But for others it must now be clear--the choice is not between peace and victory, it lies between peace and the ravages of a conflict from which they can only lose. The people of Vietnam, North and South, seek the same things: the shared needs of man, the needs for food and shelter and education--the chance to build and work and till the soil, free from the arbitrary horrors of battle--the desire to walk in the dignity of those who master their own destiny. For many painful years, in war and revolution and infrequent peace, they have struggled to fulfill those needs. It is a crime against mankind that so much courage, and so much will, and so many dreams, must be flung on the fires of war and death. To all of those caught up in this conflict we therefore say again tonight: Let us choose peace, and with it the wondrous works of peace, and beyond that, the time when hope reaches toward consummation, and life is the servant of life. In this work, we plan to discharge our duty to the people whom we serve. V. This is the State of the Union. But over it all--wealth, and promise, and expectation--lies our troubling awareness of American men at war tonight. How many men who listen to me tonight have served their Nation in other wars? How very many are not here to listen? The war in Vietnam is not like these other wars. Yet, finally, war is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in this world. Many of you share the burden of this knowledge tonight with me. But there is a difference. For finally I must be the one to order our guns to fire, against all the most inward pulls of my desire. For we have children to teach, and we have sick to be cured, and we have men to be freed. There are poor to be lifted up, and there are cities to be built, and there is a world to be helped. Yet we do what we must. I am hopeful, and I will try as best I can, with everything I have got, to end this battle and to return our sons to their desires. Yet as long as others will challenge America's security and test the clearness of our beliefs with fire and steel, then we must stand or see the promise of two centuries tremble. I believe tonight that you do not want me to try that risk. And from that belief your President summons his strength for the trials that lie ahead in the days to come. The work must be our work now. Scarred by the weaknesses of man, with whatever guidance God may offer us, we must nevertheless and alone with our mortality, strive to ennoble the life of man on earth. 
Thank you, and goodnight.
[ Delivered in person before a joint session at 9:04 p.m. ] Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the House and the Senate, my fellow Americans: I come before you tonight to report on the State of the Union for the third time. I come here to thank you and to add my tribute, once more, to the Nation's gratitude for this, the 89th Congress. This Congress has already reserved for itself an honored chapter in the history of America. Our Nation tonight is engaged in a brutal and bitter conflict in Vietnam. Later on I want to discuss that struggle in some detail with you. It just must be the center of our concerns. But we will not permit those who fire upon us in Vietnam to win a victory over the desires and the intentions of all the American people. This Nation is mighty enough, its society is healthy enough, its people are strong enough, to pursue our goals in the rest of the world while still building a Great Society here at home. And that is what I have come here to ask of you tonight. I recommend that you provide the resources to carry forward, with full vigor, the great health and education programs that you enacted into law last year. I recommend that we prosecute with vigor and determination our war on poverty. I recommend that you give a new and daring direction to our foreign aid program, designed to make a maximum attack on hunger and disease and ignorance in those countries that are determined to help themselves, and to help those nations that are trying to control population growth. I recommend that you make it possible to expand trade between the United States and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I recommend to you a program to rebuild completely, on a scale never before attempted, entire central and slum areas of several of our cities in America. I recommend that you attack the wasteful and degrading poisoning of our rivers, and, as the cornerstone of this effort, clean completely entire large river basins. I recommend that you meet the growing menace of crime in the streets by building up law enforcement and by revitalizing the entire Federal system from prevention to probation. I recommend that you take additional steps to insure equal justice to all of our people by effectively enforcing nondiscrimination in Federal and State jury selection, by making it a serious Federal crime to obstruct public and private efforts to secure civil rights, and by outlawing discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. I recommend that you help me modernize and streamline the Federal Government by creating a new Cabinet level Department of Transportation and reorganizing several existing agencies. In turn, I will restructure our civil service in the top grades so that men and women can easily be assigned to jobs where they are most needed, and ability will be both required as well as rewarded. I will ask you to make it possible for Members of the House of Representatives to work more effectively in the service of the Nation through a constitutional amendment extending the term of a Congressman to 4 years, concurrent with that of the President. II. Because of Vietnam we cannot do all that we should, or all that we would like to do. We will ruthlessly attack waste and inefficiency. We will make sure that every dollar is spent with the thrift and with the commonsense which recognizes how hard the taxpayer worked in order to earn it. We will continue to meet the needs of our people by continuing to develop the Great Society. Last year alone the wealth that we produced increased $47 billion, and it will soar again this year to a total over $720 billion. Because our economic policies have produced rising revenues, if you approve every program that I recommend tonight, our total budget deficit will be one of the lowest in many years. It will be only $1.8 billion next year. Total spending in the administrative budget will be $112.8 billion. Revenues next year will be $111 billion. On a cash basis--which is the way that you and I keep our family budget--the Federal budget next year will actually show a surplus. That is to say, if we include all the money that your Government will take in and all the money that your Government will spend, your Government next year will collect one-half billion dollars more than it will spend in the year 1967. I have not come here tonight to ask for pleasant luxuries or for idle pleasures. I have come here to recommend that you, the representatives of the richest Nation on earth, you, the elected servants of a people who live in abundance unmatched on this globe, you bring the most urgent decencies of life to all of your fellow Americans. There are men who cry out: We must sacrifice. Well, let us rather ask them: Who will they sacrifice? Are they going to sacrifice the children who seek the learning, or the sick who need medical care, or the families who dwell in squalor now brightened by the hope of home? Will they sacrifice opportunity for the distressed, the beauty of our land, the hope of our poor? Time may require further sacrifices. And if it does, then we will make them. But we will not heed those who wring it from the hopes of the unfortunate here in a land of plenty. I believe that we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam. But if there are some who do not believe this, then, in the name of justice, let them call for the contribution of those who live in the fullness of our blessing, rather than try to strip it from the hands of those that are most in need. And let no one think that the unfortunate and the oppressed of this land sit stifled and alone in their hope tonight. Hundreds of their servants and their protectors sit before me tonight here in this great Chamber. III. The Great Society leads us along three roads--growth and justice and liberation. [1.] First is growth--the national prosperity which supports the well-being of our people and which provides the tools of our progress. I can report to you tonight what you have seen for yourselves already--in every city and countryside. This Nation is flourishing. Workers are making more money than ever--with after-tax income in the past 5 years up 33 percent; in the last year alone, up 8 percent. More people are working than ever before in our history--an increase last year of 2 1/2 million jobs. Corporations have greater after-tax earnings than ever in history. For the past 5 years those earnings have been up over 65 percent, and last year alone they had a rise of 20 percent. Average farm income is higher than ever. Over the past 5 years it is up 40 percent, and over the past year it is up 22 percent alone. I was informed this afternoon by the distinguished Secretary of the Treasury that his preliminary estimates indicate that our balance of payments deficit has been reduced from $2.8 billion in 1964 to $1.3 billion, or less, in 1965. This achievement has been made possible by the patriotic voluntary cooperation of businessmen and bankers working with your Government. We must now work together with increased urgency to wipe out this balance of payments deficit altogether in the next year. And as our economy surges toward new heights we must increase our vigilance against the inflation which raises the cost of living and which lowers the savings of every family in this land. It is essential, to prevent inflation, that we ask both labor and business to exercise price and wage restraint, and I do so again tonight. I believe it desirable, because of increased military expenditures, that you temporarily restore the automobile and certain telephone excise tax reductions made effective only 12 days ago. Without raising taxes--or even increasing the total tax bill paid--we should move to improve our withholding system so that Americans can more realistically pay as they go, speed up the collection of corporate taxes, and make other necessary simplifications of the tax structure at an early date. I hope these measures will be adequate. But if the necessities of Vietnam require it, I will not hesitate to return to the Congress for additional appropriations, or additional revenues if they are needed. [2.] The second road is justice. Justice means a man's hope should not be limited by the color of his skin. I propose legislation to establish unavoidable requirements for nondiscriminatory jury selection in Federal and State courts--and to give the Attorney General the power necessary to enforce those requirements. I propose legislation to strengthen authority of Federal courts to try those who murder, attack, or intimidate either civil rights workers or others exercising their constitutional rights--and to increase penalties to a level equal to the nature of the crime. Legislation, resting on the fullest constitutional authority of the Federal Government, to 'prohibit racial discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. For that other nation within a Nation--the poor--whose distress has now captured the conscience of America, I will ask the Congress not only to continue, but to speed up the war on poverty. And in so doing, we will provide the added energy of achievement with the increased efficiency of experience. To improve the life of our rural Americans and our farm population, we will plan for the future through the establishment of several new Community Development Districts, improved education through the use of Teacher Corps teams, better health measures, physical examinations, and adequate and available medical resources. For those who labor, I propose to improve unemployment insurance, to expand minimum wage benefits, and by the repeal of section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act to make the labor laws in all our States equal to the laws of the 31 States which do not have tonight right-to-work measures. And I also intend to ask the Congress to consider measures which, without improperly invading State and local authority, will enable us effectively to deal with strikes which threaten irreparable damage to the national interest. [3.] The third path is the path of liberation. It is to use our success for the fulfillment of our lives. A great nation is one which breeds a great people. A great people flower not from wealth and power, but from a society which spurs them to the fullness of their genius. That alone is a Great Society. Yet, slowly, painfully, on the edge of victory, has come the knowledge that shared prosperity