You have given me a great responsibility — to stay close to you, to be worthy of you, and to exemplify what you are. Let us create together a new nat… - Jimmy Carter

Each of us has been made “a little lower than the angels.” What an incomprehensible compliment! But it’s not only a compliment; it’s also a responsibility, for our special status equalizes us with other people in the eyes of God. The Lord has exalted not only me or some special group; God has exalted everyone. It’s the people of Burkina Faso and Niger and Guyana and Haiti. It’s people who never learned to read and write or who live on fifty cents a day. All human beings have been made a little lower than the angels, and we have a responsibility to treat them accordingly.

Now, I mentioned an increase in the public service jobs from 310,000 to 600,000. That legislation is just now being passed, and it will be the end of September-September 30--before we have the 725,000 people involved. Right now, we are adding 15,000 public service jobs per week. Our proposal for youth employment has now passed the Senate and House conference, and I expect to have it at the White House for signature next week. It will create over 200,000 jobs in a National Youth Conservation Corps, built on the old Civilian Conservation Corps that was put into effect by Franklin Roosevelt. And we are just doubling the Job Corps slots to 40,000. Now, this is a program that's been approved, but it hasn't yet been put into effect. But it will be put into effect rapidly now that we have it on the books. Income security--a lot of people are concerned about the social security system. We have proposed to the Congress-I hope they'll act quickly--to make sure that we have a sound social security system. And we have made a proposal to put it back on a sound basis without increasing the tax rate of American workers above what's already been prescribed by law. I want to mention food stamps--again, an income for poor people that's very valuable but, as you know, in the past they've had to have cash money to buy food stamps. We have proposed, and the Senate has already approved, and I hope the House will approve quickly, the elimination of any requirement to purchase food stamps. In the future they won't have to buy them. We're taking the first step towards comprehensive health care by proposing to the Congress hospital cost containment. The price to sick people of hospital care has gone up too rapidly. It is now doubling. It's now doubling every 5 years, about twice the rate of growth of the normal, nationwide inflation rate. By early next year, we'll have a comprehensive package of health care to put forward. And we're prepared to move more rapidly but, I have to tell you, frankly, that the Congress this year has almost all it can handle. But I've worked out with the congressional leaders that next year they'll start their full work on a comprehensive health care system for our country.

One of the first things I did when I was elected was to appoint a special commission on those Americans who have mental problems and those who have disability problems. My wife is the Honorary Chairman, and as you may know, she has had hearings all around the country and has just recently given me her report. In the meantime, though, we've been learning from this special study. One of the things that we are doing is, as we set up the day care centers and child care centers and expand that program, we're giving first priority to children who have learning disabilities and other problems of that kind. In the past they have been the last priority. We have now moved them up and will move up to the first priority. The second thing we are doing is to. make sure in all our programs that deal with disabilities that we are emphasizing not institutional care, but community oriented small units, where the children can be close to their families, close to their own homes, where the cost is much less and the benefit of training programs and education programs are greatly magnified. Another thing that we've done is to increase greatly the Head Start programs, which give the children in low-income communities an early start in the learning experience. The first Head Start program that ever existed in Georgia--I happened to have been the head of it. And I learned at that time the tremendous benefit that can be derived for children who come from deprived homes, not only handicapped because of emotional or mental or physical problems but also because of social problems and environmental problems, where the families are so poverty-stricken that the kids have never seen a book, they've never heard a bedtime story, they don't have any base on which to compete with the other children. And the last thing I'll mention very briefly is the so-called CHAPS program, which I think is very crucial in the future. This will provide early, complete physical examinations which will include not only teeth and eyes and their bodily functions but also will include any disabilities that are at least apparent at that time. We now have about 1 1/2 million children a year who are given this kind of early, thorough examination. We expect to expand this very rapidly to about 9¼ million, which is an additional 8 million or about a fivefold increase. This will be done as rapidly as the bureaucratic structure can be established. Again, we want this to be done as nearly as possible to the children's natural living environment, either in the Head Start program, the first days when they attend the first grade, or in the home or community structure. So, we are moving very quickly to correct some of the defects that have existed in the past and also to give special emphasis to those children who have special learning disabilities.