 President of the United States thank you very much thank you I know that I know I'm about 25 minutes early but since in the great greeting ceremony for the president of Sri Lanka this morning out here six people passed out from the warmth I just couldn't stand it sitting in there and seeing you out here and I wouldn't want to come out here and find a lot of bodies lying there so I decided to come out early but there is one other thing I'd like to leave up to you since the Republican Party is a party of individuals and all now I have a speech here that I was gonna make not too long I learned a long time ago about keeping speeches short but I just wondered would you rather have the speech or would you rather have a question-and-answer session for a little bit of time we've got to ask some questions questions okay that is a question I ask in here of the people that schedule me almost daily it seems like those trips to the ranch are getting further and further between and if you will all help and I get reelected I'm gonna set a new schedule that's gonna see me get there more often but I guess the next visit is July 28th when I come out to open the Olympics yeah now listen I admire your spirit and all of that but just let me tell you one thing please get scared don't don't get overconfident president Dewey told me that I should never be too optimistic so really there are problems there with all the additional registration that they've been doing the big drive that they've been making and all I think that we ought to consider that we're one vote behind and run that way all the way to November and then at least get us one vote ahead well yes now wait a minute the the domestic content bill I have to be opposed to that that is another form of protectionism and you may save somebody's job here but no one turns around to see how many jobs were lost behind them by virtue of such a bill now I have to oppose it domestic content you know and that is that anything that is built and imported to this country like an automobile has to have X percent of American manufactured parts in it and it may sound good in the surface but as I say it they usually I'm a veteran of the great depression of the 1930s and that great depression as we look back from hindsight and it was a worldwide depression and if you think the recession we've just been through was anything serious it was a breeze compared to that great depression more than 25 percent of the total workforce unemployed and there were no programs of unemployment insurance or anything of the kind but one of the things that perpetuated as you look back is we rushed out with all kinds of government cures and one of them was the smooth Holly tariff bill that set high penalizing tariffs well of course then every other country in the world did the same thing in retaliation and I think it had an awful lot to do with the recent with the great depression going on as long as it did and don't let anyone ever fool you about this none of the panaceas none of the government make work projects really ended the great depression World War two ended the great depression and that's a pretty expensive way yes what is be the most significant accomplishment the first term what do I think it would be in a second term and I won't repeat your first line there I think maybe overall well of course there is in the face of all the prognostications that wouldn't happen the economic recovery which has now become economic expansion is something but more than that I've been traveling the mashed potato circuit long before I ever thought I would want to hold public office or do hold public office and all those years I was speaking out having started out as a New Deal Democrat I had converted myself and was beginning to speak out against governments increasing intervention in the private sector governments increasing taking over of things that the people should be doing for themselves and I think to look now and see that the debate in Congress for three and a half years now has not been as it has been for almost 50 years debate of how much more should we spend on new programs and things of that kind is that the debate is over how much should we cut spending there's no one saying we shouldn't cut it's just how much should you cut that is one and I'd have to tie to it another one when we took office our defense posture was so low the morale of our forces so low that we had no reenlistment on any given day 50% of our airplanes could not fly for lack of spare parts 50% of our ships in the Navy couldn't leave port not only for lack of sport parts for spare parts but for lack of crew and today we have a waiting list we have the highest percentage of high school graduates in the armed forces that we've ever had in our history even when in wartime we had a complete draft we have the highest reenlistment rate and we have a readiness posture meaning the equipment and everything would take if there is an emergency and the morale in our armed forces is just something that I get a lump in my throat when I when I see those young men and women out there that are in uniform their spirit their morale I get letters I got one from an 18 year old in a submarine who wrote a letter and he said we may not be the biggest Navy in the world we're the best and I got a letter from an ambassador who'd gone up on the East German frontier and saw some American troops that are over there and so he came back to his helicopter and a young 19 year old trooper followed him this was one of our armored regiments followed him and he said can the ambassador could you get a message to the president well being an ambassador he allowed it how he could he said well would you tell him we're proud to be here and we ain't scared of nothing so that kind of sums it up for me yes we are we're having a big fight in the Congress on that right now but it is absolutely necessary those people in El Salvador have proven in three elections when the guerrillas slogan was on each election day vote today and die tonight and they still in percentages almost double the percentage of voters that we turn out they voted for democracy they voted to have peace and freedom and I think we're morally obligated to stay with them and what we're doing in Nicaragua is nothing more or less than this a totalitarian government in Nicaragua every bit as totalitarian as in Cuba in the Soviet Union is supplying training and directing the guerrillas trying to overthrow that democratic government in El Salvador well as long