 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, please. I'm late enough already. I apologize and I thank you for waiting. And just it was momentous affairs of state that make me late. As a matter of fact, they start making me late every day at about 9.20. From then on I'm behind schedule. Well, welcome and I should say welcome back because I know we've met before and this is a wonderful relationship that we have and I bless you and thank you for all that you do. We started out almost three years ago to change some things and take a different path and I think it's beginning to pay off the recent drop in unemployment and these followed others to the point that there are 4 million people, more people working now than we're working a year ago. The fact that real earnings are up 8.9% for this last year. We know about and you know about the inflation rate and all those other things. There are some people that are still trying to tell us that we should return to the practices of the past and that reminds me of my sports announcing days. A young rookie walked the first seven men that he'd faced, rookie pitcher, and Casey Stengel pulled him and the kid came storming into the dugout and says, how do you like that? I had no hitter going and he pulls me. Now I don't think we're that way. I think those people that want us to go the other way are that way. They're the rookies in this particular thing. You know they've said sometimes that if you steal from one person, that's plagiarism. If you steal from ten, that's research. And I'm trying to remember what the one is if you steal from a hundred. Oh, that's scholarship. Well, I've never really aspired to be a scholar but I'll steal from anyone that's got some ideas that'll help us keep on with what we're doing here. Now I'm not going to go on talking more about the things that we've done. You know the efforts that we've made to return authority and autonomy back to other levels of government and get them out of the federal bureaucracy here. And just the other day we had a management meeting and a report from some of our inspector generals and our management personnel. Things that we've done with regard to regulations with regard to federal publications. And it was pretty wonderful. We have cut the thousands of federal publications in half. That's a savings of probably more than a billion pages a year. And I realize there'll be great distress throughout the country. A lot of people are going to get along without such publications and booklets as how to buy eggs. A few things like that. But we figured that in these hard times we could eliminate those and have. But I know we're here for a dialogue instead of a monologue. So now that I'm backed up with some fellas I can refer to if you ask too tough a question why don't we get to the dialogue? Yes. As the national chairman of this organization we'd like to express to you our deep appreciation for the post-cooperation your administration has maintained with those of us in recognition that there is some folks out there in state government who might know something that would be helpful now on that. May I ask you, Mr. President, those of us who are have been encouraging further new federalism and return of the power to the states. One of those incentives was to return more of the power of education back to the states. And certainly your excellence in education campaign has been a new breath of life on the scene. When can we look forward to not having a federal department of education and more power? Well, I'm safe in saying this when we have a secretary of education himself who wants to eliminate the department. The plain simple truth is we haven't been able to get our leaders in the Congress on our own side as well as our opponents to get them to eliminate that or the other department, the Department of Energy, both of which we set out to do away with. They created those departments and we just have not been able to get them to move and it requires legislation in order to do that. Both departments, I think, have wherever they could administratively brought themselves down to those functions that could be justified as being federal. But that is still our goal and so far we just haven't been able to make it. I'm glad you said that and said the things that you said about us and education because last night I was watching on the C-SPAN channel and they had a representative of the National Education Association and she was talking about some of the problems and so forth and stressing the need, the great need that it was all a phony as far as we were concerned because unless we came up with a lot more money and so forth and took more interest in this at the federal level well federal aid to education as many of you know has never been more than 8% of the total cost of education. But the trouble was in the past the government, the federal government has tried to take about 40% of the control and management for its 8% of contribution I can't believe that increasing 8% by a fraction is going to make that much difference fortunately on the same channel they later had some educators that said that money wasn't the problem well one fellow was talking about the ratio of teachers to students but that ratio happens to have been that we've about cut in half the ratio of students per teacher in this country over recent years and we still have some of our problems so there must be other directions to look but I've been very excited since our commission came in with what just from the report of the commission what has begun to happen all over the country schools that have turned around school districts states themselves that have changed their curriculum their requirements for graduation and so forth it's been very inspiring and I think it proves just what you've indicated if you get control back there where it belongs at the state and the local levels and less outside interference but then I've always suspected that the national education institution over there has in