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President[ Richard Nixon

         Date[ January 22, 1971

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, my colleagues in the Congress, our

distinguished guests, my fellow Americans:

As this 92d Congress begins its session, America has lost a great Senator,

and all of us who had the privilege to know him have lost a loyal friend. I

had the privilege of visiting Senator Russell in the hospital just a few

days before he died. He never spoke about himself. He only spoke eloquently

about the need for a strong national defense. In tribute to one of the most

magnificent Americans of all time, I respectfully ask that all those here

will rise in silent prayer for Senator Russell.

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my formal address, I want to use this

opportunity to congratulate all of those who were winners in the rather

spirited contest for leadership positions in the House and the Senate and,

also, to express my condolences to the losers. I know how both of you

feel.

And I particularly want to join with all of the Members of the House and

the Senate as well in congratulating the new Speaker of the United States

Congress.

To those new Members of this House who may have some doubts about the

possibilities for advancement in the years ahead, I would remind you that

the Speaker and I met just 24 years ago in this Chamber as freshmen Members

of the 80th Congress. As you see, we both have come up in the world a bit

since then.

Mr. Speaker, this 92d Congress has a chance to be recorded as the greatest

Congress in America's history.

In these troubled years just past, America has been going through a long

nightmare of war and division, of crime and inflation. Even more deeply, we

have gone through a long, dark night of the American spirit. But now that

night is ending. Now we must let our spirits soar again. Now we are ready

for the lift of a driving dream.

The people of this Nation are eager to get on with the quest for new

greatness. They see challenges, and they are prepared to meet those

challenges. It is for us here to open the doors that will set free again

the real greatness of this Nation--the genius of the American people.

How shall we meet this challenge? How can we truly open the doors, and set

free the full genius of our people?

The way in which the 92d Congress answers these questions will determine

its place in history. More importantly, it can determine this Nation's

place in history as we enter the third century of our independence.

Tonight I shall present to the Congress six great goals. I shall ask not

simply for more new programs in the old framework. I shall ask to change

the framework of government itself---to reform the entire structure of

American government so we can make it again fully responsive to the needs

and the wishes of the American people.

If we act boldly--if we seize this moment and achieve these goals--we can

close the gap between promise and performance in American government. We

can bring together the resources of this Nation and the spirit of the

American people.

In discussing these great goals, I shall deal tonight only with matters on

the domestic side of the Nation's agenda. I shall make a separate report to

the Congress and the Nation next month on developments in foreign policy.

The first of these great goals is already before the Congress.

I urge that the unfinished business of the 91st Congress be made the first

priority business of the 92d Congress.

Over the next 2 weeks, I will call upon Congress to take action on more

than 35 pieces of proposed legislation on which action was not completed

last year.

The most important is welfare reform.

The present welfare system has become a monstrous, consuming outrage--an

outrage against the community, against the taxpayer, and particularly

against the children it is supposed to help.

We may honestly disagree, as we do, on what to do about it. But we can all

agree that we must meet the challenge, not by pouring more money into a bad

program, but by abolishing the present welfare system and adopting a new

one.

So let us place a floor under the income of every family with children in

America--and without those demeaning, soul-stifling affronts to human

dignity that so blight the lives of welfare children today. But let us also

establish an effective work incentive and an effective work requirement.

Let us provide the means by which more can help themselves. This shall be

our goal.

Let us generously help those who are not able to help themselves. But let

us stop helping those who are able to help themselves but refuse to do so.

The second great goal is to achieve what Americans have not enjoyed since

1957--full prosperity in peacetime.

The tide of inflation has turned. The rise in the cost of living, which had

been gathering dangerous momentum in the late sixties, was reduced last

year. Inflation will be further reduced this year.

But as we have moved from runaway inflation toward reasonable price

stability and at the same time as we have been moving from a wartime

economy to a peacetime economy, we have paid a price in increased

unemployment.

We should take no comfort from the fact that the level of unemployment in

this transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy is lower than in any

peacetime year of the sixties.

This is not good enough for the man who is unemployed in the seventies. We

must do better for workers in peacetime and we will do better.

To achieve this, I will submit an expansionary budget this year--one that

will help stimulate the economy and thereby open up new job opportunities

for millions of Americans.

It will be a full employment budget, a budget designed to be in balance if

the economy were operating at its peak potential. By spending as if we were

at full employment, we will help to bring about full employment.

I ask the Congress to accept these expansionary policies--to accept the

concept of a full employment budget. At the same time, I ask the Congress

to cooperate in resisting expenditures that go beyond the limits of the

full employment budget. For as we wage a campaign to bring about a widely

shared prosperity, we must not reignite the fires of inflation and so

undermine that prosperity.

