Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, members of the Congress and my fellow Americans.
For the sixth and the last time, I present to the Congress my assessment of the State
of the Union.
I shall speak to you tonight about challenge and opportunity and about the commitments
that all of us have made together that will, if we carry them out, give America our best
chance to achieve the kind of a great society that we all want.
Every president lives not only with what is, but with what has been and what could be.
Most of the great events in his presidency are part of a larger sequence extending back
through several years and extending back through several other administrations.
Urban unrest, poverty, pressures on welfare, education of our people, law enforcement and
law and order, the continuing crisis in the Middle East, the conflict in Vietnam, the dangers
of nuclear war, the great difficulties of dealing with the Communist powers, all have
this much in common.
They and their causes, the causes that gave rise to them, all of these have existed with
us for many years.
Several presidents have already sought to try to deal with them.
One or more presidents will try to resolve them or try to contain them in the years that
are ahead of us.
But if the nation's problems are continuing, so are this great nation's assets.
Our economy, the democratic system, our sense of exploration, symbolized most recently by
the wonderful flight of the Apollo 8 in which all Americans took great pride.
and the good common sense and sound judgment of the American people and their essential
love of justice.
We must not ignore our problems, but neither should we ignore our strengths.
Both strengths are available to sustain a president of either party to support his progressive
efforts both at home and overseas.
Unfortunately the departure of administration does not mean the end of the problems that
this administration has faced.
The effort to meet the problems must go on year after year if the momentum that we have
all mounted together in these past years is not to be lost.
Although the struggle for progressive change is continuous, there are times when a watershed
is reached, when there is, if not really a break with the past, at least the fulfillment
of many of its oldest hopes and a stepping forth into a new environment to seek new goals.
And I think the past five years have been such a time.
We have finished a major part of the old agenda.
Some of the laws that we wrote have already, in front of our eyes, taken on the flesh of
achievement.
Medicare that we were unable to pass for so many years is now a part of American life.
Voting rights and the voting booth that we debated so long back in the 50s, and the doors
to public service, are open at last to all Americans, regardless of their color.
Schools and school children all over America tonight are receiving federal assistance to
go to good schools.
And preschool education, Head Start, is already here to stay.
And I think so are the federal programs that tonight are keeping more than a million and
a half of our cream of our young people in the colleges and universities of this country.
Part of the American Earth, not only in description on a map, but in the reality of our shores
and our hills and our parks and our forests and our mountains has been permanently set
aside for the American public and for their benefit.
And there's more going to be set aside before this administration ends.
Five million Americans have been trained for jobs in new federal programs, and I think
it's most important that we all realize tonight that this nation is close to full employment,
the less unemployment than we've had at any time in almost 20 years.
And that's not in theory, that's in fact.
Tonight the unemployment rate is down to 3.3 percent.
The number of jobs has grown more than 8.5 million in the last five years.
And that's more than in all the preceding 12 years.
These achievements completed the full cycle from idea to enactment and finally to a place
in the lives of citizens all across this country.
I wish it were possible to say that everything that this Congress and the administration
achieved during this period had already completed that cycle.
But a great deal of what we have committed needs additional funding to become a tangible
realization.
And yet the very existence of these commitments, these promises to the American people made
by this Congress and by the executive branch of the government, are achievements in themselves,
and failure to carry through on our commitments would be a tragedy for this nation.
This much is certain.
No one man or group of men made these commitments alone.
Congress and the executive branch, with their checks and balances, reasoned together and
finally wrote them into the law of the land.
And they now have all the moral force that the American political system can summons when
it acts as one.
They express America's common determination to achieve goals.
They imply action.
In most cases, you have already begun that action, but it is not fully completed, of course.
Let me speak for a moment about these commitments, and I'm going to speak in the language which
the Congress itself spoke when it passed these measures.
I'm going to quote from your words.
In 1966, Congress declared that improving the quality of urban life is the most critical
domestic problem facing the United States.
Two years later, it affirmed the historic goal of a decent home for every American family.
That's your language.
Now, to meet these commitments, we must increase our support for the Model Cities Program,
where blueprints of change are already being prepared in more than 150 American cities.
To achieve the goal of the Housing Act of 1968 that you just passed we should begin this year more than 500 homes for needy families in the coming fiscal year
and funds are provided the new budget to do just this.
And this is almost ten times the average rate of the past ten years.
