The last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress it contained a provision to protect voting rights in Federal elections. That civil… - Lyndon B. Johnson
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The last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress it contained a provision to protect voting rights in Federal elections. That civil rights bill was passed after 8 long months of debate. And when that bill came to my desk from the Congress for my signature, the heart of the voting provision had been eliminated. This time, on this issue, there must be no delay, no hesitation and no compromise with our purpose. We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that he may desire to participate in. And we ought not and we cannot and we must not wait another 8 months before we get a bill. We have already waited a hundred years and more, and the time for waiting is gone.
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About
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (27 August 1908 – 22 January 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician. After a long career in U.S. legislatures, Johnson became the vice president of the United States of America under John F. Kennedy, from 1961 to 1963. A Democrat, Johnson became the 36th U.S. president in 1963, after Kennedy's assassination. He served in the role until 1969.
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Also Known As
Native Name:
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Also Known As:LBJ
Alternative Names:
Lyndon Johnson
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President Johnson
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L. B. Johnson
To these trusted public servants and to my family and those close friends of mine who have followed me down a long, winding road, and to all the people of this Union and the world, I will repeat today what I said on that sorrowful day in November 1963: "I will lead and I will do the best I can." But you must look within your own hearts to the old promises and to the old dream. They will lead you best of all.
That tax bill has been thoroughly discussed for a year. Now we need action. The new budget clearly allows it. Our taxpayers surely deserve it. Our economy strongly demands it. And every month of delay dilutes its benefits in 1964 for consumption, for investment, and for employment. For until the bill is signed, its investment incentives cannot be deemed certain, and the withholding rate cannot be reduced-and the most damaging and devastating thing you can do to any businessman in America is to keep him in doubt and to keep him guessing on what our tax policy is. And I say that we should now reduce to 14 percent instead of 15 percent our withholding rate. I therefore urge the Congress to take final action on this bill by the first of February, if at all possible. For however proud we may be of the unprecedented progress of our free enterprise economy over the last 3 years, we should not and we cannot permit it to pause. In 1963, for the first time in history, we crossed the 70 million job mark, but we will soon need more than 75 million jobs. In 1963 our gross national product reached the $600 billion level--$100 billion higher than when we took office. But it easily could and it should be still $30 billion higher today than it is. Wages and profits and family income are also at their highest levels in history--but I would remind you that 4 million workers and 13 percent of our industrial capacity are still idle today. We need a tax cut now to keep this country moving.
The first area of this increasing strength is our ability to deter atomic destruction. In the past 3 years we have increased our nuclear power on alert 2½ times, and our nuclear superiority will continue to grow until we reach agreement on arms control. We have now more than 1,000 fully armed ICBM's and Polaris missiles ready for retaliation. The Soviet Union has far fewer, and none ready to be launched beneath the seas. We have more than 1,100 strategic bombers, many of which are equipped with air-to-surface and decoy missiles to help them reach almost any target. The Soviet Union, we estimate, could with difficulty send less than one-third of this number over targets in the United States. Against such force the combined destructive power of every battle ever fought by man is like a firecracker thrown against the sun.