With the stimulus and the discipline of a full employment budget, with the

commitment of the independent Federal Reserve System to provide fully for

the monetary needs of a growing economy, and with a much greater effort on

the part of labor and management to make their wage and price decisions in

the light of the national interest and their own self-interest--then for

the worker, the farmer, the consumer, for Americans everywhere we shall

gain the goal of a new prosperity: more jobs, more income, more profits,

without inflation and without war.

This is a great goal, and one that we can achieve together.

The third great goal is to continue the effort so dramatically begun last

year: to restore and enhance our natural environment.

Building on the foundation laid in the 37-point program that I submitted to

Congress last year, I will propose a strong new set of initiatives to clean

up our air and water, to combat noise, and to preserve and restore our

surroundings.

I will propose programs to make better use of our land, to encourage a

balanced national growth--growth that will revitalize our rural heartland

and enhance the quality of life in America.

And not only to meet today's needs but to anticipate those of tomorrow, I

will put forward the most extensive program ever proposed by a President of

the United States to expand the Nation's parks, recreation areas, open

spaces, in a way that truly brings parks to the people where the people

are. For only if we leave a legacy of parks will the next generation have

parks to enjoy.

As a fourth great goal, I will offer a far-reaching set of proposals for

improving America's health care and making it available more fairly to more

people.

I will propose:

--A program to insure that no American family will be prevented from

obtaining basic medical care by inability to pay.

--I will propose a major increase in and redirection of aid to medical

schools, to greatly increase the number of doctors and other health

personnel.

--Incentives to improve the delivery of health services, to get more

medical care resources into those areas that have not been adequately

served, to make greater use of medical assistants, and to slow the alarming

rise in the costs of medical care.

--New programs to encourage better preventive medicine, by attacking the

causes of disease and injury, and by providing incentives to doctors to

keep people well rather than just to treat them when they are sick.

I will also ask for an appropriation of an extra $100 million to launch an

intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer, and I will ask later for

whatever additional funds can effectively be used. The time has come in

America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and

took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease.

Let us make a total national commitment to achieve this goal.

America has long been the wealthiest nation in the world. Now it is time we

became the healthiest nation in the world.

The fifth great goal is to strengthen and to renew our State and local

governments.

As we approach our 200th anniversary in 1976, we remember that this Nation

launched itself as a loose confederation of separate States, without a

workable central government. At that time, the mark of its leaders' vision

was that they quickly saw the need to balance the separate powers of the

States with a government of central powers.

And so they gave us a constitution of balanced powers, of unity with

diversity--and so clear was their vision that it survives today as the

oldest written constitution still in force in the world.

For almost two centuries since--and dramatically in the 1930's--at those

great turning points when the question has been between the States and the

Federal Government, that question has been resolved in favor of a stronger

central Federal Government.

During this time the Nation grew and the Nation prospered. But one thing

history tells us is that no great movement goes in the same direction

forever. Nations change, they adapt, or they slowly die.

The time has now come in America to reverse the flow of power and resources

from the States and communities to Washington, and start power and

resources flowing back from Washington to the States and communities and,

more important, to the people all across America.

The time has come for a new partnership between the Federal Government and

the States and localities--a partnership in which we entrust the States and

localities with a larger share of the Nation's responsibilities, and in

which we share our Federal revenues with them so that they can meet those

responsibilities.

To achieve this goal, I propose to the Congress tonight that we enact a

plan of revenue sharing historic in scope and bold in concept.

All across America today, States and cities are confronted with a financial

crisis. Some have already been cutting back on essential services---for

example, just recently San Diego and Cleveland cut back on trash

collections. Most are caught between the prospects of bankruptcy on the one

hand and adding to an already crushing tax burden on the other.

As one indication of the rising costs of local government, I discovered the

other day that my home town of Whittier, California--which has a population

of 67,000--has a larger budget for 1971 than the entire Federal budget was

in 1791.

Now the time has come to take a new direction, and once again to introduce

a new and more creative balance to our approach to government.

So let us put the money where the needs are. And let us put the power to

spend it where the people are.

I propose that the Congress make a $16 billion investment in renewing

State and local government. Five billion dollars of this will be in new and

unrestricted funds to be used as the States and localities see fit. The

other $11 billion will be provided by allocating $1 billion of new funds

and converting one-third of the money going to the present narrow-purpose

aid programs into Federal revenue sharing funds for six broad purposes--for

urban development, rural development, education, transportation, job

training, and law enforcement--but with the States and localities making

their own decisions on how it should be spent within each category.

For the next fiscal year, this would increase total Federal aid to the

States and localities more than 25 percent over the present level.