is not enough. In the midst of abundance modern man walks oppressed by forces which menace and confine the quality of his life, and which individual abundance alone will not overcome. We can subdue and we can master these forces--bring increased meaning to our lives--if all of us, Government and citizens, are bold enough to change old ways, daring enough to assault new dangers, and if the dream is dear enough to call forth the limitless capacities of this great people. This year we must continue to improve the quality of American life. Let us fulfill and improve the great health and education programs of last year, extending special opportunities to those who risk their lives in our Armed Forces. I urge the House of Representatives to complete action on three programs already passed by the Senate--the Teacher Corps, rent assistance, and home rule for the District of Columbia. In some of our urban areas we must help rebuild entire sections and neighborhoods containing, in some cases, as many as 100,000 people. Working together, private enterprise and government must press forward with the task of providing homes and shops, parks and hospitals, and all the other necessary parts of a flourishing community where our people can come to live the good life. I will offer other proposals to stimulate and to reward planning for the growth of entire metropolitan areas. Of all the reckless devastations of our national heritage, none is really more shameful than the continued poisoning of our rivers and our air. We must undertake a cooperative effort to end pollution in several river basins, making additional funds available to help draw the plans and construct the plants that are necessary to make the waters of our entire river systems clean, and make them a source of pleasure and beauty for all of our people. To attack and to overcome growing crime and lawlessness, I think we must have a stepped-up program to help modernize and strengthen our local police forces. Our people have a right to feel secure in their homes and on their streets--and that right just must be secured. Nor can we fail to arrest the destruction of life and property on our highways. I will propose a Highway Safety Act of 1966 to seek an end to this mounting tragedy. We must also act to prevent the deception of the American consumer--requiring all packages to state clearly and truthfully their contents--all interest and credit charges to be fully revealed--and keeping harmful drugs and cosmetics away from our stores. It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention. We must change to master change. I propose to take steps to modernize and streamline the executive branch, to modernize the relations between city and State and Nation. A new Department of Transportation is needed to bring together our transportation activities. The present structure--35 Government agencies, spending $5 billion yearly--makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing demands of this great Nation or the needs of the industry, or the right of the taxpayer to full efficiency and real frugality. I will propose in addition a program to construct and to flight-test a new supersonic transport airplane that will fly three times the speed of sound--in excess of 2,000 miles per hour. I propose to examine our Federal system-the relation between city, State, Nation, and the citizens themselves. We need a commission of the most distinguished scholars and men of public affairs to do this job. I will ask them to move on to develop a creative federalism to best use the wonderful diversity of our institutions and our people to solve the problems and to fulfill the dreams of the American people. As the process of election becomes more complex and more costly, we must make it possible for those without personal wealth to enter public life without being obligated to a few large contributors. Therefore, I will submit legislation to revise the present unrealistic restriction on contributions--to prohibit the endless proliferation of committees, bringing local and State committees under the act--to attach strong teeth and severe penalties to the requirement of full disclosure of contributions-and to broaden the participation of the people, through added tax incentives, to stimulate small contributions to the party and to the candidate of their choice. To strengthen the work of Congress I strongly urge an amendment to provide a 4-year term for Members of the House of Representatives-which should not begin before 1972. The present 2-year term requires most Members of Congress to divert enormous energies to an almost constant process of campaigning--depriving this Nation of the fullest measure of both their skill and their wisdom. Today, too, the work of government is far more complex than in our early years, requiring more time to learn and more time to master the technical tasks of legislating. And a longer term will serve to attract more men of the highest quality to political life. The Nation, the principle of democracy, and, I think, each congressional district, will all be better served by a 4-year term for Members of the House. And I urge your swift action. IV. Tonight the cup of peril is full in Vietnam. That conflict is not an isolated episode, but another great event in the policy that we have followed with strong consistency since World War II. The touchstone of that policy is the interest of the United States--the welfare and the freedom of the people of the United States. But nations sink when they see that interest only through a narrow glass. In a world that has grown small and dangerous, pursuit of narrow aims could bring decay and even disaster. An America that is mighty beyond description-yet living in a hostile or despairing world--would be neither safe nor free to build a civilization to liberate the spirit of man. In this pursuit we helped rebuild Western Europe. We gave our aid to Greece and Turkey, and we defended the freedom of Berlin. In this pursuit we have helped new nations toward independence. We have extended the helping hand of the Peace Corps and carried forward the largest program of economic assistance in the world. And in this pursuit we work to build a hemisphere of democracy and of social justice. In this pursuit we have defended against Communist aggression--in Korea under President Truman--in the Formosa Straits under President Eisenhower--in Cuba under President Kennedy--and again in Vietnam. Tonight Vietnam must hold the center of our attention, but across the world problems and opportunities crowd in on the American Nation. I will discuss them fully in the months to come, and I will follow the five continuing lines of policy that America has followed under its last four Presidents. [1.] The first principle is strength. Tonight I can tell you that we are strong enough to keep all of our commitments. We will need expenditures of $58.3 billion for the next fiscal year to maintain this necessary defense might. While special Vietnam expenditures for the next fiscal year are estimated to increase by $5.8 billion, I can tell you that all the other expenditures put together in the entire Federal budget will rise this coming year by only $.6 billion. This is true because of the stringent cost-conscious economy program inaugurated in the Defense Department, and followed by the other departments of Government. [2.] A second principle of policy is the effort to control, and to reduce, and to ultimately eliminate the modern engines of destruction. We will vigorously pursue existing proposals-and seek new ones--to control arms and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. [3.] A third major principle of our foreign policy is to help build those associations of nations which reflect the opportunities and the necessities of the modern world. By strengthening the common defense, by stimulating world commerce, by meeting new hopes, these associations serve the because of a flourishing world. We will take new steps this year to help strengthen the Alliance for Progress, the unity of Europe, the community of the Atlantic, the regional organizations of developing continents, and that supreme association--the United Nations. We will work to strengthen economic cooperation, to reduce barriers to trade, and to improve international finance. [4.] A fourth enduring strand of policy has been to help improve the life of man. From the Marshall plan to this very moment tonight, that policy has rested on the claims of compassion, and the certain knowledge that only a people advancing in expectation will build secure and peaceful lands. This year I propose major new directions in our program of foreign assistance to help those countries who will help themselves. We will conduct a worldwide attack on the problems of hunger and disease and ignorance. We will place the matchless skill and the resources of our own great America, in farming and in fertilizers, at the service of those countries committed to develop a modern agriculture. We will aid those who educate the young in other lands, and we will give children in other continents the same head start that we are trying to give our own children. To advance these ends I will propose the International Education Act of 1966. I will also propose the International Health Act of 1966 to strike at disease by a new effort to bring modern skills and knowledge to the uncared-for, those suffering in the world, and by trying to wipe out smallpox and malaria and control yellow fever over most of the world during this next decade; to help countries trying to control population growth, by increasing our research--and we will earmark funds to help their efforts. In the next year, from our foreign aid sources, we propose to dedicate $1 billion to these efforts, and we call on all who have the means to join us in this work in the world. [5.] The fifth and most important principle of our foreign policy is support of national independence--the right of each people to govern themselves--and to shape their own institutions. For a peaceful world order will be possible only when each country walks the way that it has chosen to walk for itself. We follow this principle by encouraging the end of colonial rule. We follow this principle, abroad as well as at home, by continued hostility to the rule of the many by the few--or the oppression of one race by another. We follow this principle by building bridges to Eastern Europe. And I will ask the Congress for authority to remove the special tariff restrictions which are a barrier to increasing trade between the East and the West. The insistent urge toward national independence is the strongest force of today's world in which we live. In Africa and Asia and Latin America it is shattering the designs of those who would subdue others to their ideas or their will. It is eroding the unity of what was once a Stalinist empire. In recent months a number of nations have east out those who would subject them to the ambitions of mainland China. History is on the side of freedom and is on the side of societies shaped from the genius of each people. History does not favor a single system or belief--unless force is used to make it so. That is why it has been necessary for us to defend this basic principle of our policy, to defend it in Berlin, in Korea, in Cuba-and tonight in Vietnam. For tonight, as so many nights before, young Americans struggle and young Americans die in a distant land. Tonight, as so many nights before, the American Nation is asked to sacrifice the blood of its children and the fruits of its labor for the love of its freedom. How many times--in my lifetime and in yours--have the American people gathered, as they do now, to hear their President tell them of conflict and tell them of danger? Each time they have answered. They have answered with all the effort that the security and the freedom of this Nation required. And they do again tonight in Vietnam. Not too many years ago Vietnam was a peaceful, if troubled, land. In the North was an independent Communist government. In the South a people struggled to build a nation, with the friendly help of the United States. There were some in South Vietnam who wished to force Communist rule on their own people. But their progress was slight. Their hope of success was dim. Then, little more than 6 years ago, North Vietnam decided on conquest. And from that day to this, soldiers and supplies have moved from North to South in a swelling stream that is swallowing the remnants of revolution in aggression. As the assault mounted, our choice gradually became clear. We could leave, abandoning South Vietnam to its attackers and to certain conquest, or we could stay and fight beside the people of South Vietnam. We stayed. And we will stay until aggression has stopped. We will stay because a just nation cannot leave to the cruelties of its enemies a people who have staked their lives and independence on America's