US Presidency
1974

I can report to you today that as a result of revenue sharing passed by the Congress, and other measures, we have made progress toward that goal. After 40 years of moving power from the states and the communities to Washington, D.C., we have begun moving power back from Washington to the states and communities and, most important, to the people of America. In this session of the Congress, I believe we are near the breakthrough point on efforts which I have suggested, proposals to let people themselves make their own decisions for their own communities and, in particular, on those to provide broad new flexibility in federal aid for community development, for economic development, for education. And I look forward to working with the Congress, with members of both parties in resolving whatever remaining differences we have in this legislation so that we can make available nearly $ 5.5 billion to our states and localities to use not for what a federal bureaucrat may want, but for what their own people in those communities want.