 Listen, I'm not going to make any remarks other than to tell you how happy we are that you're all here and have this chance to visit. And I know that before we leave, because I haven't been able to say individually, hello to you, all will do that in the other room. And I know that you've been getting some briefings and still have some more to go. So practically, everything I would say might be just re-plowing some ground that's already been plowed. And it just seems to me that maybe a better idea would be to have some dialogue instead of a monologue. And there must have been times, no matter how kind and generous you are with regard to what we're doing here, there must have been times when you have said, if I could ask him, I'd like to... And all right. Mr. President, like everybody here and a majority of Americans, I'm very proud to be part of Ronald Reagan's administration. Sir, perhaps it comes from my own optic, but I do want to ask you a question. As a banker, as someone who's involved with finances, I never thought, and I'm sure that you never thought, if you would live to see the day that Ronald Reagan presented his own proposal for fiscal balance, deficits of the size that you presented. If people ask me those questions, I'm sure there are answers to that. But could you tell me, sir, how can we explain to the American people the seeming incapacity of even the finest president of my lifetime to deal with the pattern of increasing federal deficits? Yes, there are two simple answers to these deficits. In March of 1981, when we first submitted our economic program, according to all the economic counsel and advice and all the projections that we could get, we honestly believed that we could approach a balanced budget by 1984. No one, it seems. No one in the country, including here in Washington, had predicted the falling off the edge of the cliff that took place in July of 81. We knew we'd been in a recession since 1979. Our opponents like to forget that, that there was 21.5% interest rates and 12.4% inflation. It had even reached 14% in those two years when it was back-to-back, that there were already more than 7.5% unemployment and in some of the heavy industry areas, like Steel will I campaigned in 1980 in places like Flint, Michigan where unemployment was 20% then. What explanation could be given for that fall off? It certainly couldn't be attributed to anything in our economic plan because our economic plan didn't get signed into law till August. But I think from the peak of money supply that had built up at the highest rate in history during 1980, when the string was pulled on it and held so long, I think this is what tipped the balance because of the housing industry and everyone else in regard to high interest rates, that we fell into that deeper recession. Now about 50% of the deficit is due to that. It's due to the lost revenue from people who are not earning and paying taxes and to the increase in the number of people who must be helped by way of unemployment insurance and benefits and so forth because certainly we're not going to let them starve. The other half is structural and this is the thing that we've been struggling with for all these almost two and a half years now with the Congress and I must say and bipartisan, Congressman on both sides of this, that programs that have a built-in increase in them, the COLA's cost of living increases and adjustments and so forth, some of the programs they were way above really the cost of living increase. Now both of these things, to try and get at those, you can remember the great scandal when we tried to do something when Social Security was faced with absolute bankruptcy and yet until the 82 election was over they made it a political football and charged that we were trying to throw the old people out into the snow and being an old people myself, I'd resented that. But those have given us this deficit thing. Now our economic program obviously is working and we know now the difference in the signs of recovery that are there. But at the same time, I have to say if we'd gotten all we asked for in budget reductions, the deficit today would be $41 billion less. In other words, we've had to settle for anywhere from 60 or 70 or 80% at any time of what we asked for in reductions. Now some would challenge that the part of the program that was cutting taxes contributed. I don't think so. I think that it's the tax reductions that have been the stimulus that has led to the recovery we're now seeing. The other factor was one that is kind of unjust and that is that we succeeded so much faster in reducing inflation than we thought we would that our revenues were made smaller because of that. And yet I wouldn't have it any other way. It's 12.4 that we started with and then I'll just finish with this. The last six months inflation has been running at less than one half of 1%. And we never dreamed of anything of that kind. So now we're in the battle again to try and get continuation of the economic program. And I have made it plain as I did last night in the press conference that those on the Hill who want to go back to increased spending and who want to cancel some of the tax cuts still to come, the July 1st, last installment, the indexing and so forth, I have taken a stand. I will veto any attempt to increase taxes and I will veto any attempts at breaking the, busting the budget there when the appropriations come down. But it's a frustrating thing because we've had to postpone if we can get what we have asked for as a budget for this year in which no one seems to want to do. It is still a bigger budget. It is last year's budget or this year's budget, the 