 We, Governors, are very grateful to join us here in Cincinnati today in years. We, and immediately, affects our state revenues. It supports our efforts in providing and improving the quality of our programs, such as education and health services. Native procedures. Mr. President, we are pleased and honored to have you join us here in Cincinnati today. Very much and thank you, Governor Sununu, and I know some place here with us are two congressmen who came out with Secretary General will announce today, later today, a ceasefire in the Persian Gulf. First step, it's an affirmation of a policy of strength and commitment. Our forces in the Persian Gulf, those of our allies, have demonstrated that we have the resolve and the staying power in the Gulf, as well as in the Security Council, when it comes to securing peace. Special affection that I appear before the National Governors Association. Seems just like yesterday that I was sitting where you're sitting, and I was talking about the need to get the federal government off the backs of the states. And you two will be, so be content to follow me. And that had proven too much for some Irishman who had scratched underneath the inscription on the stone. To follow you, I am content. I wish I knew which way you went. I hope that history will record that this form those advantages are big advantages. The most modern business consultant has rediscovered a wisdom known to our founding fathers, that the genius of America, whether in governing ourselves or in providing our daily bread, is in the ordinary man and a woman. America's strength and wisdom have never come from the power and cleverness of those on top. You have led. While Washington has been caught up in partisan intrigue, you've gone out and done the job. Almost six years ago, I proposed that America's most depressed areas should receive an extra dose of hope and opportunity. And I asked Congress to enact good enough for so many others, they should be more than good enough for the Congress too. Welfare reform is another field. Welfare reform, that the best way to learn to work is to work. And the best way to get people to work is to make sure they have the incentives to work. Once we gave you the flexibility, you abandoned their recipients from their dependence on the government check. All those programs had one thing in common. They failed. And that's why just over a year ago we said it was time to stop looking for another program from Washington. We said that it was time for one public assistance programs as an integrated system and for using that system to help recipients climb up from dependency. And we said we would approve any state proposal that had a chance of reducing one dependency producing welfare program to another. I believe that the states will find the way truly to help welfare families become independent and productive. And to put them on the ladder of opportunity that we call the receipts have doubled in the last decade. Dollar for dollar a bigger climb than we had in federal revenues. Some of this was because with our 1981 tax cuts with tax reform in 1986 and by restraining some Washington eager beavers we've broadened the tax base of the states. America has created, and forgive me John, it's more now than 17 million, 17 million jobs. And the percentage of the labor force employed this year is the highest not only in our history but in the peacetime history of the industrial world in the last eight years. Some talk about the declining middle class and it turns out come better off. Since 1982 manufacturing production has risen at a faster rate than Japan's. One authority on manufacturing said not long ago that we had become the most competitive manufacturing nation in the world. And in the process have seen the respect and awe of the American economy commands around the world. By the way because you asked for it we've made major revisions in the foreign trade data the federal government collects. Soon you will have better to since 1982 the assets and earnings of the state employee pension fund have nearly tripled. Indiana has made up for what was lost in the stagnation and inflation of the 70s has increased the benefits to its retired state employees in each of the past six years. But pension funds have more than doubled. Guiding the policies that have given America what one economic writer has called the silent boom is the same old as well as modern wisdom that as I said has guided federal state relations in our seven and a half years. Flattening than ever before. Last year total private cash giving cash was over 94 billion dollars. Looking at all this I can't help thinking that while much of the 20th century saw the rise of the federal government the 21st century will be the century of America will remain strong and free the envy of the world. Thank you all and God bless you.