The revenue sharing proposals I send to the Congress will include the

safeguards against discrimination that accompany all other Federal funds

allocated to the States. Neither the President nor the Congress nor the

conscience of this Nation can permit money which comes from all the people

to be used in a way which discriminates against some of the people.

The Federal Government will still have a large and vital role to play in

achieving our national progress. Established functions that are clearly and

essentially Federal in nature will still be performed by the Federal

Government. New functions that need to be sponsored or performed by the

Federal Government--such as those I have urged tonight in welfare and

health--will be added to the Federal agenda. Whenever it makes the best

sense for us to act as a whole nation, the Federal Government should and

will lead the way. But where States or local governments can better do what

needs to be done, let us see that they have the resources to do it there.

Under this plan, the Federal Government will provide the States and

localities with more money and less interference--and by cutting down the

interference the same amount of money will go a lot further.

Let us share our resources.

Let us share them to rescue the States and localities from the brink of

financial crisis.

Let us share them to give homeowners and wage earners a chance to escape

from ever-higher property taxes and sales taxes.

Let us share our resources for two other reasons as well.

The first of these reasons has to do with government itself, and the second

has to do with each of us, with the individual.

Let's face it. Most Americans today are simply fed up with government at

all levels. They will not--and they should not--continue to tolerate the

gap between promise and performance in government.

The fact is that we have made the Federal Government so strong it grows

muscle-bound and the States and localities so weak they approach

impotence.

If we put more power in more places, we can make government more creative

in more places. That way we multiply the number of people with the ability

to make things happen--and we can open the way to a new burst of creative

energy throughout America.

The final reason I urge this historic shift is much more personal, for each

and for every one of us.

As everything seems to have grown bigger and more complex in America, as

the forces that shape our lives seem to have grown more distant and more

impersonal, a great feeling of frustration has crept across this land.

Whether it is the workingman who feels neglected, the black man who feels

oppressed, or the mother concerned about her children, there has been a

growing feeling that "Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind."

Millions of frustrated young Americans today are crying out--asking not

what will government do for me, but what can I do, how can I contribute,

how can I matter?

And so let us answer them. Let us say to them and let us say to all

Americans, "We hear you. We will give you a chance. We are going to give

you a new chance to have more to say about the decisions that affect your

future--a chance to participate in government--because we are going to

provide more centers of power where what you do can make a difference that

you can see and feel in your own life and the life of your whole

community."

The further away government is from people, the stronger government becomes

and the weaker people become. And a nation with a strong government and a

weak people is an empty shell.

I reject the patronizing idea that government in Washington, D.C., is

inevitably more wise, more honest, and more efficient than government at

the local or State level. The honesty and efficiency of government depends

on people. Government at all levels has good people and bad people. And the

way to get more good people into government is to give them more

opportunity to do good things.

The idea that a bureaucratic elite in Washington knows best what is best

for people everywhere and that you cannot trust local governments is really

a contention that you cannot trust people to govern themselves. This notion

is completely foreign to the American experience. Local government is the

government closest to the people, it is most responsive to the individual

person. It is people's government in a far more intimate way than the

Government in Washington can ever be.

People came to America because they wanted to determine their own future

rather than to live in a country where others determined their future for

them.

What this change means is that once again in America we are placing our

trust in people.

I have faith in people. I trust the judgment of people. Let us give the

people of America a chance, a bigger voice in deciding for themselves those

questions that so greatly affect their lives.

The sixth great goal is a complete reform of the Federal Government

itself.

Based on a long and intensive study with the aid of the best advice

obtainable, I have concluded that a sweeping reorganization of the

executive branch is needed if the Government is to keep up with the times

and with the needs of the people.

I propose, therefore, that we reduce the present 12 Cabinet Departments to

eight.

I propose that the Departments of State, Treasury, Defense, and Justice

remain, but that all the other departments be consolidated into four: Human

Resources, Community Development, Natural Resources, and Economic

Development.

Let us look at what these would be:

--First, a department dealing with the concerns of people--as individuals,

as members of a family--a department focused on human needs.

--Second, a department concerned with the community--rural communities and

urban communities--and with all that it takes to make a community function

as a community.

--Third, a department concerned with our physical environment, with the

preservation and balanced use of those great natural resources on which our

Nation depends.

--And fourth, a department concerned with our prosperity--with our jobs,

our businesses, and those many activities that keep our economy running

smoothly and well.

Under this plan, rather than dividing up our departments by narrow

subjects, we would organize them around the great purposes of government.

Rather than scattering responsibility by adding new levels of bureaucracy,

we would focus and concentrate the responsibility for getting problems

solved.

With these four departments, when we have a problem we will know where to

go--and the department will have the authority and the resources to do

something about it.

