This would be a tragedy for every American family.  And I predict that if this happens, they will all let us know about it.

We—­those of us in the executive branch, in the Congress, and the leaders of labor and business—­must do everything we can to prevent that kind of misfortune.

Under the new budget, the expenditures for 1969 will increase by $10.4 billion.  Receipts will increase by $22.3 billion including the added tax revenues.  Virtually all of this expenditure increase represents the mandatory cost of our defense efforts, $3 billion; increased interest, almost $1 billion; or mandatory payments under laws passed by Congress—­such as those provided in the Social Security Act that you passed in 1967, and to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, veterans, and farmers, of about $4 1/2 billion; and the additional $1 billion 600 million next year for the pay increases that you passed in military and civilian pay.  That makes up the $10 billion that is added to the budget.  With few exceptions, very few, we are holding the fiscal 1969 budget to last year’s level, outside of those mandatory and required increases.

A Presidential commission composed of distinguished congressional fiscal leaders and other prominent Americans recommended this year that we adopt a new budget approach.  I am carrying out their recommendations in this year’s budget.  This budget, therefore, for the first time accurately covers all Federal expenditures and all Federal receipts, including for the first time in one budget $47 billion from the social security, Medicare, highway, and other trust funds.

The fiscal 1969 budget has expenditures of approximately $186 billion, with total estimated revenues, including the tax bill, of about $178 billion.

If the Congress enacts the tax increase, we will reduce the budget deficit by some $12 billion.  The war in Vietnam is costing us about $25 billion and we are asking for about $12 billion in taxes—­and if we get that $12 billion tax bill we will reduce the deficit from about $20 billion in 1968 to about $8 billion in 1969.

Now, this is a tight budget.  It follows the reduction that I made in cooperation with the Congress—­a reduction made after you had reviewed every appropriations bill and reduced the appropriations by some $5 or $6 billion and expenditures by $1.5 billion.  We conferred together and I recommended to the Congress and you subsequently approved taking 2 percent from payrolls and 10 percent from controllable expenditures.  We therefore reduced appropriations almost $10 billion last session and expenditures over $4 billion.  Now, that was in the budget last year.

I ask the Congress to recognize that there are certain selected programs that meet the Nation’s most urgent needs and they have increased.  We have insisted that decreases in very desirable but less urgent programs be made before we would approve any increases.  So I ask the Congress tonight: