WHITE HOUSE TALKING POINTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89B01356R000100150005-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: February 20, 1987
• Content Type: MEMO

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February 20, 1987
MEMORANDUM FOR ADMINISTRATION SPOKESMEN
FROM: TOM GIBSON' .
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
SUBJECT: White House Talking Points
37-0843x
Attached for your information and use are materials that describe
the President's competitiveness initiative, including a fact
sheet on the Trade, Employment, and Productivity Act of 1987.
If you have any questions concerning these materials, please
contact the Office of Public Affairs at 456-7170.
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WHITE HOUSE TALKING POINTS
February 19, 1987
QUEST FOR EXCELLENCE: MAINTAINING AMERICA'S COMPETITIVE EDGE
President Reagan has set a national goal of ensuring American competitive
preeminence into the 21st Century. Achieving that goal is the
responsibility of every American because every American stands to benefit.
He has established 43 initiatives for the Federal government within six
priority areas:
1. Increasing investment in human and intellectual capital;
2. Promoting the development of science and technology;
3. Better protecting intellectual property;
4. Enacting essential legal and regulatory reforms;
5. Shaping the international economic environment;
6. Eliminating the budget deficit.
More Growth; More Jobs; Better Skills
o We must build on the Reagan successes: 13 million new jobs,
reinvigorated American education, and creation of training programs
that prepare workers for real jobs (JTPA).
o Businesses, workers, educators and governments, must join in efforts
to make the workplace a focus for achievement and continual
development. Research and development -- the keys to new products,
processes, and jobs -- should be encouraged.
Remove Roadblocks at Home to Unleash America's Competitive Strength Abroad
o Barriers to business growth and development must be removed.
Antitrust laws, liability laws, and export control laws must be
changed to enhance, not impede, competitiveness. Protection of new
ideas, new products, and new services must be improved.
o Continuing regulatory relief is essential to eliminate unnecessary
government intrusions into the marketplace that needlessly raise the
price of our products and services and reduce opportunities for
business and workers.
Aggressive Enforcement of Fair Trade Laws; Promote Free Trade and More
Opportunities Abroad for American Business
o Unfair trading practices will continue to be exposed and opposed, and
U.S. trade laws will be strengthened to improve our ability to compete.
o The administration will work in the GATT Uruguay Round to ensure that
our competitiveness in agriculture, services, industry, investment and
intellectual property is enhanced. International monetary cooperation,
reducing the LDC debt problem, and stronger growth by our trading
partners should enhance demand for American goods and services.
For additional information. call the White House Office of Public Affairs: 456-7170.
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Office of the'Press Secretary
For Immediate Release February 19, 1987
FACT SHEET
In his sixth State of the Union address, the President
established a national goal of ensuring American competitive
preeminence into the 21st Century. "It is now time," the
President said, "to determine that we should enter the next
century having achieved a level of excellence unsurpassed in
history."
The Trade, Employment, and Productivity Act of 1987 is the
legislative centerpiece of the President's competitiveness
initiative. With the President's FY 1988 budget proposal and
other proposals, this omnibus legislative package constitutes a
six-part program aimed at:
1.
Increasing investment in human and intellectual capital;
2.
Promoting the development of science and technology;
3.
Better protecting intellectual property;
4.
Enacting essential legal and regulatory reforms;
5.
Shaping the international economic environment; and
6.
Eliminating the budget deficit.
The Trade, Employment, and Productivity Act of 1987 contains
five titles that fulfill the Federal government's responsibility
to do everything possible to promote America's ability to
compete.
TITLE I -- INVESTMENT IN HUMAN AND INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL
ACT OF 1987
The President believes that to achieve competitive preeminence,
our society must pursue excellence in education. We must also
help dislocated workers adapt to changes in our economy and
provide economically disadvantaged youth the opportunity to
become productive members of our society. Title I of the Trade,
Employment, and Productivity Act of 1987 includes:
A. Education Consolidation and Improvement Amendments
Act of 1987. Reauthorizes Chapters 1 and 2 of the
Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA)
to target resources on the neediest schools and
youngsters; foster greater innovation,
experimentation and parental choice; build
accountability into the program; and provide
incentives and rewards for success.
