 It's all right to talk with your mouth full. I listen, go on with your coffee and your dessert and everything, but it's gotten a little later than I thought and everybody's got things to do. First of all, I want to thank Bob Tuttle who's come back here and is helping us for putting this all together. This is a very happy occasion for me and I hope it is for all of you. A little more than two years ago we were in the midst of a political campaign. You might remember. I want you to know that I'm deeply grateful for all of your dedication then and for all you've done since to help us accomplish what we set out to do. In a free society, change isn't something that's achieved by one individual. It's a process that depends on teamwork and cooperation of like-minded citizens. Of course, you've got to be selling something that people want to buy and the change that we wanted to propose I think they wanted to buy. I heard a story the other day on St. Patrick's Day as a matter of fact about an Irish priest that was going by a pub and he saw three of his parishioners in there and they were well in their cups and quarreling with each other and getting rowdy and he went in and he said to one of them, You want to go to heaven? Stand over here. He stood over there. Said to the second, he says you want to go to heaven? Yes, stand over here. Said to the third, when you want to go to heaven? He said no. He said you don't want to go to heaven? He said no. He said you mean when you die you want to go to the other place? He said no I want to go to heaven. Well he said why do you, he said I want to go when I die? He said I didn't know, I thought you were putting up a party to go now. Two years ago it wasn't my campaign that won the election, it was our campaign. And I'm pleased that you've been able to come here today for a discussion among friends of how far we've come and how much further we've got to go. Now I know that you've heard that the Democrats have proposed an alternative budget. You must have been briefed on that today. All they're asking for is a reversal of the 1980 election. They seem to believe we can go right back to the same old pre-1980 policies and it won't bring back inflation, won't pull the rug out from under our economic progress or undermine our national security. Of course they'd like to blame all the economic chaos and uncertainty that they can't cover up that happened before 1980 on Jimmy Carter. But no one man could be responsible and could have caused all of our problems. The problems from which we're just now emerging the result of bad policies over a great many years. They controlled both houses of the Congress, all the departments of the executive branch as well as the White House for the last four years and for many of the years before. Even when there was a Republican president, except for one two year period in which there was a Republican Congress, the Republican presidents were up against a majority of the opponents in both houses. Now for a couple of years we've had one house at least and thank Heaven for that and for all of you for seeing to that because we couldn't have accomplished any of what we've done if we didn't have that one house. Our adversaries you'll remember had begun counting us out in as a world power. The policies that I've been talking about that they had had given us inflation, sky high interest rates, confiscatory taxation, a drop in real wages and a sense that our country was in a national decline. We started out on the road, together we were all concerned Americans. We promised to make America great again, to not just change people but to change policies, to get control of federal growth and we've cut that by 40%. We promised to turn off the federal tax vacuum cleaner that was siphoning off everything in everybody's pockets and we've achieved by the end of this year it'll be a 25% across the board tax cut and even more important in 1985 indexing will begin. And for all those people that are charging we're unfair if someone hasn't told you already today indexing is straight beneficial to the working man and woman. Because it's the thing that will keep people from getting a cost of living raise and then being moved up into a higher tax bracket as we know. Well it doesn't benefit the rich at all because they're already in the top bracket. It benefits those working people. 78% of the benefits from indexing will go to people with incomes below 50,000 through the middle and down to the lower income rates. And I can assure you with all of the talk that's on the other side of the aisle about possibly eliminating the third installment of the tax cut or indexing, I sleep now with a veto pen under my pillow. Regulations, we know that everything, every element of our society was being strangled and under George Bush he's been the head of a task force on regulations and we've cleared away many useless and counterproductive regulations. It has been estimated that the amount of paperwork we've saved the people of the United States with just the ones that have been cleared away so far would total about 300 million man hours of paperwork a year that has been eliminated and we're not through yet. One of the areas of course was as I said the declining prestige of our country, the neglect of our security needs. And now as much as some would wish that it weren't so a country's influence its ability to maintain peace and preserve its freedom is dependent on its strength. And one fellow who occupied this house back around the turn of the century said it pretty well. The voice of the weakling that was Teddy Roosevelt speaking said counts for nothing when he clamors for peace but the voice of the just man armed is potent. We need to keep in a condition of preparedness not because we want war but because we desire to stand with those whose plea for peace is listened to with respectful attention. And tonight I'm going to be spending about 30 minutes on ABC at 8 o'clock talking about this whole matter of defense showing a few pictures that have been declassified for the purpose. Now I know when you come back here you'd rather have dialogue than a monologue so I'm going to put the rest of this back in my pocket. And if any of you as you probably have a timer too have said boy would I like to ask him. Go ahead. You better all start making the rest of the speech. Tommy. I'm Basch from Thomas, Florida. I just want to be sure, Mr. President, we're all confident that you're going to run. But we want to make sure that you know that the country needs you and the whole world needs you and all of you support us very strongly. I know that you had explained to you why I can't say anything about that right now. But as I've often said it's the people who tell you whether you should or not and I will remember your response. Someone else? That wasn't a question exactly though. Well I can tell you that we're looking at that as well as other things because most of us now are convinced that much of the people's objection to the taxes is not to the amount, but a lot of it is directed to the fact that you can't figure out what you owe the government. It is so complicated. And there's a lot of truth in that. I don't know whether you've seen Time Magazine this week. They've got a whole article on the tax evaders. And I remember about 20 years ago out of the mashed potato circuit I made a speech once calling attention to the fact that back through history every time a government began taking upward of 20% of the people's earnings there began to be a disrespect for the law, an evasion of taxes, cheating, and no government had ever long survived taking more than a third of the people's earnings. Well we've been way past that for some time now. You see we can't just call the federal government. We've got to see what our taxes for our whole society, federal state and local end up around 45 cents out of every dollar. Well we've tried to make a dent and we have made a certain dent in that. But I think that what you're saying is this is the thing that must be done and it's made in that article. They do a pretty good job of pointing this out. The complexities of the tax law and the more complex it becomes the easier it becomes for people to find ways to owe a tax and evade it. I'm not sure yet we haven't studied enough to be able to say that the flat rate would be an answer. There are breaks that are given for some people call them loopholes but others call them justifiable incentives. But we have to simplify the system. There's no question about that. It's the only experience you have in your life in which you owe something and the responsibility is yours to tell how much you owe and if you don't tell it correctly you get fined. And they at the same time tell you that their people have so much trouble with the tax laws that they can no longer be trusted to advise you correctly on your tax problems. So we're going to try to do something about it. You've seen a pleasant change in our business over the last two months that have been due to the lowering of the interest rates. And this morning the Secretary of the Treasury commented upon the remarks that he made for the Wall Street Journal yesterday that he favors a tightening of the money supply of the M1 and the M2 which would undoubtedly cause a contraction and lead to a higher prime rate. Now I'm wondering whether that's the policy of the administration or are you afraid that the money supply isn't too high or do we look forward to lower interest rates to really get this economy in? Well I think right now the interest rates could be lower on the basis of inflation. For the last six months inflation has been running at 1.4 percent. There's no reason why they could not continue to come down to a real interest rates are higher than they really have a right to be. But I think maybe Don didn't make himself clear because we've discussed this very problem. What is concerned him right now is that there has been, it's very difficult, or maybe he told you this, to measure the money supply now with this whole new, all the new regulations that have permitted this transfer of money in great amounts to the banks. People out of money funds to just deposits in banks and it's given a distorted view of what is the state of M1. But what my understanding is that he feels is the worry is that there has been something of a little surge and if we don't hold it and the money markets see that that is then going to be followed by having to, in other words the up and down thing that they've been doing again. Like in 1980 the last six months the money supply went up to the highest rate and the highest peak that it's ever been in our history. And then of course the interest rates were 21.5 percent not because the money supply was that big, but because everybody knew they had to pull the string on it and they did. Right straight through 81 and you know what happened along about July of 81. This is what he's really concerned about. He wants a kind of a let's get and hold it more at a level so that they won't be looking ahead and raising interest rates out of fear of the same old thing happening again. And with this I have to agree but I still say that I think the interest rates can come down. Incidentally I had a little clipping from Tucson, Arizona paper the other day for you gentlemen in the automobile business 21 auto dealers out there got together and had an automobile fair in the city park and their eyes are bigger saucers still. They sold 825 cars in three days in this little town where they did this. Yes I know John. Well I think we're always interested in hearing anything that we think will improve the situation. Well Mike who should he, who does he stay in contact with on that? Don Regan. Don Regan all right. Yes. The Washington Post. Well if it was only semi-critical they're improving. No I know this is about a thing that in speaking to the radio and the media evangelical preachers at their convention and I did point out as I have pointed out before that the difference between us and I use the term that and in the whole context they did seize that one line where I use the phrase a focus of evil and if you stop to think that what they're doing with regard to Afghanistan what they do to their own people their things in contrast with society like ours we are at the opposite ends of the pole. But as you'll hear tonight we are in communication with them. I am not one who believes in the inevitability of war. I have always thought that that's one of the most dangerous things that happens is when someone looks at a potential enemy and finally just without themselves even being conscious of it that their mind just accepts that someday we must fight. No. In the condition of the world today and the weaponry of the world today that must not happen and we're going to continue to try. But we tried under previous administrations detente. We tried saying well if we unilaterally will let our arms go. If we unilaterally will do these things for them then they will realize that we're nice people and they'll reflect that and they'll be nice and turn. And we lost our shirts doing that. And what I have said and said to them directly time after time is no more words. We want to see some deeds that evidence that you are willing to rejoin the family of nations and things will be a lot better for you if you do. And we're going to make every effort to keep on along that line. But some of it is frankly is indirect diplomacy. Quiet diplomacy. To any government including our own if you suddenly make a demand of another government and you put it in the front page of the papers and say by golly they're going to have to do this you've put them in a corner where they can't get out because of their own constituency because it'll look like they're taking orders from someone else. So sometimes what you do is quietly and behind the scenes you get someone to say to them hey why don't you tell them that if they did such and such my goodness we'd look very warmly upon that and we might find that we were able to do something that would be beneficial to them. And here and there there have been little evidences that that can be successful. Mr. President I own one of those dealerships in Tucson that had that great sale and you've done such a good job that I'd like you to get back to work. So maybe one more question and then we'll have the questions. Well there's two hands. I'll take the two. We think we are but we're having a great trouble with the Congress and with this whole worldwide propaganda thing about El Salvador that would seem to imply that we're either going to have a Vietnam or something. We haven't sent, they use the term advisors, we haven't sent advisors. We have sent men to train. We've trained three of their battalions up here but that has become too costly and they can't spare that many men at one time in this conflict. But we think that they've made great progress. They're not up to the standards of human rights and democracy yet that we would like but the giant strides they've made when you think that not too many years ago they have been for more than 50 years a military dictatorship. We believe what we're trying to get now is additional aid which had been cut back by the Congress just this year both for ammunition and supplies that they need and for economic help. Their economy, we talk about it isn't all their fault when those guerrillas destroy a power grid and industries have to close down when they destroy bridges and they interfere with commerce and trade their economy's been on kind of a yo-yo because of this and there's no question but they're getting those guerrillas. These are trained professionals, that's a military body, these aren't angry peasants with a musket. They're out there better armed in many instances than the El Salvador Army and the arms are coming in flown in and by borough on trails from Nicaragua and they're from Cuba, some of the earlier arms that went to the guerrillas were all American and some that we managed to get a hold of we traced the numbers on them and found out they were coming from America by way of Vietnam. They were the things that were captured and abandoned by us in Vietnam and the communists sent them all the way around the world to be used by the guerrillas in El Salvador but we believe that this is regional, we believe that what we're seeing there and we're not alone all those democracies that have come about Honduras, Costa Rica, the others all of them feel that they're next in line that if El Salvador falls joins Nicaragua it goes all the way to the Panama Canal and they say that the main target and I believe it is, is Mexico and then we would have a 2,000 mile border that we would have to defend and we just don't believe that we can afford to allow communism to get a foothold on the mainland of either North or South America or Central America. Nothing, to simply have a meeting to get acquainted makes no sense because the minute you announce such a meeting expectations worldwide go very high then to just come home and say well I met him, that's no good, it's too much of a let down so when we feel that there really is something and maybe out of the arms talks there will come a day and if it could happen this year fine but if it doesn't possibly, early next year I think it's inevitable we must have a meeting and particularly because we're going to keep on hammering on these arms reduction talks now I know that I've overstayed the welcome and I know that we're all going to come through in there in the other room and I'm going to get a chance to say hello to each one of you and we'll get a picture taken and I know you got to get going right now I see you're almost off the chair already okay I'll take you first, come on with me well, there'll be a little one Charlie is out oh the other day to tell me I sent him the wrong side shirt for his bro Jim Coles Seymour Frank Conway Ken Rockstad Ray Higgy Francis Graves Yes Tom Rooney Let's see I heard of Hutner Thank you Frank Conway Douglas Hove John Aldersen Jerry Briggs Jerry Briggs Douglas Midianis John Irvine Tom Euston Good, thank you John Butchers Marie Head John Butchers Oh Thanks very much for the picture Jack Mortimer Wayne Adley Tom Blake Tom Thomas John N. Mason Keith Bieler Ron Walker Jerry Keltner Ron Keltner Ron Keltner Ron Keltner Don't look at yourself Oh How do I look You're on my desk I'm not You have to put your foot in way of life Barbara Malo