I am not discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our country. I never do. I believe tonight, as I always have, that the essential decency … - Jimmy Carter

A person should have as our goal complete agape (self-sacrificial love). The most we can expect from a society is to institute simple justice.

We have established the following goals: I've been over these with the congressional leaders, with representatives of the Department of HEW, with Labor, my own economic advisers, OMB, Treasury, to make sure that they are feasible and also advisable. And they will be guidelines for us in the next 3 months as we put together the final legislative proposals. First of all, the new system will be at no higher initial cost than the present systems combined. Second, under this system every family with children and a member of the family able to work will have access to a job. Third, incentives will always encourage full-time and part-time private sector employment. Fourth, public training and employment programs should be provided when private employment is unavailable. Fifth, a family should have more income if it works than if it does not work. Sixth, incentives should be designed to keep families together. Now many of the incentives, deliberately or not, encourage families to be separated. Seventh, earned income tax credits should be continued to help the working poor. Eighth, a decent income should be provided also for those who cannot work or earn adequate incomes, with Federal benefits consolidated into a simple cash payment, varying in amount only to accommodate differences in the cost of living from one community to another. Ninth, the program should be simpler and easier to administer. Tenth, there should be incentives encouraging honesty and designed to eliminate fraud. What this means is that the accurate reporting of income and financial status will be naturally encouraged among those who receive benefits. Eleventh, the unpredictable and growing financial burden on local and State governments should be reduced as rapidly as Federal services or resources permit. And twelfth, local administration of public jobs programs should be emphasized. Now, we have varying estimates on the number of jobs required to carry out all these programs depending upon the analyses and the basic premises. For instance, to provide this kind of service, we estimate that about 2 million total training and public jobs would be required. We now have plans for about 925,000 public service jobs.

The government and the church are two different realms of service, and those in political office have to face a subtle but important difference between the implementation of the high ideals of religious faith and public duty.