State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower

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It is unquestionably true that our present tax level is very burdensome
and, in the interest of long term and continuous economic growth, should be
reduced when we prudently can. It is essential, in the sound management of
the Government's finances, that we be mindful of our enormous national debt
and of the obligation we have toward future Americans to reduce that debt
whenever we can appropriately do so. Under conditions of high peacetime
prosperity, such as now exist, we can never justify going further into debt
to give ourselves a tax cut at the expense of our children. So, in the
present state of our financial affairs, I earnestly believe that a tax cut
can be deemed justifiable only when it will not unbalance the budget, a
budget which makes provision for some reduction, even though modest, in our
national debt. In this way we can best maintain fiscal integrity.

A fourth aim of our program is:

TO FOSTER A STRONG ECONOMY

Our competitive enterprise system depends on the energy of free human
beings, limited by prudent restraints in law, using free markets to plan,
organize and distribute production, and spurred by the prospect of reward
for successful effort. This system has developed our resources. It has
marvelously expanded our productive capacity. Against the record of all
other economic systems devised through the ages, this competitive system
has proved the most creative user of human skills in the development of
physical resources, and the richest rewarder of human effort.

This is still true in this era when improved living standards and rising
national requirements are accompanied by swift advances in technology and
rapid obsolescence in machines and methods. Typical of these are the
strides made in construction of plants to produce electrical energy from
atomic power and of laboratories and installations for the application of
this new force in industry, agriculture and the healing arts. These
developments make it imperative--to assure effective functioning of our
enterprise system--that the Federal Government concern itself with certain
broad areas of our economic life. Most important of these is: Agriculture

Our farm people are not sharing as they should in the general prosperity.
They alone of all major groups have seen their incomes decline rather than
rise. They are caught between two millstones--rising production costs and
declining prices. Such harm to a part of the national economy so vitally
important to everyone is of great concern to us all. No other resource is
so indispensable as the land that feeds and clothes us. No group is more
fundamental to our national life than our farmers.

In successful prosecution of the war, the nation called for the utmost
effort of its farmers. Their response was superb, their contribution
unsurpassed. Farmers are not now to be blamed for the mountainous,
price-depressing surpluses produced in response to wartime policies and
laws that were too long continued. War markets are not the markets of
peacetime. Failure to recognize that basic fact by a timely adjustment of
wartime legislation brought its inevitable result in peacetime--surpluses,
lower prices and lower incomes for our farmers.

The dimensions of government responsibility are as broad and complex as the
farm problem itself. We are here concerned not only with our essential
continuing supplies of food and fiber, but also with a way of life. Both
are indispensable to the well-being and strength of the nation.
Consideration of these matters must be above and beyond politics. Our
national farm policy, so vital to the welfare of farm people and all of us,
must not become a field for political warfare. Too much is at stake.

Our farm people expect of us, who have responsibility for their government,
understanding of their problems and the will to help solve them. Our
objective must be to help bring production into balance with existing and
new markets, at prices that yield farmers a return for their work in line
with what other Americans get.

To reach this goal, deep-seated problems must be subjected to a stepped-up
attack. There is no single easy solution. Rather, there must be a
many-sided assault on the stubborn problems of surpluses, prices, costs,
and markets; and a steady, persistent, imaginative advance in the
relationship between farmers and their government.

In a few days, by special message, I shall lay before the Congress my
detailed recommendations for new steps that should be taken promptly to
speed the transition in agriculture and thus assist our farmers to achieve
their fair share of the national income.

Basic to this program will be a new attack on the surplus problem-for even
the best-conceived farm program cannot work under a multi-billion dollar
weight of accumulated stocks.

I shall urge authorization of a soil bank program to alleviate the problem
of diverted acres and an overexpanded agricultural plant. This will include
an acreage reserve to reduce current and accumulated surpluses of crops in
most serious difficulty, and a conservation reserve to achieve other needed
adjustments in the use of agricultural resources. I shall urge measures to
strengthen our surplus disposal activities.

I shall propose measures to strengthen individual commodity programs, to
remove controls where possible, to reduce carryovers, and to stop further
accumulations of surpluses. I shall ask the Congress to provide substantial
new funds for an expanded drive on the research front, to develop new
markets, new crops, and new uses. The Rural Development Program to better
the lot of low-income farm families deserves full Congressional support.
The Great Plains Program must go forward vigorously. Advances on these and
other fronts will pull down the pricedepressing surpluses and raise farm
income.

In this time of testing in agriculture, we should all together, regardless
of party, carry forward resolutely with a sound and forward looking program
on which farm people may confidently depend, now and for years to come.

