 Let's say that for a second here, we're going to ask if we're having a great big business meeting, we won't say anything important. You hear and thank you for your support of Republican principles and ideals because of your efforts, you actually know this already, support by the Hispanic American community increased from 28% in the 1980 election to 48% in the 1984. I think the Hispanic American community has always understood the importance of family and tradition and its values in our country. And our party has continued to hold the door open for Hispanic Americans who want to feel their sense of patriotism and concern over our country's future is appreciated. Consistent with your commitment to the future of our country is our commitment to economic opportunity and growth and fairness. Our fair share tax plan is designed to give everyone the economic opportunity we feel they deserve. It makes the system fairer, it makes the tax rates lower, the top personal rate will drop from 50 to 35%. The corporations from 46 to 33% of the top capital gains tax will be only 17.5%. The objective particularly of that letter is to create a small business renaissance here in our country. Three, card to the family in our plan, we're providing a long overdue relief by increasing the standard deduction and practically doubling the personal exemption to $2,000 for each dependent. We think it's time the government stopped punishing families and started giving them a hand. And we want with the tax reduction of 81 and the tax plan of 85 to reactivate the economy and improve the quality of life for all Americans. And already based on that 81 tax cut there have been results. Unemployment is now 6.9% and that's the lowest it's been in five years. And we had the most broad-based reduction in poverty and we've had over the last ten years. And I'm pleased to note that the gain among the Hispanics in that same period. The median income for a family has increased in real dollars by 6.8%. And for the rest of Americans, the non-minority section of Americans, that increase has only been 3.3%. Our economy has produced 8 million new jobs since November of 1982 and many of those have gone to Hispanic Americans, I'm sure you know. And at last I want to thank you for your efforts on behalf of our freedom fighters in Nicaragua. I'm going to need your continued efforts on behalf of freedom and opportunity for Central America. We must continue to communicate to the Congress how our adversaries in Central America are serious and our commitment to our principles must never waver. And on all these vital topics, we must continue to speak out. Never underestimate the good that you as concerned citizens can do for our entire nation. Well now that's enough for me as a monologue. We should have a little dialogue here. On behalf of the leadership of the Republican National Assembly and the board that assembled here, both the state chair persons as well as the national board members, elected board members. We want to thank you for your generous invitation to spend these moments with you and to exchange our thoughts with you. There are three areas that we would like to briefly mention to you. One is the entire area of Hispanic business participation in government programs. The other is the area of tax reform which we have supported you consistently from the day you announced your tax reform initiative. The other is our continued support for your policies in Central America. Your support for the freedom fighters in Nicaragua and our continued commitment to you to ensure that that support is there for those people who are trying to free themselves from the slate of the Marxist-Saninista government. I would like to call a couple of our people here. Before I do, I do want to mention a couple of people who have done enormous work for you on your behalf in the past. I hate to say a lot of people, but it's important that I do in this case. Cotaraponseca, CFonseca from New York has been the most active in the year and a half, as has everyone around this room. The other individual is Prof. Franci who heads up the state organization. J.N. next door has done a marvelous job for you in the past. I'll be right behind you here. Now I would like to, if I may just present, just call on Steve Deminger who has been involved in the quest for opportunities for Hispanic business over the years. Well friends of yours who are here, who have been here in cabinet room sessions before, who are exemplary persons in the business world. Good morning Mr. President. Very distinct pleasure to be here. We'll get right to the point since your time is short. We would like to talk to you a little bit this morning about an under-representation of Hispanic businesses in federal contracting. It's a pattern which is pervasive throughout the federal government and we think it needs your attention. Before we go into that though, I'd like to express our collective gratitude for your strong support of minority business over the past five years of your administration. Through those programs, we have the most successful business here today. I'm Leneva from Infotain. This is George Adams from Mobility Systems. And John Marie Allen from Web Tech in South Bronx, who you know, it's a good work over there. John started out ten years ago with sales of less than $100,000 and five people working in one of the worst parts of the United States for the past. He's now a $100 million a year company traded on American Stock Exchange and one of the outstanding examples of what we're trying to be all about, Mr. President, in the field of minority business. Unfortunately, there are still some obstacles. We still find that even today, Mr. President, some high level officials and countless bureaucrats in the federal government still resist your minority business policies. We continue to encounter agencies recently, the Treasury and the Army, for example, which are unresponsive sometimes in the outside world. Another obstacle is the long standing pattern of underrepresentation of Hispanics in federal contracts. Of the $15 billion that SBA awarded over the past ten years to minority firms, 70% went to black owned companies and less than 20% went to Hispanic firms. The shortfall to the Hispanic community, Mr. President, over this decade is about $3 billion. This equates to thousands of contracts foregone and thousands of jobs foretold by the Hispanic community. This represents $3 billion worth of economic development which did not take place in the Hispanic community over the past ten years. Virtually every federal agency refuses to acknowledge the underrepresentation of Hispanics in their contracting program. Mr. Debaca has some figures there which very, very briefly encapsulate the story. The pencil one's right. Mr. President, we cannot overcome these obstacles without your help. We feel we need cabinet double meetings sanctioned by yourself to review the status of Hispanic participation in the procurement program of executive agencies. Under the leadership of Mr. Debaca and other capable Army J officials, these meetings will be designed to sensitize secretaries and their top level staffs to the minority enterprise policies of your administration, to sensitize them to the underrepresentation of Hispanics in the federal contracting programs, and sensitize them to the need to seek out qualified Hispanics for key jobs in their small business and procurement department. Mr. President, we are not asking for any new costly programs for the creation of