In this blessed land, there is always a better tomorrow.
Four years ago, I spoke to you of a new beginning, and we
have accomplished that. But in another sense,
our new beginning is a continuation of that beginning
created two centuries ago when, for the first time in
history, government, the people said, was not our master,
it is our servant; its only power that which we the people
allow it to have. That system has never failed us, but for
a time we failed the system. We asked things of goverment
that government was not equipped to give.
We yielded authority to the national government that
properly belonged to states or to local governments
or to the people themselves. We allowed taxes and
inflation to rob us of our earnings and savings and
watched the great industrial machine that had made
us the most productive people on earth slow down and the
number of unemployed increase. By 1980 we knew it was
time to renew our faith,to strive with all our strength
toward the ultimate in individual freedom, consistent
with an orderly society. We believed then and now;
there are no limits to growth and human progress
when men and women are free to follow their dreams.
, and we were right to believe that." --Ronald Reagon