Each of these additional outlays is being made necessary by the surging growth of America.
Let me illustrate. Responsive to this growth, Federal grants and long term loans to assist 14 major types of capital improvements in our cities will total over 2 billion dollars in 1960--double the expenditure of two years ago. The major responsibility for development in these fields rests in the localities, even though the Federal Government will continue to do its proper part in meeting the genuine needs of a burgeoning population.
But the progress of our economy can more than match the growth of our needs. We need only to act wisely and confidently.
Here, I hope you will permit me to digress long enough to express something that is much on my mind.
The basic question facing us today is more than mere survival--the military defense of national life and territory. It is the preservation of a way of life.
We must meet the world challenge and at the same time permit no stagnation in America.
Unless we progress, we regress.
We can successfully sustain security and remain true to our heritage of freedom if we clearly visualize the tasks ahead and set out to perform them with resolution and fervor. We must first define these tasks and then understand what we must do to perform them.
If progress is to be steady we must have long term guides extending far ahead, certainly five, possibly even ten years. They must reflect the knowledge that before the end of five years we will have a population of over 190 million. They must be goals that stand high, and so inspire every citizen to climb always toward mounting levels of moral, intellectual and material strength. Every advance toward them must stir pride in individual and national achievements.
To define these goals, I intend to mobilize help from every available source.