US Presidency
1969

I think we should assure decent medical care for every expectant mother and for their children during the first year of their life in the United States of America. I think we should protect our children and their families from the costs of catastrophic illness. As we pass on from medicine, I think nothing is clearer to the Congress than the commitment that the Congress made to end poverty. Congress expressed it well, I think, in 1964, when they said: It is the policy of the United States to eliminate the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty in this nation. This is the richest nation in the world. The antipoverty program has had many achievements. It also has some failures. But we must not cripple it after only 3 years of trying to solve the human problems that have been with us and have been building up among us for generations. I believe the Congress this year will want to improve the administration of the poverty program by reorganizing portions of it and transferring them to other agencies.