Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Doing these things will open wider the gates of opportunity, provide
greater security for all, with no barriers of bigotry or discrimination.
The key to a dynamic decade is vigorous economic growth, our first great
goal. We might well begin with common sense in Federal budgeting:
government spending no more than government takes in.
We must bring Federal deficits down. But how we do that makes all the
difference.
We can begin by limiting the size and scope of government. Under the
leadership of Vice President Bush, we have reduced the growth of Federal
regulations by more than 25 percent and cut well over 300 million hours of
government-required paperwork each year. This will save the public more
than $150 billion over the next 10 years.
The Grace commission has given us some 2,500 recommendations for reducing
wasteful spending, and they're being examined throughout the
administration. Federal spending growth has been cut from 17.4 percent in
1980 to less than half of that today, and we have already achieved over
$300 billion in budget savings for the period of 1982 to '86. But that's
only a little more than half of what we sought. Government is still
spending too large a percentage of the total economy.
Now, some insist that any further budget savings must be obtained by
reducing the portion spent on defense. This ignores the fact that national
defense is solely the responsibility of the Federal Government; indeed, it
is its prime responsibility. And yet defense spending is less than a third
of the total budget. During the years of President Kennedy and of the years
before that, defense was almost half the total budget. And then came
several years in which our military capability was allowed to deteriorate
to a very dangerous degree. We are just now restoring, through the
essential modernization of our conventional and strategic forces, our
capability to meet our present and future security needs. We dare not shirk
our responsibility to keep America free, secure, and at peace.
The last decade saw domestic spending surge literally out of control. But
the basis for such spending had been laid in previous years. A pattern of
overspending has been in place for half a century. As the national debt
grew, we were told not to worry, that we owed it to ourselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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