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Turning to domestic issues, the President flatly informed Congress that "our most immediate tasks are here on this Hill." And among those tasks, the U.S.'s first Southern President in 94 years—gave top priority to passage of a civil rights bill. "We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights," he said. "We have talked for 100 years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law. I urge you again, as I did in 1957, and again in 1960, to enact a civil rights law so that we can move forward to eliminate from this nation every trace of discrimination and oppression that is based upon race or color. There could be no greater source of strength to this nation both at home and abroad."
"No More Fitting Act." Next only to civil rights in importance, Johnson said, was the Kennedy Administration's tax-cut bill: "No act of ours could more fittingly continue the work of President Kennedy than the earliest passage of the tax bill for which he fought all this long year. This is a bill designed to increase our national income and our federal revenues, and to provide insurance against recession. That bill, if passed without delay, means more security for those now working and more jobs for those now without them, and more incentive for our economy."
The members of Congress heartily applauded Johnson's pleas—but there was little likelihood that they would dramatically speed up their legislative schedule so as to pass either the civil rights or the tax bill this year. The civil rights measure is presently held by the House Rules Committee, headed by Virginia's Conservative Democrat Howard Smith, faces a certain Southern filibuster when and if it finally reaches the Senate.
But the President is a past master at legislative maneuvering and just might —by supporting a compromise bill—give the Congress a chance to get the civil rights bill behind it before adjournment. The tax-cut bill, which has already passed the House, remains the subject of lengthy hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Virginia's Conservative Democrat Harry Byrd; even after Johnson's speech, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield could promise only that the bill would be first on the agenda for floor debate when the Senate reconvenes next January.
In descending order of importance, President Johnson listed other measures on which he wanted congressional approval — aid to education, pending foreign aid, and several long-delayed appropriations bills. He was all too well aware of the difficulties of getting any sort of action out of the dawdly 1963 Congress. But he insisted: "I believe in the capacity and the ability of Congress, despite the divisions of opinion which characterize our nation, to act, to act wisely, vigorously, and speedily when the need arises. The need is here. The need is now. I ask your help."