Last year the nature of the war in Vietnam changed again. Swiftly increasing numbers of armed men from the North crossed the borders to join forces t… - Lyndon B. Johnson

The fourth area of increasing strength is in the development of new weapons for deterrence and defense. In the past several years we have begun many important new weapons systems. Minuteman II will have twice the accuracy of the first Minuteman. The new Nike-X, when its development is completed, will give us the option to deploy, if national security requires it, the best anti-ballistics missile available to any nation. We are developing a new aircraft, the F-111, with much greater range, payload, and ability at air combat than present tactical bombers or fighters. The Lance missile, the EX-10 torpedo, the A7A attack aircraft, a new main battle tank, new anti-tank missile system, are the emerging products of development that we are carrying on. And that effort is without parallel in all the world. We will continue to carry forward new projects which offer hope of adding substantially to our strength. I can assure the American people that the United States is, and will remain, first in the use of science and technology for the protection of the people.

I asked Congress to extend the supply management programs of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965, and I asked them to extend it this year. Chairman Poage tells me that his committee will give consideration to these recommendations shortly. We hope that with his assistance, and with Walter Mondale's assistance, with the help of all the Minnesota delegation, we can get permanent authority. The farmer should not be asked to grow more than the market can take at a fair price. I have asked the Congress to continue the direct payment programs of the 1965 act-they are the difference between profit and loss for many farmers each year. I have asked the Congress to extend the Food for Freedom Act for an additional 3 years--because it is right for this Nation, whose sons came from many nations, to try to help hungry people eat when we have an abundance--and because I think it is good business for our farmers to help build new markets for our products in other lands around the world. I have asked the Congress to authorize a National Food Bank--a security reserve for wheat, feed grains, soybeans--which would give the farmer higher prices, protect the consumer from food scarcities and shortages, and provide the Government with an emergency food "cushion" in reaching supply-management decisions so we would not get caught short when we had a bad estimate. I have asked the Congress to find the ways to give the farmer more bargaining power in the marketplace. Our working people and our good laboring friends in this country have not met all their needs or their desires. They still have many objectives and goals that we want to help them reach. But the reason the farmer's income does not compare favorably with a laboring man's income is one reason, primarily, in my judgment: Labor has bargaining power; the farmer has none. If you are to continue to pay the prices that industry charges and sets, if you are to continue to pay the wages that American workers are entitled to get, you are going to have to be put on an equal basis with industry and labor in bargaining power. As you have so many times in the past, the Farmers Union has joined with us to help us to work, strive, and fight in order to get bargaining power for the American farmer. Finally, I have asked the Congress for the programs to bring parity of opportunity to the rural children in America; to give them better elementary education; to give them better library facilities; to give them better transportation; to give us better farm credit; to give us more rural jobs; to give us decent housing; to give us adequate diets, with adequate consumer protection for the housewives; to give us the chance to lead a full and productive life.

Making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg. It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.