Donald Hodel, the Secretary of the Interior, served as the designated survivor.
[1] President Reagan began by announcing that his speech would not be a litany of achievements over the past seven years of his administration, but that he would continue to propose policy initiatives.
Today the federal government has 59 major welfare programs and spends more than $100 billion a year on them.
With the best of intentions, government created a poverty trap that wreaks havoc on the very support system the poor need most to lift themselves out of poverty: the family.In closing he returned to his vision of America as a city on a hill: "We can be proud ... that another generation of Americans has protected and passed on lovingly this place called America, this shining city on a hill, this government of, by, and for the people."
The Democratic Party response was delivered by Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Speaker of the House Jim Wright of Texas.