solemn pledge--a pledge which has grown through the commitments of three American Presidents. We will stay because in Asia and around the world are countries whose independence rests, in large measure, on confidence in America's word and in America's protection. To yield to force in Vietnam would weaken that confidence, would undermine the independence of many lands, and would whet the appetite of aggression. We would have to fight in one land, and then we would have to fight in another--or abandon much of Asia to the domination of Communists. And we do not intend to abandon Asia to conquest. Last year the nature of the war in Vietnam changed again. Swiftly increasing numbers of armed men from the North crossed the borders to join forces that were already in the South. Attack and terror increased, spurred and encouraged by the belief that the United States lacked the will to continue and that their victory was near. Despite our desire to limit conflict, it was necessary to act: to hold back the mounting aggression, to give courage to the people of the South, and to make our firmness clear to the North. Thus. we began limited air action against military targets in North Vietnam. We increased our fighting force to its present strength tonight of 190,000 men. These moves have not ended the aggression but they have prevented its success. The aims of the enemy have been put out of reach by the skill and the bravery of Americans and their allies--and by the enduring courage of the South Vietnamese who, I can tell you, have lost eight men last year for every one of ours. The enemy is no longer close to victory. Time is no longer on his side. There is no because to doubt the American commitment. Our decision to stand firm has been matched by our desire for peace. In 1965 alone we had 300 private talks for peace in Vietnam, with friends and adversaries throughout the world. Since Christmas your Government has labored again, with imagination and endurance, to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement. For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in North Vietnam. Able and experienced spokesmen have visited, in behalf of America, more than 40 countries. We have talked to more than a hundred governments, all 113 that we have relations with, and some that we do not. We have talked to the United Nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace. In public statements and in private communications, to adversaries and to friends, in Rome and Warsaw, in Paris and Tokyo, in Africa and throughout this hemisphere, America has made her position abundantly clear. We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military alliance in Vietnam. We fight for the principle of self-determination--that the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course, choose it in free elections without violence, without terror, and without fear. The people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification. This is all we want for South Vietnam. It is all the people of South Vietnam want. And if there is a single nation on this earth that desires less than this for its own people, then let its voice be heard. We have also made it clear--from Hanoi to New York--that there are no arbitrary limits to our search for peace. We stand by the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962. We will meet at any conference table, we will discuss any proposals--four points or fourteen or forty--and we will consider the views of any group. We will work for a cease-fire now or once discussions have begun. We will respond if others reduce their use of force, and we will withdraw our soldiers once South Vietnam is securely guaranteed the right to shape its own future. We have said all this, and we have asked-and hoped--and we have waited for a response. So far we have received no response to prove either success or failure. We have carried our quest for peace to many nations and peoples because we share this planet with others whose future, in large measure, is tied to our own action, and whose counsel is necessary to our own hopes. We have found understanding and support. And we know they wait with us tonight for some response that could lead to peace. I wish tonight that I could give you a blueprint for the course of this conflict over the coming months, but we just cannot know what the future may require. We may have to face long, hard combat or a long, hard conference, or even both at once. Until peace comes, or if it does not come, our course is clear. We will act as we must to help protect the independence of the valiant people of South Vietnam. We will strive to limit the conflict, for we wish neither increased destruction nor do we want to invite increased danger. But we will give our fighting men what they must have: every gun, and every dollar, and every decision--whatever the cost or whatever the challenge. And we will continue to help the people of South Vietnam care for those that are ravaged by battle, create progress in the villages, and carry forward the healing hopes of peace as best they can amidst the uncertain terrors of war. And let me be absolutely clear: The days may become months, and the months may become years, but we will stay as long as aggression commands us to battle. There may be some who do not want peace, whose ambitions stretch so far that war in Vietnam is but a welcome and convenient episode in an immense design to subdue history to their will. But for others it must now be clear--the choice is not between peace and victory, it lies between peace and the ravages of a conflict from which they can only lose. The people of Vietnam, North and South, seek the same things: the shared needs of man, the needs for food and shelter and education--the chance to build and work and till the soil, free from the arbitrary horrors of battle--the desire to walk in the dignity of those who master their own destiny. For many painful years, in war and revolution and infrequent peace, they have struggled to fulfill those needs. It is a crime against mankind that so much courage, and so much will, and so many dreams, must be flung on the fires of war and death. To all of those caught up in this conflict we therefore say again tonight: Let us choose peace, and with it the wondrous works of peace, and beyond that, the time when hope reaches toward consummation, and life is the servant of life. In this work, we plan to discharge our duty to the people whom we serve. V. This is the State of the Union. But over it all--wealth, and promise, and expectation--lies our troubling awareness of American men at war tonight. How many men who listen to me tonight have served their Nation in other wars? How very many are not here to listen? The war in Vietnam is not like these other wars. Yet, finally, war is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate. Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in this world. Many of you share the burden of this knowledge tonight with me. But there is a difference. For finally I must be the one to order our guns to fire, against all the most inward pulls of my desire. For we have children to teach, and we have sick to be cured, and we have men to be freed. There are poor to be lifted up, and there are cities to be built, and there is a world to be helped. Yet we do what we must. I am hopeful, and I will try as best I can, with everything I have got, to end this battle and to return our sons to their desires. Yet as long as others will challenge America's security and test the clearness of our beliefs with fire and steel, then we must stand or see the promise of two centuries tremble. I believe tonight that you do not want me to try that risk. And from that belief your President summons his strength for the trials that lie ahead in the days to come. The work must be our work now. Scarred by the weaknesses of man, with whatever guidance God may offer us, we must nevertheless and alone with our mortality, strive to ennoble the life of man on earth. Thank you, and goodnight.
delivered in person before a joint session at speaker president members of the house and the senate my fellow americans i come before you tonight to report on the state of the union for the third time i come here to thank you and to add my tribute once more to the nation gratitude for this the 89th congress this congress has already reserved for itself an honored chapter in the history of america our nation tonight is engaged in a brutal and bitter conflict in vietnam later on i want to discuss that struggle in some detail with you it just must be the center of our concerns but we will not permit those who fire upon us in vietnam to win a victory over the desires and the intentions of all the american people this nation is mighty enough its society is healthy enough its people are strong enough to pursue our goals in the rest of the world while still building a great society here at home and that is what i have come here to ask of you tonight i recommend that you provide the resources to carry forward with full vigor the great health and education programs that you enacted into law last year i recommend that we prosecute with vigor and determination our war on poverty i recommend that you give a new and daring direction to our foreign aid program designed to make a maximum attack on hunger and disease and ignorance in those countries that are determined to help themselves and to help those nations that are trying to control population growth i recommend that you make it possible to expand trade between the united states and eastern europe and the soviet union i recommend to you a program to rebuild completely on a scale never before attempted entire central and slum areas of several of our cities in america i recommend that you attack the wasteful and degrading poisoning of our rivers and as the cornerstone of this effort clean completely entire large river basins i recommend that you meet the growing menace of crime in the streets by building up law enforcement and by revitalizing the entire federal system from prevention to probation i recommend that you take additional steps to insure equal justice to all of our people by effectively enforcing nondiscrimination in federal and state jury selection by making it a serious federal crime to obstruct public and private efforts to secure civil rights and by outlawing discrimination in the sale and rental of housing i recommend that you help me modernize and streamline the federal government by creating a new cabinet level department of transportation and reorganizing several existing agencies in turn i will restructure our civil service in the top grades so that men and women can easily be assigned to jobs where they are most needed and ability will be both required as well as rewarded i will ask you to make it possible for members of the house of representatives to work more effectively in the service of the nation through a constitutional amendment extending the term of a congressman to 4 years concurrent with that of the president ii because of vietnam we can not do all that we should or all that we would like to do we will ruthlessly attack waste and inefficiency we will make sure that every dollar is spent with the thrift and with the commonsense which recognizes how hard the taxpayer worked in order to earn it we will continue to meet the needs of our people by continuing to develop the great society last year alone the wealth that we produced increased 47 billion and it will soar again this year to a total over 720 billion because our economic policies have produced rising revenues if you approve every program that i recommend tonight our total budget deficit will be one of the lowest in many years it will be only billion next year total spending in the administrative budget will be billion revenues next year will be 111 billion on a cash basis which is the way that you and i keep our family budget the federal budget next year will actually show a surplus that is to say if we include all the money that your government will take in and all the money that your government will spend your government next year will collect billion dollars more than it will spend in the year 1967 i have not come here tonight to ask for pleasant luxuries or for idle pleasures i have come here to recommend that you the representatives of the richest nation on earth you the elected servants of a people who live in abundance unmatched on this globe you bring the most urgent decencies of life to all of your fellow americans there are men who cry out we must sacrifice well let us rather ask them who will they sacrifice are they going to sacrifice the children who seek the learning or the sick who need medical care or the families who dwell in squalor now brightened by the hope of home will they sacrifice opportunity for the distressed the beauty of our land the hope of our poor time may require further sacrifices and if it