Speech Transcript:

 To address a joint session of Congress in this great Chamber in which
I was once privileged to serve is an honor for which I am deeply
grateful.

The State of the Union Address is traditionally an occasion for a
lengthy and detailed account by the President of what he has
accomplished in the past, what he wants the Congress to do in the
future, and, in an election year, to lay the basis for the political
issues which might be decisive in the fall.

Occasionally there comes a time when profound and far-reaching events
command a break with tradition.

This is such a time.

I say this not only because 1970 marks the beginning of a new decade
in which America will celebrate its 200 th birthday. I say it because
new knowledge and hard experience argue persuasively that both our
programs and our institutions in American need to be reformed.

The moment has arrived to harness the vast energies and abundance of
this land to the creation of a new American experience, an experience
richer and deeper and more truly a reflection of the goodness and
grace of the human spirit.

The seventies will be a time of new beginnings, a time of exploring
both on the earth and in the heavens, a time of discovery. But the
time has also come for emphasis on developing better ways of managing
what we have and completing what man's genius has begun but left
unfinished.

Our land, this land that is ours together, is a great and a good
land. It is also an unfinished land, and the challenge of perfecting
it is the summons of the seventies.

It is in that spirit that I address myself to those great issues
facing our Nation which are above partisanship.

When we speak of America's priorities the first priority must always
be peace for America and the world.

The major immediate goal of our foreign policy is to bring an end to
the war in Vietnam in a way that out generation will be remembered --
not so much as the generation that suffered in war, but more for the
fact that we had the courage and character to win the kind of a just
peace that the next generation was able to keep.

We are making progress toward that goal.

The prospects for peace are far greater today they were a year ago.

A major part of the credit for this development goes to the Members
of this Congress who, despite their differences on the conduct of the
war, have overwhelmingly indicated their support of a just peace. By
this action, you have completely demolished the enemy's hopes that
they can gain in Washington the victory our fighting men have denied
them in Vietnam.

No goal could be greater than to make the next generation the first
in this century in which America was at peace with every nation in
the world.

I shall discuss in detail the new concepts and programs designed to
achieve this goal in a separate report on foreign policy, which I
will submit to the Congress at a later date.

Today, let me describe the direction of our new policies.

We have based our policies on an evaluation of the world as it is,
not as it was 25 years ago at the conclusion of World War II. Many of
the policies which were necessary and right then are obsolete today.

Then, because of America's overwhelming military and economic
strength, because of the weakness of other major free world powers
and the inability of scores of newly independent nations to defend,
or even govern, themselves, America had to assume the major burden
for the defense of the world.

In two wars, first in Korea and now in Vietnam, we furnished most of
the money, most of the arms, most of the men to help other nations
defend their freedom.

Today the great industrial nations of Europe, as well as Japan, have
regained their economic strength; and the nations of Latin America --
and many of the nations who acquired their freedom from colonialism
after World War II in Asia and Africa -- have a new sense of pride
and dignity and a determination to assume the responsibility for
their own defense.

That is the basis of the doctrine I announced at Guam.

Neither the defense nor the development of other nations can be
exclusively or primarily an American undertaking.

The nations of each part of the world should assume the primary
responsibility for their own well-being; and they themselves should
determine the terms of that well-being.

We shall be faithful to our treaty commitments, but we shall reduce
our involvement and our presence in other nations' affairs.

To insist that other nations play a role is not a retreat from
responsibility; it is a sharing of responsibility.

The results of this new policy has been not to weaken our alliances,
but to give then new life, new strength, a new sense of common
purpose.

Relations with our European allies are once again strong and healthy,
based on mutual consultation and mutual responsibility.

We have initiated a new approach to Latin America in which we deal
with those nations as partners rather than patrons.

The new partnership concept has been welcomed in Asia. We have
developed an historic new basis for Japanese-American friendship and
cooperation, which is the linchpin for peace in the Pacific.

If we are to have peace in the last third of the century, a major
factor will be the development of a new relationship between the
United States and the Soviet Union.

I would not underestimate our differences, but we are moving with
precision and purpose from an era of confrontation to an era of
negotiation.

Our negotiations on strategic arms limitations and in other areas
will have far greater chance for success if both sides enter them
motivated by mutual self-interest rather than naïve sentimentality.

It is with this same spirit that we have resumed discussions with
Communist China in our talks at Warsaw.

Our concern in our relations with both these nations is to avoid a
catastrophic collision and to build a solid basis for peaceful
settlement of our differences.

