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{
    "localId": "193915",
    "label": "Press copy of Special Message by the President on Urgent National Needs, 25 May 1961",
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    "id": "193915",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Press copy of Special Message by the President on Urgent National Needs, 25 May 1961",
    "description": "Press copy of President John F. Kennedy's urgent message to Congress. In his address the President argues for increased defense spending and support for the nation's space program, and proposes putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade.",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/193915",
    "collections": [
        "Papers of John F. Kennedy: Presidential Papers: President's Office Files",
        "Speech Files"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963",
        "Speeches, addresses, etc.",
        "Outer space"
    ],
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            "day": 25,
            "logicalDate": "1961-05-25",
            "month": 5,
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    "ocrText": "-3-\nMoreover, if the budget deficit now increased by the needs of our security\nis to be held within manageable proportions, it will be necessary to hold\ntightly to prudent fiscal standards; and I request the cooperation of the\nCongress in this regard -- to refrain from adding funds or programs,\ndesirable as they may be, to the Budget -- to end the postal deficit, as my\npredecessor also recommended, through increased rates -- a deficit\nincidentally, this year, which exceeds the fiscal year 1962 cost of all the\nspace and defense measures that I am submitting today -- to provide full\npay-as-you-go highway financing and to close those tax loopholes earlier\nspecified. Cur security and progress cannot be cheaply purchased; and their\nprice must be found in what we all forego as well as what we all must pay.\nIII. Economic and Social Progress Abroad\nstress the strength of our economy because it is essential to the strength\nof our nation. And what is true in our case is true in the case of other\ncountries. Their strength in the struggle for freedom depends on the\nstrength of their economic and their social progress.\nWe would be badly mistaken to consider their problems in military terms\nalone. For no amount of arms and armies can help stabilize those govern-\nments which are unable or unwilling to achieve social and economic reform\nand development. Military pacts cannot help nations whose social injustice\nand economic chaos invite insurgency and penetration and subversion.\nThe most skillful counter-guerrilla efforts cannot succeed where the local\npopulation is too caught up in its own misery to be concerned about the\nadvance of communism.\nBut for those who share this view, we stand ready now, as we have in the\npast, to provide generously of our skills, and our capital, and our food to\nassist the peoples of the less-developed nations to reach their goals in\nfreedom to help them before they are engulfed in crisis.\nThis is also our great opportunity in 1961. If we grasp it, then subversion to\nprevent its success is exposed as an unjustifiable attempt to keep these\nnations from either being free or equal. But if we do not pursue it, andif they\ndo not pursue it, the bankruptcy of unstable governments, one by one,\nand of unfulfilled hopes will surely lead to a series of totalitarian\nreceiverships.\nMORE"
}