Reagan Tells Congress: ‘We’re Still on the Job’ : State of Union Address Offers Few New Ideas, Urges Lawmakers to Overhaul Budget Process

WASHINGTON —  President Reagan declared in his final State of the Union address Monday that the nation is “strong,” “prosperous” and “at peace,” but he offered few new proposals to build on the record of his first seven years in office.

The President, in a nationally televised address, pledged to seek an agreement cutting long-range U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons by half and to press ahead with his space-based Strategic Defense Initiative.

And he challenged members of the House and Senate--arrayed before him along with members of the Cabinet, Supreme Court and diplomatic corps--to work with him to produce “a drastic overhaul” of a “broken-down” federal budget process.

“If we will work together this year,” he said in a 45-minute speech, “I believe we can give a future Congress the chance to make that prosperity, that peace, that freedom, not just the state of our Union but the state of our world.”

The President drew standing ovations with his call for Senate ratification of last year’s treaty with the Soviet Union to ban medium-range nuclear weapons and his plea that Congress overhaul its increasingly chaotic budget-making process.

Congress responded with mirthful clapping when Reagan held up its most recent spending bills, weighing 14 and 15 pounds. “We got caught red-handed,” said Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.).

Twelve days shy of his 77th birthday, Reagan sought to avoid what he called “a proud recitation of the accomplishments of my Administration.

“Let’s leave that to history; we’re not finished yet,” he said. “So my message to you tonight is: Put on your work shoes--we’re still on the job.”

With both houses of Congress controlled by Democrats, the Republican President sought to begin his final year in office on a bipartisan note and to shake off any impression that he has become a lame duck in the waning days of his second term.

“Let us affirm that, in this chamber tonight, there are no Republicans, no Democrats, just Americans,” he said, challenging the House and Senate to prove to the rest of the country “that democracy works even in an election year.”

But at the same time, playing down his past contentious struggles with Congress, Reagan took pains to highlight the achievements of his first seven years.

“As we have worked together to bring down spending, tax rates and inflation, employment has climbed to record heights; America has created more jobs and better, higher-paying jobs; family income has risen for four straight years, and America’s poor climbed out of poverty at the fastest rate in more than 10 years,” he declared.

“In international relations too, there is only one description for what, together, we have achieved: a complete turnabout, a revolution,” he said. “Seven years ago, America was weak and freedom everywhere was under siege; today, America is strong and democracy is everywhere on the move.

‘Look Up to America’

“From Central America to East Asia, ideas like free markets and democratic reforms and human rights are taking hold,” he said. “We’ve replaced ‘Blame America’ with ‘Look Up to America.’ We’ve rebuilt our defense; and, of all our accomplishments, none can give us more satisfaction than knowing that our young people are again proud to wear our country’s uniform. “Tonight, then, we are strong. Prosperous. At peace. And we are free. This is the state of our Union.”

Even as Reagan insisted that he would continue to set the political agenda in the final year of his presidency, however, the Democrats who control Congress said the legislative branch would begin to wrest control from him.

“We are looking ahead,” said Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), the third-ranking member of the House Democratic leadership. “Ronald Reagan is not a part of the future. He’s part of the past. The agenda-setting will be done by members of his party and our party in the Congress.”

Support Cited

Congressional Republicans, by contrast, argued that the President retains his influence. “This isn’t the time yet to sing any swan song,” said House Republican leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.). “We (Republicans) can sustain the President’s veto on almost anything. I think he’s still got a whale of a lot of support out there.”

Monday marked the first meeting of Congress since the tumultuous close to its 1987 session, when, just days before Christmas, it packed $600 billion into a single bill to operate the government through the fiscal year that had begun nearly three months earlier.

“Congress shouldn’t send another one of these,” Reagan said in his speech. “And if you do, I will not sign it.”

“Let’s change all this,” he said. “Instead of a presidential budget that gets discarded and a congressional budget resolution that is not enforced, why not a simple partnership, a joint agreement that sets out the spending priorities within the available revenues?”

‘Footrace With Santa’

He added: “Let’s remember our deadline is Oct. 1, not Christmas; let’s get the people’s work done in time to avoid a footrace with Santa Claus.”