Over the years we have added departments and created agencies at the

Federal level, each to serve a new constituency, to handle a particular

task--and these have grown and multiplied in what has become a hopeless

confusion of form and function.

The time has come to match our structure to our purposes---to look with a

fresh eye, to organize the Government by conscious, comprehensive design to

meet the new needs of a new era.

One hundred years ago, Abraham Lincoln stood on a battlefield and spoke of

a "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Too often

since then, we have become a nation of the Government, by the Government,

for the Government.

By enacting these reforms, we can renew that principle that Lincoln stated

so simply and so well.

By giving everyone's voice a chance to be heard, we will have government

that truly is of the people.

By creating more centers of meaningful power, more places where decisions

that really count can be made, by giving more people a chance to do

something, we can have government that truly is by the people.

And by setting up a completely modern, functional system of government at

the national level, we in Washington will at last be able to provide

government that is truly for the people.

I realize that what I am asking is that not only the executive branch in

Washington but that even this Congress will have to change by giving up

some of its power.

Change is hard. But without change there can be no progress. And for each

of us the question then becomes, not "Will change cause me inconvenience?"

but "Will change bring progress for America?"

Giving up power is hard. But I would urge all of you, as leaders of this

country, to remember that the truly revered leaders in world history are

those who gave power to people, and not those who took it away.

As we consider these reforms we will be acting, not for the next 2 years or

for the next 10 years, but for the next 100 years.

So let us approach these six great goals with a sense not only of this

moment in history but also of history itself.

Let us act with the willingness to work together and the vision and the

boldness and the courage of those great Americans who met in Philadelphia

almost 190 years ago to write a constitution.

Let us leave a heritage as they did--not just for our children but for

millions yet unborn--of a nation where every American will have a chance

not only to live in peace and to enjoy prosperity and opportunity but to

participate in a system of government where he knows not only his votes but

his ideas count--a system of government which will provide the means for

America to reach heights of achievement undreamed of before.

Those men who met at Philadelphia left a great heritage because they had a

vision--not only of what the Nation was but of what it could become.

As I think of that vision, I recall that America was founded as the land of

the open door--as a haven for the oppressed, a land of opportunity, a place

of refuge, of hope.

When the first settlers opened the door of America three and a half

centuries ago, they came to escape persecution and to find opportunity--and

they left wide the door of welcome for others to follow.

When the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence almost two centuries

ago, they opened the door to a new vision of liberty and of human

fulfillment--not just for an elite but for all.

To the generations that followed, America's was the open door that beckoned

millions from the old world to the new in search of a better life, a freer

life, a fuller life, and in which, by their own decisions, they could shape

their own destinies.

For the black American, the Indian, the Mexican-American, and for those

others in our land who have not had an equal chance, the Nation at last has

begun to confront the need to press open the door of full and equal

opportunity, and of human dignity.

For all Americans, with these changes I have proposed tonight we can open

the door to a new era of opportunity. We can open the door to full and

effective participation in the decisions that affect their lives. We can

open the door to a new partnership among governments at all levels, between

those governments and the people themselves. And by so doing, we can open

wide the doors of human fulfillment for millions of people here in America

now and in the years to come.

In the next few weeks I will spell out in greater detail the way I propose

that we achieve these six great goals. I ask this Congress to be

responsive. If it is, then the 92d Congress, your Congress, our Congress,

at the end of its term, will be able to look back on a record more splendid

than any in our history.

This can be the Congress that helped us end the longest war in the Nation's

history, and end it in a way that will give us at last a genuine chance to

enjoy what we have not had in this century: a full generation of peace.

This can be the Congress that helped achieve an expanding economy, with

full employment and without inflation--and without the deadly stimulus of

war.

This can be the Congress that reformed a welfare system that has robbed

recipients of their dignity and robbed States and cities of their

resources.

This can be the Congress that pressed forward the rescue of our

environment, and established for the next generation an enduring legacy of

parks for the people.

This can be the Congress that launched a new era in American medicine, in

which the quality of medical care was enhanced while the costs were made

less burdensome.

But above all, what this Congress can be remembered for is opening the way

to a new American revolution--a peaceful revolution in which power was

turned back to the people--in which government at all levels was refreshed

and renewed and made truly responsive. This can be a revolution as

profound, as far-reaching, as exciting as that first revolution almost 200

years ago--and it can mean that just 5 years from now America will enter

its third century as a young nation new in spirit, with all the vigor and

the freshness with which it began its first century.

My colleagues in the Congress, these are great goals. They can make the

sessions of this Congress a great moment for America. So let us pledge

together to go forward together--by achieving these goals to give America

the foundation today for a new greatness tomorrow and in all the years to

come, and in so doing to make this the greatest Congress in the history of

this great and good country.

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