But now let’s talk about this year’s budget.  Even though I have submitted it within the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction target, I have seen suggestions that we might postpone that timetable.  Well, I think the American people are tired of hearing the same old excuses.  Together we made a commitment to balance the budget.  Now let’s keep it.  As for those suggestions that the answer is higher taxes, the American people have repeatedly rejected that shop-worn advice.  They know that we don’t have deficits because people are taxed too little.  We have deficits because big government spends too much.

Now, next month I’ll place two additional reforms before the Congress.  We’ve created a welfare monster that is a shocking indictment of our sense of priorities.  Our national welfare system consists of some 59 major programs and over 6,000 pages of Federal laws and regulations on which more than $132 billion was spent in 1985.  I will propose a new national welfare strategy, a program of welfare reform through State-sponsored, community-based demonstration projects.  This is the time to reform this outmoded social dinosaur and finally break the poverty trap.  Now, we will never abandon those who, through no fault of their own, must have our help.  But let us work to see how many can be freed from the dependency of welfare and made self-supporting, which the great majority of welfare recipients want more than anything else.  Next, let us remove a financial specter facing our older Americans:  the fear of an illness so expensive that it can result in having to make an intolerable choice between bankruptcy and death.  I will submit legislation shortly to help free the elderly from the fear of catastrophic illness.

Now let’s turn to the future.  It’s widely said that America is losing her competitive edge.  Well, that won’t happen if we act now.  How well prepared are we to enter the 21st century?  In my lifetime, America set the standard for the world.  It is now time to determine that we should enter the next century having achieved a level of excellence unsurpassed in history.  We will achieve this, first, by guaranteeing that government does everything possible to promote America’s ability to compete.  Second, we must act as individuals in a quest for excellence that will not be measured by new proposals or billions in new funding.  Rather, it involves an expenditure of American spirit and just plain American grit.  The Congress will soon receive my comprehensive proposals to enhance our competitiveness, including new science and technology centers and strong new funding for basic research.  The bill will include legal and regulatory reforms and weapons to fight unfair trade practices.  Competitiveness also means giving our farmers a shot at participating fairly and fully in a changing world market.