I shall briefly mention four other subjects directly related to the
well-being of the economy, preliminary to their fuller discussion in the
Economic Report and later communications.

Resources Conservation

I wish to re-emphasize the critical importance of the wise use and
conservation of our great natural resources of land, forests, minerals and
water and their long-range development consistent with our agricultural
policy. Water in particular now plays an increasing role in industrial
processes, in the irrigation of land, in electric power, as well as in
domestic uses. At the same time, it has the potential of damage and
disaster.

A comprehensive legislative program for water conservation will be
submitted to the Congress during the Session. The development of our water
resources cannot be accomplished overnight. The need is such that we must
make faster progress and without delay. Therefore, I strongly recommend
that action be taken at this Session on such wholly Federal projects as the
Colorado River Storage Project and the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project; on the
John Day partnership project, and other projects which provide for
cooperative action between the Federal Government and non-Federal
interests; and on legislation, which makes provision for Federal
participation in small projects under the primary sponsorship of agencies
of State and local government.

During the past year the areas of our National Parks have been expanded,
and new wildlife refuges have been created. The visits of our people to the
Parks have increased much more rapidly than have the facilities to care for
them. The Administration will submit recommendations to provide more
adequate facilities to keep abreast of the increasing interest of our
people in the great outdoors.

Disaster Assistance

A modern community is a complex combination of skills, specialized
buildings, machines, communications and homes. Most importantly, it
involves human lives. Disaster in many forms--by flood, frost, high winds,
for instance--can destroy on a massive scale in a few hours the labor of
many years.

Through the past three years the Administration has repeatedly moved into
action wherever disaster struck. The extent of State participation in
relief activities, however, has been far from uniform and, in many cases,
has been either inadequate or nonexistent. Disaster assistance legislation
requires overhauling and an experimental program of flood-damage
indemnities should be undertaken. The Administration will make detailed
recommendations on these subjects.

Area Redevelopment

We must help deal with the pockets of chronic unemployment that here and
there mar the nation's general industrial prosperity. Economic changes in
recent years have been often so rapid and far-reaching that areas committed
to a single local resource or industrial activity have found themselves
temporarily deprived of their markets and their livelihood.

Such conditions mean severe hardship for thousands of people as the slow
process of adaptation to new circumstances goes on. This process can be
speeded up. Last year I authorized a major study of the problem to find
additional steps to supplement existing programs for the redevelopment of
areas of chronic unemployment. Recommendations will be submitted, designed
to supplement, with Federal technical and loan assistance local efforts to
get on with this vital job. Improving such communities must, of course,
remain the primary responsibility of the people living there and of their
States. But a soundly conceived Federal partnership program can be of real
assistance to them in their efforts.

Highway Legislation.

Legislation to provide a modern, interstate highway system is even more
urgent this year than last, for 12 months have now passed in which we have
fallen further behind in road construction needed for the personal safety,
the general prosperity, the national security of the American people.
During the year, the number of motor vehicles has increased from 58 to 61
million. During the past year over 38,000 persons lost their lives in
highway accidents, while the fearful toll of injuries and property damage
has gone on unabated.

In my message of February 22, 1955, I urged that measures be taken to
complete the vital 40,000 mile interstate system over a period of 10 years
at an estimated Federal cost of approximately 25 billion dollars. No
program was adopted.

If we are ever to solve our mounting traffic problem, the whole interstate
system must be authorized as one project, to be completed approximately
within the specified time. Only in this way can industry efficiently gear
itself to the job ahead. Only in this way can the required planning and
engineering be accomplished without the confusion and waste unavoidable a
piecemeal approach. Furthermore, as I pointed out last year, the pressing
nature of this problem must not lead us to solutions outside the bounds of
sound fiscal management. As in the case of other pressing problems, there
must be an adequate plan of financing. To continue the drastically needed
improvement in other national highway systems, I recommend the continuation
of the Federal Aid Highway Program.

Aside from agriculture and the four subjects specifically mentioned, an
integral part of our efforts to foster a strong and expanding free economy
is keeping open the door of opportunity to new and small enterprises,
checking monopoly, and preserving a competitive environment. In this past
year the steady improvement in the economic health of small business has
reinforced the vitality of our competitive economy. We shall continue to
help small business concerns to obtain access to adequate financing and to
competent counsel on management, production, and marketing problems.

Through measures already taken, opportunities for smallbusiness
participation in government procurement programs, including military
procurement, are greatly improved. The effectiveness of these measures will
become increasingly apparent. We shall continue to make certain that small
business has a fair opportunity to compete and has an economic environment
in which it may prosper.