I would be the last to suggest that the road to peace is not
difficult and dangerous, but I believe our new policies have
contributed to the prospect that America may have the best chance
since World War II to enjoy a generation of uninterrupted peace. And
that chance will be enormously increased if we continue to have a
relationship between Congress and the Executive in which, despite
differences in detail, where the security of America and the peace of
mankind are concerned, we act not as Republicans, not as Democrats,
but as Americans.

As we move into the decade of the seventies, we have the greatest
opportunity for progress at home of any people in world history.

Our gross nation product will increase by $500 billion in the next 10
years. This increase alone is greater than the entire growth of the
American economy from 1790 to 1950.

The critical question is not whether we will grow, but how we will
use that growth.

The decade of the sixties was also a period of great growth
economically. But in that same 10-year period we witnessed the
greatest growth of crime, the greatest increase of inflation, the
greatest social unrest in America in 100 years. Never has a nation
seemed to have had more and enjoyed it less.

At hear, the issue is the effectiveness of government.

Ours has become -- as it continues to be, and should remain -- a
society of large expectation. Government helped to generate these
expectations. It undertook to meet them. Yet, increasingly, it proved
unable to do so.

As a people, we had too many visions -- and too little vision.

Now, as we enter the seventies, we should enter also a great age of
reform of the institutions of American government.

Our purpose in this period should not be simply better management of
the programs of the past. The time has come for a new quest -- a
quest not for a greater quantity of what we have, but for a new
quality of life in America.

A major part of the substance for an unprecedented advance in this
Nation's approach to its problems and opportunities is contained in
more than two score legislative proposals which I sent to the
Congress last year and which still await enactment.

I will offer at least a dozen more major programs in the course of
this session.

At this point I do not intend to do through a detailed listing of
what I have proposed or will propose, but I would like to mention
three areas in which urgent priorities demand that we move and move
now:

First, we cannot delay longer in accomplishing a total reform of our
welfare system. When a system penalizes work, breaks up homes, robs
recipients of dignity, there is no alternative to abolishing that
system and adopting in its place the program of income support, job
training, and work incentives which I recommended to the Congress
last year.

Second, the time has come to assess and reform all of our
institutions of government at the Federal, State, and local level. It
is time for a New Federalism, in which, after 190 years of power
flowing from the people and local and State governments to
Washington, D.C., it will begin to flow from Washington back to the
States and to the people of the United States.

Third, we must adopt reforms which will expand the range of
opportunities for all Americans. We can fulfill the American dream
only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams.
This means equal voting rights, equal employment opportunity, and new
opportunities for expanded ownership. Because in order to be secure in
their human rights, people need access to property rights.

I could give similar examples of the need for reform in our programs
for health, education, housing, transportation, as well as other
critical areas which directly affect the well-being of millions of
Americans.

The people of the United States should wait no longer for these
reforms that would so deeply enhance the quality of their life.

When I speak of actions which would be beneficial to the American
people, I can think of none more important than for the Congress to
join this administration in the battle to stop the rise in the cost
of living.

Now, I realize it is tempting to blame someone else for inflation.

Some blame business for raising prices.

Some blame unions for asking for more wages.

But a review of the stark fiscal facts of the 1960's clearly
demonstrates where the primary blame for rising prices must be
placed,

In the decade of the sixties the Federal Government spent $57 billion
more than it took in in taxes.

In that same decade the American people paid the bill for that
deficit in price increases which raised the cost of living for the
average family of four by $200 per month in America.

Now millions of Americans are forced to go into debt today because
the Federal Government decided to go into debt yesterday.

We must balance our Federal budget so that American families will
have a better chance to balance their family budgets.

Only with the cooperation of the Congress can we meet this highest
priority objective of responsible government.

We are on the right track.

We had a balanced budget in 1969.

This administration cut more than $7 billion out of spending plans in
order to produce a surplus in 1970, and in spite of the fact that
Congress reduced revenues by $3 billion, I shall recommend a balanced
budget for 1971.

But I can assure you that not only to present, but to stay within, a
balanced budget requires some very hard decisions. It means rejecting
spending programs which would benefit some of the people when their
net effect would result in price increases for all the people.

It is time to quit putting money into bad programs. Otherwise, we
will end up with bad money and bad programs.

I recognize the political popularity of spending programs, and
particularly in an election year. But unless we stop the rise in
prices, the cost of living for millions of American families will
become unbearable and government's ability to plan programs for
progress for the future will become impossible.

