 Mark from outside the door, they're all well lighted when the rights set. Next week I'll be leaving for important summit meetings in Europe with America's allies and trading partners. One major concern we know they'll raise is the high level of interest rates in the United States. We share their concern. The key to bringing interest rates down and keeping them down is a commitment by this government to get spending under control once and for all. It's the most important that I be able to communicate this commitment to our allies. I want to tell them that the United States is not just talking about reducing deficits, we're doing something about them. Last week the Senate took an important step in that direction. It passed a budget resolution with deficit reduction measures totaling $358 million. As I said over the weekend, the resolution isn't perfect, it won't lead us into the promised land. But the next key thing is it will take us further down the road that we began last year. Now we look to the House of Representatives for courage and leadership as we enter a crucial week of budget deliberations. Many variations will be discussed, but the final vote in the House may boil down to two main alternatives, the bipartisan recovery budget or the coalition budget proposed with the liberal democratic leadership. There are three key advantages to the bipartisan budget. It keeps taxes down and does not break faith with American families by seeking new tax increases that would destroy the recovery. It makes savings on defense while still preserving our security so we can maintain peace through strength. And it contains a real determination to begin holding down spending on the so-called uncontrollables. Over the weekend I made several calls to congressmen, I'll be making more in the next few days, and I'm encouraged by my conversations. I believe the bipartisan recovery budget has a fighting chance to win if responsible members of the House will rally to support it. Mr. President, I'd like to ask a question about the problems that have grown up about two cabinet members. One, what is your reaction to these stories about the large tax write-offs that William French Smith has enjoyed? Do you think those stories are embarrassing to the administration? And secondly, regarding Secretary Donovan, are you concerned that the problems that have grown up between him and the Republican members of the Senate Labor Committee will mean permanent damage to relations to the Hill if he remains in office? Well, it's very difficult for me taking the last one first to comment on that because it is now in the hands of a special prosecutor as Secretary Donovan himself requested some time ago. And so there isn't much that I can say in commenting on that. But nothing I've heard has reduced my confidence in Secretary Donovan. In regard to the Attorney General's problems there, I don't think the point's been made by anyone that the so-called tax shelters are things passed by Congress to encourage investment or speculation in certain undertakings. And a tax shelter is only a shelter if you lose your investment. You actually enter it with the hope or the prospect that you earn additional money from that investment, in which case you'd earn or owe additional tax. So and the fact is that like so many others who've gone into government service, as I understand it, this was done by someone that the Attorney General trusts to handle whatever investments he might have. Mr. President, now that the British troops are on the ground, in the Falklands, in numbers by the thousands, what should the British objective be? Well, I think the objective, I can't speak for military strategy or what they might have in mind with that. But I think the objective still is to bring this to a point where it can be resolved peacefully and without any further loss of life. And I'm sure that this is probably what is going to guide their strategy and what they're doing. But won't that affect their military strategy on the ground? Well, as I was saying, I think that this must be involved in whatever strategy is chosen by them. And I don't know what that strategy is. How much military support is the United States prepared to give for Britain if we're called on? Well, we're not thinking of military support in the sense of troops or anything involved in the fighting. There are certain agreements that we have. There are no new agreements that have come out of this at all. There are certain bilateral agreements and our relationship in the North Atlantic Alliance that we fulfill regardless of what's going on there. But nothing new has come out of this. Because what did you hear from President Grayson if his letter increased the chances of a summit? Do you have anything in that connection? Where are we going now? Well, it simply was a letter that expressed his willingness to meet. And that's about all that I can comment on. I'm delighted to get that. And I can't comment in on further details and communication. Well, do you think there is a chance there'll be a summit this year? There was no reference as to timing other than the general terms that we're going to yield as soon as we could. We'd do it. And we're ready. Mr. President, to follow up on Helen's question, you used to speak of dealing with the Soviets in terms of linkage. And they still remain in Afghanistan. Of course, they're present in Poland, and you've called that an outrage. Why now this emphasis on start talks? What have the Soviets done to make you want to deal with them? Well, the start talks are based on reducing the danger to the whole world to both sides. And I talked for months during the campaign about this, about trying to arrive not at the so-called limitation talks, but at actual and outright reductions of weapons. Now, this does not outlaw discussing these other things that are causing tensions between us and between them and the Western world at those talks. But I don't think that those are things that you headline and blatantly advertise that you're going to go there and demand this or that, because I think when you do that, you foreclose the possibility of doing any of those things. Mr. President, on the Falklands, where you're going to Europe, as you say, for this meeting of various European ally leaders, is it possible that with the Falklands heating up, you might be considering some changes in your plans to perhaps curtail or eliminate your visit to England? I haven't seen anything as yet that would suggest that. Obviously, if something unforeseen happens, we would have to consider whether we should go or not. But no, I see no reason not to. I wonder if, Mr. President, you've said you want to show the European allies, Mr. President. Some direction on interest rates, five former parliament secretaries, treasury secretaries, and former commerce secretary from two parties, several administrations, have suggested much deeper defense cuts and much bigger tax increases than you have been raising them for. Don't you think that this administration has not shown a critical commitment to really reduce the deficit in some of these key areas? I had only had a chance to read one wire story with regard to who came off the line about the interviews with those various former secretaries. I'm gratified by one thing