fact they have voiced at times among themselves their goal they dream of a federal school system they don't like it the way it is they want a national school system well I think little Willie's mother should be able to go see the principal and not have to write to her congressman Mr. President John Rockler, New Jersey had the privilege to second your nomination at the convention looking forward to it again I won't answer that you have an assessment at this time on the block grant program as you view it it's been successful yes you could probably answer that better than I can I believe it has the fact that with the block grant program we get rid of a lot of the strings and the red tape attached to it and give you more leeway out at the state and the local level in using those funds I would like to see it expanded to where that's the way it was I think that over the years the federal government not only usurped a lot of the functions but it usurped then the revenues and left local and state government kind of strapped as to where they could turn for their revenues so they had to turn to the federal government for grants it would be a lot better if one day we could turn back the sources of revenue and turn back with it the responsibility for these things that properly belong at the state and local level for management and we're going to keep on trying to do that Mr. President, I'm Frank Nessus from West Palm Beach, Florida I bring you greetings by the way for the new year from Gladdy Prescott a longtime friend of mine in Europe also I represent a large agricultural area Mr. President and the Caribbean Basin initiative hasn't been duper scared out of us but we're holding hands with you in Washington to come along but we're also a little bit scared now of the quarantine 37 although it's not as broad an issue as some of the others it's vital to the agriculture interests of Florida and I'd just like like you to think more about that quarantine 37 as far as legitimate and many of all those agricultural parks come into the United States particularly in Florida why isn't Jack Block here I think you're asking me for one where I don't have some technical answers there but I know that with the Caribbean initiative we intend to run that in a way that is not going to be allowed to be detrimental to us so and did you? Yes I'm Representative Martha Clymouth of the Maryland General Assembly Mr. President we have two more states to come in to call Congress to have a federally balanced budget I would like to know what your administration's position is for the initiative of the states to do that we would welcome that yes we've just been having a meeting earlier in the day on that very subject we have to have that 43 states have it 43 states have line item veto and I'm going to be making a lot of noise in this coming year about the necessity for line item veto we're not going to get control of the budget until we do now we want to get control of the deficits but we don't want to accept some of the recommendations today that under the guise of reducing the deficits would undercut and turn around the economic recovery that we presently have in my view deficits are caused because the federal government is taking too big a percentage out of the private sector and to take more money out of the private sector in order to allow government to stay that same size is not the answer to the deficit the answer to the deficit is to reduce the federal government's share that it is taking from that private sector there's a lot of room in which we can do that and if those other two states would come along and pass that there are a lot of us up here on the platform be very happy Mr. President my name is Larry Dixon I'm from the Alabama Senate I think most of the people in the room realize that one of the reasons your programs have been so successful is because you've been able to take the offense in a Republican controlled the coming elections will see that balance of power or that control possibly slip away if we're not successful in re-electing some of those Republican senators do you as an individual or does the White House have plans to help those senators be re-elected so you can continue to take the offense instead of being put on the defense with a democratic control yes we do because we couldn't have achieved anything that we've achieved in this line of recovery had we not had control of that one house that has meant all the difference and if you could figure out a way for us to get control of both houses you realize that since one of the last 50 years there had been only four years in which a president there was a Republican majority in both houses of the Congress four out of 50 and then there's been an additional three in which we've had this one house but the other 43 years have been the other party running it and last night when I heard Mr. Mondale call the deficit my deficit I do not find any place in the Constitution that authorizes the president of the United States to spend a dime it is all dictated by Congress and the deficits today would be 40 billion dollars less if we had gotten all the spending cuts we've asked for from Congress yes ma'am you Mr. President Judy Patty from the Arkansas House of Representatives and your 76th Arkansas state campaign chairman the what I am hearing from the heartland and the sunbelt is when your administration said there is a limit to how much abuse the United States will take from the United Nations there was a great cry of approval that went out from Main Street if not necessarily from the rest of the country and I just wanted you to know that we approve of that and would like to see some more of it and congratulate you on taking some harsh stands well thank you very much we've you might be interested to know that early on and long before this latest move that we've made we talked about doing that when we first came here because we were aware of the shortcomings of that particular program UNESCO and then decided that no now