 Hi. Well, come in and get wired for sound. Oh, OK. It's time to see if we can do this without missing it up, right? Tell me how you're doing. I'm OK, Larry. You ain't seen nothing yet. It has emerged as the slogan of your campaign. What are we going to see? What do you mean by that? Well, I think we're going to continue on the course that we charted from the beginning, which is one of trying to bring about an ongoing and growth without inflation. It'll provide the jobs that our people need and that will at the same time build greater revenues for government through that economic growth than without adding to the individual tax rates. And thus get at the deficit. And it's all of that, plus some of the overall reforms that we still want to get, the balanced budget amendment, the line item veto, some things of that kind. Are we going to see the pragmatic Reagan, or are we going to see the ideological Reagan in a second term? Well, the only thing I've ever been felt that I am pragmatic about is I recognize in the process my view, and maybe I'm straining at this, purely the ideologue is one who, if he can't get everything he asks for, he'll jump off the cliff with the flag flying. And no, I've always believed you try to get 100% of what you think would be beneficial. And if you have to settle for 80, all right. Settle for 80 and then come back sometime and keep trying to get the other 20. If there's been a substantive issue in this campaign, it's been taxes. What mandate do you think you have from the voters on taxes? Well, I think to any of you who've heard them out there, you know they don't want a tax increase. And what our dream is and what we would hope we could accomplish, but I have not interfered over Treasury for the study that's been going on, and I know how hard they've been working to try and come up with a goal of a simplification and a broadening of the base. Now when I say broadening of the base, I mean we estimate that about $100 billion is not being collected from people who legitimately owe that tax. And if we can simplify and at the same time broaden to where we get that, to the point that maybe even you could further lower than the individual rates for everybody if you've got more people that its tax has spread over. So this is what we're hoping for. Simplification has got to be very important because the tax process, when it's gotten to the place that even the government has to warn the tax payers that the agents, IRS agents out there in the various IRS offices, it cannot be taken for granted that they understand the tax. Who are the people that owe this $100 billion in taxes? Where is that? Well there's a, well some of it of course, and I don't, this would be, there's a whole different problem, some of it we know is the so-called underground or criminal. Economy? Element and economy. But there is an, as your taxes get more and more oppressive, you find more and more people seeking ways, and this comes down to bartering, and people who find out that they can exchange with someone else, and you know, somebody builds a porch, and the father builds a porch that doesn't charge, but his kid gets braces for his teeth. Sounds kind of good to me, actually. I want to make sure I understood you, Mr. President. I think you were saying, would I, please correct me if I'm wrong, do you feel like the tax simplification is an acceptable vehicle to you for helping to reduce the budget deficit by broadening the tax base? That doesn't do violence to your, no, no, that is acceptable, but the main thing that is going to get the deficit is the growth in the economy. Then the government's revenues go up without the tax rates going up. They go up through the greater prosperity, more people paying the taxes, for example, the very fact of these six million more people that have gone to work these last 21 months and these new jobs. Well, that's six million people that weren't paying taxes, that are going to be paying taxes, and maybe some of those six million people were actually a drain on the government that they might have been wards of the government being supported by government before they became employed. Doesn't the growth rate tapering off now? What kind of growth rate would you have to have to sustain the kind of increases in revenue that you would like? Well, that has been figured out for us. If we could have a consistent 4% growth rate, that would increase the revenues by $400 billion. And you think that's realistic? And if you had a rate of increase in government reduced to about 5% in government spending, reduced to about 5%, that could bring the present deficits by itself down to around $30 or $40 billion, and we already have the rate of increase in government spending down to around six, a little over 6% from the previous 17. Can we talk a little bit more about government spending, Mr. President? As all of us know, so much of the federal budget is tied up, locked up in entitlement programs. Aren't these programs, as a practical matter, going to have to be cut if you have really any hope of bringing the deficit completely under control? Well, I know that a number of things are called entitlements, but I know that the one that everyone points to is social security. And right now, just as they dishonestly used it in the 1982 campaign with pure demagoguery, and they were lying in their teeth with what they said about the program, now they've tried to make it in this one. You've heard the charges that I've got some secret plan. Well, good Lord, we just had a bipartisan commission that rescued Social Security from the bankruptcy that we said it was facing, and which they denied until the 82 election was over. Take that program, that doesn't have to do with the deficit at all. Social Security is totally supported by a payroll tax. And if you did do something to try and reduce the expenditure of Social Security, that money would just revert to the Social Security Trust Fund, or if they chose to reduce the payroll tax. So in other words, you can't tie Social Security into the deficit. It's totally funded by an earmarked tax. But other than Social Security, Mr. President, are there any other entitlement programs that are off limits to you or into your budget cutter? The thing that you have to look at, and if you can do it without the demagogues jumping all over you, is to look not at whether someone should be denied what they need and what they're entitled to, but what about the administrative overhead? What about the laxness in many of these that finds people? Well, for example, in all of the studies of Social Security, to have found how many people were collecting Social Security and they're in prison. Well, now, the taxpayers are taken care of, will hold their needs, everyone that you can think of, food, shelter, medical expenses, and so forth. And you said, wait a minute. Now, I'm talking about people like Son of Sam. The killer was in prison for life. Well, a psychiatrist had ruled before he was ever found to be a criminal that he was unable psychologically to hold a job. So he was collecting Social Security disability after he killed, what, 35 people? And I think that some things like that, when we found, as we did, we found in one investigation, without going nationwide, how far to go, found almost 10,000 people who had been dead an average of seven years and were collecting straight Social Security. Well, now there's nothing wrong with cleaning up things of that kind. Yeah, I still think if you clean up those things, that that only is just a drop in the bucket. Well, it may be, but there are legitimate needs that the program or that the government must meet. And as we've always talked about, the safety net, we have no desire to do away with that. And I have to say this, that our opponents in this campaign, again, have been absolutely dishonest in charges that we have vastly reduced lunches for children in schools and we're spending more money on things of that kind than has ever been spent by any administration in history. And yet, we've brought the increase in spending from 17% down to 6%. But yet you've already suggested that Medicare is something that you're going to have to take a look at in a second term because that's an entitlement program that's somewhat out of control. It isn't facing the same crisis Social Security was within a second four-year term. It's several years down the road, but looking and projecting the demographics and all, you can say, yes, something has to be done. And we have been looking at and making proposals and have instituted some of these already that are aimed more at curbing the cost than in inflicting any restriction on the person who needs it. And this has to be looked at, but this is simply a fiscal situation that must be corrected to make the program sound. Considering the legislative tasks that you're going to face over the next four years, do you think it's been wise to spend the last couple of days of your campaign beating up on Tip O'Neill, whose help you're going to need? Well, Tip O'Neill, when he was beating up on me, and I first came to Washington, and I thought we'd established a pretty good relationship. And Tip O'Neill said to me when I called him one day and said, I thought we had a good relationship and this charge that you've made. And he said, well, buddy, that's just politics. After six o'clock, we're friends. So I try not to say too many harsh things before six o'clock. Do you really think you can do the sorts of things you want to do next year, Mr. President, without some major bipartisan help from the Democrats? Well, we have to have bipartisan help. And we had it, or we wouldn't have the program we have now. Now, we didn't get all we wanted. And I've often wondered right now what this recovery, booming the way it is, what have we gotten all that we asked for? How much further along would we be? If you remember the tax cuts, 30% we asked, 10% a year for three years. And the first 10% was to be retroactive to January 1st of 1981, where what we got was 5% that wasn't effective until October, which meant it was a tax cut of one and a quarter percent for the 1981 year. And the same thing was true of many of the reductions in expenditures. But let me if I could just add one other figure that's kind of significant as an example of what is out there in overhead. We took, I think it was 52, categorical grant programs and put them into 10 block grants. Well, having been a governor, I know of the waste and extravagance in getting a federal program for your state and they tell you right down to the last detail how every penny must be spent. And you say, wait a minute, this doesn't fit our particular situation. Well, we reduced the number of pages of regulations by switching to block grant from 885 pages of regulations down to 30. We eliminated or put down, came down at our level from 3,000 employees administering this to 600. Now, how many other areas are there that way? If we could just switch gears here a minute. Let's say arms control, arms control is your number one priority. And yet some of your closest aides say that the problem with getting an agreement with the Soviets lies more with your own warring defense establishment than it is with the Soviets. But you can't get your secretary of defense say to agree with your secretary of state on a common approach. How are you gonna resolve that? I have to tell you, that's not true. I've read that and it's very disturbing. Sure we, that's why we have a debt cabinet system of government. We all get around there and I hear all sides and sometimes it's a legitimate objection to some department that says, wait a minute, there's a flaw where we're concerned this or that. But no, we're all united on the whole basic thing about arms reductions and the need for them. There hasn't been anything of that kind. Our problem is the Soviet Union, they walked away and we're going to do our best to get them back to the table. With all due respect, Mr. President, some of your aides politely dispute that and they say that you're sufficiently concerned that you have been considering naming arms controls czar of some sort to help resolve these sorts of intramural disputes that may get in the way. That has come out of just general discussions that we've had without ever arriving at any decision cause we don't even know where the Russians would go along. General discussion about should we try to find, just as we did in the Middle East, should we try to find someone and set them up and would the Russians do the same thing and would they, would that be a way of on this kind of informal basis of finding areas where then we could, the negotiators could get together? Whether on arms or anything, any other contact with them? Well is that an idea that you're comfortable with that the Soviets think that it has some merit? Yes, and I think we all feel, but we want to know. Is this going to work or would we be setting someone up that he'd just be talking and nothing would happen? The Soviets would have to name a person on an equal level. You wouldn't be satisfied if this American dealt with an existing Soviet official? No, whether they, whatever they want to do and it would be reciprocal so that it would carry some weight with both of us on both sides. But it's a little bit like the rumors about the walk in the woods, so forth. Well, we didn't walk away from the walk in the woods. The Soviets disavowed it and said that their man was not entitled to talk. Mr. President, you said that the problem here was the Soviets, not intramural problems. Do you think the Russians have resolved their own internal leadership problems to the point where meaningful progress is possible next year? This, I don't know. And what example do I go by? All of this thing about my opponent is talking about not having meetings or summits and so forth. You know that in 48 years of eight presidents, they only had to deal with three secretary generals over that 48-year period and eight of our presidents. And I've had three secretary generals in my first three years, and two of those were mortally ill and literally out of communication. In fact, you didn't know one of them whether he was dead or alive for several months. What do you think the odds are for a Soviet summit next year? That's a question. I think much better than they were in this first term. And, but again, you know, you keep hearing conflicting rumors regarding the health of an individual and speculation as to whether he really can speak alone or whether it's kind of a collective now. But no, we're willing. And one of the things that I proposed in my speech to the UN, and that is a kind of an umbrella type get together. Let's, I have a summit where we can find out how do we get down to negotiating specific things like arms reductions? What are the suspicions on either in both sides that we need to erase? Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. And congratulations. Well, I think they're in order. I'm not getting knowledge yet. I'm going to wait. I want it to be formal. Yeah, but that's not what you're being told, Mr. President. You're being told it looks awfully good, though. Yes, but it's also the long time of the polls closed. Well, I don't know, these Mondale people can still be out there. I prefer being super quick. Oh, okay. You know, as a sports announcer, I broadcast it, I broadcast a couple of games more than a couple where pitchers pitch to no hitter. They please. Well, there's a dugout, there's a superstition that you never mention that he's pitching a no hitter because that'll jinx it. Well, I even carried it to the press box. I felt if I say this on the areas pitching a no hitter, I may jinx it. So I never opened my mouth until finally with that blast out said, hey, it's a no hitter. Well, congratulations anyway. Thanks again, Mr. President. See you later. Thank you. It's nice to see you. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll do this. That doesn't, we've done it. That'd be it. Yes, sir. As I mentioned, you'll be showing up here in just a few minutes with some draft remarks. I'll just give them to you in a minute. Okay. All right. All right. I think I wouldn't want to stand up and do that. Yeah. I agree. And that's it. Oh, but you must look at it. Isn't it? Yes. Yay. This is one thing you don't have to do. This is one thing you don't have to do. I can't go. I can't go. I'm about to go. All right. We do need a man. Washington. The audience. Right. He's going to be talking about groups. Yeah, yeah. That's right. I think you're going to be talking to Paul. I'm going to have members out there on that project. Well, I just bring them in. All right. Well, thank you all, гоji You're welcome.