B. Bilingual Education Act Amendments of 1987.
Reforms Federal bilingual education grants to give
school districts greater flexibility in designing
and operating programs that address the particular
education ,weds of their limited English proficient
students.
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C. Worker Readjustment Act. Authorizes a new, $980
million worker adjustment program that will:
Help an estimated 700,000 additional
dislocated workers each year (almost triple
the number served under existing programs).
The program will cover all dislocated workers,
including farmers, not just those demonstrably
affected by imports;
Offer counseling, job search assistance, basic
education and job skill training;
Provide training and adjustment opportunities
to workers early -- long before they exhaust
unemployment benefits; and
Replace the Trade Adjustment Assistance and
Job Training Partnership Act Title III
programs.
D. AFDC and Summer Youth Employment and Training Amendments of
1987. Creates an $800 million program under the Job
Training Partnership Act (JTPA) intended to help
economically disadvantaged youth become productive adults,
open to the opportunities that America provides and
returning to society the talents that are critically
needed. The program will give communities the option of
using JTPA funds now provided for summer jobs for remedial
education and skills training for young people receiving
assistance under the Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC) program.
E. Greater Opportunities Through Work Programs Act of 1987.
Establishes a new employment and training effort under the
AFDC program: Greater Opportunities through Work (GROW).
The purpose of this new program is to encourage young
teenage parents and children receiving AFDC who lack a high
school education to stay in or return to school.
Older AFDC recipients will participate in a variety
of employment and training activities, including
remedial education, determined by each state.
F. Employment Security Administrative Financing Act of
1987, and
G. Employment Services Act of 1987. Give States
greater flexibility in developing comprehensive
approaches to the problems of the unemployed by
decentralizing authority, financing, and
responsibility for administering the Unemployment
insurance and Employment Service programs.
TITLE '_I -- NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION AUTHORIZATION ACT
Advancing science and technology is fundamental to U.S.
competitiveness. Federal policies must serve three broad
objectives:
o Generating new knowledge in advanced technologies;
o Swiftly transferring new technologies to the marketplace; and
Expanding the Nation's talent base in the sciences and
technologies.
To help achieve these objectives, the Trade, Employment, and
Productivity Act of 1987 authorizes appropriations for the
National Science Foundation, doubling the budgetary commitment
to its programs over a five-year period.
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TITLE III -- OMNIBUS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 1987
The President believes it is vital to ensure that we provide
adequate protection, both domestically and internationally, to
those who create new ideas and and invent new products and
services. Title III of the Trade, Employment, and Productivity
Act of 1987 includes the following provisions:
A. Intellectual Property Reform Act of 1987. Statutory
changes to:
Encourage licensing of patented technology by
limiting the "patent misuse doctrine" to actual
anticompetitive conduct;
Increase protection for products resulting
from patented processes to the same level as
that accorded such products by our major
trading partners;
Provide a more flexible standard of review
under the antitrust laws for intellectual
property licensing arrangements and eliminate
treble damage recovery for anticompetitive
licensing arrangements;
-- Restore the bargaining power of parties
contracting to license technology by codifying
and clarifying the Supreme Court holding in
Lear v. Adkins;
-- Restore the term of patents covering
agricultural chemical products and animal
drugs up to a maximum of five years to
compensate for the period of a patent term
lost due to mandatory Federal premarketing
regulatory review and testing; and
-- Reduce the cost of defending patent rights by:
(1) awarding attorney fees to the winning
party in cases of frivolous actions or willful
infringement; and (2) requiring challenges to
patent validity based on publications to be
considered first in an administrative
proceeding before going to court unless to do
so would not be in the public interest.
3. Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1987.
Broadens the statutory definition of trade secrets
and confidential commercial information under the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to permit
agencies to withhold information if disclosure
would be harmful to agency programs or commercial
interests. Also provides a new exemption from the
FOIA for technical data that may not be exported
outside the United States without approval.