Our cities and our towns are being pressed for funds to meet the needs of their growing
population.
So I believe an urban development bank should be created by the Congress.
This bank could obtain resources through the issuance of taxable bonds, and it could then
lend these resources at reduced rates to the communities throughout the land for schools
and hospitals and parks and other public facilities.
Since we enacted the Social Security Act back in 1935, Congress has recognized the necessity
to make more adequate provision for aged persons, maternal and child welfare, and public health.
And that is the words of the Congress.
More adequate.
And the time has come, I think, to make it more adequate.
And I believe we should increase Social Security benefits, and I am so recommending them now.
suggesting that there should be an overall increase in benefits of at least 13 percent,
and those who receive only the minimum $55 should get $80 a month.
Our nation, too, is rightfully proud of our medical advances,
but we should remember that our country ranks 15th among the nations of the world in its infant mortality rate.
I think we should assure decent medical care for every expectant mother and for their children
during the first year of their life in the United States of America.
I think we should protect our children and their families from the cost of catastrophic
illness.
And as we pass on from medicine, I think nothing is clearer to the Congress than the commitment
that the Congress made to end poverty.
Congress expressed it well, I think, in 1964 when they said, it is the policy of the United
States to eliminate the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty in this nation, this
the richest nation in the world.
The anti-poverty program has had many achievements.
It also has some failures.
But we must not cripple it after only three years of trying to solve the human problems
that have been with us and have been building up among us for generations.
I believe the Congress this year will want to improve the administration, the poverty
program, by reorganizing portions of it and transferring them to other agencies.
I believe, though, it will want to continue until we have broken the back of poverty the
the efforts we're now making throughout this land.
I believe, and I hope the next administration, I believe they believe, is that the key to
success in this effort is jobs, is work for people who want to work.
In the budget for fiscal 1970, I shall recommend a total of $3,500,000,000 for our job training
program, and that's five times as much as we spent in 1964 trying to prepare Americans
where they can work to earn their own levy.
The nation's commitment in the field of civil rights began with the Declaration of Independence.
They were extended by the 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments, and they have been powerfully
strengthened by the enactment of three far-reaching civil rights laws within the past five years
that this Congress and its wisdom pass.
On January 1st of this year, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 covered over 20 million American
homes and apartments.
The prohibition against racial discrimination in that act should be remembered, and it should
be vigorously enforced throughout this land.
I believe we should also extend the vital provisions of the Voting Rights Act for another
five years.
In the Safe Streets Act of 1968, Congress determined to assist state and local governments
in reducing the incidence of crime.
This year I am proposing that the Congress provide the full $300 million that the Congress
last year authorized to do just that.
And I hope the Congress will put the money where the authorization is.
I believe this is an essential contribution to justice and to public order in the United
States.
And I hope these grants can be made to the states and they can be used effectively to
reduce the crime rate in this country.
But all of this is only a small part of the total effort that must be made, I think chiefly,
by the local governments throughout the nation, if we expect to reduce the toll of crime that
we all detest.
Frankly, as I leave the office of the presidency, one of my greatest disappointments is our
failure to secure passage of a Licensing and Registration Act for firearms.
I think if we had passed that act it would have reduced the incidence of crime.
And I believe that the Congress should adopt such a law, and I hope that it will at a not
too distant today.
In order to meet our longstanding commitment to make government as efficient as possible,
I believe that we should reorganize our postal system along the lines of the Capitol Report.
I hope we can all agree that public service should never impose an unreasonable financial
sacrifice on able men and women who want to serve their country.
So I believe that the recommendations of the Commission on Executive, Legislative, and
Judicial Salary are generally sound.
Later this week, I shall submit a special message which I reviewed with the leadership
this evening containing a proposal that has been reduced and has modified the Commission's
recommendation to some extent on the Congressional salaries.
For members of Congress, I will recommend a basic compensation, not of the $50,000,
unanimously recommended by the Capital Commission and the other distinguished members,
but I shall reduce that $50,000 to $42,500.
And I will suggest that Congress appropriate a very small additional allowance for official expenses
so that members will not be required to use their salary increase for essential official business.
I would have submitted the Commission's recommendations,
except the advice that I received from the leadership,
and that you usually are consulted about matters that affect the Congress,
was that the Congress would not accept the 50,000 recommendation,
and if I expected my recommendation to be seriously considered,
I should make substantial reductions.
That's the only reason I didn't go along with the Capitol report.
