 Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. You know, in a business I used to be in, reception like that, you figure anything I say can't equal that, I might as well go. Well, thank you all. The question is tough. Well, it's a real pleasure to see the whole team gathered together here. Some of you have been here from the beginning and some of you have arrived more recently. But I know that whatever the length of time each of you has given you all. And I want you to know that you have my heartfelt gratitude. This is the first opportunity that I've had to speak to all of you since spending a little time in Bethesda. And I want you to know just how much your prayers and support have meant to me and Nancy. We read your Get Well cards together and there were many that we'll always cherish. One of them said, Get Well, Mr. President, and Eat Your Vegetables. Spinach? Another one wrote, Dear Mr. President, I was very concerned to hear that the doctor took two feet out of your inner workings. How did those two feet get in there? Well, believe me, it's good to be up to strength and back at work again. Although the doctors tell me that from now on, there are a few things that I won't be able to stomach like tax hikes. That's an awful one, isn't it? Well, today marks the end of July and the midpoint of summer. It's the time when many in Washington leave town to rest up and prepare for the challenges ahead. Nancy and I will be heading out to the ranch soon. Well, George and Barbara will be spending time at Kennebunk Point. And to those of you who haven't made plans yet to get away, I only advise you to hurry. You see, the way I figured this could be our last real vacation for quite some time. I'm aware that some in this town believe our revolution has passed its high water mark. They seem to have the idea that we completed our major achievements during the first term and that now during the second term we just simply intend to manage the status quo to become just another establishment administration. Well, my friends, there's a very old and serviceable Anglo-Saxon word that describes just exactly how I feel about that point of view. A general in World War II used it at a time when the Germans asked him to surrender. He said, nuts. And I say that about our just sticking with the status quo. The voters elected us to keep the revolution alive. And when we come back in September, you and I and the American people are going to do just that. On the domestic side it'll be up to us to fix the budget process once and for all. Let me, let's be clear about the source of the deficit. It has not, I repeat not, arisen as a result of our tax cuts. On the contrary, government revenues are actually on the increase. 1984, when finally all of our three-year installments of the tax cuts were in place, the federal receipts increased at the lower rates by 11%. That's a healthy gain of 7% even after accounting for inflation. This fiscal year, that remarkable pace is being sustained. Now the deficit problem is a spending problem. Spending without direction or discipline. Spending that in the past 20 years has burgeoned absolutely out of control. In 1966, great society programs cost a total of $16 billion. By 1981, that figure had risen to $148 billion. And today our budget for just the, you might say, the social welfare programs is greater than any other budget in the world for an entire nation except our own. Now, I've often said that government is like that old definition of a baby. It's an enormous appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. So this can't go on. We have good reason to hope that this week Congress will take a first step toward bringing spending under control. And it'll be just that, really a first step. When we return in September, we'll push for a line item veto, press for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and insist upon genuine cuts in domestic spending. And I won't hesitate to use the veto and to take our case to the people again and again. Lately in some meetings with some of our people in the Hill, I've been telling them examples that I first began to learn when I was governor of a state about how some of the best-intentioned programs, government programs, put into effect at great cost, are actually failures and are not achieving their purpose but have led to other things that we just cannot endure and that government should not continue doing. On tax reform, when we come back, we'll redouble our efforts to achieve passage by Christmas. Well, let me interject before I go on with more about tax reform that I should add that I won't hesitate to use the veto and to take our case to the people again and again. Matter of fact, I even sleep now with a pen in my pajama pocket. But on the tax reform, after decades of taxes that are complicated and unjust, the people want a tax code that's fair. And they've already seen what our first tax cuts achieved in revitalizing our economy and setting it firmly on a path of healthy, non-inflationary growth, tax reform is the necessary next step, a measure that will truly return us to the free market principles that made the United States the land of opportunity and the greatest economic power on earth. On tax reform, I think every poll indicates the people are still with us and it'll be up to us to get Washington to get with the country. In foreign policy, I will meet General Secretary Gorbachev in Geneva this November and I want the world to know that in the effort to build a more lasting peace, the United States is willing to pursue any opportunity. I will express to General Secretary Gorbachev the goodwill of our country. It's my abiding hope that he and I will be able to make a fresh start on relations between our two nations. But whatever his intentions, I'm going to make it abundantly clear to him that the United States is united in the cause of united freedom. The second major foreign policy initiative will demand our attention, the Strategic Defense Initiative. Do you mean to know that when the press hangs a tag on something of ours like Star Wars for this particular program? What they do, recently there was a poll taken and the people of this country were asked how they felt about Star Wars. Only 31% approved. In the same poll, they asked the people about the Strategic Defense Initiative and outlined what it contained and how they felt about that. 90% of the people were for it. The same thing that the press keeps calling Star Wars. Now some critics who ignore all that the Soviets have already done in this area claim that our research represents an act of aggression against the Soviets. Mr. Gorbachev may have a word or two to say about that along those lines himself. And yes, I will grant the critics that point if they will agree that putting a roof over your head constitutes an act of aggression against the rain. The Strategic Defense Initiative holds out the hope of making nuclear war obsolete. It could shift forever the world's struggle to the battlefields on which it's always properly belonged and that is the battlefield of ideas. The Strategic Defense Initiative is already well begun and I intend and I hope you'll be with me to work for it tirelessly to see it through. The third major aspect of foreign policy upon which we must focus is our effort to support and build democracy around the world. We must build a community of democracies supporting both with public and private initiatives, the elements of each society that represent the true growth of pluralism, freedom, and human rights. And make no mistake, the United States of America must always support the brave men and women around the world who are fighting for their freedom. As I said this year in my State of the Union address, the United States must assist freedom fighters on every continent from Afghanistan to Nicaragua. And today, there are major anti-communist insurgencies in Africa, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua. In the past two months, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has moved to help all four. The House has voted aid to the freedom fighters in Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua and it's repealed a nine-year-old ban, the Clark Amendment, on aid to the freedom fighters in Angola. As these measures indicate, we are at last proving successful in our efforts to achieve a new bipartisan consensus on foreign policy. In all the long march of human history, 1985 may well be remembered as a turning point. The year that America came together, Republicans and Democrats alike to help freedom fighters around the globe. The freedom tide is rising. Shouldn't we help it gather strength? You know, after a certain day back there, 1981, I sort of had a time to reassess things and as I learned to some of the near miracles that seemed to fall in place in my favor at that time, I decided that whatever time was left to me belonged to someone else. I believe that we've been given this moment in history to alter the course of our country for all time. For the next three and a half years, let us conduct ourselves so that our children and our children's children will say of us that we did all we could do to ensure their freedom and to preserve for them this last best hope of man on earth. You know, I used to say something to a staff in California and I'm going to repeat it here. Every once in a while, you know, the permanent bureaucracy that's been here and knows all the ins and outs and channels, it's easy to get co-opted and somehow to find yourself changing your thinking and maybe forgetting why we came here. When that happens, just keep reminding yourself. When we start talking about government as we instead of they, we've been here too long. Thank you all and God bless you all.