a new bureaucracy. We are simply asking for your moral leadership. We request that you designate your chief of staff, Mr. Donnery, and oversee this R&C initiative. Thank you, Mr. President, for your time of consideration and such as this extremely important to the Hispanic community. Thank you, and yes, we have, and I have thought that we were moving very well in the idea of trying to, with regard to government contracts and so forth, bring in minority efforts and minority business and so forth. And what you've just told me that evidently is falling short, or you're concerned, and I want to, I do want to know about that. And it just occurred to me, and, Linda, if you could hear in there, if you've got some specific cases or something as examples, get them directly to Linda and have them be directed to me, and we will take this, I don't know what you would be having it. Because I, frankly, some of the facts and things are just generally not the minority efforts. I thought we were moving pretty well. We don't want anyone standing on the sidelines. Because overall, we are doing very well. Continue to be that obfuscation in the car of the department is not wanting to look at the difference in the percentage of the ratio. The ratio has only started to change, Mr. President, since Jim Sanders realized the nature of the problem a couple of years ago, but it is still pervasive. That goes right. When you mentioned bureaucracy. I remember John Kennedy once saying that he would issue an executive order of some kind, and now it would go. And then he said, he kept trying to find out where did it just seep into the sands and disappear. So I know that can happen. Mr. President, I would be remiss if I didn't call on George Adams, who is one of our two national co-chairmen, George lives in Los Angeles, had been very active in the support of the Freedom Finers in Nicaragua, and supported your policy there. And I'd like you to just make a comment. Mr. President, now from California, we're very happy that you're here, but we missed you there. I remember I was here once before during a small business committee, which I used to be the chairman of the California delegation. I will mention about bureaucracy. I believe you say bureaucracy is the biggest business that we have in this country. We are honored to be here with you today to convey our strong support for the efforts to hold this better communism. Some of us come from communist countries, as you probably understand. In Central America and throughout the world, the RNHA strongly support your foreign policy initiatives, particularly with respect to the support you have constantly advocated for the Freedom Finers of Nicaragua. We too support the efforts of the people of Nicaragua to free themselves from the tyranny of the Marxist feminist regime. To demonstrate the strength of our belief, Mr. President, we are sponsoring, as part of our National Leadership Conference, a panel of Central America. We have held rallies to support your policies all over the country, especially in California, Florida, and other parts of Texas and New York. In reaction, too, please. Thank you. We have held rallies to support your policies and plan to mount a vigorous grassroots campaign in support of your policies. Mr. President, please know that we support you and that we love you. Mr. President. Thank you very much, and I'm glad to hear that, because the strides that have been made south of our border, today we can say that about 90% of people in Latin America are living either in democracies or countries that are rapidly attempting that way. But the one source five, and it isn't just localized, they have made it plain that there are no borders to their revolution, as Nicaragua, and it is the foothold on the mainland here, and we must not let them drive. When I was in Europe for the economic summit, I found that many of them were there. I had an impression that, well, there might be a risk that the development of the Sandinista government was drifting toward communism, but they had no idea that it is a totalitarian communist state. You can't go much farther than putting Karl Marx and Lenin on your stamps, and that's the pictures that have been around their postage stamps. So I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. The mayor of Ponce, our other national co-chairman, of Ponce, Puerto Rico, one of the largest cities in Puerto Rico, and a very active supporter of yours in the entire community, basically. Mr. President, it's a great pleasure for me to be here with all of us, together with you in this common effort. We're really proud, as the Spanish, for your stamps regarding Central America. We have shown you, you have it. And we fully support your tax reform. We are a little bit skeptical about the results of Section 936 as to Puerto Rico. And we just wanted to know that we would love to be the example for Latin America, of the American way, for the American influence in Puerto Rico as a Latin American country, and we've been down with all our support, thank you. Mr. President, I am a Cuban American from Maryland. And respectfully, I would like to ask you a question. Do you have, in your agenda, as a top priority, in the Cuban and Nicaraguan situation, when you're talking at the Corba Jal? Very much so. Yes. The nature of that talk has got to be based on that we're to get along. And both of us really want peace and we're certainly to. We have to have more than words. We have to have some deeds to prove that they do mean that they may get along with us. I'm going to try to make that very plain. Mr. President, if I could ask you just a name, you need to get a group photo if I could ask the people on this side of the room just a minute. I just wanted to mention that. Now, Francisco, I'm from Michigan. And I wanted to mention what you did last night. It was the start for a president that dressed in the Hispanic citizens for 30 minutes. It was a fantastic project, Mr. President. And I hope it's on his personal. We need that very badly. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. You know, I know it's kind of weird to believe, but I just want to tell you something. Maybe I told someone through this before. 1966. There would be doing such a thing. One of our schedules called for going over to East Los Angeles and just to walk down the street. You know, on the street, maybe ducking in some storage or something with people there. Well, Governor Brown, the incumbent, found out about this. So by the time we arrived, it was quite a good crowd of Democrats with signs that made it evident they weren't for me. And it was a nice looking little boy but as I started, they just accompanied me. I was sort of the head of the troop but I was mainly those brown people with their blackers. And of course, there were some of our own people with blackers. Well, this little boy, he had a brown platter and he was walking along right beside me there. Well, the jostling of the crowd and everything, every once in a while he'd get almost knocked down and start to fall. And I'd reach and grab him by the arm and straighten him up and on we'd go again. This happened about three or four times and we don't know when the change occurred. But all of a sudden I looked over. He was carrying a Ronald Reagan sign. He was a handsome little boy but it's hard for me to realize now he's grown up man. I'm all in wonder what became of him. I know things well. Well, all right, thank you all. Good seeing you. Begin. Of course, now we're moving back.