One of out of every five jobs in our country depends on trade.  So, I will propose a broader strategy in the field of international trade—­one that increases the openness of our trading system and is fairer to America’s farmers and workers in the world marketplace.  We must have adequate export financing to sell American products overseas.  I will ask for new negotiating authority to remove barriers and to get more of our products into foreign markets.  We must strengthen the organization of our trade agencies and make changes in our domestic laws and international trade policy to promote free trade and the increased flow of American goods, services, and investments.

Our trade position can also be improved by making our port system more efficient.  Better, more active harbors translate into stable jobs in our coalfields, railroads, trucking industry, and ports.  After 2 years of debate, it’s time for us to get together and enact a port modernization bill.

Education, training, and retraining are fundamental to our success as are research and development and productivity.  Labor, management, and government at all levels can and must participate in improving these tools of growth.  Tax policy, regulatory practices, and government programs all need constant reevaluation in terms of our competitiveness.  Every American has a role and a stake in international trade.

We Americans are still the technological leaders in most fields.  We must keep that edge, and to do so we need to begin renewing the basics—­starting with our educational system.  While we grew complacent, others have acted.  Japan, with a population only about half the size of ours, graduates from its universities more engineers than we do.  If a child doesn’t receive adequate math and science teaching by the age of 16, he or she has lost the chance to be a scientist or an engineer.  We must join together—­parents, teachers, grass roots groups, organized labor, and the business community—­to revitalize American education by setting a standard of excellence.

In 1983 we seek four major education goals:  a quality education initiative to encourage a substantial upgrading of math and science instruction through block grants to the States; establishment of education savings accounts that will give middle and lower-income families an incentive to save for their children’s college education and, at the same time, encourage a real increase in savings for economic growth; passage of tuition tax credits for parents who want to send their children to private or religiously affiliated schools; a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary school prayer.  God should never have been expelled from America’s classrooms in the first place.

Our commitment to fairness means that we must assure legal and economic equity for women, and eliminate, once and for all, all traces of unjust discrimination against women from the United States Code.  We will not tolerate wage discrimination based on sex, and we intend to strengthen enforcement of child support laws to ensure that single parents, most of whom are women, do not suffer unfair financial hardship.  We will also take action to remedy inequities in pensions.  These initiatives will be joined by others to continue our efforts to promote equity for women.