In 1967, I recommended to Congress a fair and impartial random selectance system for the draft.
I submit it again tonight for your most respectful consideration.
I know that all of us recognize that most of the things we do to meet all of these commitments
I talk about will cost money.
And if we maintain the strong rate of growth that we've had in this country for the past
eight years, I think we shall generate the resources that we need to meet these commitments.
We've already been able to increase our support for major social programs, although we've
heard a lot about not being able to do anything on the home front because of Vietnam.
But we have been able in the last five years to increase our commitments for such things
is health and education from billion in 1964 to billion in the coming fiscal year That more than double and that more than it ever been increased in the 188 years of this republic notwithstanding Vietnam
We must continue to budget our resources and budget them responsibly in a way that will
preserve our prosperity and will strengthen our dollar.
Greater revenues and the reduced federal spending required by Congress last year have changed
the budgetary picture dramatically since last January when we made our estimates.
At that time you'll remember that we estimated we'd have a deficit of $8 billion.
Well I'm glad to report to you tonight that the fiscal year ending June 30th
1969 this June we are going to have not a deficit but we're going to have a 2
billion 400 million dollar surplus.
You will receive the budget tomorrow, but the budget for the next fiscal year that begins
next July the 1st, that you will want to examine very carefully in the days ahead, it will
provide a $3,400,000,000 surplus.
The President's budget anticipates the extension of the surtax that Congress enacted last year.
I have communicated with the President-elect Nixon in connection with this policy and continuing
the surtax for the time being.
I want to tell you that both of us want to see it removed just as soon as circumstances
will permit, but the president-elect has told me that he has concluded that until his administration
and this Congress can examine the appropriation bills and each item in the budget and can
ascertain that the facts justify permitting the surtax to expire or to reduce, he, Mr.
Nixon will support my recommendation that the surtax be continued.
Americans I believe are united in the hope that the Paris talks will bring an early peace
to Vietnam.
And if our hopes for an early settlement of the war are realized, then our military expenditures
can be reduced, and very substantial savings can be made to be used for other desirable
purposes as the Congress may determine.
In any event, I think it's imperative that we do all we responsibly can to resist inflation
while maintaining our prosperity.
I think all Americans know that our prosperity is broad and it's deep, that it's brought
record profits, the highest in our history, record wages.
Our gross national product has grown more in the last five years than any other period
in our nation's history.
Our wages have been the highest, our profits have been the best, and this prosperity has
enable millions to escape the poverty that they would have otherwise had the last few
years.
And I think also you'll be very glad to hear that the Secretary of Treasury informs me
tonight that in 1968, in our balance of payments, we have achieved a surplus.
It appears that we have, in fact, done better this year than we've done in any year in this
regard since the year 1957.
The quest for a durable peace has, I think, absorbed every administration since the end
of World War II.
It has required us to seek a limitation of armed races, not only among the superpowers
but among the smaller nations as well.
We have joined in the Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the Treaty
Against the Spread of Nuclear Weapons of 1968, and this latter agreement, the Nonproliferation
Treaty is now pending in the Senate, and it's been pending there since last July.
In my opinion, delay in ratifying it is not going to be helpful to the cause of peace.
America took the lead in negotiating this treaty, and America should now take steps to
have it approved at the earliest possible date.
And until a way can be found to scale down the level of arms among the superpowers, mankind
cannot view the future without fear and great apprehension.
So I believe that we should resume the talks with the Soviet Union about limiting offensive
and defensive missile systems, and I think they would have already been resumed except
for Czechoslovakia and our election this year.
It was more than 20 years ago that we embarked on a program of trying to aid the developing
nations.
We knew then that we could not live in good conscience as a rich enclave on an earth that
was seething in misery.
And during these years there have been great advances made under our program, particularly
against want and hunger.
And although we were disappointed at the preparations last year, we thought they were woefully inadequate.
This year I'm asking for adequate funds for economic assistance in the hope that we can
further peace throughout the world.
I think we must continue to support efforts in regional cooperation.
Among those efforts, that of Western Europe has a very special place in America's concern.
The only course that's going to permit Europe to play the great role—the world role—that
its resources permit, is to go forward to unity.
I think America remains ready to work with a united Europe, work as a partner on the basis
of equality.