The President complained of some items “tucked away behind a little comma here and there” in the giant spending bill--millions for the study of crawfish and for cranberry research, for example.

He promised to propose legislation to cancel the spending for these items--items he said he would have vetoed if Congress had given him the authority he has long sought to veto individual items in appropriations bills.

But he jokingly declared one spending provision off limits--$500,000 “so that people from developing nations could come here to watch Congress at work.

“I won’t even touch that,” he cracked.

Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey) said that Reagan “may have caught the right mood in Congress” on the need for budget reform. “I think there’s a growing feeling in Congress of resentment about how that process is used and abused.”

But another Californian, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), argued that Reagan himself abused the process by refusing to negotiate with Congress over the budget last year until the October stock market crash triggered a national demand for deficit reduction. “No wonder the budget was late,” Berman said.

Previous Addresses

Much of Reagan’s address represented a collection of issues he has brought up for years--on the campaign trail when he sought the presidency in 1980, in previous addresses to Congress and on the stump for fellow Republicans:

In addition to the line-item veto, he also called for a constitutional amendment that would require a balanced budget. Reagan, who promised during his 1980 presidential campaign to balance the budget by the middle of his first term, has instead presided over record deficits that reached as high as $220 billion.

As he has in the past, the President encouraged passage of a constitutional amendment banning abortions, except where the life of the mother is threatened, and he urged Congress to restore prayer in the public schools.

Claims ‘Turnabout’

In the arena of foreign policy, Reagan claimed that since 1981 his Administration had led “a complete turnabout, a revolution.”

In Nicaragua, he claimed, “the Sandinista regime knows that the tide is turning, and the cause of Nicaraguan freedom is riding at its crest.”

In Afghanistan, he said, the United States continues to support the guerrillas and would agree to no settlement unless all Soviet troops are removed and the Afghan people are allowed genuine self-determination.

In Cambodia and Angola, he added, U.S.-backed “freedom fighters . . . are fighting and dying for the same democratic liberties we hold sacred.”

Backs Missile Pact

Reagan cited last year’s agreement with the Soviet Union to ban medium-range nuclear missiles as “historic because it reduces nuclear arms and establishes the most stringent verification regime in arms control history, including several forms of short-notice, on-site inspection.” He urged the Senate to ratify the treaty, which he formally submitted to Congress on Monday.

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), a longtime arms control proponent, noted the vigorous applause that greeted Reagan’s appeal and said: “I was delighted.”

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said that 1988 would be “a pretty good year” for Reagan if he could gain Senate ratification of the treaty.

The President held out the prospect that continuing arms control negotiations in Geneva would provide “an even more significant” accord to cut by half the long-range nuclear missiles that are at the heart of the superpowers’ offensive arsenals.

Calling for continued support for his Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly called “Star Wars,” he said:

“Strategic defenses that threaten no one could offer the world a safer, more stable basis for deterrence. We must also remember that SDI is also our insurance policy against a nuclear accident--a Chernobyl of the sky--or an accidental launch or some madman who might come along.”

Chernobyl, a Soviet city, was the site in 1986 of the world’s worst nuclear power plant disaster.

Legislative Message

Accompanying the President’s speech was a lengthier legislative message outlining specific programs he intends to pursue during the coming year, including anti-drug efforts, education programs and a proposal to trim the tax on capital gains from investments.

A senior Administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that it remains undetermined whether specific legislation would be sent to Congress on the tax. “It is a goal, not a specific proposal,” he said.

On education, the President said that spending soared and test scores fell in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, he maintained, “we replaced an obsession with dollars with a commitment to quality, and test scores started back up.”

As part of the Administration’s program for its last year in office, Reagan is seeking to boost “magnet school” programs intended to offer concentrated programs that draw students from a wide geographical area who are interested in studying specific subjects.

Reagan also urged the nation to fight efforts to erect barriers to trade. Supporters of trade legislation opposed by Reagan maintain that new tariffs are required to keep lower-priced foreign goods, produced by lower-paid labor or with foreign government subsidies, from crowding American-produced goods out of the marketplace.

“We should always remember: protectionism is destructionism,” the President said. “America’s jobs, America’s growth, America’s future depend on trade--trade that is free, open and fair.”

Staff writers David Lauter and Melissa Healy contributed to this story.