In my message last year I referred to the appointment of an advisory
committee to appraise and report to me on the deficiencies as well as the
effectiveness of existing Federal transportation policies. I have commended
the fundamental purposes and objectives of the committee's report. I
earnestly recommend that the Congress give prompt attention to the
committee's proposals.

Essential to a prosperous economic environment for all business, small and
large--for agriculture and industry and commerce-is efficiency in
Government. To that end, exhaustive studies of the entire governmental
structure were made by the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and
the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the
Government--the reports of these Commissions are now under intensive review
and already in the process of implementation in important areas.

One specific and most vital governmental function merits study and action
by the Congress. As part of our program of promoting efficiency in
Government and getting the fiscal situation in hand, the Post Office
Department in the past three years has been overhauled. Nearly one thousand
new post offices have been provided. Financial practices have been
modernized, and transportation and operating methods are being constantly
improved. A new wage and incentive plan for the half million postal
employees has been established. Never before has the postal system handled
so much mail so quickly and so economically.

The Post Office Department faces two serious problems. First, much of its
physical plant--post offices and other buildings-is obsolete and
inadequate. Many new buildings and the modernization of present ones are
essential if we are to have improved mail service. The second problem is
the Department's fiscal plight. It now faces an annual deficit of one-half
billion dollars.

Recommendations on postal facilities and on additional postal revenues will
be submitted to the Congress.

A final consideration in our program planning is:

THE RESPONSE TO HUMAN CONCERNS

A fundamental belief shines forth in this Republic. We believe in the worth
and dignity of the individual. We know that if we are to govern ourselves
wisely--in the tradition of America--we must have the opportunity to
develop our individual capacities to the utmost.

To fulfill the individual's aspirations in the American way of life, good
education is fundamental. Good education is the outgrowth of good homes,
good communities, good churches, and good schools. Today our schools face
pressing problems--problems which will not yield to swift and easy
solutions, or to any single action. They will yield only to a continuing,
active, formed effort by the people toward achieving better schools.

This kind of effort has been spurred by the thousands of conferences held
in recent months by half a million citizens and educators in all parts of
the country, culminating in the White House Conference on Education. In
that Conference, some two thousand delegates, broadly representative of the
nation, studied together the problems of the nation's schools.

They concluded that the people of the United States must make a greater
effort through their local, State, and Federal Governments to improve the
education of our youth. This expression from the people must now be
translated into action at all levels of government.

So far as the Federal share of responsibility is concerned, I urge that the
Congress move promptly to enact an effective program of Federal assistance
to help erase the existing deficit of school classrooms. Such a program,
which should be limited to a five-year period, must operate to increase
rather than decrease local and State support of schools and to give the
greatest help to the States and localities with the least financial
resources. Federal aid should in no way jeopardize the freedom of local
school systems. There will be presented to the Congress a recommended
program of Federal assistance for school construction.

Such a program should be accompanied by action to increase services to the
nation's schools by the Office of Education and by legislation to provide
continuation of payments to school districts where Federal activities have
impaired the ability of those districts to provide adequate schools.

Under the 1954 Amendments to the old-age and survivors' insurance program,
protection was extended to some 10 million additional workers and benefits
were increased. The system now helps protect 9 out of 10 American workers
and their families against loss of income in old age or on the death of the
breadwinner. The system is sound. It must be kept so. In developing
improvements in the system, we must give the most careful consideration to
population and social trends, and to fiscal requirements. With these
considerations in mind, the Administration will present its recommendations
for further expansion of coverage and other steps which can be taken wisely
at this time.

Other needs in the area of social welfare include increased child welfare
services, extension of the program of aid to dependent children,
intensified attack on juvenile delinquency, and special attention to the
problems of mentally retarded children. The training of more skilled
workers for these fields and the quest for new knowledge through research
in social welfare are essential. Similarly the problems of our aged people
need our attention.

The nation has made dramatic progress in conquering disease--progress of
profound human significance which can be greatly accelerated by an
intensified effort in medical research. A well-supported, well-balanced
program of research, including basic research, can open new frontiers of
knowledge, prevent and relieve suffering, and prolong life. Accordingly I
shall recommend a substantial increase in Federal funds for the support of
such a program. As an integral part of this effort, I shall recommend a new
plan to aid construction of non-Federal medical research and teaching
facilities and to help provide more adequate support for the training of
medical research manpower.

Finally, we must aid in cushioning the heavy and rising costs of illness
and hospitalization to individuals and families. Provision should be made,
by Federal reinsurance or otherwise, to foster extension of voluntary
health insurance coverage to many more persons, especially older persons
and those in rural areas. Plans should be evolved to improve protection
against the costs of prolonged or severe illness. These measures will help
reduce the dollar barrier between many Americans and the benefits of modern
medical care.

