 My boss, Mr. Ferenkoff, just said, don't mess up. I asked if I could bring a few friends home to lunch. I'm awfully glad it was you. There's one person that you will not have a chance to meet otherwise this afternoon, and I do want you to have the chance to say hello to her, because she is the person who makes all of this possible. Anything that happens in this house is a direct result of the activities of only one person, and that is the First Lady of the United States, my very best friend, Mrs. Reagan. For those of us who do go up to the second floor, did take a poll, that's two of us, and we decided that we were not who you wanted to hear from today. So we would like you now to meet your host for the luncheon this afternoon, a very special guest, the President of the United States. Thank you very much. Well, good afternoon and welcome. It's good to see so many old friends and I have a chance to make new ones, and a warm welcome to Congresswoman Olympia Snow and Claudine Schneider. Where are you? There you are. And it's always a pleasure to be joined by two of the most important women in my life, Nancy and Maureen. I want you to know Nancy warmed my heart recently when she introduced me at the Susan B. Anthony Birthday Celebration. She said that I had helped her and Maureen quite a lot through the years, and then she said, quote, because as we all know, behind every successful woman, there's a dedicated man. And my special congratulations are in order for one person here, Connecticut State Senator Adelaide's happy birthday. I'm pleased that we have with us some of our outstanding women from the White House, personnel and legislative offices, and I also notice we've been joined by a few of the men in our staff. They do sort of stand out. But many thanks to Jim Baker for inviting all of you here. And permit me to begin by giving each of you high praise and heartfelt thanks for all you've done for our Republican cause. Politics has its share of fun and glamour, but in the end it's sheer, unrelenting, hard work from people like you that makes it possible for us to put our beliefs into practice. And the role you play is especially important because you demonstrate the Republican commitment to American women. The GOP commitment to women runs deep from its support of women's suffrage to when it was first to elect a woman to the United States Congress and the only party to ever elect women to the United States Senate who were not first filling unexpired terms. Today the two women in the Senate, my friends, Casabam and Paula Hawkins are Republicans. And we have nine outstanding Republican women in the House of Representatives. Now, isn't it time we give them more company? In this administration we've appointed women to positions of top responsibility, women like our United Nations Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick, our Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler, our Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole, Assistant to the President for Public Liaison Faith Whittlesey and many other women in the White House staff who are with us today. And one of my proudest days in office was when I appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman in history on the United States Supreme Court. But just as important, today there are thousands of, thousands of able Republican women like you that are serving in public office outside Washington. You in state legislatures and other state and local offices are on the front lines of democracy, putting your beliefs into practice close to the people. We look on you as leaders who truly know what the American people think and need. And just as we're eager to see the number of Republican women office holders grow at the national level, we're determined to see those numbers grow in every American town, city and state. And together we Republicans are working to reshape America's destiny. Everyone who takes part from stuffing envelopes to running for town council to holding national office is making history. Now I know you're having briefings all day, but if I could just take a moment, I'd like to give you an overview of some of our accomplishments and if you've heard it before, please don't stop me. I enjoy saying it so much. Just three years ago we inherited a mess, soaring inflation at interest rates and declining productivity. And the month that I stood on the steps of the Capitol to take my oath of office, inflation was in double digits and the prime interest rate had hit the highest peak since the Civil War. The economic crisis struck women hard. The majority of elderly Americans living on fixed incomes are women and they found their purchasing power eaten up by that inflation. Working women saw jobs become more and more scarce. Homemakers found that 12.5% inflation made it a nightmare to try and buy groceries and pay the bills. And the thousands of women who wanted to start their own businesses saw 21% prime rates slam shut the doors of opportunity. When we took office, the economy was job one and with Republicans in control of the Senate, we moved quickly to set our program in place and believe me, if we had not had one house of the Congress, we couldn't have achieved what we've achieved so far. We reduced the growth of federal spending. We pruned needless regulations. George Bush was in charge of that and we hacked them out by the score. We reduced personal income tax rates past an historic tax reform called indexing, which means that government can never again use inflation to profit at the people's expense. We reduced the marriage tax penalty, almost doubled the maximum child care credit, increased the limits for IRA and KEO contributions, and eliminated estate taxes on family farms and businesses for surviving spouses. Now today, from Maine to California, a powerful economic recovery is taking place. The prime rate is almost half what it was when we took office. Inflation is plummeted by two-thirds to about 4%. Factory orders, retail sales, and housing starts are up. Speaking of housing, this morning the news was released for January, 688,000 new houses were sold in America and except for December of 1983, that was the highest figure for any month since 1979. The American workers' real wages are rising. The stock market has come back to life, providing new funds for growing sectors of the economy and raising the value of pension funds where millions of workers have their retirement savings. The best news of all is that last year more than four million Americans found jobs. That's the steepest 12-month drop in the unemployment rate in more than 30 years. The economic crisis hit