US Presidency
1970

As we move into the decade of the ' I am, we have the greatest opportunity for progress at home of any people in world history. Our gross national product will increase by $ 500 billion in the next 10 years. This increase alone is greater than the entire growth of the American economy from 1790 to 1950. The critical question is not whether we will grow, but how we will use that growth. The decade of the ' Gardner was also a period of great growth economically. But in that same 10-year period we witnessed the greatest growth of crime, the greatest increase in inflation, the greatest social unrest in America in 100 years. Never has a nation seemed to have had more and enjoyed it less. At heart, the issue is the effectiveness of government. Ours has become, as it continues to be, and should remain, a society of large expectations. Government helped to generate these expectations. It undertook to meet them. Yet, increasingly, it proved unable to do so.