The Administration health program will be submitted to the Congress in
detail.

The response of government to human concerns embraces, of course, other
measures of broad public interest, and of special interest to our working
men and women. The need still exists for improvement of the Labor
Management Relations Act. The recommendations I submitted to the Congress
last year take into account not only the interests of labor and management
but also the public welfare. The needed amendments should be enacted
without further delay.

We must also carry forward the job of improving the wagehour law. Last year
I requested the Congress to broaden the coverage of the minimum wage. I
repeat that recommendation, and I pledge the full resources of the
Executive Branch to assist the Congress in finding ways to attain this
goal. Moreover, as requested last year, legislation should be passed to
clarify and strengthen the eight-hour laws for the benefit of workers who
are subject to Federal wage standards on Federal and Federally assisted
construction and other public works.

The Administration will shortly propose legislation to assure adequate
disclosure of the financial affairs of each employee pension and welfare
plan and to afford substantial protection to their beneficiaries in
accordance with the objectives outlined in my message of January 11, 1954.
Occupational safety still demands attention, as I pointed out last year,
and legislation to improve the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers'
Compensation Act is still needed. The improvement of the District of
Columbia Unemployment Insurance Law and legislation to provide employees in
the District with non-occupational disability insurance are no less
necessary now than 12 months ago. Legislation to apply the principle of
equal pay for equal work without discrimination because of sex is a matter
of simple justice. I earnestly urge the Congress to move swiftly to
implement these needed labor measures.

In the field of human needs, we must carry forward the housing program,
which is contributing so greatly to the well-being of our people and the
prosperity of our economy. Home ownership is now advanced to the point
where almost three of every five families in our cities, towns, and suburbs
own the houses they live in.

For the housing program, most of the legislative authority already exists.
However, a firm program of public housing is essential until the private
building industry has found ways to provide more adequate housing for
low-income families. The Administration will propose authority to contract
for 35 thousand additional public housing units in each of the next 2
fiscal years for communities which will participate in an integrated attack
on slums and blight.

To meet the needs of the growing number of older people, several amendments
to the National Housing Act will be proposed to assist the private
homebuilding industry as well as charitable and non-profit organizations.

With so large a number of the American people desiring to modernize and
improve existing dwellings, I recommend that the Title 1 program for
permanent improvements in the home be liberalized.

I recommend increases in the general FHA mortgage insurance authority; the
extension of the FHA military housing program; an increase in the
authorization for Urban Planning grants; in the special assistance
authority of the Federal National Mortgage Association; and continued
support of the college housing program in a way that will not discourage
private capital from helping to meet the needs of our colleges.

The legislation I have recommended for workers in private industry should
be accompanied by a parallel effort for the welfare of Government
employees. We have accomplished much in this field, including a
contributory life insurance program; equitable pay increases and a fringe
benefits program, covering many needed personnel policy changes, from
improved premium pay to a meaningful incentive award program.

Additional personnel management legislation is needed in this Session. As I
stated last year, an executive pay increase is essential to efficient
governmental management. Such an increase, together with needed adjustments
in the pay for the top career positions, is also necessary to the equitable
completion of the Federal pay program initiated last year. Other
legislation will be proposed, including legislation for prepaid group
health insurance for employees and their dependents and to effect major
improvements in the Civil Service retirement system.

All of us share a continuing concern for those who have served this nation
in the Armed Forces. The Commission on Veterans Pensions is at this time
conducting a study of the entire field of veterans' benefits and will soon
submit proposed improvements.

We are proud of the progress our people have made in the field of civil
rights. In Executive Branch operations throughout the nation, elimination
of discrimination and segregation is all but completed. Progress is also
being made among contractors engaged in furnishing Government services and
requirements. Every citizen now has the opportunity to fit himself for and
to hold a position of responsibility in the service of his country. In the
District of Columbia, through the voluntary cooperation of the people,
discrimination and segregation are disappearing from hotels, theaters,
restaurants and other facilities.

It is disturbing that in some localities allegations persist that Negro
citizens are being deprived of their right to vote and are likewise being
subjected to unwarranted economic pressures. I recommend that the substance
of these charges be thoroughly examined by a Bipartisan Commission created
by the Congress. It is hoped that such a commission will be established
promptly so that it may arrive at findings which can receive early
consideration.

The stature of our leadership in the free world has increased through the
past three years because we have made more progress than ever before in a
similar period to assure our citizens equality in justice, in opportunity
and in civil rights. We must expand this effort on every front. We must
strive to have every person judged and measured by what he is, rather than
by his color, race or religion. There will soon be recommended to the
Congress a program further to advance the efforts of the Government, within
the area of Federal responsibility, to accomplish these objectives.

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