C. Regulation of Commerce in Digital Audio Recording
Devices Act of 1987. Provides a technological
solution to the potential problem of unauthorized
copying of copyrighted material on digital audio
tape recorders. Requires that digital audio
recording devices include decoder technology that
would prohibit recording of copyrighted digital
tapes that are coded with an inaudible signal.
TITLE IV -- LEGAL AND REGULATORY REFORMS ACT OF 1987
Outmoded rules and regulations and self-imposed disincentives
place America at a disadvantage n the world marketplace. The
Trade, Employment, and Productivity Act of 1987 includes a
number of proposed legal and regulatory reforms to eliminate
these obstacles to competitiveness.
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A. Product Liability Reform Act of 1987. Reduces the
costly product liability insurance spiral that
increases the costs of U.S. products and undermines
the ability of U.S. manufacturers to develop and
market new and innovative products. This title will:
Retain a fault-based standard of liability;
Eliminate ;pint and several liability except
in cases where defendants have acted in
concert:
Limit compensation for noneconomic damages to
a fair and reasonable amount;
Provide for periodic, instead of lump sum,
payments of damages for future medical care or
lost income;
Reduce awards in cases where a plaintiff also
is compensated by other sources, such as
government benefits;
Reduce transaction costs by limiting
attorneys' contingent fees to reasonable
amounts on a sliding scale; and
Encourage litigants to resolve more cases out
of court.
B. Antitrust Amendments of 1987. These comprehensive
changes are aimed at enhancing the vigor of
American businesses, while continuing to protect
consumers and firms from monopolies, cartels, and
price fixing. These proposals include:
Amending Section 7 of the Clayton Act to
distinguish more clearly between pro-competititve
mergers and mergers that would create a significant
probability of increased prices to consumers;
Limiting private and government antitrust
actions to actual (rather than treble)
damages, except for damages caused by
overcharges or underpayments;
Removing unwarranted and cumbersome
restrictions on interlocking directorates;
Clarifying the application of U.S. antitrust
laws in private cases involving international
trade; and
-- Requiring that any antitrust claims remaining
against other defendants after a partial
settlement in a case be appropriately reduced.
C. Interstate Commerce Commission Sunset Act of 1987.
Eliminates economic regulation of surface
transportation industries (other than railroads)
and terminates the Interstate Commerce Commission
on October 1, 1987.
0. Oil Pipeline Regulatory Reform Act of 1987.
Repeals federal rate regulation of those oil
pipelines that operate in a competitive market.
E. Natural Gas Polic?. Act Amendment of 1987. Provides
access to natural as transportation systems,
deregulates natural gas wellhead prices, and
repeals natural gas demand restraint provisions of
the Fuek1 Use Act.
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F. Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act of
1987. Repeals corporate average fuel economy
standards established for automobiles that place
American automobile manufacturers at a competitive
disadvantage and produce economic distortions.
G. Export Administration Act Amendments of 1987.
-- Provides authority to establish licenses for
multiple exports to China, making U.S. exports
to China more competitive;
Clarifies authority to curtail sales in the
U.S. of items controlled for national security
purposes to commercial entities that are owned
by certain countries;
Establishes a deadline of 120 days to complete
foreign availability assessments, and a grace
period for consultation prior to decontrol;
Provides a presumption of license approval to
a free world country for a product controlled
for national security purposes, if the product
is available to the country without effective
restriction. USG has 20 days to review
(with a 15-day extension possible) before the
license is deemed issued, unless the license
is denied before then because of an
unacceptable risk of diversion;
Establishes U.S. objectives for negotiations
with COCOM governments including removal of
items from the International Control List
(ICL) where controls are ineffective or
unnecessary;
Authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to bar
persons (and their affiliates) who have been
convicted of violating export control laws
from receiving export licenses; and
Permits the Secretary of Commerce to deny
export privileges for 180-day periods in order
to prevent an imminent violation or where
necessary to facilitate enforcement of the
Export Administration Act (EAA).
