Video: 'Ronald Reagan's State of the Union Address 1986'

(Tuesday, February 4, 1986, 8:04 p.m. EST) — U.S. President Ronald Reagan appealed tonight to Republicans and Democrats to unite in an effort to control Government spending, saying, “It’s time we reduced the Federal budget and left the family budget alone.”

In his annual State of the Union Message to Congress, delayed for a week by the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, Reagan singled out support of the American family as a major theme of the remainder of his second term. He cited the family as the “moral core” of a restoration of the nation’s confidence in the future.