Title:  State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson

Author:  Lyndon B. Johnson

Release Date:  February, 2004 [EBook #5042] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 11, 2002] [Date last updated:  December 16, 2004]

Edition:  11

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK of addresses by Lyndon B. Johnson ***

This eBook was produced by James Linden.

The addresses are separated by three asterisks:  ***

Dates of addresses by Lyndon B. Johnson in this eBook: 
  January 8, 1964
  January 4, 1965
  January 12, 1966
  January 10, 1967
  January 17, 1968
  January 14, 1969

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State of the Union Address
Lyndon B. Johnson
January 8, 1964

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the House and Senate, my fellow
Americans: 

I will be brief, for our time is necessarily short and our agenda is already long.

Last year’s congressional session was the longest in peacetime history.  With that foundation, let us work together to make this year’s session the best in the Nation’s history.

Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined; as the session which enacted the most far-reaching tax cut of our time; as the session which declared all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States; as the session which finally recognized the health needs of all our older citizens; as the session which reformed our tangled transportation and transit policies; as the session which achieved the most effective, efficient foreign aid program ever; and as the session which helped to build more homes, more schools, more libraries, and more hospitals than any single session of Congress in the history of our Republic.

All this and more can and must be done.  It can be done by this summer, and it can be done without any increase in spending.  In fact, under the budget that I shall shortly submit, it can be done with an actual reduction in Federal expenditures and Federal employment.

We have in 1964 a unique opportunity and obligation—­to prove the success of our system; to disprove those cynics and critics at home and abroad who question our purpose and our competence.

If we fail, if we fritter and fumble away our opportunity in needless, senseless quarrels between Democrats and Republicans, or between the House and the Senate, or between the South and North, or between the Congress and the administration, then history will rightfully judge us harshly.  But if we succeed, if we can achieve these goals by forging in this country a greater sense of union, then, and only then, can we take full satisfaction in the State of the Union.  II.