H. Financial Services Regulatory Efficiency Act of
1987. Implements the recommendations of Vice
President Bush's Task Force on the Regulation of
Financial Services, by thoroughly restructuring the
Federal financial services regulatory framework
through the creation of a new Federal Banking
Agency and other major reforms.
TITLE V -- INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT IMPROVEMENT
ACT OF 1987
Government can play a key role in enhancing the Nation's
competitiveness by shaping the international economic
environment in which American knowledge, talent and
entrepreneurship can flourish.
A. Trade Competitiveness Act of 1987.
-- Provides negotiating authority for the
Uruguay Round of trade negotiations with
substantially expanded requirements for
consultation with the ongress and the private
sector;
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Strengthens the antidumping law by creating
a new, predictable pricing remedy to cover
products from non-market economies and
tightening the antidumping and countervailing
duty laws through new anti-circumvention
provisions to prevent evasion of duties;
Tightens Section 301 of the Trade Act of
1974 (.relating to unfair trade practices) by
establishing a 24-month deadline on dispute
settlement cases and requiring coordination
with Congress through reports on the
commercial effects of Section 301 cases;
Establishes reciprocal access to foreign
markets as an additional factor for
consideration in Section 301 cases;
Amends Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974
(relating to relief from injury caused by
imports) to: provide expedited relief for
perishable agricultural products; create
additional options for relief, including
multilateral negotiations and regulatory
reform; and clarify that relief can be granted
during a recession;
Makes International Trade Commission
proceedings under Section 337 of the Tariff
Act of 1930 (relating to certain unfair trade
practices) more effective by eliminating the
current requirement to prove injury to a
domestic industry when intellectual property
infringement is involved;
-- Improves the Export Trading Company Act and
establishes an export promotion data system; and
-- Amends Customs user fees for cargo
processing operations to reflect more
accurately the costs of providing Customs
services and to extend these fees beyond the
scheduled expiration date.
3. Business Practices and Records Act of 1987. While
ensuring that bribery to gain foreign sales is
deterred through criminal sanctions, the proposed
statutory changes will eliminate the uncertainties
and clarify ambiguities in the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act (FCPA). Specific reforms include:
-- Replacing the "reason to know" standard with a
more objective standard, such as "directs or
authorizes";
Specifying what types of payments should be
exempt from the Act; and
Clarifying required bookkeeping under the
FCPA.
PRIVATE PENSION FUNDING
Separate from the Trade, Employment, and Productivity Act of
1987, the President is proposing legislative action to increase
security for workers in their privately provided pensions by
showing employers to withdraw excess assets from pension plans
without having to terminate them, and by requiring improved
employer funding of underfunded pension plans.
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CONCLUSION
The Trade, Employment, and Productivity Act of 1987 fulfills the
Federal role in promoting American competitiveness. All
Americans, however, must share responsibility for promoting our
ability to compete:
o Business must work more efficiently, setting high standards
of quality; streamlining operations; discarding outmoded
systems and management styles; adapting to change and
building on the American entrepreneurial tradition.
o workers must be enabled to reach their potential by taking
advantage of new technologies; investing in education,
training and skill improvement; and taking pride in their
work.
o Families, supported by State and local governments, have
the geatest responsibility of all -- creating an
educational environment that can make our young people
productive citizens, able to achieve the best, both
spiritually and materially. We must strive for excellence
in education.
"..-Me must act as individuals in a quest for
excellence that will not be measured bv_ new
proposals or billions in new funding, Rather,
it involves an expenditure of American spirit
and just plain American grit."
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REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
DURING SPEECH TO
BUSINESS LEADERS ON
COMPETITIVENESS INITIATIVE
THE PRESIDENT: Well, George and I thank you all very
much, and welcome to the White House. Today -- in this, the 200th
anniversary year of the writing of the Constitution, and here, in one
of America's most historic buildings -- we are gathered, yes, as
leaders of government; yes, as business people; yes, as educators;
yes, as scientists; yes as all of these but even more, as Americans.
We are here to take a step into America's future.