women hard, but today's recovery is giving women new opportunities. The unemployment rate among adult women has dropped from 9.1% to 7.1%. And today, more women have jobs than ever before in our nation's history and the jobs women hold are getting better and better. In 1983, women filled over 60% of all the new jobs in managerial, professional, and technical fields. Had the number of women-owned businesses is growing twice as fast as those owned by men. In foreign policy, we're acting with a new firmness and sense of purpose. From Central America to Western Europe to an island called Grenada, we've worked to defend freedom and peace. And while events in Lebanon have been painful, our presence there has prevented far greater destruction and loss of life than would otherwise have taken place. In our dealings with the Soviets, the prospects for world peace stand on a new and firm footing. Let me take just a moment to mention two vital matters now that are before the Congress, and the first is crime. For too many years, the scales of justice have been tilted in favor of the criminals with devastating results. Rising crime rates, a flood of illegal drugs, billions of dollars worth of property stolen or destroyed each year, and worst of all, millions of Americans in their daily lives in fear. We were determined to restore balance to our criminal justice system, and I think we've made genuine progress. In 1982, the crime rate dropped by 4.3%, and that was the sharpest decline in 10 years. But we still have much to do. Recently, the Senate passed our Comprehensive Crime Control Act and several other related crime bills. But in the House, the Democrats have stalled these vital bills by bottling them up in committee. Now let me give you some examples of the reforms the House Democrats are blocking. One reform makes sentencing more uniform and certain. There's nothing complicated about this. The sentence imposed should be the sentence served. Why should any right-minded person oppose that reform? Another reform involving the so-called exclusionary rule would allow evidence obtained reasonably and in good faith to be used in a criminal trial. It would help keep criminals from going free on technicalities. Now who could object to that in good conscience? I have a favorite story I'd like to tell as an example of the exclusionary rule at work. It was in California, San Bernardino, several years ago, two narcotics agents with a legitimate warrant obtained in the legal way to search a house where they believed heroin was being sold, searched the house, and couldn't find the heroin. Man and woman that lived there, they were starting out the door when one of them on a hunch just turned back to the crib where the sleeping baby lay and took off its diapers and there was the heroin. Evidence thrown out of court, they went free because the baby had not given its permission to be searched. Well, we think these crime bills should be above partisan politics and I urge you to join in pressing for action. The second issue is school prayer. I deeply believe that the loving God who gave us this land should never have been expelled from America's classrooms. If the Congress can begin its day with prayer, children can too. Not that Congress maybe doesn't need it more than the children do. Present company accepted. But I think the country agrees with this. The polls show that by a majority of 80%, the American people want voluntary prayer back in our schools. Soon the Senate will vote on a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary vocal prayer in our schools. If the amendment passes the Senate, we'll have to work to get a vote in the House. But neither one will happen without our support. If ever there was a time for the people of this country to make their voices heard, that time is now. Please support the school prayer amendment in your home states and tell your senators and representatives here in Washington where you stand. Passage of the amendment would reaffirm one of the most fundamental American values, faith. President Lincoln's portrait hangs above the fireplace in this room, and more than a century ago, he said America was the last best hope of Earth. Well, today, the light of that hope is once again a glow. Together, we can make it a shining beacon for all mankind. Thank you, and God bless you, and let's have dessert. Claudine, you're telling me that it is going to go? I went through the Senate right away. There. All right. As I have a personal interest, we were very successful in California in getting this done. And as a matter of fact, we used some kind of rough tactics there on one weekend, and the following Monday, the line went halfway around the block of fathers coming in to pay up. First of all, thank you for providing the opportunity for us to be with you today. Back in 81 and 82, we listened to individuals in the State of New York feed on you on a very regular basis because of the economy and the budget. Now that you've put everything in the proper perspective, there were well on our way to progress in this state. The next problem we're facing with the State of New York is issues concerning our environment. What do you believe to be the most significant accomplishment that your administration will have regarding environmental issues? I think we've... Yes. Bill Ruckelshaus is here, and I can grab him if I need some help. But I think that we've made some accomplishments we haven't gotten credit for so far. We found the national parks were in a deplorable state, and yet there were funds being suggested and proposed for buying new additional land for parks. We held off on that, but put up a billion dollars for the refurbishing of our parks as to not only health standards and safety standards and all the things that were wrong with them. And now we have begun to go back to acquiring some additional land. The parks have never been in better shape than they are now with what we've done. We think that we've made considerable gains in environmental affairs. Bill, have I missed something significant that I should be saying? I'm going to speak to this group later on this afternoon. I'll give him 11 things. I'll let him answer later. Let me turn this way for a minute. Yes. The administration has done so many good things. How can we get the message out? I have asked that... Believe me, I think some of the best kept secrets in the nation's capital are some of the things we've accomplished. And now that the media isn't here listening, maybe they somehow seem to overlook some of these things. I, for example, apropos what was asked there a little while ago, I noticed how quickly they stopped calling the economic plan Reaganomics when the recovery began. But let me by encouragement just say something else. Back in the motion picture industry years ago, we did some surveying when we thought the box office was giving us problems. We found out with all of movies, billboards and advertising in the newspapers and the trailers the previous week in the theaters, we found out by research and study that the greatest reason, the greatest advertising in the world and the reason most people went to see a picture was word of mouth. They heard from someone else that they ought to see. And I think we in politics ought to remember that and it ought to be us and everybody talks politics, we should arm ourselves with the information and the facts and be able to respond when someone comes up with the kind of distortions that are so prevalent. You know, are we fair or not? Are we against feeding the hungry? We are spending more on feeding the needy in America than has ever been spent in the history of the country. It amounts to about 95 million meals a day. We are providing more food stamps to more people than have ever been provided in the history of this country. And yet, I keep seeing people stand up there bare-facedly saying our budget cuts have done this. We haven't cut the budget. We've just reduced the rate of increase in the spending. I dream of the day when we could someday point to a budget and say, hey look it's a dollar and a half smaller than it was last year. I know how we can get your message to the public. Give us the speech that you wrote today and that you gave us. So we may give it to all of the Women's Republic clubs and all of the clubs and organizations we've gone to throughout the United States. It was a dynamic speech and that's all we need to get to the public and you'll be elected again. I was just going to say to Maureen do and she's just said done. We now have a lot of Democrats who are funded on the idea of a balanced budget. If we had a balanced budget, we wouldn't be indexing. Have you thought about offering them to trade them? If you'll give them indexing, if they'll give you a balanced budget. Well, there's one thing you see that I would hate to give up on that indexing thing. They talk about being fair. If we cancel indexing, the penalty in increased taxes to people making $100,000 a year would only be 2% increase in their taxes. The increase in taxes for those making $10,000 a year would be 9%. So... Well, I don't know that you can tie the two together. We're working to reduce the deficit and this is one of those other things apropos of what you've said is that the people need to hear and I was talking about this earlier and said to the ladies at this table here that they might have to hear it again. And that is the people that today are wanting to lay deficits on our back are the people that have controlled both houses of the Congress for 45 of the last 50 years and for three years additional lay of controlled one house of the Congress for a total of 48 of one house or both. In all that time, they ran deficits and in all that time the Republican position was the deficit spending is wrong and their slogan was with regard to the national debt it's all right we owe it to ourselves. And now, we're here how can they complain about the deficits when they have given us less than half of the cuts in spending that we have asked for in these three years when if we had only just stuck to the projected deficits of the Carter administration the deficit today would be $191 billion bigger than it is the fact that the deficit today would be almost $50 billion less than it is if they had just given us the cuts that we've asked for so far I don't think they got a leg to stand on and they're way out on the end of a very slim limb on this one. Yes. Oh, she beat you up and then, oh, one more. After my husband's recent visit to Nicaragua where he met with both pro and anti-government people he came back with this question why doesn't the United States place more emphasis on direct aid to the people of Nicaragua such as scholarship aid, bar stream technology and agriculture equipment to offset similar now given by the socialistic nations I can tell you the reason for that in 1979 when the revolution was successful and that government took over this government under the previous administration was giving financial aid, considerable financial aid for all these things to the new revolutionary government it quit doing that and we have not done it when the Sandinista government instead of carrying out the themes of the revolution and the promises of the revolution got rid of the leaders of other factions that had helped in the revolution you know there was more than one group involved once they got in power they got rid of those people some of them by way of execution some of them by running them out of the country some just fled to save their lives they violated every and have to this day every promise that they made to the Organization of American States they had asked the Organization of American States all the other Latin American countries in our own and Canada to persuade Samosa to step down and end the bloodshed and when Samosa was approached by the Organization of American States and asked to do this he said if it will save lives and end the bloodshed, yes and he stepped down and the Organization had asked the revolutionaries to tell them what were their goals what were they going to do with regard to elections free labor unions human rights freedom of the press and they have never kept a one of those promises indeed at their very inauguration they announced that they were the first foothold of communism on the American continents and that they were going to spread their revolution so I think it would be counterproductive for us to help what we are trying to do is help those many of them former revolutionaries put the pressure on this government to keep its promises and do what the revolution promised it was going to do instead of having a totalitarian government so when that happens believe me we'll be there to help one last little line and then I know we're in the room where we're going to meet I just have to tell you that recently for example we had the bill of lading a Russian ship was coming to a harbor in Nicaragua we knew that that ship contained military equipment military helicopters and so forth and we announced that it did and the Nicaraguan government said alright we'll let the press come in and watch that ship be unloaded and they did and we can't anymore she's told me that now my time is up we'll see you in the other room alright