83-year budget. If we get that for 84, what we asked for was the 83 budget plus 4% increase to cover any inflationary cost. So all of the cuts we've made have been in the area of reducing the projected increase. We've never cut anything back below what they were getting before and yet all over the country we're being held up in view as heartless and unfair and that we have taken these programs away from the people that need them. We've done nothing of the kind. We've simply reduced the rate of increase. But if we could get what we've asked for, we will be on a declining path of deficits in which you can look down the line and see a day when the balance comes. Now, oh, Robert, maybe we'll take two. I'd like to condense all of our wishes that I've heard from David for the last three years, two and a half years. Just do it in some words and hold us out of this. Hang it up, Mr. President. We've got three there, but one of you I knew still. Which one was it? Oh, he has a question. Would you please come forward right away, and go ahead and declare for real action back to back? Well, there are just two reasons why it's too early. One, you automatically become a dead duck. And if it's the other way, then everything you try to do is viewed as political and part of the 84 campaign and therefore since we have to have a consensus to get things done because one house is dominated by the other party, you'd be out the window with that. So we just have to keep him guessing for a while. But I think you were the first one over there at the... Louisiana, and it's a very short and easy question. Now that the Democrats are renaming Reaganomics, because it's working, now that we've gained a high ground in economics, would it be presumptuous, sir, to look for a legislative program, a legislative back program addressed towards the social issues which to this point have not been resolved? This, I can tell you, is what was in the 84 budget that we presented a couple of months ago in March. And what they are resisting on the Hill and already has come out of committee in the House and the Senate is talking about it, of just paying no attention to that budget. But that was, yes, we did address, since we got the compromise and social security and have put that back on a sound basis, we had a program that is addressing what I call the structural part of it, the entitlement programs. And these are the ones that the term when we came here that the Congress used was that these programs were uncontrollable. Well, what they meant by uncontrollable was that they just weren't going to do anything to try and control them. But this is what we're digging in our heels about and yet, you know, the Congress, I can't pass legislation, they can. So that's where the battle lines are joined. I know I'm supposed to go but I'll take one more here. It's a lot more fun than I've had all day. As a Californian in Sacramento, Elk Grove, I know that we have a good educational program in the state of California. Don't you think you can educate the speaker and some of the leaders of the unions and some of these other people that run around and forget how to spell, or speak, if you can do something about it, of course? Well, right now, I'll tell you, we're interested in an educational program, which is wider ranging than that. You know, we've just had a commission do a thorough study of education in the United States because of the declining scores in the college entrance exam that are given and evidently a decline in education. And it's, again, kind of draws a line between the two parties because they came in with a fantastic report. And I spoke of it last night in the press conference there of the lack of discipline, an educational discipline also in our schools, students that are allowed to choose the subjects they'll study and very few mandatory subjects that they have to study. And a lessening, as I said last night, you know, when somebody can get credit for a high school diploma for studying bachelor life, I have a lot more fun waiting until it gets out of school. But the things of that kind that are just astounding to those of us who went to school at an earlier time when the required courses, the compulsory courses were such as to take advantage of the fact that no 14-year-old child starting school knows what he should be studying or he or she should be studying, and someone has to guide them. But immediately one of the candidates for president on the Democratic side upon the release of that report said, I have a program for $11 billion of support to education. Well, that's what's been wrong. And I last night gave the figures. The federal government, in 10 years, went from $760,000 of educational aid, federal aid, to $14.9 billion. And that's still only less than 10% of the cost of education, but the federal government's been using that to get about 50% of the control of education. And we think it's time to give education back to the local school districts where it worked so well for so many years and get the federal government out of it. And you see what you got into. You really asked a question about educating Tip O'Neill and I turned it around and got in a lick for what we want to do. Well, if I start teaching Tip, I don't want to waste it on teaching him to spell. Well, I know that I have to go and this time I'm keeping a National Security Council meeting waiting. So maybe with the Middle East and Central American Home, maybe I'd better get over there and see what's going on in the world. But again, God bless all of you and I go in the other room there, don't I? All right, that way or this way. All right, okay. I'll see you all in the other room.