The old way was centralized here in Washington. The New Covenant way must take hold in the communities all across America, and we should help them to do that.
Our job here is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy, to empower people to make the most of their own lives and to enhance our security here at home and abroad.
We must not ask Government to do what we should do for ourselves. We should rely on Government as a partner to help us to do more for ourselves and for each other.
I hope very much that as we debate these specific and exciting matters, we can go beyond the sterile discussion between the illusion that there is somehow a program for every problem, on the one hand, and the other illusion that the Government is the source of every problem that we have.
Our job is to get rid of yesterday’s Government so that our own people can meet today’s and tomorrow’s needs.
And we ought to do it together.
You know, for years before I became President, I heard others say they would cut Government and how bad it was. But not much happened.
We actually did it. We cut over a quarter of a trillion dollars in spending, more than 300 domestic programs, more than 100,000 positions from the Federal bureaucracy in the last two years alone.
Based on decisions already made, we will have cut a total of more than a quarter of a million positions from the Federal Government, making it the smallest it has been since John Kennedy was president, by the time I come here again next year.
Under the leadership of Vice President Gore, our initiatives have already saved taxpayers $ 63 billion. The age of the $ 500 hammer and the ashtray you can break on David Letterman is gone. Deadwood programs like mohair subsidies are gone. We’ve streamlined the Agriculture Department by reducing it by more than 1,200 offices. We’ve slashed the small-business loan form from an inch thick to a single page. We’ve thrown away the Government’s 10,000-page personnel manual.