In referring to budget cuts, there is one area where I have ordered
an increase rather than a cut -- and that is the requests of those
agencies with the responsibilities for law enforcement.

We have a tragic example of this problem in the Nation's Capital, for
whose safety the Congress and the Executive have the primary
responsibility. I doubt if many Members of this Congress who life
more than a few blocks from here would dare leave their cars in the
Capital garage and walk home alone tonight.

Last year this administration sent to the Congress 13 separate pieces
of legislation dealing with organized crime, pornography, street
crime, narcotics, crime in the District of Columbia.

None of these bills has reached my desk for signature.

I am confident that the Congress will act now to adopt the
legislation I placed before you last year. We in the Executive have
done everything we can under existing law, but new and stronger
weapons are needed in that fight.

While it is true that State and local law enforcement agencies are
the cutting edge in the effort to eliminate street crime, burglaries,
murder, my proposals to you have embodied my belief that the Federal
Government should play a greater role in working in partnership with
these agencies.

That is why 1971 Federal spending for local law enforcement will
double that budgeted for 1970.

The primary responsibility for crimes that affect individuals is with
local and State rather than with Federal Government. But in the field
of organized crime, narcotics, pornography, the Federal Government
has a special responsibility it should fulfill. And we should make
Washington, D.C., where we have the primary responsibility, an
example to the Nation and the world of respect for law rather than
lawlessness.

I now turn to a subject which, next to our desire for peace, may well
become the major concern of the American people in the decade of the
seventies.

In the next 10 years we shall increase our wealth by 50 percent. The
profound question is: Does this mean we will be 50 percent richer in
a real sense. 50 percent better off, 50 percent happier?

Or does it mean that in the year 1980 the President standing in this
place will look back on a decade in which 70 percent of our people
lived in metropolitan areas choked by traffic, suffocated by smog,
poisoned by water, deafened by noise, and terrorized by crime?

These are not the great questions that concern world leaders at
summit conferences. But people do not live at the summit. They life
in the foothills of everyday experience, and it is time for all of us
to concern ourselves with the way real people live in real life.

The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our
surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to
make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land,
and to our water?

Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and
beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of
this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans,
because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our
failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent
disaster later.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces -- these should once again be the
birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be.

We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither
is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through
our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and now
that debt is being called.

The program I shall propose to Congress will be the most
comprehensive and costly program in this field in America's history.

It is not a program for just one year. A year's plan in this field is
not plan at all. This is a time to look ahead not a year, but 5 years
or 10 years -- whatever time is required to do the job.

I shall propose to this Congress a $10 billion nationwide clean
waters program to put modern municipal waste treatment plants in
every place in America where they are needed to make our waters clean
again, and do it now. We have the industrial capacity, if we begin
now, to build all within 5 years. This program will get them built
within 5 years.

As our cities and suburbs relentlessly expand, those priceless open
spaces needed for recreation areas accessible to their people are
swallowed up -- often forever. Unless we preserve these spaces while
they are still available, we will have none to preserve. Therefore, I
shall propose now financing methods for purchasing open space and
parklands now, before they are lost to us.

The automobile is our worst polluter of the air. Adequate control
requires further advances in engine design and fuel composition. We
shall intensify our research, set increasingly strict standards, and
strengthen enforcement procedures -- and we shall do it now.

We can no longer afford to consider air and water common property,
free to be abused by anyone without regard to the consequences.
Instead, we should begin now to treat them as scarce resources, which
we are no more free to contaminate than we are free to throw garbage
into our neighbor's yard.

This requires that the argument is often made that there is a
fundamental contradiction between economic growth and the quality of
life, so that to have one we must forsake the other.

The answer is not to abandon growth, but to redirect it. For example,
we should turn toward ending congestion and eliminating smog the same
reservoir of inventive genius that created them in the first place.

Continued vigorous economic growth provides us with the means to
enrich life itself and to enhance our planet as a place hospitable to
man.

Each individual must enlist in this fight if it is to be won.

It has been said that no matter how many national parks and
historical monuments we buy and develop, the truly significant
environment for each of us is that in which we spend 80 percent of
our time -- in our homes, in our places of work, the streets over
which we travel.

Street litter, rundown parking strips and yards, dilapidated fences,
broken windows, smoking automobiles, dingy working places, all should
be the object of our fresh view.

We have been too tolerant of our surroundings and too willing to
leave it to others to clean up our environment. It is time for those
who make massive demands on society to make some minimal demands on
themselves. Each of us must resolve that each day he will leave his
home, his property, the public places of the city or town a little
cleaner, a little better, a little more pleasant for himself and
those around him.