For our future, the quest for peace, I believe, requires that we maintain the liberal trade
policies that have helped us become the leading nation in world trade, that we strengthen the
international monetary system as an instrument of world prosperity, and that we seek areas
of agreement with the Soviet Union where the interests of both nations and the interests
of world peace are properly served.
The strained relationship between us and the world's leading communist power has not ended,
especially in the light of the brutal invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Totalitarianism is no less odious to us because we're able to reach some accommodation that
reduces the danger of world catastrophe.
What we do, we do in the interest of peace in the world, and we earnestly hope that time
will bring a Russia that is less afraid of adversity and individual freedom.
The quest for peace tonight continues in Vietnam and in the Paris talks.
I regret more than any of you know that it has not been possible to restore peace to South
Vietnam.
The prospects, I think, for peace are better today than at any time since North Vietnam
began its invasion into its regular forces more than four years ago.
And the free nations of Asia know what they were not sure of at that time,
that America cares about their freedom,
and it also cares about America's own vital interest in Asia and throughout the Pacific.
The North Vietnamese know that they cannot achieve their aggressive purposes by force.
There may be hard fighting before a settlement is reached, but I can assure you it will yield
no victory to the Communist cause.
I cannot speak to you tonight about Vietnam without paying a very personal tribute to
to the men who have carried the battle out there for all of us.
And I have been honored to be their Commander-in-Chief.
The nation owes them its unstinting support while the battle continues and its enduring gratitude when their service is done
Finally, the quest for stable peace in the Middle East goes on in many capitals tonight.
America fully supports the unanimous resolution of the UN Security Council, which points the
way.
There must be a settlement to the armed hostility that exists in that region of the world today.
It is a threat not only to Israel and to all the Arab states, but it's a threat to every
one of us and to the entire world as well.
And now, my friends in Congress, I want to conclude with a few very personal words to
you.
I rejected and then finally accepted the Congressional leadership's invitation to come here to speak
this farewell to you in person tonight.
I did that for two reasons.
One was philosophical.
I wanted to give you my judgment as I saw it on some of the issues before our nation
as I viewed them before I leave.
The other was just pure sentimental.
of my life.
Most all of my life as a public official has been spent here in this building.
For 38 years since I worked on that gallery as a doorkeeper in the House of Representatives,
I have known these halls and I have known most of the men pretty well who walked them.
I know the questions that you face.
I know the conflicts that you endure.
I know the ideals that you seek to serve.
I left here first to become vice president and then to become, in a moment of tragedy,
the president of the United States.
My term of office has been marked by a series of challenges, both at home and throughout
the world.
In meeting some of these challenges, the nation has found a new confidence in meeting others
in new turbulence and doubt and fear and hate.
And throughout this time I have been sustained by my faith in representative democracy, a
faith that I had learned here in this Capitol building as an employee and as a Congressman
and as a Senator.
I believe deeply in the ultimate purposes of this nation described by the Constitution,
tempered by history, embodied in progressive laws, and given life by men and women that
have been elected to serve their fellow citizens.
Now for five most demanding years in the White House, I have been strengthened by the counsel
in the cooperation of two great former presidents, Harry S. Truman and Dwight David Eisenhower.
I have been guided by the memory of my pleasant and close association with the beloved John
John F. Kennedy, and with our greatest modern legislator, Speaker Sam Raver.
I have been assisted by my friend every step of the way, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
I'm so grateful that I've been supported daily by the loyalty of Speaker McCormick and Majority
leader Alvin.
I have benefited from the wisdom of Senator Mike Mansfield.
And I am sure that I have avoided many dangerous pitfalls by the good, common-sense counsel
of the President Pro Tem of the Senate, Senator Richard Brevard Ruff.
I have received the most generous cooperation from the leaders of the Republican Party in
the Congress of the United States, Senator Dirksen and Congressmen.
and Congressman Gerald Ford, the Majority of the Army.
No president should ask for more, although I did upon occasion.
But few presidents have ever been blessed with so much.
President-elect Nixon in the days ahead is going to need your understanding, just as
I did.
And he's entitled to have it.
And I hope every member will remember that the burdens he will bear as our president
will be borne for all of us.
Each of us should try not to increase these burdens for the sake of narrow personal or
partisan advantage.
And now it's time to leave.
I hope it may be said a hundred years from now that by working together we help to make
our country more just, more just for all of its people as well as to ensure and guarantee
the blessings of liberty for all of our posterity.
That's what I hope.
But I believe that at least it will be said that we tried.
Thank you.