RECORD OF PROGRESS

When I took office, our Nation faced a number of serious domestic and international problems: 

—­no national energy policy existed, and our dependence on foreign oil was rapidly increasing;

—­public trust in the integrity and openness of the government was low;

—­the Federal government was operating inefficiently in administering essential programs and policies;

—­major social problems were being ignored or poorly addressed by the Federal government;

—­our defense posture was declining as a result of a defense budget which was continuously shrinking in real terms;

—­the strength of the NATO Alliance needed to be bolstered;

—­tensions between Israel and Egypt threatened another Middle East war; and

—­America’s resolve to oppose human rights violations was under serious question.

Over the past 48 months, clear progress has been made in solving the challenges we found in January of 1977: 

—­almost all of our comprehensive energy program have been enacted, and the Department of Energy has been established to administer the program; confidence in the government’s integrity has been restored, and respect for the government’s openness and fairness has been renewed;

—­the government has been made more effective and efficient:  the Civil Service system was completely reformed for the first time this century;

—­14 reorganization initiatives have been proposed to the Congress, approved, and implemented;

—­two new Cabinet departments have been created to consolidate and streamline the government’s handling of energy and education problems;

—­inspectors general have been placed in each Cabinet department to combat fraud, waste and other abuses;

—­the regulatory process has been reformed through creation of the Regulatory Council, implementation of Executive Order 12044 and its requirement for cost-impact analyses, elimination of unnecessary regulation, and passage of the Regulatory Flexibility Act;

—­procedures have been established to assure citizen participation in government;

—­and the airline, trucking, rail and communications industries are being deregulated;

—­critical social problems, many long ignored by the Federal government, have been addressed directly;

—­an urban policy was developed and implemented to reverse the decline in our urban areas;

—­the Social Security System was refinanced to put it on a sound financial basis;

—­the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act was enacted;

—­Federal assistance for education was expanded by more than 75 percent;

—­the minimum wage was increased to levels needed to ease the effects of inflation;

—­affirmative action has been pursued aggressively; more blacks, Hispanics and women have been appointed to senior government positions and to judgeships than at any other time in our history;