State of the Union AddressesNixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous)
History
State of the Union Addresses
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
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 naive 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 national 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 in inflation, the greatest social unrest in America
in 100 years. Never has a nation seemed to have had more and enjoyed it
less.
At heart, the issue is the effectiveness of government.
Ours has become--as it continues to be, and should remain--a society of
large expectations. 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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