For example, a typical family of four with a gross income of $5,600 now pays $185 in Federal income taxes.  Under this tax cut plan, they would pay nothing.  A family of four with a gross income of $12,500 now pays $1,260 in Federal taxes.  My proposal reduces that total by $300.  Families grossing $20,000 would receive a reduction of $210.

Those with the very lowest incomes, who can least afford higher costs, must also be compensated.  I propose a payment of $80 to every person 18 years of age and older in that very limited category.

State and local governments will receive $2 billion in additional revenue sharing to offset their increased energy costs.

To offset inflationary distortions and to generate more economic activity, the corporate tax rate will be reduced from 48 percent to 42 percent.

Now let me turn, if I might, to the international dimension of the present crisis.  At no time in our peacetime history has the state of the Nation depended more heavily on the state of the world.  And seldom, if ever, has the state of the world depended more heavily on the state of our Nation.

The economic distress is global.  We will not solve it at home unless we help to remedy the profound economic dislocation abroad.  World trade and monetary structure provides markets, energy, food, and vital raw materials—­for all nations.  This international system is now in jeopardy.

This Nation can be proud of significant achievements in recent years in solving problems and crises.  The Berlin agreement, the Salt agreements, our new relationship with China, the unprecedented efforts in the Middle East are immensely encouraging.  But the world is not free from crisis.  In a world of 150 nations, where nuclear technology is proliferating and regional conflicts continue, international security cannot be taken for granted.

So, let there be no mistake about it:  International cooperation is a vital factor of our lives today.  This is not a moment for the American people to turn inward.  More than ever before, our own well-being depends on America’s determination and America’s leadership in the whole wide world.

We are a great Nation—­spiritually, politically, militarily, diplomatically, and economically.  America’s commitment to international security has sustained the safety of allies and friends in many areas—­in the Middle East, in Europe, and in Asia.  Our turning away would unleash new instabilities, new dangers around the globe, which, in turn, would threaten our own security.

At the end of World War II, we turned a similar challenge into an historic opportunity and, I might add, an historic achievement.  An old order was in disarray; political and economic institutions were shattered.  In that period, this Nation and its partners built new institutions, new mechanisms of mutual support and cooperation.  Today, as then, we face an historic opportunity.  If we act imaginatively and boldly, as we acted then, this period will in retrospect be seen as one of the great creative moments of our Nation’s history.  The whole world is watching to see how we respond.