does then we will make them but we will not heed those who wring it from the hopes of the unfortunate here in a land of plenty i believe that we can continue the great society while we fight in vietnam but if there are some who do not believe this then in the name of justice let them call for the contribution of those who live in the fullness of our blessing rather than try to strip it from the hands of those that are most in need and let no one think that the unfortunate and the oppressed of this land sit stifled and alone in their hope tonight hundreds of their servants and their protectors sit before me tonight here in this great chamber iii the great society leads us along three roads growth and justice and liberation 1 first is growth the national prosperity which supports the of our people and which provides the tools of our progress i can report to you tonight what you have seen for yourselves already in every city and countryside this nation is flourishing workers are making more money than ever with income in the past 5 years up 33 percent in the last year alone up 8 percent more people are working than ever before in our history an increase last year of 2 million jobs corporations have greater earnings than ever in history for the past 5 years those earnings have been up over 65 percent and last year alone they had a rise of 20 percent average farm income is higher than ever over the past 5 years it is up 40 percent and over the past year it is up 22 percent alone i was informed this afternoon by the distinguished secretary of the treasury that his preliminary estimates indicate that our balance of payments deficit has been reduced from billion in 1964 to billion or less in 1965 this achievement has been made possible by the patriotic voluntary cooperation of businessmen and bankers working with your government we must now work together with increased urgency to wipe out this balance of payments deficit altogether in the next year and as our economy surges toward new heights we must increase our vigilance against the inflation which raises the cost of living and which lowers the savings of every family in this land it is essential to prevent inflation that we ask both labor and business to exercise price and wage restraint and i do so again tonight i believe it desirable because of increased military expenditures that you temporarily restore the automobile and certain telephone excise tax reductions made effective only 12 days ago without raising taxes or even increasing the total tax bill paid we should move to improve our withholding system so that americans can more realistically pay as they go speed up the collection of corporate taxes and make other necessary simplifications of the tax structure at an early date i hope these measures will be adequate but if the necessities of vietnam require it i will not hesitate to return to the congress for additional appropriations or additional revenues if they are needed 2 the second road is justice justice means a man hope should not be limited by the color of his skin i propose legislation to establish unavoidable requirements for nondiscriminatory jury selection in federal and state courts and to give the attorney general the power necessary to enforce those requirements i propose legislation to strengthen authority of federal courts to try those who murder attack or intimidate either civil rights workers or others exercising their constitutional rights and to increase penalties to a level equal to the nature of the crime legislation resting on the fullest constitutional authority of the federal government to racial discrimination in the sale or rental of housing for that other nation within a nation the poor whose distress has now captured the conscience of america i will ask the congress not only to continue but to speed up the war on poverty and in so doing we will provide the added energy of achievement with the increased efficiency of experience to improve the life of our rural americans and our farm population we will plan for the future through the establishment of several new community development districts improved education through the use of teacher corps teams better health measures physical examinations and adequate and available medical resources for those who labor i propose to improve unemployment insurance to expand minimum wage benefits and by the repeal of section 14 b of the act to make the labor laws in all our states equal to the laws of the 31 states which do not have tonight measures and i also intend to ask the congress to consider measures which without improperly invading state and local authority will enable us effectively to deal with strikes which threaten irreparable damage to the national interest 3 the third path is the path of liberation it is to use our success for the fulfillment of our lives a great nation is one which breeds a great people a great people flower not from wealth and power but from a society which spurs them to the fullness of their genius that alone is a great society yet slowly painfully on the edge of victory has come the knowledge that shared prosperity is not enough in the midst of abundance modern man walks oppressed by forces which menace and confine the quality of his life and which individual abundance alone will not overcome we can subdue and we can master these forces bring increased meaning to our lives if all of us government and citizens are bold enough to change old ways daring enough to assault new dangers and if the dream is dear enough to call forth the limitless capacities of this great people this year we must continue to improve the quality of american life let us fulfill and improve the great health and education programs of last year extending special opportunities to those who risk their lives in our armed forces i urge the house of representatives to complete action on three programs already passed by the senate the teacher corps rent assistance and home rule for the district of columbia in some of our urban areas we must help rebuild entire sections and neighborhoods containing in some cases as many as people working together private enterprise and government must press forward with the task of providing homes and shops parks and hospitals and all the other necessary parts of a flourishing community where our people can come to live the good life i will offer other proposals to stimulate and to reward planning for the growth of entire metropolitan areas of all the reckless devastations of our national heritage none is really more shameful than the continued poisoning of our rivers and our air we must undertake a cooperative effort to end pollution in several river basins making additional funds available to help draw the plans and construct the plants that are necessary to make the waters of our entire river systems clean and make them a source of pleasure and beauty for all of our people to attack and to overcome growing crime and lawlessness i think we must have a program to help modernize and strengthen our local police forces our people have a right to feel secure in their homes and on their streets and that right just must be secured nor can we fail to arrest the destruction of life and property on our highways i will propose a highway safety act of 1966 to seek an end to this mounting tragedy we must also act to prevent the deception of the american consumer requiring all packages to state clearly and truthfully their contents all interest and credit charges to be fully revealed and keeping harmful drugs and cosmetics away from our stores it is the genius of our constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of american political invention we must change to master change i propose to take steps to modernize and streamline the executive branch to modernize the relations between city and state and nation a new department of transportation is needed to bring together our transportation activities the present structure 35 government agencies spending 5 billion yearly makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing demands of this great nation or the needs of the industry or the right of the taxpayer to full efficiency and real frugality i will propose in addition a program to construct and to a new supersonic transport airplane that will fly three times the speed of sound in excess of miles per hour i propose to examine our federal relation between city state nation and the citizens themselves we need a commission of the most distinguished scholars and men of public affairs to do this job i will ask them to move on to develop a creative federalism to best use the wonderful diversity of our institutions and our people to solve the problems and to fulfill the dreams of the american people as the process of election becomes more complex and more costly we must make it possible for those without personal wealth to enter public life without being obligated to a few large contributors therefore i will submit legislation to revise the present unrealistic restriction on contributions to prohibit the endless proliferation of committees bringing local and state committees under the act to attach strong teeth and severe penalties to the requirement of full disclosure of to broaden the participation of the people through added tax incentives to stimulate small contributions to the party and to the candidate of their choice to strengthen the work of congress i strongly urge an amendment to provide a term for members of the house of should not begin before 1972 the present term requires most members of congress to divert enormous energies to an almost constant process of campaigning depriving this nation of the fullest measure of both their skill and their wisdom today too the work of government is far more complex than in our early years requiring more time to learn and more time to master the technical tasks of legislating and a longer term will serve to attract more men of the highest quality to political life the nation the principle of democracy and i think each congressional district will all be better served by a term for members of the house and i urge your swift action iv tonight the cup of peril is full in vietnam that conflict is not an isolated episode but another great event in the policy that we have followed with strong consistency since world war ii the touchstone of that policy is the interest of the united states the welfare and the freedom of the people of the united states but nations sink when they see that interest only through a narrow glass in a world that has grown small and dangerous pursuit of narrow aims could bring decay and even disaster an america that is mighty beyond living in a hostile or despairing world would be neither safe nor free to build a civilization to liberate the spirit of man in this pursuit we helped rebuild western europe we gave our aid to greece and turkey and we defended the freedom of berlin in this pursuit we have helped new nations toward independence we have extended the helping hand of the peace corps and carried forward the largest program of economic assistance in the world and in this pursuit we work to build a hemisphere of democracy and of social justice in this pursuit we have defended against communist aggression in korea under president truman in the formosa straits under president eisenhower in cuba under president kennedy and again in vietnam tonight vietnam must hold the center of our attention but across the world problems and opportunities crowd in on the american nation i will discuss them fully in the months to come and i will follow the five continuing lines of policy that america has followed under its last four presidents 1 the first principle is strength tonight i can tell you that we are strong enough to keep all of our commitments we will need expenditures of billion for the next fiscal year to maintain this necessary defense might while special vietnam expenditures for the next fiscal year are estimated to increase by billion i can tell you that all the other expenditures put together in the entire federal budget will rise this coming year by only billion this is true because of the stringent economy program inaugurated in the defense department and followed by the other departments of government 2 a second principle of policy is the effort to control and to reduce and to ultimately eliminate the modern engines of destruction we will vigorously pursue existing seek new ones to control arms and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons 3 a third major principle of our foreign policy is to help build those associations of nations which reflect the opportunities and the necessities of the modern world by strengthening the common defense by stimulating world commerce by meeting new hopes these associations serve the because of a flourishing world we will take new steps this year to help strengthen the alliance for progress the unity of europe the community of the atlantic the regional organizations of developing continents and that supreme association the united nations we will work to strengthen economic cooperation to reduce barriers to trade and to improve international finance 4 a fourth enduring strand of policy has been to help improve the life of man from the marshall plan to this very moment tonight that policy has rested on the claims of compassion and the certain knowledge that only a people advancing in expectation will build secure and peaceful lands this year i propose major new directions in our program of foreign assistance to help those countries who will help themselves we will conduct a worldwide attack on the problems of hunger and disease and ignorance we will place the matchless skill and the resources of our own great america in farming and in fertilizers at the service of those countries committed to develop a modern agriculture we will aid those who educate the young in other lands and we will give children in other continents the same head start that we are trying to give our own children to advance these ends i will propose the international education act of 1966 i will also propose the international health act of 1966 to strike at disease by a new effort to bring modern skills and knowledge to the those suffering in the world and by trying to wipe out smallpox and malaria and control yellow fever over most of the world during this next decade to help countries trying to control population growth by increasing our research and we will earmark funds to help their efforts in the next year from our foreign aid sources we propose to dedicate 1 billion to these efforts and we call on all who have the means to join us in this work in the world 5 the fifth and most important principle of our foreign policy is support of national independence the right of each people to govern themselves and to shape their own institutions for a peaceful world order will be possible only when each country walks the way that it has chosen to walk for itself we follow this principle by encouraging the end of colonial rule we follow this principle abroad as well as at home by continued hostility to the rule of the many by the few or the oppression of one race by another we follow this principle by building bridges to eastern europe and i will ask the congress for authority to remove the special tariff restrictions which are a barrier to increasing trade between the east and the west the insistent urge toward national independence is the strongest force of today world in which we live in africa and asia and latin america it is shattering the designs of those who would subdue others to their ideas or their will it is eroding the unity of what was once a stalinist empire in recent months a number of nations have east out those who would subject them to the ambitions of mainland china history is on the side of freedom and is on the side of societies shaped from the genius of each people history does not favor a single system or belief unless force is used to make it so that is why it has been necessary for us to defend this basic principle of our policy to defend it in berlin in korea in tonight in vietnam for tonight as so many nights before young americans struggle and young americans die in a distant land tonight as so many nights before the american nation is asked to sacrifice the blood of its children and the fruits of its labor for the love of its freedom how many times in my lifetime and in yours have the american people gathered as they do now to hear their president tell them of conflict and tell them of danger each time they have answered they have answered with all the effort that the security and the freedom of this nation required and they do again tonight in vietnam not too many years ago vietnam was a peaceful if troubled land in the north was an independent communist government in the south a people struggled to build a nation with the friendly help of the united states there were some in south vietnam who wished to force communist rule on their own people but their progress was slight their hope of success was dim then little more than 6 years ago north vietnam decided on conquest and from that day to this soldiers and supplies have moved from north to south in a swelling stream that is swallowing the remnants of revolution in aggression as the assault mounted our choice gradually became clear we could leave abandoning south vietnam to its attackers and to certain conquest or we could stay and fight beside the people of south vietnam we stayed and we will stay until aggression has stopped we will stay because a just nation can not leave to the cruelties of its enemies a people who have staked their lives and independence on america solemn pledge a pledge which has grown through the commitments of three american presidents we will stay because in asia and around the world are countries whose independence rests in large measure on confidence in america word and in america protection to yield to force in vietnam would weaken that confidence would undermine the independence of many lands and would whet the appetite of aggression we would have to fight in one land and then we would have to fight in another or abandon much of asia to the domination of communists and we do not intend to abandon asia to conquest last year the nature of the war in vietnam changed again swiftly increasing numbers of armed men from the north crossed the borders to join forces that were already in the south attack and terror increased spurred and encouraged by the belief that the united states lacked the will to continue and that their victory was near despite our desire to limit conflict it was necessary to act to hold back the mounting aggression to give courage to the people of the south and to make our firmness clear to the north thus we began limited air action against military targets in north vietnam we increased our fighting force to its present strength tonight of men these moves have not ended the aggression but they have prevented its success the aims of the enemy have been put out of reach by the skill and the bravery of americans and their allies and by the enduring courage of the south vietnamese who i can tell you have lost eight men last year for every one of ours the enemy is no longer close to victory time is no longer on his side there is no because to doubt the american commitment our decision to stand firm has been matched by our desire for peace in 1965 alone we had 300 private talks for peace in vietnam with friends and adversaries throughout the world since christmas your government has labored again with imagination and endurance to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement for 20 days now we and our vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in north vietnam able and experienced spokesmen have visited in behalf of america more than 40 countries we have talked to more than a hundred governments all 113 that we have relations with and some that we do not we have talked to the united nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace in public statements and in private communications to adversaries and to friends in rome and warsaw in paris and tokyo in africa and throughout this hemisphere america has made her position abundantly clear we seek neither territory nor bases economic domination or military alliance in vietnam we fight for the principle of that the people of south vietnam should be able to choose their own course choose it in free elections without violence without terror and without fear the people of all vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification this is all we want for south vietnam it is all the people of south vietnam want and if there is a single nation on this earth that desires less than this for its own people then let its voice be heard we have also made it clear from hanoi to new york that there are no arbitrary limits to our search for peace we stand by the geneva agreements of 1954 and 1962 we will meet at any conference table we will discuss any proposals four points or fourteen or forty and we will consider the views of any group we will work for a now or once discussions have begun we will respond if others reduce their use of force and we will withdraw our soldiers once south vietnam is securely guaranteed the right to shape its own future we have said all this and we have hoped and we have waited for a response so far we have received no response to prove either success or failure we have carried our quest for peace to many nations and peoples because we share this planet with others whose future in large measure is tied to our own action and whose counsel is necessary to our own hopes we have found understanding and support and we know they wait with us tonight for some response that could lead to peace i wish tonight that i could give you a blueprint for the course of this conflict over the coming months but we just can not know what the future may require we may have to face long hard combat or a long hard conference or even both at once until peace comes or if it does not come our course is clear we will act as we must to help protect the independence of the valiant people of south vietnam we will strive to limit the conflict for we wish neither increased destruction nor do we want to invite increased danger but we will give our fighting men what they must have every gun and every dollar and every decision whatever the cost or whatever the challenge and we will continue to help the people of south vietnam care for those that are ravaged by battle create progress in the villages and carry forward the healing hopes of peace as best they can amidst the uncertain terrors of war and let me be absolutely clear the days may become months and the months may become years but we will stay as long as aggression commands us to battle there may be some who do not want peace whose ambitions stretch so far that war in vietnam is but a welcome and convenient episode in an immense design to subdue history to their will but for others it must now be clear the choice is not between peace and victory it lies between peace and the ravages of a conflict from which they can only lose the people of vietnam north and south seek the same things the shared needs of man the needs for food and shelter and education the chance to build and work and till the soil free from the arbitrary horrors of battle the desire to walk in the dignity of those who master their own destiny for many painful years in war and revolution and infrequent peace they have struggled to fulfill those needs it is a crime against mankind that so much courage and so much will and so many dreams must be flung on the fires of war and death to all of those caught up in this conflict we therefore say again tonight let us choose peace and with it the wondrous works of peace and beyond that the time when hope reaches toward consummation and life is the servant of life in this work we plan to discharge our duty to the people whom we serve this is the state of the union but over it all wealth and promise and expectation lies our troubling awareness of american men at war tonight how many men who listen to me tonight have served their nation in other wars how very many are not here to listen the war in vietnam is not like these other wars yet finally war is always the same it is young men dying in the fullness of their promise it is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate therefore to know war is to know that there is still madness in this world many of you share the burden of this knowledge tonight with me but there is a difference for finally i must be the one to order our guns to fire against all the most inward pulls of my desire for we have children to teach and we have sick to be cured and we have men to be freed there are poor to be lifted up and there are cities to be built and there is a world to be helped yet we do what we must i am hopeful and i will try as best i can with everything i have got to end this battle and to return our sons to their desires yet as long as others will challenge america security and test the clearness of our beliefs with fire and steel then we must stand or see the promise of two centuries tremble i believe tonight that you do not want me to try that risk and from that belief your president summons his strength for the trials that lie ahead in the days to come the work must be our work now scarred by the weaknesses of man with whatever guidance god may offer us we must nevertheless and alone with our mortality strive to ennoble the life of man on earth thank you and goodnight
delivered person joint session speaker president members house senate fellow americans come tonight report state union third time come thank add tribute nation gratitude 89th congress congress already reserved honored chapter history america nation tonight engaged brutal bitter conflict vietnam later want discuss struggle detail must center concerns permit fire upon us vietnam win victory desires intentions american people nation mighty enough society healthy enough people strong enough pursue goals rest world still building great society home come ask tonight recommend provide resources carry forward full vigor great health education programs enacted law last year recommend prosecute vigor determination war poverty recommend give new daring direction foreign aid program designed make maximum attack hunger disease ignorance countries determined help help nations trying control population growth recommend make possible expand trade united states eastern europe soviet union recommend program rebuild completely scale never attempted entire central slum areas several cities america recommend attack wasteful degrading poisoning rivers cornerstone effort clean completely entire large river basins recommend meet growing menace crime streets building law enforcement revitalizing entire federal system prevention probation recommend take additional steps insure equal justice people effectively enforcing nondiscrimination federal state jury selection making serious federal crime obstruct public private efforts secure civil rights outlawing discrimination sale rental housing recommend help modernize streamline federal government creating new cabinet level department transportation reorganizing several existing agencies turn restructure civil service top grades men women easily assigned jobs needed ability required well rewarded ask make possible members house representatives work effectively service nation constitutional amendment extending term congressman 4 years concurrent president ii vietnam would like ruthlessly attack waste inefficiency make sure every dollar spent thrift commonsense recognizes hard taxpayer worked order earn continue meet needs people continuing develop great society last year alone wealth produced increased 47 billion soar year total 720 billion economic policies produced rising revenues approve every program recommend tonight total budget deficit one lowest many years billion next year total spending administrative budget billion revenues next year 111 billion cash basis way keep family budget federal budget next year actually show surplus say include money government take money government spend government next year collect billion dollars spend year 1967 come tonight ask pleasant luxuries idle pleasures come recommend representatives richest nation earth elected servants people live abundance unmatched globe bring urgent decencies life fellow americans men cry must sacrifice well let us rather ask sacrifice going sacrifice children seek learning sick need medical care families dwell squalor brightened hope home sacrifice opportunity distressed beauty land hope poor time may require sacrifices make heed wring hopes unfortunate land plenty believe continue great society fight vietnam believe name justice let call contribution live fullness blessing rather try strip hands need let one think unfortunate oppressed land sit stifled alone hope tonight hundreds servants protectors sit tonight great chamber iii great society leads us along three roads growth justice liberation 1 first growth national prosperity supports people provides tools progress report tonight seen already every city countryside nation flourishing workers making money ever income past 5 years 33 percent last year alone 8 percent people working ever history increase last year 2 million jobs corporations greater earnings ever history past 5 years earnings 65 percent last year alone rise 20 percent average farm income higher ever past 5 years 40 percent past year 22 percent alone informed afternoon distinguished secretary treasury preliminary estimates indicate balance payments deficit reduced billion 1964 billion less 1965 achievement made possible patriotic voluntary cooperation businessmen bankers working government must work together increased urgency wipe balance payments deficit altogether next year economy surges toward new heights must increase vigilance inflation raises cost living lowers savings every family land essential prevent inflation ask labor business exercise price wage restraint tonight believe desirable increased military expenditures temporarily restore automobile certain telephone excise tax reductions made effective 12 days ago without raising taxes even increasing total tax bill paid move improve withholding system americans realistically pay go speed collection corporate taxes make necessary simplifications tax structure early date hope measures adequate necessities vietnam require hesitate return congress additional appropriations additional revenues needed 2 second road justice justice means man hope limited color skin propose legislation establish unavoidable requirements nondiscriminatory jury selection federal state courts give attorney general power necessary enforce requirements propose legislation strengthen authority federal courts try murder attack intimidate either civil rights workers others exercising constitutional rights increase penalties level equal nature crime legislation resting fullest constitutional authority federal government racial discrimination sale rental housing nation within nation poor whose distress captured conscience america ask congress continue speed war poverty provide added energy achievement increased efficiency experience improve life rural americans farm population plan future establishment several new community development districts improved education use teacher corps teams better health measures physical examinations adequate available medical resources labor propose improve unemployment insurance expand minimum wage benefits repeal section 14 b act make labor laws states equal laws 31 states tonight measures also intend ask congress consider measures without improperly invading state local authority enable us effectively deal strikes threaten irreparable damage national interest 3 third path path liberation use success fulfillment lives great nation one breeds great people great people flower wealth power society spurs fullness genius alone great society yet slowly painfully edge victory come knowledge shared prosperity enough midst abundance modern man walks oppressed forces menace confine quality life individual abundance alone overcome subdue master forces bring increased meaning lives us government citizens bold enough change old ways daring enough assault new dangers dream dear enough call forth limitless capacities great people year must continue improve quality american life let us fulfill improve great health education programs last year extending special opportunities risk lives armed forces urge house representatives complete action three programs already passed senate teacher corps rent assistance home rule district columbia urban areas must help rebuild entire sections neighborhoods containing cases many people working together private enterprise government must press forward task providing homes shops parks hospitals necessary parts flourishing community people come live good life offer proposals stimulate reward planning growth entire metropolitan areas reckless devastations national heritage none really shameful continued poisoning rivers air must undertake cooperative effort end pollution several river basins making additional funds available help draw plans construct plants necessary make waters entire river systems clean make source pleasure beauty people attack overcome growing crime lawlessness think must program help modernize strengthen local police forces people right feel secure homes streets right must secured fail arrest destruction life property highways propose highway safety act 1966 seek end mounting tragedy must also act prevent deception american consumer requiring packages state clearly truthfully contents interest credit charges fully revealed keeping harmful drugs cosmetics away stores genius constitution shelter enduring institutions rooted principles ample room rich fertility american political invention must change master change propose take steps modernize streamline executive branch modernize relations city state nation new department transportation needed bring together transportation activities present structure 35 government agencies spending 5 billion yearly makes almost impossible serve either growing demands great nation needs industry right taxpayer full efficiency real frugality propose addition program construct new supersonic transport airplane fly three times speed sound excess miles per hour propose examine federal relation city state nation citizens need commission distinguished scholars men public affairs job ask move develop creative federalism best use wonderful diversity institutions people solve problems fulfill dreams american people process election becomes complex costly must make possible without personal wealth enter public life without obligated large contributors therefore submit legislation revise present unrealistic restriction contributions prohibit endless proliferation committees bringing local state committees act attach strong teeth severe penalties requirement full disclosure broaden participation people added tax incentives stimulate small contributions party candidate choice strengthen work congress strongly urge amendment provide term members house begin 1972 present term requires members congress divert enormous energies almost constant process campaigning depriving nation fullest measure skill wisdom today work government far complex early years requiring time learn time master technical tasks legislating longer term serve attract men highest quality political life nation principle democracy think congressional district better served term members house urge swift action iv tonight cup peril full vietnam conflict isolated episode another great event policy followed strong consistency since world war ii touchstone policy interest united states welfare freedom people united states nations sink see interest narrow glass world grown small dangerous pursuit narrow aims could bring decay even disaster america mighty beyond living hostile despairing world would neither safe free build civilization liberate spirit man pursuit helped rebuild western europe gave aid greece turkey defended freedom berlin pursuit helped new nations toward independence extended helping hand peace corps carried forward largest program economic assistance world pursuit work build hemisphere democracy social justice pursuit defended communist aggression korea president truman formosa straits president eisenhower cuba president kennedy vietnam tonight vietnam must hold center attention across world problems opportunities crowd american nation discuss fully months come follow five continuing lines policy america followed last four presidents 1 first principle strength tonight tell strong enough keep commitments need expenditures billion next fiscal year maintain necessary defense might special vietnam expenditures next fiscal year estimated increase billion tell expenditures put together entire federal budget rise coming year billion true stringent economy program inaugurated defense department followed departments government 2 second principle policy effort control reduce ultimately eliminate modern engines destruction vigorously pursue existing seek new ones control arms stop spread nuclear weapons 3 third major principle foreign policy help build associations nations reflect opportunities necessities modern world strengthening common defense stimulating world commerce meeting new hopes associations serve flourishing world take new steps year help strengthen alliance progress unity europe community atlantic regional organizations developing continents supreme association united nations work strengthen economic cooperation reduce barriers trade improve international finance 4 fourth enduring strand policy help improve life man marshall plan moment tonight policy rested claims compassion certain knowledge people advancing expectation build secure peaceful lands year propose major new directions program foreign assistance help countries help conduct worldwide attack problems hunger disease ignorance place matchless skill resources great america farming fertilizers service countries committed develop modern agriculture aid educate young lands give children continents head start trying give children advance ends propose international education act 1966 also propose international health act 1966 strike disease new effort bring modern skills knowledge suffering world trying wipe smallpox malaria control yellow fever world next decade help countries trying control population growth increasing research earmark funds help efforts next year foreign aid sources propose dedicate 1 billion efforts call means join us work world 5 fifth important principle foreign policy support national independence right people govern shape institutions peaceful world order possible country walks way chosen walk follow principle encouraging end colonial rule follow principle abroad well home continued hostility rule many oppression one race another follow principle building bridges eastern europe ask congress authority remove special tariff restrictions barrier increasing trade east west insistent urge toward national independence strongest force today world live africa asia latin america shattering designs would subdue others ideas eroding unity stalinist empire recent months number nations east would subject ambitions mainland china history side freedom side societies shaped genius people history favor single system belief unless force used make necessary us defend basic principle policy defend berlin korea tonight vietnam tonight many nights young americans struggle young americans die distant land tonight many nights american nation asked sacrifice blood children fruits labor love freedom many times lifetime american people gathered hear president tell conflict tell danger time answered answered effort security freedom nation required tonight vietnam many years ago vietnam peaceful troubled land north independent communist government south people struggled build nation friendly help united states south vietnam wished force communist rule people progress slight hope success dim little 6 years ago north vietnam decided conquest day soldiers supplies moved north south swelling stream swallowing remnants revolution aggression assault mounted choice gradually became clear could leave abandoning south vietnam attackers certain conquest could stay fight beside people south vietnam stayed stay aggression stopped stay nation leave cruelties enemies people staked lives independence america solemn pledge pledge grown commitments three american presidents stay asia around world countries whose independence rests large measure confidence america word america protection yield force vietnam would weaken confidence would undermine independence many lands would whet appetite aggression would fight one land would fight another abandon much asia domination communists intend abandon asia conquest last year nature war vietnam changed swiftly increasing numbers armed men north crossed borders join forces already south attack terror increased spurred encouraged belief united states lacked continue victory near despite desire limit conflict necessary act hold back mounting aggression give courage people south make firmness clear north thus began limited air action military targets north vietnam increased fighting force present strength tonight men moves ended aggression prevented success aims enemy put reach skill bravery americans allies enduring courage south vietnamese tell lost eight men last year every one enemy longer close victory time longer side doubt american commitment decision stand firm matched desire peace 1965 alone 300 private talks peace vietnam friends adversaries throughout world since christmas government labored imagination endurance remove barrier peaceful settlement 20 days vietnamese allies dropped bombs north vietnam able experienced spokesmen visited behalf america 40 countries talked hundred governments 113 relations talked united nations called upon members make contribution toward helping obtain peace public statements private communications adversaries friends rome warsaw paris tokyo africa throughout hemisphere america made position abundantly clear seek neither territory bases economic domination military alliance vietnam fight principle people south vietnam able choose course choose free elections without violence without terror without fear people vietnam make free decision great question reunification want south vietnam people south vietnam want single nation earth desires less people let voice heard also made clear hanoi new york arbitrary limits search peace stand geneva agreements 1954 1962 meet conference table discuss proposals four points fourteen forty consider views group work discussions begun respond others reduce use force withdraw soldiers south vietnam securely guaranteed right shape future said hoped waited response far received response prove either success failure carried quest peace many nations peoples share planet others whose future large measure tied action whose counsel necessary hopes found understanding support know wait us tonight response could lead peace wish tonight could give blueprint course conflict coming months know future may require may face long hard combat long hard conference even peace comes come course clear act must help protect independence valiant people south vietnam strive limit conflict wish neither increased destruction want invite increased danger give fighting men must every gun every dollar every decision whatever cost whatever challenge continue help people south vietnam care ravaged battle create progress villages carry forward healing hopes peace best amidst uncertain terrors war let absolutely clear days may become months months may become years stay long aggression commands us battle may want peace whose ambitions stretch far war vietnam welcome convenient episode immense design subdue history others must clear choice peace victory lies peace ravages conflict lose people vietnam north south seek things shared needs man needs food shelter education chance build work till soil free arbitrary horrors battle desire walk dignity master destiny many painful years war revolution infrequent peace struggled fulfill needs crime mankind much courage much many dreams must flung fires war death caught conflict therefore say tonight let us choose peace wondrous works peace beyond time hope reaches toward consummation life servant life work plan discharge duty people serve state union wealth promise expectation lies troubling awareness american men war tonight many men listen tonight served nation wars many listen war vietnam like wars yet finally war always young men dying fullness promise trying kill man even know well enough hate therefore know war know still madness world many share burden knowledge tonight difference finally must one order guns fire inward pulls desire children teach sick cured men freed poor lifted cities built world helped yet must hopeful try best everything got end battle return sons desires yet long others challenge america security test clearness beliefs fire steel must stand see promise two centuries tremble believe tonight want try risk belief president summons strength trials lie ahead days come work must work scarred weaknesses man whatever guidance god may offer us must nevertheless alone mortality strive ennoble life man earth thank goodnight
deliver person joint session speaker president member house senate fellow american come tonight report state union third time come thank add tribute nation gratitude 89th congress congress already reserve honored chapter history america nation tonight engage brutal bitter conflict vietnam later want discuss struggle detail must center concern permit fire upon u vietnam win victory desire intention american people nation mighty enough society healthy enough people strong enough pursue goal rest world still build great society home come ask tonight recommend provide resource carry forward full vigor great health education program enact law last year recommend prosecute vigor determination war poverty recommend give new dare direction foreign aid program design make maximum attack hunger disease ignorance country determine help help nation try control population growth recommend make possible expand trade united state eastern europe soviet union recommend program rebuild completely scale never attempt entire central slum area several city america recommend attack wasteful degrade poison river cornerstone effort clean completely entire large river basin recommend meet grow menace crime street build law enforcement revitalize entire federal system prevention probation recommend take additional step insure equal justice people effectively enforce nondiscrimination federal state jury selection make serious federal crime obstruct public private effort secure civil right outlaw discrimination sale rental housing recommend help modernize streamline federal government create new cabinet level department transportation reorganize several exist agency turn restructure civil service top grade men woman easily assign job need ability require well rewarded ask make possible member house representative work effectively service nation constitutional amendment extend term congressman 4 year concurrent president ii vietnam would like ruthlessly attack waste inefficiency make sure every dollar spend thrift commonsense recognize hard taxpayer work order earn continue meet need people continue develop great society last year alone wealth produce increased 47 billion soar year total 720 billion economic policy produce rise revenue approve every program recommend tonight total budget deficit one low many year billion next year total spending administrative budget billion revenue next year 111 billion cash basis way keep family budget federal budget next year actually show surplus say include money government take money government spend government next year collect billion dollar spend year 1967 come tonight ask pleasant luxury idle pleasure come recommend representative rich nation earth elect servant people live abundance unmatched globe bring urgent decency life fellow american men cry must sacrifice well let u rather ask sacrifice go sacrifice child seek learn sick need medical care family dwell squalor brighten hope home sacrifice opportunity distress beauty land hope poor time may require sacrifice make heed wring hope unfortunate land plenty believe continue great society fight vietnam believe name justice let call contribution live fullness bless rather try strip hand need let one think unfortunate oppress land sit stifle alone hope tonight hundred servant protector sit tonight great chamber iii great society lead u along three road growth justice liberation 1 first growth national prosperity support people provide tools progress report tonight see already every city countryside nation flourish worker make money ever income past 5 year 33 percent last year alone 8 percent people work ever history increase last year 2 million job corporation great earnings ever history past 5 year earnings 65 percent last year alone rise 20 percent average farm income high ever past 5 year 40 percent past year 22 percent alone informed afternoon distinguish secretary treasury preliminary estimate indicate balance payment deficit reduce billion 1964 billion less 1965 achievement make possible patriotic voluntary cooperation businessmen banker work government must work together increased urgency wipe balance payment deficit altogether next year economy surge toward new height must increase vigilance inflation raise cost living lower savings every family land essential prevent inflation ask labor business exercise price wage restraint tonight believe desirable increase military expenditure temporarily restore automobile certain telephone excise tax reduction make effective 12 day ago without raise tax even increase total tax bill pay move improve withholding system americans realistically pay go speed collection corporate tax make necessary simplification tax structure early date hope measure adequate necessity vietnam require hesitate return congress additional appropriation additional revenue need 2 second road justice justice mean man hope limit color skin propose legislation establish unavoidable requirement nondiscriminatory jury selection federal state court give attorney general power necessary enforce requirement propose legislation strengthen authority federal court try murder attack intimidate either civil right worker others exercise constitutional right increase penalty level equal nature crime legislation rest full constitutional authority federal government racial discrimination sale rental housing nation within nation poor whose distress capture conscience america ask congress continue speed war poverty provide add energy achievement increase efficiency experience improve life rural american farm population plan future establishment several new community development district improve education use teacher corp team well health measure physical examination adequate available medical resource labor propose improve unemployment insurance expand minimum wage benefit repeal section 14 b act make labor law state equal law 31 state tonight measure also intend ask congress consider measure without improperly invade state local authority enable u effectively deal strike threaten irreparable damage national interest 3 third path path liberation use success fulfillment live great nation one breed great people great people flower wealth power society spur fullness