Mr. Speaker, I know we agree that there must be no forgotten Americans.  Let us place new dreams in a million hearts and create a new generation of entrepreneurs by passing enterprise zones this year.  And, Tip, you could make that a birthday present.

Nor must we lose the chance to pass our youth employment opportunity wage proposal.  We can help teenagers, who have the highest unemployment rate, find summer jobs, so they can know the pride of work and have confidence in their futures.

We’ll continue to support the Job Training Partnership Act, which has a nearly two-thirds job placement rate.  Credits in education and health care vouchers will help working families shop for services that they need.

Our administration is already encouraging certain low-income public housing residents to own and manage their own dwellings.  It’s time that all public housing residents have that opportunity of ownership.

The Federal Government can help create a new atmosphere of freedom.  But States and localities, many of which enjoy surpluses from the recovery, must not permit their tax and regulatory policies to stand as barriers to growth.

Let us resolve that we will stop spreading dependency and start spreading opportunity; that we will stop spreading bondage and start spreading freedom.

There are some who say that growth initiatives must await final action on deficit reductions.  Well, the best way to reduce deficits is through economic growth.  More businesses will be started, more investments made, more jobs created, and more people will be on payrolls paying taxes.  The best way to reduce government spending is to reduce the need for spending by increasing prosperity.  Each added percentage point per year of real GNP growth will lead to cumulative reduction in deficits of nearly $200 billion over 5 years.

To move steadily toward a balanced budget, we must also lighten government’s claim on our total economy.  We will not do this by raising taxes.  We must make sure that our economy grows faster than the growth in spending by the Federal Government.  In our fiscal year 1986 budget, overall government program spending will be frozen at the current level.  It must not be one dime higher than fiscal year 1985, and three points are key.

First, the social safety net for the elderly, the needy, the disabled, and unemployed will be left intact.  Growth of our major health care programs, Medicare and Medicaid, will be slowed, but protections for the elderly and needy will be preserved.

Second, we must not relax our efforts to restore military strength just as we near our goal of a fully equipped, trained, and ready professional corps.  National security is government’s first responsibility; so in past years defense spending took about half the Federal budget.  Today it takes less than a third.  We’ve already reduced our planned defense expenditures by nearly a hundred billion dollars over the past 4 years and reduced projected spending again this year.