We'll talk today about the 21st century. That seems like
the distant future, but in the life of a person, much less the life
of this still young nation, the 21st century is but a few moments
away.
A child who begins kindergarten this year will graduate
from high school in the year 2000. It's not too early to ask what
kind of a nation that child will inherit from us. Will we give that
child the best education in the world to prepare for leading our
country and the world in the next century? While that child is
growing up, America's industrial base will be changing.
And here, if his parents find themselves in a shrinking
industry, will they have the opportunity to be re-trained for jobs of
the future, not those of the past? And when that child grows up,
will he find himself in a strong, competitive nation that is a proud
leader of a fair, free, and growing world's economy? Or will he or
she find themselves in one that has built walls to isolate itself and
that, in its isolation, has stagnated and declined?
In the last six years America has once again become the
economic wonder of the world, the land of promise to which people
everywhere look as a beacon of hope, freedom, and growth. We cut tax
rates -- and now all around the world, other nations are taking
notice. We cut regulations that stifled economic growth -- and here
also, other nations are following us. We've all -- we've done all
this, and as a result, we've re-ignited the American flame of
opportunity and created more new jobs in the last five years than
Europe and Japan combined. Will we now prepare the way to continue
this legacy of opportunity into the next decade and into the next
century?
These are the questions that we Americans will answer.
And let me put my cards right here on the table -- I have a very
simple goal. And I believe all Americans share it. Call it
competitiveness. Call it a quest for excellence. Call it preparing
for the 21st century. In the year 2000, we want America still at the
top of the charts, the front of the pack, the head of the class.
Yes, in the year 2000, we want America to be number one -- and
climbing still for the stars. (Applause.)
In today's world, that's going to take some doing. In
the years ahead, we're going to have to work harder and work better.
And we're going to have to be clear from the start about what the
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right and wrong paths are. Like the story about Lincoln -- his
birthday was last week, so I thought I'd tell you a Lincoln story.
(Laughter.)
As a young lawyer, he once had to plead two cases in the
same day before the same judge. Both involved the same principle of
law. But in one, Lincoln appeared for the defendant and in the
other, for the plaintiff. Now you can see how this makes anything
above a 50-percent success rate very difficult. (Laughter.) well,
in the morning, Lincoln made an eloquent plea and won his case.
Later, he took the opposite side and was arguing just as earnestly.
Puzzled, the judge asked why the change of attitude. Well, Your
Honor," said Honest Abe, 'I may have been wrong in the morning...but
I know I'm right now.' (Laughter.)
The quest for excellence that I have in mind is not just
a legislative package -- although legislation will play a part. It
is not just another government program -- although government has a
role. Rather, it's a great national undertaking that will challenge
all Americans to be all that they can be, to work together to seek
new opportunities, to be the very best in a strong and growing
international economy -- an international economy that gives us both
the challenge of competition and, as it grows and we grow with it,
the promise of a century of prosperity ahead.
To America's business, the quest for excellence will be
the challenge to make products more efficiently, to embrace new
ideas, better methods of management and new technologies, yes, to
make the proudest, most desirable label on more and more products and
services around the world -- the label that reads, "Made in America."
To America's workers, the challenge is to be prepared for
the new jobs and new skills of the future and to prove in the quality
of their work that the pride is indeed back.
To America's educators, the challenge is to prepare our
students for this changing world, so that they can write clearly, so
that illiteracy among this great and free people becomes a thing of
the past and more children read at their level skill or above, so
that every high school graduate has a basic understanding of
mathematics and science and knows how to work a computer, and so that
every graduate knows the meaning of our sacred American heritage. In
the last three years, governors, mayors, school boards, and.parents
around the country have made quality the focus of their reforms. The
challenge now is to finish the job -- to make sure that, by the year
2000, America has the best educational system in the world.
Yes, to all of us, the quest for excellence is a
challenge to join together in looking to the new world marketplace,
not as a source of fear and uncertainty, but in the way Americans
have always looked at their challenges, as a great opportunity, as
another open frontier for the American spirit, as America's great
next adventure.
