 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, accompanied by Mr. Cliff Peterson. As I look out on all this, as I gaze out on the Dictaphone Melbourne picnic, I've decided that for job security purposes I better do some explaining. As you know, Mark Braslowski, my boss, has not been to a Dictaphone Melbourne picnic before. So Mark, I want to assure you, we don't go to this kind of extravagance all the time. I appreciate all of you joining us today, a day that we celebrate some of our accomplishments over the last few years. It's most certainly an extra special day, as I've just had the pleasure of touring our facility with the President of the United States. We met many members of our staff, looked at products that we of Dictaphone believe are the finest multi-channel recorders, the finest dictation systems that are manufactured in the world today. We saw our Thought Tank assembly line, I specifically demonstrated to the President, our recently introduced Digital Express, a digital dictation system that we're very, very proud of. Both systems have as their primary purpose the improvement in productivity of its user, a theme that we of manufacturing have believed in for a long time. We also reviewed our Automated Assembly Department, our printed circuit board Automated Assembly. Most significant is our capability in the surface mount assembly area. We perceive that these capabilities will allow us to continue to sustain our record of no increase in product cost since 1982. Now on behalf of Mark Breselowski, the President of Dictaphone Corporation, myself, and all of our manufacturing staff, you, our friends, and our families, I'm honored to introduce the President of the United States. Thank you all. Thank you all very much, and I want to give special thanks to Mark Breselowski and Cliff Peterson for inviting me down here for this tour. It's a pleasure to be in the district of Congressman Bill Nelson and the state of Bob Martinez, a rising star in the Republican Party of whom we're all very proud. And I'm especially happy to be here because I hear that Dictaphone is celebrating its 100th anniversary next year. And I'm always glad to be addressing something that's older than I am. Speaking of venerable institutions, Cliff introduced me to an employee named Evelyn Boot, who is 72 years old and has been working here since a year after the plant opened. And I just want to say congratulations, Evelyn. I've got a few years on you. I'm a little older than that myself, but you have one advantage. My job has a mandatory retirement clause. You know, back before I got my present job, I worked on a television program for eight years that was called the GE Theater, General Electric Theater. And I would spend about 10 or 12 weeks every year as part of the job traveling around the country and visiting the workers in the some 139 GE plants. And I saw then, as I've seen here today, the real source of economic growth and productivity. It won't be found in government or in some bureaucracy. It's America's workers and entrepreneurs and companies like yours that are making it happen. And boy is it happening. America has created over 13 million new jobs in the last four and a half years. That's an average of 250,000 jobs a month. And that's an astounding fact. Meanwhile, America's manufacturing productivity is shooting ahead at the fastest rate in 20 years. And in 1986, we outstripped our international competition. Together with tax cuts and solid economic growth, that means rising take-home pay for America's families. The Europeans talk enviously of what they call, to my face, they have called it, the American miracle. Well, I've seen an example of that miracle here today, a company where the entire staff has worked together as a team to create an impressive 70 percent increase in productivity in the last four years. Harnessing the latest technology, you've kept product costs down, boosted sales at home, and stayed competitive abroad. And in the process, this plant has been able to literally double its manufacturing jobs. Building employment, surging productivity, increasing competitiveness, a team spirit, and shared goals, you've got a miracle of your own going right here, and something that you can all be very proud of. But this miracle, all you've worked so hard to accomplish, all America has worked so hard to accomplish in the last six and a half years, all of this is now in jeopardy. I've got something to say and I'm going to use plain language. I'm not going to pull any punches. There are some people up in Washington who seem determined to destroy our economic expansion and send us right back into the malaise, as they called it themselves then, and the stagflation of the 1970s. There are two dangers looming ahead. One is the trade bill passed by the House recently. It can only be described as anti-jobs, anti-growth, and anti-consumer. And the Senate will soon be taking up their own trade legislation. It's essential they go the positive route, with a bill that opens markets rather than shutting them down, a bill that is pro-jobs, pro-growth, pro-consumer, in a word, pro-trade. The second danger confronting us will sound familiar, an old-time deficit spending. Some in the Congress are reverting to their old habits of tax and tax and spend and spend, and I have one member of the Congress with me who's not one of those I'm just talking about. He's on the other side, our side. Those others are squandering your hard-earned money on politically motivated spending projects and special interest payoffs. And to pay for it, they're proposing to saddle you, the American people, with a bill for an extra $100 billion in taxes over the next four years. Well, I say no way. No way are the American people going to be made to foot the bill for the tax and spend crew on Capitol Hill. Now, I have to tell you, some in Congress are standing against this tax tide. When I visited the Republican senators last week, they gave me a giant veto pencil, especially designed to take care of tax hikes. I'm keeping that pencil at the ready in my desk, and believe me, any tax hike bill that makes it into the Oval Office won't make it out alive. So the tax and spend crew might as well just face the facts. There isn't going to be any tax hike in this administration. What there is going to be, what there is going to be is a Capitol Hill cleanup, a radical reform of the budgetary politics that pays for today's excesses with tomorrow's money. That so-called budget process has become an embarrassment to the American way of governing. You wouldn't put up with it in your plant here for a minute and a half. Last week, I addressed the American people and said, we have to put a stop to this kind of thing. We've reached breakpoint, decision time, and that's why I've come to you, the American people. I'm asking for your support to put pressure on Congress, to bring reliability and credibility to the federal budget process. Just as we did with tax reform, we're going to be traveling the country, stumping for fairness for the American people. We got the special interest out of the tax code. Now let's get them out of the budget. Let's demand an economic bill of rights so that Congressional taxing and spending can never again endanger our livelihoods. Let's ensure your right to a free economy, an economy of growth and opportunity for you, your children, and your children's children. Let's make sure that miracles like the one taking place right here will keep happening across America, creating jobs and hope and a better future for all of us. Now what can you do? Well, you can write letters. You'd be surprised how important they are. Well, Nelson can tell you how important they are. Now to some, you should be writing letters telling them to get off the dime and do what they should be doing. But it wouldn't hurt if you wrote some letters of thank you to your congressman here because he is doing what's right and trying to help all of you, and it won't hurt his colleagues to see that kind of mail coming to someone who is doing what's right. But I'm not going to take any more of your time here. I've got another date moving on from here to talk to some others in your city, but I just want to tell you again how wonderful this has been to see you all here and to see what you've been doing. I love all of you and thank you and God bless you. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you, President Reagan, for your kind words. We're determined to continue the record of accomplishments that you refer to. I'd like to say, however, that manufacturing here in Melbourne and here at Dictaphone doesn't do it by itself. We wouldn't succeed without the similarly outstanding performance of our marketing and sales organization, our field service organization, and our product development group. Domestically and internationally, as a team, we've been successful in serving our customers. We've been around for some years since 1888, and Mr. President, we intend to be around for a long time to come. We'd like to give you something to remember this occasion, something that reflects that which we believe is the primary reason for our success. While we agree that state-of-the-art design and process technology is important, we maintain that the primary reason for our success is people, our staff. Each of them loyal, hardworking, technically capable. We've tried to provide an environment that allows those capabilities to surface and to prosper. An open, honest, help people grow, respect everyone environment. Is this some fancy imported philosophy? No way. It's the tradition that made in the USA values, the traditional made in the USA values, that have made us successful in years past. And I assure you it works today. Each of us has signed a plaque as our commitment to keep dictaphone number one and to do our part in assuring that American manufacturing will succeed. Thank you, Mr. President, for joining us today.