that they support in general the approach that we have taken, that it must be based on reduced cost of government, reduced spending. And we may differ on some details or amounts or percentages with them. In general, we are in that agreement. But let me point out that what is being discussed, even with the bill that we would support in the House today and the measure that the Senate managed to pass, all of those are much lower in total spending cuts than we had advocated in February. But, sir, just to follow up, what they are saying is that by putting certain things off limits, that the security of some big defense cuts and big tax increases, such as windfall profits tax or natural gas or other oil and gas tax increases, that you have eliminated the real possibility of doing something about interest rates? Well, I don't think they quite understand all this been going on. And we do all to respect it, too, gentlemen. They're not in a position now where they have access, for example, in discussing defense budgets, to all the information that is necessary to make the decisions. We have agreed to cuts providing they will not have us retreat from what we feel is the minimum necessity for restoring our national security. And as I say, they don't have that information. Maybe if they did, that they would see our point in what it is we're asking for. Mr. President, some members of Congress say that there are so many divisions in the House over the budget that there is a danger that the House wouldn't wind up in the deadlock and not pass any budget at all. In view of the fact that Speaker O'Neill and the Democrats have a majority there, who would be a blame if there was any effort by the House not to have any budget at all? Well, I think you more or less answered your own question, yourself, as to who would be to blame. I just have to believe that there is no responsibility in the House than that. And I think that we will have. And I do believe that the bipartisan bill, which preserves or calls for 87% of the, wait a minute. No, it preserves 87% of the tax cuts that we wanted for our people. And it gets 75% of what we asked for in February in budget cuts. So we can support that. Mr. President, let's talk of the sum. The reason of the fact that the President has a now, there's little prospect there that there will be a summit? Well, I wouldn't feel it. I've never had any, you know, reading from the communication from President Brezhnev that he was not looking forward. And he publicly has made statements to that effect, also. To go ahead with the Soviet's question, on Friday, your administration released a new national security policy that may interpret it as being kind of a return to the Cold War. Over the weekend, there were reports of maybe increased grain sales to the Soviets. How would you today describe your administration's relationship to the Soviet Union? I think it's a very realistic relationship. We are, we know that there is an adversary relationship there that has been brought about by the Soviet's policy of expansion, expansionism. And we're not so naivest. We ignore that and any dealings that we have. And yet, at the same time, we ourselves are proposing such things as arms reductions and trying to improve the chances for peace in the world, reduce the possibility of war. And, um... Is it warming or cooling your relationship? I wouldn't know whether I could apply either one of those words to it. It is just that we are willing, realistically, to sit down with the Soviet Union and try to eliminate some of the friction points that are there. But basically, the primary problem today is reducing the store of nuclear arms that are threatened to peace of mind, certainly, of all the people in the world and that do pose a threat to all of us physically. Mr. President, you said today that you have broken a promise that you made before the joint session of Congress on February 18, 1981. You said Medicare will not be cut, yet the bipartisan budget which you support calls for cuts in Medicare of some $23 billion over three years, $5 billion and 83 alone. How did that square, and how do you respond to the speaker that you've broken the promise? Should be the last question, please. Mary says, this is the last question. Well, where were you a minute ago? I can answer that in about three phases. And the first one is, how would I respond to the speaker about that? I think it is very obvious after last year and this year that the speaker is obsessed with the idea of trying to create a social security issue for the coming election. And I think that's pretty irresponsible with the program now, that it's actuarially out of balance, that as we pointed out a year ago, it's going to be unable to get through the 1983 year unless something is done about that program. The proposed cuts in the bipartisan plan in Medicare are almost entirely aimed at limitations on the providers of healthcare, not a reduction of services for the beneficiaries and reset needs of social security. That's the, those are the two. The third one is this, even this talk in the budget, in a way I find, I hope that they don't waste too much time debating it because with the speaker's cooperation, we have a bipartisan task force that has been at work for months and is to report in in December with a plan for solving both the shortened long range problems of social security. And the only thing that I have said in my own mind with regard to that plan and that I have said to those representatives that I have put into the task force is that it must not undercut or pull the rug out from under the people who are presently dependent on social security. They must be assured that they are going to continue to get their benefits. But there are any number of ways that that task force can go based on the future of social security for people presently paying into the program who are not yet retired that can meet the financial problems. Indeed, the plan that we proposed last year could have done that and even reduced the two built-in increases in payroll tax that are still hanging over the workers of America today. So to make an issue out of this, when this task force is waiting its report and he's appointed his own representatives to that task force too, I think is just again sheer political demagogue. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You've just made it. Thank you. I heard a boss. I'll do the job. Thank you for your question. Thank you. You can have the seat. Yeah, I don't want to tell you something. I just got back from the field. Oh. Oh. Oh. It's great. I'm just crazy going on back to communication with Dave at Capitol Hill. People all over at the time, But the providers of the hospitals, the hospitals, they say 75% of them will go broke, and they say, well, then have to ration what people they take care of, and then once they cut out, and if the old people will not get admitted last door, the old people will die. And what's the answer to that? You said you were the free man, and you didn't come back on all the fees. That's right. I can't answer a question. He just shut me off, but I would say that all of you have the means to reduce the fears of the social security recipients, fears that have been aroused by the demagoguery from those guys on the hill.