that we were here maybe it would be more fitting for us to try and make some changes in that and now we've had to confess we haven't been able to make the changes and so we're taking a walk but Gene Kirkpatrick God bless her one once early on in the campaign and she and I had had some talks about what to do there and suddenly on the in the General Assembly they took us on again and some countries hit us over the head and Gene just wrote 27 letters to the representatives of 27 countries supposedly friendly to us and somewhat dependent on us and suggested that what they were doing was not exactly right and she had 27 visitors over the next few days that dropped in to see her and to talk things over she's done quite a job yes thank you Mr. President Senator Roger Keats from Illinois I want to throw out an idea as an example you're pushing with the new federalism and the balanced budget problems sometimes it's hard to tell who in congress who's helping you and who's not is there any way in the world which might be aiming at league a little bit but you can get back to those of us who control the precinct and send you this congressman exactly who's really helping you and who's not because if 50 states can balance the budgets we find it hard to believe this congress can't and if we knew who were your real opposition sometimes we could do a real well we could have a friendly talk at home there ought to be a way for you to get that to us and I just wanted to throw the idea out to you thank you I think it's a good idea yes because it's I think one of the things is most people go about their business as you know doing their daily tasks and they're not like us in Washington reading the Washington Post every day they don't keep track of what government's doing so it's very easy for some individuals to go home and speak to the local rotary club and talk about what they're doing and they can go back to Washington with no one checking to find out that what they said they were doing doesn't match what they're doing when it comes time to raise their hands so that's a good idea I was just told can I take one more? then I'm done Mr. President I'm Bill McPhee from Tennessee where we will tomorrow begin consideration of a lot of your education proposals my question sir is to you being associated with the health care industry as I am and private life some of your thoughts on and your administration in the coming year of helping control or keep down or slow down the cost of health care I didn't hear all of that the cost of health care your plan sir any thoughts you might have that I don't think we can stop the rise but maybe slow it down a little bit in the future this there's no question about this problem and maybe you might be interested in where and how some of this came about from 1952 to 1978 1952 in medical care in hospitals in the United States there was 8400s of one person employee for every patient today there are more than three employees for every patient in the hospital which has to be one of the contributing factors to this I have to believe also that government had a part in this once upon a time it was standard medical practice that a doctor he knew he only had one quality of service this patient can't pay as much they'll only give him half service so as we all know the doctor sat you down and you went in for an operation or something and discussed with you your own financial situation and his fee was fixed according to your ability to pay and some paid a lot more but that same doctor also had some people in the books who never were charged a dime and it was a case of this person paying more knew that it was in this way that the doctor could treat those other patients that couldn't afford that when government entered the whole field as we have you could understand where a doctor said well ok this is my fee if the government's going to pay it and so that other system disappeared and a fee was set at the same time without using sharing without having the individual patient have to pay some percentage of that there was no limit to over-utilization and obviously there were people that if they were in a hospital you know for most of us when you're in that hospital and you know what the room rate is the first thing you think about in this first question you ask a doctor is when can I go home to these people it was a lot easier to stay there and be waited on and frankly I don't mean that in critical of the doctors it was also easier for the doctor to have them there instead of having to make house calls and he wasn't going to force them to go home and I think that all of this has led to medical cost being several times higher than the rate of inflation over the last decade or so times as fast as all other prices and I think some of that government can play a part and these are discussions that we're having now of things we're going to recommend in the government programs some of them more co-payment and obviously recognizing that there are some people so destitute that no you can't force that on them but where you can getting this even as a way to help restrict I know that some years ago when Britons totally socialized medicine got out of hand that Britain put in a very modest charge that the patient had to pay for going to the doctor and it was a 25% reduction in the utilization of socialized medicine just with that little modest co-payment that they had to make so it we know it is one of the big problems as a matter of fact today and we're dealing with and trying to talk about Medicare because Medicare is in the same situation that until our bipartisan commission got together on Social Security in the same nearing bankruptcy that Social Security was and it has to be something has to be done just for the sake of preserving the program so that it will be there when people need it well I'm sorry that I can't take the rest of the hands and have to go back across the street but again thank you very much for all you're doing and thank you for coming here