For not only leadership is passed from
generation to generation, but so is stewardship. And the generation born
after the Second World War has come of age.
I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community
organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing
good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading,
sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work on this in the White House,
in the Cabinet agencies. I will go to the people and the programs that
are the brighter points of light, and I will ask every member of my
government to become involved. The old ideas are new again because they
are not old, they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a
patriotism that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.
We need a new engagement, too, between the Executive and the Congress.
The challenges before us will be thrashed out with the House and the
Senate. We must bring the Federal budget into balance. And we must
ensure that America stands before the world united, strong, at peace,
and fiscally sound. But, of course, things may be difficult. We need
compromise; we have had dissension. We need harmony; we have had a
chorus of discordant voices.
For Congress, too, has changed in our time. There has grown a certain
divisiveness. We have seen the hard looks and heard the statements in
which not each other's ideas are challenged, but each other's motives.
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