The detailed budget that we will submit will meet the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings target for deficit reductions, meet our commitment to ensure a strong national defense, meet our commitment to protect Social Security and the truly less fortunate, and, yes, meet our commitment to not raise taxes.  How should we accomplish this?  Well, not by taking from those in need.  As families take care of their own, government must provide shelter and nourishment for those who cannot provide for themselves.  But we must revise or replace programs enacted in the name of compassion that degrade the moral worth of work, encourage family breakups, and drive entire communities into a bleak and heartless dependency.  Gramm-Rudman-Hollings can mark a dramatic improvement.  But experience shows that simply setting deficit targets does not assure they’ll be met.  We must proceed with Grace commission reforms against waste.

And tonight I ask you to give me what 43 Governors have:  Give me a line-item veto this year.  Give me the authority to veto waste, and I’ll take the responsibility, I’ll make the cuts, I’ll take the heat.  This authority would not give me any monopoly power, but simply prevent spending measures from sneaking through that could not pass on their own merit.  And you can sustain or override my veto; that’s the way the system should work.  Once we’ve made the hard choices, we should lock in our gains with a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

I mentioned that we will meet our commitment to national defense.  We must meet it.  Defense is not just another budget expense.  Keeping America strong, free, and at peace is solely the responsibility of the Federal Government; it is government’s prime responsibility.  We have devoted 5 years trying to narrow a dangerous gap born of illusion and neglect, and we’ve made important gains.  Yet the threat from Soviet forces, conventional and strategic, from the Soviet drive for domination, from the increase in espionage and state terror remains great.  This is reality.  Closing our eyes will not make reality disappear.  We pledged together to hold real growth in defense spending to the bare minimum.  My budget honors that pledge, and I’m now asking you, the Congress, to keep its end of the bargain.  The Soviets must know that if America reduces her defenses, it will be because of a reduced threat, not a reduced resolve.

Keeping America strong is as vital to the national security as controlling Federal spending is to our economic security.  But, as I have said before, the most powerful force we can enlist against the Federal deficit is an ever-expanding American economy, unfettered and free.  The magic of opportunity—­unreserved, unfailing, unrestrained—­isn’t this the calling that unites us?  I believe our tax rate cuts for the people have done more to spur a spirit of risk-taking and help America’s economy break free than any program since John Kennedy’s tax cut almost a quarter century ago.