 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Thank you. Honest, you don't have to do that. I work here too. Well, good morning. I'm sorry I missed breakfast. Looks like it must have been alright. I just want to say a few words, then I know we're going to have a brief opportunity to meet individually in the next room here. But this is the first time that I have had a chance to meet with a number of you. Others, we have already made contact, and I just wanted to say a few words about maybe a kind of a reminder of what we're all here for. We didn't come here dedicated to perpetuating existing institutions. We have temporary custody of the machinery, and if we can make it run smoother, why that's what we're supposed to do. And I know that in the days ahead, the pace gets very hectic, and you're going to find that you have to every once in a while remind yourself of why we came here. Well, you basically came here to make me look good. No, I don't mean that. No, but you just have to remind yourself every once in a while when you're up to your armpits and alligators that our original intention was to drain the swamp. See, we've brought a little thing from Sacramento from the Governor's days there. It worked remarkably well, and actually none of us knows where it started or how it came about, but it developed into just a kind of a sentence that we thought described things and I highly recommend it. Your attitude here now in this present temporary custody we have over this machinery. And that is when we start talking about government as we instead of they, we've been here too long. And if you stop and think about that for a minute, because there is a vast permanent institution here that is not determined by the polls or appointment or anything, and human nature being what it is, there's a tendency on the part of many to resist any effort to change the way things have always been done. I like to tell about one little incident in California when we had a person like you appointed to a position and under his leadership and direction came some storage files. The permanent storage of government forms not the kind of files that the Secretary is going to and looking through day after day for things of current business. And he noticed that these very busy employees of his were folding, doubling these forms to put them in the filing cabinets. Well, it was pretty apparent that if you double them you're cutting the capacity of the filing case in half. It's only going to hold half as many forms. So he asked, he said, why? And they said, well these forms come in this size and of course the filing cabinets are only this wide. But he said, well why do the forms come in that? Because they said they've always come in that size. So he just picked up the phone and called the state printer, gave the number of the form and said henceforth they will be X number of inches long. And that year we bought 4,200 fewer file cabinets. In that particular department. So changes can be made, it's just that a lot of times someone hasn't thought of them. So it's awfully easy to get trapped with kindly people that have been here longer than you have giving you advice and counsel or instructions based on well this is the way we do it or it has been done. Don't be afraid to ask some questions sometimes. Maybe the shape of the forms or the size can be changed. But I think we have a great opportunity to make some changes that are going to be beneficial to this country. I believe that over the years, beginning probably with the traumatic experience of the Great Depression, the federal government began to assume a size and shape that was never intended but the founding fathers. The great secret of our nation and its power and strength. Unique in all the world was based on the fact that first we are a federation of sovereign states. We are not a nation with 50 separate or 50 administrative districts under the control of the federal government. The second thing is that it was believed that if we look at our laws and those things that have to do most with people's working or daily lives is that as much authority as possible is left at those echelons of government that are closest to the people. Would you believe that as recently as Teddy Roosevelt that this house here with no west wing, no east wing, no executive office building over there housed all of the staff of the President of the United States and it was in Teddy Roosevelt's day that there had been a little increase and one day Mrs. Roosevelt folded her arms in front of President Teddy and said, if I'm going to raise seven kids in this house you're going to get your people out of here. Maybe that was the beginning of the growth, I don't know. But no, I think it did begin with as I said the Great Depression. But in this gathering of power no matter how well-intentioned it has been there has been a tendency in the federal government and various departments to think, oh how much more we could do for the people if we only had a little more money and a little more power. And then up on the hill would go staff members lobbying. Some of the most powerful lobbies are just government itself and more and more would be assumed. And as I say with the best of intentions only kindly intent. And I've told and maybe some of you but you'll have to put up with it again. I've reached the age where I tell stories more than once. This thing of wanting to help people can get overboard and there is the classic old story of the kid on the motorcycle, cold winter day, wind coming in through the buttonholes on his jacket, chilling him. He got an idea. He pulled up, stopped, turned the jacket around, put it on backward. He went no longer bothered by the wind but he was kind of restricted in his arm movements. He had a patch of ice skidded into a tree and when the police finally arrived crowded surrounded him already and they said what happened and someone said well we don't know when we got here he seemed to be alright but the time we got his head turned around straight he was dead. So let's make sure we're not turning people's heads around straight. And our main goal is to recognize once again that this country became great not because of government but because of the people in this country because of their initiative in doing things that had to be done without calling on government, turning to government when it was necessary such as for national security and so forth and I don't mean that government goes out of business there are a lot of things that are legitimate functions of government but we're here to see if we can't stop the machinery from growing bigger than the country itself and if we can't leave to the people those things that the people can do so well for themselves and if you think the people aren't willing Don Regan just sent me over a letter that was really addressed to me but you will understand in a second the reason why it reached the secretary of the treasury it was from a little girl in elementary school and she wrote a very fine letter and she believed that because the future of the country was of great interest to them growing up and they were someday going to have to run it the school children in her class had raised $185 and they sent it to the secretary to be helpful in paying off the national debt and she was smart enough to add that she believed that maybe if something like this were better known there must be an awful lot of people in the country that would voluntarily accept the responsibility of trying to reduce the national debt so the spirit is still out there with the people and what we're here to do is not to curb it or even corral it just to make sure that they've got elbow room to make it work and now I could go rambling on for hours but I better not so I know I'm going to meet you in the next room here and God bless all of you for being here and thank you for what you're doing