 of the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please. Look, you're volunteering. That's enough. Well, welcome to the White House. I can't think of a group more representative of good citizenship than this gathering today. So when I say welcome, it's more than a greeting. It's also an expression of thanks for all the many things that you and your organizations are doing to better this country and improve the lot of those in need. 150 years ago, as a young French nobleman, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled throughout our new country, chronicling the observations in his now well-known book, Democracy in America. The American way of life captured his imagination, especially the vitality with which our forefathers went about solving problems. He wrote wherever at the head of some new undertaking, you see the government in France or a man of rank in England. In the United States, you will be sure to find an association. He said the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries. He's believed to have said at one time commenting on this very thing that good deeds in America start with somebody seeing a problem and then he crosses the street and talks to a neighbor and they talk and pretty soon the committee is formed and the next thing you know the problem is solved and as he is supposed to have said, and you won't believe this but no bureaucrat ever got involved in it. Well it was this spirit of direct action of unbridled optimism of compassion and freedom that made America great and unique among the nations. It was this vision that you represent in a spirit that with God's help we can build upon. There are of course some who believe the vigor observed by Detokeville is fading. Well now, don't you believe it? We're witnessing a rebirth of concern and involvement that historians may describe as a reawakening of the American spirit. For the first time in decades people are starting to realize that they have an important role to play and that they can make a difference. This is the purpose of our task force on private sector initiatives established last December. Bill Verity, chairman of the task force, is here with us today and Bill I have just left a meeting of the associated builders and contractors their leadership at least who came to seem in the Oval Office and you might be interested to know that this is an association of the small, the independent contractors. 17,000 of them nationwide and they have just voluntarily voted to increase their dues 30% because they now have a program in which they're training and educating and teaching people who want to learn how to become builders and contractors and craftsmen and so forth in that business. I'd like to clear up one point speaking about this task force by encouraging private actions we are not inferring that government's role should be eliminated. On the contrary, the budget we've proposed for health and human services in 1983 is increasing 8% or $20 billion over 1982 and that budget for just that one agency in our country will total $274.2 billion which is $53 billion bigger than the defense budget and is larger than the entire budget of any country in the world except the United States itself and the Soviet Union. And while some programs have been reduced in general what are described as budget cuts are simply efforts to slow down the runaway growth in spending. When I entered office getting control of spending was an absolute necessity we were on the edge of an economic abyss. Everyone would be worse off today if we had permitted inflation to keep going at the rate it was before the 1980 election. At that rate a family of four on a fixed income of $15,000 would today be over $1,000 poor in purchasing power. Putting America's economic house in order meant changing attitudes particularly the dangerous tendency to turn to government to solve every problem. After being told for decades that government is the answer some people's reluctance to try a different approach is understandable. What if for example the Boy Scouts of America were a government program instead of a voluntary activity? Well someone's worked out what the answer to that would be. It's been estimated that just doing what the Boy Scouts are doing now and the way they're doing it if run by the government would cost about five and a half billion dollars a year. And yet as an efficient non-government activity scouting costs a total of only $187 million a year. Because it's based on volunteer effort rather than paid bureaucracy it is amazingly more efficient. But beyond the financial savings everyone involves scouts, scout leaders, parents, everyone is having a more meaningful experience because of the time and resources voluntarily contributed to scouting. The many accomplishments of your organizations represented here today proved to me that there is an enormous potential ready to be tapped. And that's the reason you've been invited here today. The tapping is about to begin. I need your help to activate those on the sidelines and to encourage those already involved to keep going. The JC's a group that is always close to my heart have responded to the call for direct involvement with all of the enthusiasm and gusto for which their organization is famous. The JC's national leadership has committed the full resources of their 7,000 local clubs and 280,000 members toward a bold effort to establish a public foundation on volunteerism in every community where a JC's club exists. The potential value of this project alone is enormous. And Bill Verity tells me that you'll be hearing more about it shortly so I won't take any more of your material. It was recently estimated that the value of just the annual time volunteered by Americans is 64 and a half billion dollars worth. Whether it's a grandmother volunteering at the church daycare center or a member of the Kiwanis club at the charity Car Wash much is being accomplished and we think it should be encouraged. And that's why we established the president's volunteer action award and brought this year's recipients to the White House. 18 individuals and organizations received recognition for doing some wonderful things to make our country a better place to live in. Everything from helping victims of cancer to just counseling the troubled. One program receiving the award is known as Christmas in April. When April comes to Washington we think of the cherry blossoms. In Midland, Texas they think of helping the elderly and handicapped people fix up their homes. Since 1973 thousands of volunteers working through the Christmas in April program have repaired the dwellings of Midland's less fortunate disabled and elderly. Now I realize that I may be preaching to the choir here but there are too many people who don't know about the many wonderful things that your organizations are doing. As a matter of fact that's proven by the mail that I get. I get letters from people telling me now inspired by the recession and the need to get our budget under control writing in and saying can't we do something to make it possible for people like ourselves who want to volunteer and be of help. In other words they just haven't found out about all the things that you're doing. So that's a lot of what Bill's Task Force is also doing. Getting the word out is the reason that it was created. The list goes on and on especially for programs aimed at America's young people such as the work done by black fraternal organizations in providing tutoring for ghetto young people offering them a chance for a better future. And then there are the many programs sponsored by service clubs to combat drug abuse. I wish all those who claim our greatest days are past could grasp the energy and vitality in grassroots America today. Henry Luce, the founder of Time Magazine saw this. He spent a lifetime watching and recording it and his reflection in 1962 was not so different from that of de Tocqueville. He said we're the country of the endless frontier. The result of the big sky, of manifest destiny, of unlimited resources, of go west young men, of opportunity for all, of rags to riches, mass production, nothing to fear but fear itself, technical know-how, a chicken in every pot, gung-ho and can-do. It may sound a little corny but Henry Luce was absolutely right. This is the stuff that put the first man on the moon and sent the space shuttle Columbia into orbit and brought her home again. When I was inaugurated I said that our people have a potential for greatness and they've proven it when it counted. Today I need your help to encourage them to put that potential to work directly on some problems that we've let set too long. After you leave today I'm asking you for a renewed commitment. Talk to your boards of directors, your members, identify, take on a new project and a private sector initiative and put the full resources of your organization behind it. Talk it up at your annual conventions this year. Let others know about what you're accomplishing. What we're trying to build in this country is a new bond between the public and the private sectors. He calls this a new coalition. A community partnership and I'm sure you'll be hearing more from him about how much can be accomplished. I don't this thing that I'm just going to say to you might sound now as if I'm being militant or something and I'm not. I happen to believe that the foreign policy of this country must have one goal and one only and that is world peace. And I want to do everything I can to bring about a reduction in armaments worldwide to bring that dream closer. I say that because I'm going to use an example about one of the men in our military. I also believed back when we still had the draft that we would be better off if we use that same American volunteer spirit for our military. And I'm proud and happy to say today that the enlistments are up and oh sure people can say well that's because of the recession well the recession couldn't be responsible for the esprit de corps for the morale of those young men and women that are in our armed forces their pride again in their country and I got a letter from an ambassador of ours in Luxembourg. He had been up on the East German border where our second armored cavalry regiment happens to be stationed and he wrote to tell me that he praised them and what he found there was the spirit but he said as he started to leave one young 19 year old lad followed him over the helicopter and the lad wanted to know if the ambassador ever had an opportunity to get a message to me and he since he happens an ambassador to be the president's representative he said yeah he thought he could do that and the kids said well would you tell him for us that we're proud to be here and we ain't scared of nothing and I kind of like that but I just think that together we can and will do things after all we're Americans thank you very much I'll now do what the little girl in the letter told me to do she told me all kinds of advice about how to handle the problems here and then put a PS on and says now get back to the Oval Office for the work