With the help of people we can do anything, and without their help,
we can do nothing. In this spirit, together, we can reclaim our land
for ours and generations to come.

Between now and the year 2000, over 100 million children will be born
in the United States. Where they grown up -- and how -- will, more
than any one thing, measure the quality of American life in these
years ahead.

This should be a warning to us.

For the past 30 years our population has also been growing and
shifting. The result is exemplified in the vast areas of rural
America emptying out of people and promise -- a third of our counties
lost population in the sixties.

The violent and decayed central cities of our great metropolitan
complexes are the most conspicuous area of failure in American life
today.

I propose that before these problems become insoluble, the Nation
develop a national growth policy.

In the future, government decisions as to where to build highways,
locate airports, acquire land, or sell land should be made with a
clear objective of aiding a balanced growth for America.

In particular, the Federal Government must be in a position to assist
in the building of new cities and the rebuilding of old ones.

At the same time, we will carry our concern with the quality of late
in America to the farm as well as the suburb, to the village as well
as to the city. What rural America needs most is a new kind of
assistance. It needs to be dealt with, not as a separate nation, but
as part of an overall growth policy for America. We must create a new
rural environment which will not only stem the migration to urban
centers, but reverse it. If we seize our growth as a challenge, we
can make the 1970's an historic period when by conscious choice we
transformed our land into what we want it to become.

America, which has pioneered in the new abundance, and in the new
technology, is called upon today to pioneer in meeting the concerns
which have followed in their wake -- in turning the wonders of
science to the service of man.

In the majesty of this great Chamber we hear the echoes of America's
history, of debates that rocked the Union and those that repaired it,
of the summons to war and the search for peace, of the uniting of the
people, the building of a nation.

Those echoes of history remind us of our roots and our strengths.

They remind us also of that special genius of American democracy,
which at one critical turning point after another has led us to spot
the new road to the future and given us the wisdom and the courage to
take it.

As I look down the new road which I have tried to map out today, I
see a new America as we celebrate our 200 th anniversary 6 years from
now.

I see an America in which we have abolished hunger, provided the
means for every family in the Nation to obtain a minimum income, made
enormous progress in providing better housing, faster transportation,
improved health, and superior education.

I see an America in which we have made great strides in stopping the
pollution of our air, cleaning up our water, opening up our parks,
continuing to explore space.

Most important, I see an America at peace with all the nations of the
world.

This is not an impossible dream. These goals are all within our
reach.

In times past, our forefathers had the vision but not the means to
achieve such goals.

Let it not be recorded that we were the first American generation
that had the means but not the vision to make this dream come true.

But let us, above all, recognize a fundamental truth. We can be the
best clothed, best fed, best housed people in the world, enjoying
clean air, clean water, beautiful parks, but we could still be the
unhappiest people in the world without an indefinable spirit -- the
lift of a driven dream which has made America, from its beginning,
the hope of the world.

Two hundred years ago this was a new nation of 3 million people, weak
militarily, poor economically. But America meant something to the
world then which could not be measured in dollars, something far more
important than military might.

Listen to President Thomas Jefferson in 1802: We act not "for
ourselves alone, but for the whole human race."

We had a spiritual quality then which caught the imagination of
millions of people in the world.

Today, when we are the richest and strongest nation in the world, let
it not be recorded that we lacked the moral and spiritual idealism
which made us the hope of the world at the time of our birth.

The demands of us in 1976 are even greater than in 1776.

It is no longer enough to live and let live. Now we must live and
help live.

We need a fresh climate in America, one in which a person can breathe
freely and breathe in freedom.

Our recognition of the truth that wealth and happiness are not the
same thing requires us to measure success or failure by new
criteria.

Even more than the programs I have described today, what this Nation
needs is an example from its elected leaders in providing the
spiritual and moral leadership which no programs for material
progress can satisfy.

Above all, let us inspire young Americans with a sense of excitement,
a sense of destiny, a sense of involvement, in meeting the challenges
we face in this great period of our history. Only then are they going
to have any sense of satisfaction in their lives.

The greatest privilege an individual can have is to server in a cause
bigger than himself. We have such a cause.

How we seize the opportunities I have described today will determine
not only our future, but the future of peace and freedom in this
world in the last third of the century.

May God give us the wisdom, the strength and, above all, the idealism
to be worthy of that challenge, so that America can fulfill its
destiny of being the world's best hope for liberty, for opportunity,
for progress and peace for all peoples.