 I know it's been short notice, and we appreciate your concern and interest in the budget and what we're doing about the federal budget deficit. I understand you've been briefed in some detail on our fiscal 87 budget proposal. I don't know what you're just doing when I came in. Yes, sir. I hope I can take it. Well, I finished. They heard it after me. I'll try to figure out one thing. He's talking about cutting out the curtains. He's talking about the curtains. He took them home and he still has them up his curtain. But he didn't tell us what he paid for them to serve us. I didn't pay nothing for them to serve us. We will charge people. Well, let me just add a little bit here. I believe April 6th is a year of decision. And it is the year to decide whether we'll have the will to at last bring federal spending under control. And remove what I think is the last remaining obstacle to a future of growth and prosperity. It's the year to decide whether we can make the tough decisions that we agreed to last year when the Grand Brethren College legislation became law. It's clear to the world that our commitment to peace through strength will not be compromised. And a year to maintain our continued opposition to raising taxes which I believe could harm the economy from Americans in order to protect government programs we don't need and can't afford. Today deficit reduction is now the law of the land. Grand Brethren College mandates a declining deficit path leading to a balanced budget in fiscal year 1991. Don't mind sharing with you that my dream is that when that moment comes they put into place a constitutional amendment that says that the budgets will remain balanced and then I'm going to run over to Jefferson in order to see if that statue is smiling. Because he is the first one who ever mentioned that. The time of the ratification of the Constitution Thomas Jefferson said it contains before it does not. It has one glaring omission. It does not have a prohibition against the federal government borrowing. So I think after 200 years without a catch up with Jefferson the deficit will be cut. The big question is how? Grand Brethren College's automatic spending cuts are triggered only if Congress advocates its constitutional responsibility and fails to pass a deficit or a budget that meets the deficit targets. In other words Congress still has a choice. It can be responsible by making those careful and sometimes difficult spending decisions where it can simply drop the ball and the across the board cuts take over. The budget that I will soon be submitting to Congress was carefully prepared by taking into account our defense needs the proper role of government and the Grand Brethren College's deficit targets. And it will meet the fiscal year 1987 deficit target of 144 billion without harming the economy through a tax increase compromising our national security. To preserve the social safety net for those who truly in need and will not penalize older Americans by reducing social security benefits. As I'm sure Cameron Jimmick mentioned our budget will include a modest increase in defense to sustain recent improvements in capability. As some will say that that's too much for defense but the proposed funding levels for national security and our budget are consistent with the real growth back that was agreed due by myself and the Congress last year. Incidentally Bill Casey just the other day had to testify before the Senate and House committees in this manner. We've been playing catch up with all this drum be a propaganda about the defense budget. Ignored has been the situation of the great massive buildup of the Soviet Union and we're still playing catch up. I don't know whether I'm repeating something that maybe campus said but in the ten years just between 74 and 84. So that takes in Salamari years. The Soviet Union has procured three times as many intercontinental and submarine launch missiles as we have. Six times as many intermediate range ballistic missiles. Nine times the surface to air missiles. Fifty times the bombers long range of medium that we have procured in the same period. Twice as many fighter planes, twice as many helicopters, twice as many submarines three times as many tanks and ten times as many artillery pieces. So I don't think that we're being extravagant in suggesting that we still have a little job to do in catching up with them. Higher taxes as I said earlier are no cure for the deficit. I think that reducing the deficit by tax hikes would impose substantial new tax burdens on American households and as experiences prove would reduce incentives for Americans to work, save and invest. That's choking off the creation of new jobs. Experiences also shown that higher taxes do not necessarily go to reduce the deficit but more often they're used to justify increased government spending. The current economic expansion is well into its fourth year. Over nine million new jobs have been created since November of 1982. We've made significant progress in reducing inflation but I'm not going to rest until it's down to zero. Nominal interest rates are coming down on a well below levels reached in the 70s and the 80s. Excessive federal spending and a large federal deficit are the last major obstacles blocking our path as I said, the lasting prosperity. The budget we're sending to Congress on February 5th will put us on the right track to a balanced budget by official year 1991 but it will reduce the deficit while promoting economic growth and meaning our national security requirements. We've made the tough decision about its time to see if Congress is up to the challenge of passing a responsible budget. I need your help but I encourage you to make your views known. I know we're in for a tough battle. Together we can reduce the deficit instead of having to have permanent prosperity. But now that's enough for me. I'd like to hear from you. That's on your mind. Questions? Maybe have my answer. It's four years of service as our... That's why I'd like to ask you to come up here so I can give you something special that I've been keeping for him now for about a year to give Don the highest award that the Treasury Department can offer the Alexander Hamilton Award. Don, to one thing I'm absolutely certain, Alexander Hamilton and a dominant New Yorker like yourself and a promoter of the energy that I see out there and people who have worked with me. But let you think that I didn't commentate also. I do want to say that I too imperative that and I too found something like that. We're very involved with Jim Baker, the infusion. You're fair to the problem with energy. Perhaps an interesting act of things of that nature. Here's a position for Jim Baker's position. Issue number two, action on energy from the campaign of Jim Baker for Attorney General. Is ready, willing, eager to follow the Court's Charter. Last night you officially began the second year of your second term. Tomorrow you begin your 75th year. We're delighted that you chose to leave with us today. Halfway between these two important events. This is the United States. You are welcome to once again keep intact your reform on track. As I outlined last night in the State of the Union we turn to the full 2,000-dollar personal exemption for identifiers as well as non-identifiers. At least for those individuals in the lower room who may come back. Just to the increasing share of the tax burden on the shoulders of families we serve. Reminds me. We think it's about putting personal exemption today in purchasing power at one of the 600. The exemption will be 2,700 doctors. So that investment decisions aren't disrupting the ability to be more certain. A minimum tax of success. We should all reflect on the dramatic evolution of the change of tax reform represents. We must work to promote the expansion of world trade and growth of the global economy by strengthening economic policy coordination among our industrial and trade partners. As I mentioned in the State of the Union I have directed for every secretary change making to determine if the nations of the world should convene to distress the global relationship of our currencies. Many developing countries with large debts are in particularly dire straits and we in the industrial world must assist them in dealing with their difficulties except denial of property rights. In particular, we must encourage them to avoid high tax rates that only choke off in savings and silverware. We play with many developing countries that are desperate and call to action in search of them. So let's begin now to spread hope and opportunity across the world by encouraging lower taxes, free from fair trade and a sound monetary system and human traditional and essential enforcement activities. We're going to have a hands full. Working together we're going to make 1996 the year that the tax rate cuts holding wide the doors of opportunity at home and our program for sustaining growth on the way to government's growth and hope. That's the financial, educational, social and safety concerns of poor families. And I want the Council to report to me by December 1st on evaluation strategies for immediate action that we should take to meet these concerns. I believe that every person in our free society should have the opportunity to secure their basic living requirements first through their own efforts and then through the support by their family and neighborhood and their community. I also believe that many federal programs have not been working to make this happen. We have far too many programs that are still dependent upon public assistance and that we spend huge sums of money that should be reducing this dependency. In fact, some federal programs appear to be increasing rather than decreasing the dependency of individuals and families, and I think that is the greatest thing that something is wrong. We should be motivating individuals and families to become more independent and economically secure through work efforts and initiative and not through government programs. So I'm asking the Council to evaluate all those federal programs on this area to look at how these programs relate to one another and to report to media what actions we ought to make to the programs nor may suggest to me later in the year we need to explore any idea that may have merit. It's no easy task, I recognize that and I look forward to a strategy we've been realistically employed to solve the problem we've lived with far too long and that we'll get on in the meeting and make certain changes of technology. The President of the United States, accompanied by Secretary Bowen. Today is special. Newest Cabinet Member, I'm pleased that you, Mr. President, have chosen to honor health and human services employees that are causing us less than a day following your inspiring and challenging State of the Union address. I'm gratified that you have also proclaimed that Medicare catastrophic health coverage is a priority of your admittance. As our first Republican President Abraham Lincoln said, government's role is to do only those things for people that they can't do for themselves. If this is true, then much of the government's domestic responsibilities reside in this department, effectively. And we know that efficient and effective management is not the enemy of caring and compassionate programs, but in fact is necessary for a program's success. It is in this spirit that we welcome you. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor for me to introduce the President of the United States. The last two presidents that visited here in their first term weren't re-elected. We've just entered sixth anniversary of mine. The age is riveted. It was once a very famous baseball. How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? That's how I came up with 39. Well, how did India have to come here and help us? It won't be an easy job. We've just entered sixth anniversary of mine. The age is riveted. India had to come here and help us. It won't be an easy job, but it's a job worth doing. Now, with all the executive agencies it's possible to have it. We have a lot of major initiatives ahead of us. We're going to move toward a more efficient healthcare system. And we're going to try to see if we can. As you know, I've asked Dr. Bohm to study how the private sector and government can work together on this problem and report to me by the end of the year. We continue to support, emphasize this competition and broaden in the type of healthcare plans that qualify as alternatives to traditional Medicare coverage. We will encourage private healthcare providers to differ. Has that wondered for the way I say we? And so much of it's going to be you? Well, we're going to take the doctors and others have to pay. And we're going to look at the practices that minimize malpractice exposure. These are just a few of our plans, but I want to mention one more. One of our highest public health priority on your plate is pretty full. But I know you're up to the job, you always have been. I want you to know that across town in the White House we're aware of your good work, of how hard you work, and we appreciate it. And I just want you to know that we started a little with Moss Hart, the playwright, who was an inveterate along that line. And so one night at a cocktail party in Hollywood he was introduced to a Dr. Jones. And almost immediately he started talking about I've been having this low back pain and the fella that introduced them said, Moss. I just, well, thanks again. God bless all of you.