genius alone great society yet slowly painfully edge victory come knowledge share prosperity enough midst abundance modern man walk oppress force menace confine quality life individual abundance alone overcome subdue master force bring increase meaning live u government citizen bold enough change old way dare enough assault new danger dream dear enough call forth limitless capacities great people year must continue improve quality american life let u fulfill improve great health education program last year extend special opportunity risk life arm force urge house representative complete action three program already pass senate teacher corp rent assistance home rule district columbia urban area must help rebuild entire section neighborhood contain case many people work together private enterprise government must press forward task provide home shop park hospital necessary part flourish community people come live good life offer proposal stimulate reward planning growth entire metropolitan area reckless devastation national heritage none really shameful continue poison river air must undertake cooperative effort end pollution several river basin make additional fund available help draw plan construct plant necessary make water entire river system clean make source pleasure beauty people attack overcome grow crime lawlessness think must program help modernize strengthen local police force people right feel secure home street right must secure fail arrest destruction life property highway propose highway safety act 1966 seek end mount tragedy must also act prevent deception american consumer require package state clearly truthfully content interest credit charge fully reveal keep harmful drug cosmetic away store genius constitution shelter endure institution root principle ample room rich fertility american political invention must change master change propose take step modernize streamline executive branch modernize relation city state nation new department transportation need bring together transportation activity present structure 35 government agency spend 5 billion yearly make almost impossible serve either grow demand great nation need industry right taxpayer full efficiency real frugality propose addition program construct new supersonic transport airplane fly three time speed sound excess mile per hour propose examine federal relation city state nation citizen need commission distinguish scholar men public affair job ask move develop creative federalism best use wonderful diversity institution people solve problem fulfill dreams american people process election become complex costly must make possible without personal wealth enter public life without obligate large contributor therefore submit legislation revise present unrealistic restriction contribution prohibit endless proliferation committee bring local state committee act attach strong teeth severe penalty requirement full disclosure broaden participation people add tax incentive stimulate small contribution party candidate choice strengthen work congress strongly urge amendment provide term member house begin 1972 present term require member congress divert enormous energy almost constant process campaign deprive nation full measure skill wisdom today work government far complex early year require time learn time master technical task legislate long term serve attract men high quality political life nation principle democracy think congressional district well serve term member house urge swift action iv tonight cup peril full vietnam conflict isolate episode another great event policy follow strong consistency since world war ii touchstone policy interest unite state welfare freedom people united state nation sink see interest narrow glass world grow small dangerous pursuit narrow aim could bring decay even disaster america mighty beyond live hostile despairing world would neither safe free build civilization liberate spirit man pursuit help rebuild western europe give aid greece turkey defend freedom berlin pursuit help new nation toward independence extend help hand peace corp carry forward large program economic assistance world pursuit work build hemisphere democracy social justice pursuit defend communist aggression korea president truman formosa strait president eisenhower cuba president kennedy vietnam tonight vietnam must hold center attention across world problem opportunity crowd american nation discuss fully month come follow five continue line policy america follow last four president 1 first principle strength tonight tell strong enough keep commitment need expenditures billion next fiscal year maintain necessary defense might special vietnam expenditure next fiscal year estimate increase billion tell expenditure put together entire federal budget rise come year billion true stringent economy program inaugurate defense department follow department government 2 second principle policy effort control reduce ultimately eliminate modern engine destruction vigorously pursue exist seek new one control arm stop spread nuclear weapon 3 third major principle foreign policy help build association nation reflect opportunity necessity modern world strengthen common defense stimulate world commerce meet new hope association serve flourishing world take new step year help strengthen alliance progress unity europe community atlantic regional organization develop continent supreme association unite nation work strengthen economic cooperation reduce barrier trade improve international finance 4 fourth endure strand policy help improve life man marshall plan moment tonight policy rest claim compassion certain knowledge people advance expectation build secure peaceful land year propose major new direction program foreign assistance help country help conduct worldwide attack problem hunger disease ignorance place matchless skill resource great america farm fertilizer service country commit develop modern agriculture aid educate young land give child continent head start try give child advance end propose international education act 1966 also propose international health act 1966 strike disease new effort bring modern skill knowledge suffer world try wipe smallpox malaria control yellow fever world next decade help country try control population growth increase research earmark fund help effort next year foreign aid source propose dedicate 1 billion effort call mean join u work world 5 fifth important principle foreign policy support national independence right people govern shape institution peaceful world order possible country walk way choose walk follow principle encourage end colonial rule follow principle abroad well home continue hostility rule many oppression one race another follow principle building bridge eastern europe ask congress authority remove special tariff restriction barrier increase trade east west insistent urge toward national independence strong force today world live africa asia latin america shatter design would subdue others idea erode unity stalinist empire recent month number nation east would subject ambition mainland china history side freedom side society shape genius people history favor single system belief unless force use make necessary u defend basic principle policy defend berlin korea tonight vietnam tonight many night young american struggle young american die distant land tonight many night american nation ask sacrifice blood child fruit labor love freedom many time lifetime american people gather hear president tell conflict tell danger time answer answered effort security freedom nation require tonight vietnam many year ago vietnam peaceful troubled land north independent communist government south people struggle build nation friendly help united state south vietnam wish force communist rule people progress slight hope success dim little 6 year ago north vietnam decided conquest day soldier supply move north south swell stream swallow remnant revolution aggression assault mount choice gradually become clear could leave abandon south vietnam attacker certain conquest could stay fight beside people south vietnam stay stay aggression stop stay nation leave cruelty enemies people stake life independence america solemn pledge pledge grown commitment three american president stay asia around world country whose independence rest large measure confidence america word america protection yield force vietnam would weaken confidence would undermine independence many land would whet appetite aggression would fight one land would fight another abandon much asia domination communists intend abandon asia conquest last year nature war vietnam change swiftly increase number arm men north cross border join force already south attack terror increase spur encouraged belief united state lack continue victory near despite desire limit conflict necessary act hold back mount aggression give courage people south make firmness clear north thus begin limited air action military target north vietnam increase fight force present strength tonight men move end aggression prevent success aim enemy put reach skill bravery americans ally endure courage south vietnamese tell lose eight men last year every one enemy long close victory time longer side doubt american commitment decision stand firm match desire peace 1965 alone 300 private talk peace vietnam friend adversary throughout world since christmas government labor imagination endurance remove barrier peaceful settlement 20 day vietnamese ally drop bombs north vietnam able experienced spokesman visit behalf america 40 country talk hundred government 113 relation talk united nation call upon member make contribution toward help obtain peace public statement private communication adversary friends rome warsaw paris tokyo africa throughout hemisphere america make position abundantly clear seek neither territory base economic domination military alliance vietnam fight principle people south vietnam able choose course choose free election without violence without terror without fear people vietnam make free decision great question reunification want south vietnam people south vietnam want single nation earth desire less people let voice heard also make clear hanoi new york arbitrary limit search peace stand geneva agreement 1954 1962 meet conference table discus proposal four point fourteen forty consider view group work discussion begin respond others reduce use force withdraw soldier south vietnam securely guarantee right shape future say hop wait response far receive response prove either success failure carry quest peace many nation people share planet others whose future large measure tie action whose counsel necessary hope find understanding support know wait u tonight response could lead peace wish tonight could give blueprint course conflict come month know future may require may face long hard combat long hard conference even peace come come course clear act must help protect independence valiant people south vietnam strive limit conflict wish neither increased destruction want invite increase danger give fight men must every gun every dollar every decision whatever cost whatever challenge continue help people south vietnam care ravage battle create progress village carry forward heal hope peace best amidst uncertain terror war let absolutely clear day may become month month may become year stay long aggression command u battle may want peace whose ambition stretch far war vietnam welcome convenient episode immense design subdue history others must clear choice peace victory lie peace ravage conflict lose people vietnam north south seek thing share need man need food shelter education chance build work till soil free arbitrary horror battle desire walk dignity master destiny many painful year war revolution infrequent peace struggle fulfill need crime mankind much courage much many dream must fling fire war death catch conflict therefore say tonight let u choose peace wondrous work peace beyond time hope reach toward consummation life servant life work plan discharge duty people serve state union wealth promise expectation lie trouble awareness american men war tonight many men listen tonight serve nation war many listen war vietnam like war yet finally war always young men die fullness promise try kill man even know well enough hate therefore know war know still madness world many share burden knowledge tonight difference finally must one order gun fire inward pull desire child teach sick cure men free poor lifted city build world help yet must hopeful try best everything get end battle return son desire yet long others challenge america security test clearness belief fire steel must stand see promise two century tremble believe tonight want try risk belief president summons strength trial lie ahead day come work must work scarred weakness man whatever guidance god may offer u must nevertheless alone mortality strive ennoble life man earth thank goodnight