The 1985 State of the Union address

State of the Union Address

The State of the Union is an annual address presented by the President of the United States to the United States Congress. The address not only reports on the condition of the nation but also allows the president to outline his legislative agenda and his national priorities.The practice arises...

was given by President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 to a joint session

Joint session of the United States Congress

Joint sessions of the United States Congress are the gatherings together of both houses of the United States Congress...

 of the 99th United States Congress

99th United States Congress

The Ninety-ninth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1985 to January 3, 1987, during the fifth and sixth...

 on February 6, 1985. The speech was the first State of the Union address of President Reagan's second term as president.

The president proclaimed the Reagan Doctrine

Reagan Doctrine

The Reagan Doctrine was a strategy orchestrated and implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration to oppose the global influence of the Soviet Union during the final years of the Cold War...

 and discussed taxes, reducing the federal deficit and the Strategic Defense Initiative

Strategic Defense Initiative

The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...

, among other things.

The speech lasted approximately 40 minutes and consisted of 4,955 words. The address was broadcast live on radio and television.

The Democratic Party

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 response

Democratic response to the State of the Union address

The Democratic response to the State of the Union address, sometimes referred to simply as the Democratic response, is a rebuttal speech, often brief, delivered by a representative of the Democratic Party following a presidential State of the Union address when the president is a Republican...

 was delivered by Governor Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 of Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

, Governor Bob Graham

Bob Graham

Daniel Robert "Bob" Graham is an American politician. He was the 38th Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senator from that state from 1987 to 2005...

 of Florida and House Speaker Tip O'Neill

Tip O'Neill

Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. was an American politician. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts...

.

Malcolm Baldrige

Malcolm Baldrige, Jr.

Howard Malcolm "Mac" Baldrige, Jr. was the 26th United States Secretary of Commerce. He was the son of H. Malcolm Baldrige, a Congressman from Nebraska, and the brother of Letitia Baldrige....

, the Secretary of Commerce

United States Secretary of Commerce

The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...

, served as the designated survivor

Designated survivor

A designated survivor is a member of the United States Cabinet who is appointed to be at a physically distant, secure, and undisclosed location when the president and the country's other top leaders are gathered at a single location, such as during State of the Union addresses and presidential...

.

External links

• http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=38069(full transcript), The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara
  University of California, Santa Barbara
  The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
  
  .]
• http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/5681(full video), Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia
  University of Virginia
  The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
  
  .]