As America moves toward the 21st century, government also
has a role in our great national quest for excellence. We have
already taken giant steps. Our tax reform has given us the most
incentive-oriented tax system in the world. And already other
governments are asking themselves what they can do to catch up with
us. Perhaps you saw a newspaper account recently about a German
entrepreneur who has built three factories here in America and is
building another. These factories make products for export to Latin
America and the Far East. Explaining why he was building export
factories in America rather than Germany, he told the reporter that
the difference was taxes. Because of taxes, he said, "In the United
States, I have to earn $1.8 million in order to put $1 million in my
own reserves. In Germany I have to earn $4 million to do the same
thing."
But as much as our tax reform has done to make America
MORE
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more competitive, there is still more to do. This week I'm sending
to Congress proposed legislation to ensure that government will
contribute its share of America' quest for excellence. Ours is a
diverse package -- as diverse as the challenge before us. But
diverse though it is, it has one central purpose -- and that is to
make certain that, in the years ahead, the door of opportunity and
excellence is open to all Americans.
For America's workers, this package will include new
efforts for job re-training. Properly prepared workers in our
declining industries can be the competitive edge for our rising
industries. They are skilled. They know how to perform in the
industrial workplace. They have the discipline and dedication to
quality that America will need in the marketplace of the next
century. We must not let this national treasure go to waste. And
that's why our job re-training proposal will target dislocated
workers. These are the workers who, in the past, made America the
world's leader in industry after industry. We must never forget that
they are the key to our future, as well.
Our package also includes training funds for young people
who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. America will
not. be able to compete in the world of the next century if some of us
are permanently barred from the team. We need every American lending
a hand. And that includes those who today are caught in the poverty
trap. We must find ways to recruit these people for America's team.
They deserve the same opportunities all Americans deserve. And we
all need them joining in, grabbing the lifeline with us, and helping
to pull America into the future.
America's most competitive edge has always been our
scientific and technological creativity. In many respects, we
invented the modern world. The light bulb, the telephone, the
airplane, the mass production automobile, the computer, the
transistor, the semi-conductor -- the list of American inventions
that we take for granted is endless. Today we are still a leader in.
innovation. In communications technology, for example, one expert
has put it like this: The Americans are light years ahead of
everyone."
But still we aren't doing enough. In too many industries
we have developed the technology, only to see others bring it to the
marketplace. Our legislative package will help make the journey from
the American laboratory, to the American factory, to the world
market, a shorter journey and a more certain one.
Part of our focus will be on federal laboratories,
including defense laboratories. These are among the largest and most
productive centers of scientific research in the world. But in the
past there have been set up roadblocks between what was going on
inside and the commercial world outside. That will change. We will
encourage scientists working in federal laboratories to patent,
license, and commercialize their research. Federal agencies will
establish royalty-sharing plans with their scientists. We will
recruit science entrepreneurs to act as conduits between the
laboratories and business, venture capitalists and universities. We
will also encourage exchanges between federal laboratories and
private industry, so each can benefit from the other. We will
encourage our defense and space programs to continue to spin-off
technology to industry and to do it even faster than they have. And
we will double the budget of the National Science Foundation over the
next five years.
We're also proposing to establish a number of "Science
and Technology Centers' around the nation. These will be on
university campuses. They will focus on those areas of science that
directly contribute to America's economic competitiveness. They will
be homes to long-term research in areas such as robotics for
automated manufacturing and microelectronics, new material processes,
and bio-technology. They will help to ensure that when it comes to
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technological leadership, America in the next century will continue
to have the inside edge.
Finally, we cannot retain our technological leadership
unless our children have the basic knowledge of science and
technology that the 21st century will demand. And that's why we will
begin a campaign for scientific literacy. It will include
internships in federal labs for promising students and aid to schools
on all levels to buy scientific equipment and computers. We will
also make available the expertise of top federal scientists to help
develop textbooks, software, and lab equipment for our schools and
universities. America's natural resources are precious beyond
measure, but let us never forget that a greater and more important
resource than even these is in the minds of our young people. Our
program will help ensure that these young minds are ready for the
21st century.
