Peace has returned to our cities, to our campuses.  The 17-year rise in crime has been stopped.  We can confidently say today that we are finally beginning to win the war against crime.  Right here in this Nation’s Capital—­which a few years ago was threatening to become the crime capital of the world—­the rate in crime has been cut in half.  A massive campaign against drug abuse has been organized.  And the rate of new heroin addiction, the most vicious threat of all, is decreasing rather than increasing.

For the first time in a generation, no young Americans are being drafted into the armed services of the United States.  And for the first time ever, we have organized a massive national effort to protect the environment.  Our air is getting cleaner, our water is getting purer, and our agriculture, which was depressed, is prospering.  Farm income is up 70 percent, farm production is setting all-time records, and the billions of dollars the taxpayers were paying in subsidies has been cut to nearly zero.

Overall, Americans are living more abundantly than ever before, today.  More than 2 1/2 million new jobs were created in the past year alone.  That is the biggest percentage increase in nearly 20 years.  People are earning more.  What they earn buys more, more than ever before in history.  In the past 5 years, the average American’s real spendable income—­that is, what you really can buy with your income, even after allowing for taxes and inflation—­has increased by 16 percent.

Despite this record of achievement, as we turn to the year ahead we hear once again the familiar voice of the perennial prophets of gloom telling us now that because of the need to fight inflation, because of the energy shortage, America may be headed for a recession.

Let me speak to that issue head on.  There will be no recession in the United States of America.  Primarily due to our energy crisis, our economy is passing through a difficult period.  But I pledge to you tonight that the full powers of this Government will be used to keep America’s economy producing and to protect the jobs of America’s workers.

We are engaged in a long and hard fight against inflation.  There have been, and there will be in the future, ups and downs in that fight.  But if this Congress cooperates in our efforts to hold down the cost of Government, we shall win our fight to hold down the cost of living for the American people.

As we look back over our history, the years that stand out as the ones of signal achievement are those in which the Administration and the Congress, whether one party or the other, working together, had the wisdom and the foresight to select those particular initiatives for which the Nation was ready and the moment was right—­and in which they seized the moment and acted.

Looking at the year 1974 which lies before us, there are 10 key areas in which landmark accomplishments are possible this year in America.  If we make these our national agenda, this is what we will achieve in 1974: