 We're delighted that you could come and have this chance to meet with you. And I realize that you've been through this drill once before. George was here, and I have no way of knowing what he said. And if I repeat anything, he'll put up with me and I'll pretend that I just added it for emphasis. I feel a little like I'm seeing a premiere. I can now say that I have met the new superstars for the Congressional Class of 1983. We hope this will be the first of many return visits for you to the White House. I know I'm supposed to be brief, and I will be, but I can sum up most of what I want to say about three thoughts. Go get them. You can do it, and we're behind you all the way. We have a lot of charges leveled against Republicans in the weeks ahead. I just remember something Abraham Lincoln once said. Truth is generally the best vindication against slander. To listen to many of our liberal friends complain about deficits, you might think someone else was planning all the ready expending. To listen to them scream about 16.5% interest rates, you might forget that they were the ones who left us with 21.5% interest rates and a trillion-dollar debt. To listen to them cry for more compassion, you would never know that they presented over the greatest single tax increase in history. Just five years ago, a tax increase to get the working men and women right in the solar plexus, and when you come here, you'll be here for two more installments of that tax increase that they passed back then that are still needed to be applied. They, that whole matter of compassion and unfairness and so forth, they have me almost believing I eat my young. But I'll stay one more time on this one. We all know you can fool all of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time. You can't fool all of the people all of the time. And we're not going to let them be fooled in November. Now, the difference between you and your opponents may very well be something that I thought typified a great many of the congressional leaders on the other side up there on the hill. And that is the story about the congressional candidate that went out into the hustings and came into a little town courthouse lawn. Went there and sat down beside an old fellow on the bench to tell him he was running for Congress and when he finished his pitch, the old fellow said, what are you going to do about the geese? And they looked out in the lawn and was covered with geese. Well, he said, isn't that a lovely scene? He said so fast. Well, he said, we'll preserve. And the old fellow said, you just lost my hold. He said, look at him tearing up the lawn, messing up the lawn. They chased the kids. They ought to be eliminated. So they got up and moved along, sat down beside another guy and got the same question, what are you going to do about the geese? Oh, well, he says, look at him out there tearing up the lawn. He said, they ought to be destroyed. And the fellow says, you just lost my hold. He says, I raised geese. And the guy on the third bench sat down and laid the same bench and got the same question. This time, put his arm around the fellow and said, brother on that question, I'm with you. Seriously, if you go beyond the labels of propaganda, if you ask Americans to spell out what they want from this government, I think their answers are pretty clear and precise. They want inflation and interest rates brought down and kept down. They want the growth in spending and taxes cut. And they want our defenses built up strong enough to deter aggression and protect the free world. And that just happens not by coincidence to be our program for America. We not only believe in it, we're proud of the progress that we've made so far. If there's anything wrong with our program, it's not that we've gone too far. It's that we've not gone far enough. We've only begun to cut the growth in spending and taxes. We need and we're asking the Congress to pass a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. Our opponents for insisting the President's recession was caused by our program. Well, may I point out we had the recession before we got the program? I don't think recessions anticipate. Yes, unemployment is too high, but tragically, unemployment is always a lagging indicator. It begins to improve after recovery is also the underway, it's the last thing that gets better. I think it's significant, though, that maybe the recession isn't totally to blame for our unemployment problem, that we have some things to deal with when you get here, because there are a hundred million Americans who are employed, who are in jobs, a little over a hundred million. And that is those employed, even with our nine-and-a-half percent unemployment. This is the highest percentage of working age adults to be employed that we virtually had in our history. In other words, there are just more people now in the workforce. I mean, a higher percentage of people who are of that age in the workforce than we've ever known before in our history. So we're looking at a society that even when there's no recession, we may find that we've got to find some way to create jobs for the people in our country that want them. Also, for the last six months, inflation has been running at an annualized rate of only 3.7 percent. Two years ago, people said that it could never be done so short of time. It was 12.4 percent when we started. And this drop in inflation means over a thousand dollars in increased purchasing power for an average family of four with a fixed income of $15,000. Now, sometimes when there's this thing of compassion that we somehow are not being paid, yes, it's true that some of the benefit programs have been cut. Cut not because we want to take away from those who need, but we want to take away from those whose need is exceeded by their greed and who aren't exactly qualified, but also in some instances to make the programs more efficient and effective. And if you took all the people at the poverty level and below in America today and you added up all the things that are supposed to have been cut, benefits and programs to them, that amount is only a fraction of the amount we have increased their purchasing power by bringing inflation down to the present rate. So they are actually better off even with whatever cuts have been made than they were before. Now, we might see inflation bump up for a month or two, it did just last month, but the trend remains downward. The special leaders start campaigning against our budget cuts as penalizing the poor with the assailant tax program that's favoring the rich. Our defense spending is too high. Here are a few points to remember. God, I hope George hasn't told you all this before. Twenty years ago during John L. Kennedy's Camelot spending for human needs was 29% of his budget. Defense spending was 46% of his budget. Now remember the criticisms of our budget that I just mentioned. In our proposed budget for 1983, human needs aren't 29%. They're 51% of the budget. And defense spending isn't 46% of the budget as it was in Camelot. It's only 29% of our budget. His tax cut program was greatly beneficial to the country. It was phased in over two years and it gave 36% of the relief to corporations, 64% of the tax relief to individuals. Our program is phased in over three years and gives corporations 20% of the total and individuals 80% of the total. And as the middle income taxpayers will get the biggest share of our tax cuts, the problems that we inherit can't be cured overnight. But they can and will be cured with more good people like yourselves in the Congress. As I said, we're with you all the way. And I know that I better get down from here but I don't know whether George told you this about himself or not. But I'll just test it if I see your heads begin to nod. I'll know that he did. George is heading up a task force that has to do with getting rid of unnecessary regulations. And so far, their work in that, we've only been here a year and a half or less, has reduced the federal register to list those regulations, reduced it by 23,000 pages. And the paperwork imposed on the people of the United States was such before his task force went to work that they have now reduced the amount of paperwork imposed on the people by 200 million man-hours of paperwork labor. So I think in every place along the line we're doing some of the things that we talked about, most of the things we talked about in the campaign. Now I know that I'm supposed to get down from here and get down there. You went through the drill before and you know where you'll find me in front of the fire. I'll see you again shortly. I'll see you in Missouri. Doris Bass, land fodder. Jim Liddon, Missouri. Jim Liddon, Missouri. I'm Mr. President. Larry Mead, Missouri. Marjorie Bell Chambers, New Mexico. Marjorie Bell Chambers, New Mexico. Lou Striegel, Oklahoma. Lou Striegel of Oklahoma. The power gruntlets of Oklahoma. Sirius Howard, look Sirius. Too much smile. Ed Moore of Oklahoma. Steve Bartlett of Texas. Ron Slover of Texas. Jeff Wentworth of Texas. Mike Fawbein of Texas. Mike Fawbein of Houston, Texas. Jim Bradshaw. Jim Bradshaw of Texas. Jack McCurden of Maine.