But all the science and all the education in the world
will do us little good if the markets of the world are shrinking. We
must continue to promote the expansion of world trade: History has
taught us that we cannot become more competitive or enjoy major. job
growth by restricting imports across-the-board. In 1930, the United
States imposed major new tariffs, against the advice of most
economists. Three years later, the unemployment rate stood at 25
percent. Free trade is one of the few things almost all economists
agree on.
There is developing a great bipartisan consensus that the
answer to our trade problems is more trade. As House Speaker Jim
Wright said recently, 'The solution lies in opening markets to
American goods, not in closing our markets to foreign goods.'
But, if the greater world trade is to be the launching
pad for economic growth in the 21st century, trade must be a two-way
street. In the world of the '40s, 'SOs, and '60s, America was the
dominant economic power. We sought to lead the world by example out
of the devastation of war through growth-oriented, free trade
policies. We've had much success. Europe and Japan have rebuilt.
Many developing countries have experienced strong growth. Our
fundamental belief in the power of the market remains unquestioned.
We will not sit idly by when other countries close their markets to
our products, subsidize their exports, or fail to trade fairly.
And that's why these last six years we've taken the
strongest actions in American history against unfair trade practices
abroad. And that's why we will be asking Congress to strengthen the
protections we give patents, copyrights, and trade secrets, so
America's- intellectual property will be clearly staked out with a
sign that reads 'no trespassing.' And that's why I will be asking
Congress for authority to negotiate a new round of trade agreements,
to bring down the barriers to world trade all around the world.
Yes, we must help those whom a changing economy has
displaced, but we must also never forget that what's at stake here is
America's future -- the future for ourselves, our children, and their
children into the next decade and into the next century.
How America will approach the 21st century -- that's what
we're talking about today -- America's future. This will be a great
national discussion of our future, a kind of great national tent
meeting, that they used to call a Chautauqua. And together we're
going to be part of it. I'm going to be traveling to schools and
factories, to laboratories and workplaces all across America. Our
great national quest for excellence must begin with each of us
thinking and talking about what we can do.
But, today, let me set out a few simple goals for the
year 1990 and for the year 2000.
I repeat my challenge that by the year 1990, SAT scores
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should make up half the ground that they have lost. And by the year
2000, let's have them exceed the 1963 record high.
By the year 1990, let's reduce by one-quarter the 40
percent of 13-year-olds below reading at skill level. And by the
year 2000, let's have everyone reading at their skill level. And
most important, by 1990, let's resolve to have created 8 million more
jobs in America. And by the year 2000, let's make it 20 million.
I have lived through a third of American history. I've
seen war and depression, peace and prosperity. I've seen the great
spirit of the American people build industries and transform the
world. But all this time, I have never seen our land hold so much
promise as it does today. We are strong as only a free people can be
strong. There flows within each of us the heroic blood of pioneers
and immigrants. And the greatest adventure men or women can want
awaits us.-- the adventure of a new century. That century can bring
untold wealth, peace, and happiness not only to ourselves but to all
mankind. We can lead the way. Our quest for excellence can become
the entire world's. Our search for greater competitiveness can be
copied in every land. And from this great competition will be built
a growing world economy, the one sure answer to hunger and poverty,
the one sure guarantor of a bright future for ourselves and the
world.
I've asked you here today to join me in that quest. Two
hundred years ago, a small group of Americans gathered in
Philadelphia to draft a new order for the ages -- the O.S.
Constitution. We look back on them now with reverence, because all
that we as Americans have been blessed with since that steamy
Pennsylvania summer could not have happened without their vision and
their courage. They overcame sectional rivalries and parochial
interests. They looked to the future not only of our nation but of
all mankind, not only for their lifetimes but for centuries to come.
And that is the challenge before us today. As we make
America strong, as we work for a free and fair economic constitution
for the industrial world, as we improve our education, science, and
training, we will be setting ourselves and the entire world on a
course to a brighter tomorrow. And generations will look back on us,
as we do on the Founding Fathers, and give thanks in the name of God.
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