We speak tonight of an agenda for the future, an agenda for a safer, more secure world.  And we speak about the necessity for actions to steel us for the challenges of growth, trade, and security in the next decade and the year 2000.  And we will do it—­not by breaking faith with bedrock principles but by breaking free from failed policies.  Let us begin where storm clouds loom darkest—­right here in Washington, DC.  This week I will send you our detailed proposals; tonight let us speak of our responsibility to redefine government’s role:  not to control, not to demand or command, not to contain us, but to help in times of need and, above all, to create a ladder of opportunity to full employment so that all Americans can climb toward economic power and justice on their own.

But we cannot win the race to the future shackled to a system that can’t even pass a Federal budget.  We cannot win that race held back by horse-and-buggy programs that waste tax dollars and squander human potential.  We cannot win that race if we’re swamped in a sea of red ink.  Now, Mr. Speaker, you know, I know, and the American people know the Federal budget system is broken.  It doesn’t work.  Before we leave this city, let’s you and I work together to fix it, and then we can finally give the American people a balanced budget.

Members of Congress, passage of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings gives us an historic opportunity to achieve what has eluded our national leadership for decades:  forcing the Federal Government to live within its means.  Your schedule now requires that the budget resolution be passed by April 15th, the very day America’s families have to foot the bill for the budgets that you produce.  How often we read of a husband and wife both working, struggling from paycheck to paycheck to raise a family, meet a mortgage, pay their taxes and bills.  And yet some in Congress say taxes must be raised.  Well, I’m sorry; they’re asking the wrong people to tighten their belts.  It’s time we reduce the Federal budget and left the family budget alone.  We do not face large deficits because American families are undertaxed; we face those deficits because the Federal Government overspends.

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.