In accordance with the Rural Development Policy Act of 1980, I am submitting to the Congress the Administration's rural development strategy. In devising the strategy, the special needs of rural America—its people, its economic potential, its social and physical requirements, its governmental systems, its family farms, and its environmental and natural resources—were taken into account, also mandated by the Congress. We believe that by restoring authority to the people who must deal directly with these problems, providing them with improved means of Federal assistance, and helping them stimulate the rural economy and the increased public resources such economic growth can generate, the various "categorical" problems of rural America—health, housing, education, and the like—can be more effectively and efficiently solved.