as they're doing this I think we've got an obligation to support the people of Nicaragua who also want to be free I'm sure you can be invited to the inaugural ball and all of you for the work that you're doing if if and when I always have to say that I'm superstitious but the first part of your question there for your first question here again was the advice to those of you who might aspire to positions even this one there's some drawbacks in this one too but the advice is what you're doing and keep on being active in political life now you may find out because as I say I started out with no idea that I would ever do anything of this kind but being a performer I had always thought that I I had to pay my dues and that meant that I should take advantage of the fact that as a performer I could attract an audience and so forth so I campaigned for the people and the causes that I believed in and it was through that campaigning one day that a group of my fellow Republicans landed on me in 1965 and insisted that I had to run for governor and again believe me I was a reluctant dragon I did not want to do that I have to say it has turned out to be the most fulfilling thing I've ever done in my life but you stay with it and as you help you will see and if you still then have a desire for public life you will see for yourself what is the best avenue to start by getting elected to a local or a state position in the legislature or whatever it might be you and you'll have the know-how then as to how to go about it but it comes from remaining active remaining good citizens who say I'm not just gonna sit home or maybe just go out and vote when election day comes I'm gonna help making the things I believe in come true and that is the other thing don't seek public office just because you think it looks like a good job really believe in something that you want to see accomplished in government and then it's worthwhile are you being properly prepared to run the country and to take over let me just say that when we appointed some time ago a commission on education because we were frightened by the decline in the quality of education in this country the superiority of students in other countries over ours in the SAT tests and all out of that has come a realization but also we can be optimistic because out of that commission has come great reforms there are 50 states that have already at the state level started implementing many of the reforms recommended by that commission and we're continuing with that but so I'm now reassured that you will be I had to say earlier and some of the things they found when they found students in our universities who didn't know which side of the war we were on in World War two I had to say wait a minute somebody's leaving something out here and the things that they're they're teaching you but I think already there has been a great improvement and a remedying of that that situation and so I think but also the very experience that you yourselves are getting here and what you're doing is going to prepare you for that there yes there is something in particular an awful lot of what we've done and are doing here is one of the best kept secrets in American public life I can go out and make a speech and then I look at the TV news at night and I know what I said in the speech and I see I see myself saying about 12 words very innocuous words not the real meat of the speech or anything and then I see myself continue but no sound and a commentator's voice comes over the scene of me telling the people what he or she says that I said in the speech usually quite inaccurate and missing the best parts but the the demagoguery that has gone on in fighting all the things we've done you've heard for example that our economic reform program was not fair that we were unfair our tax cut was unfair it benefited the wealthy and not the poor well how many people out there know and yet I know I've been trying to say this and tell it whenever I can but all of you arm yourself with the facts we learned in making motion pictures back in those days when I was in that career that the most effective advertising in spite of all the bill boards and trailers and everything else was word of mouth people went to a movie because a neighbor said hey have you seen that picture down at the Bijou theater now the same thing is true here your word of mouth to people in these things for example how many of you know that as a result of our tax cut the percentage of the overall income tax that is being paid by the people below twenty five thousand dollars of income has vastly declined the percentage of the tax being paid by people over a hundred thousand dollars of income has vastly increased so we didn't have a tax that benefited the rich and penalized the poor it the very reverse was true how many of you heard that we've our cuts in the budget have been such that the poor are not being taken care of the elderly are being neglected I heard a mayor of San Francisco say this in the air the other night the great problems of the hungry and the poor and the elderly well the average couple on social security today is getting a hundred and seventy dollars a month more than they were getting when we came here the federal government is subsidizing 95 million meals a day every day in the United States the truth of the matter is we didn't really cut anything to less than what it was if we did had the budget would be smaller than when we came all we've succeeded in doing is cutting the rate of increase in the spending when under the law when I submit a budget I have to give a projection of where if that budgets past where it goes us over the next five years where it takes us if we were following the projected five year budgets of Jimmy Carter's administration the deficit today would be ninety billion dollars bigger than it is so when someone tells you that we're we're providing more food stamps what we have done is we've set some limits because we found an awful lot of people who really didn't have a moral right to be accepting government aid because of the level of their earnings that we took them off and redirected our spending down to people who were poor for example we set a standard that a hundred and thirty percent of the poverty level of income below that level you're eligible for government help above that level you're on your own we found people who were making almost two hundred percent of the poverty level income and we're getting government programs we have increased the grants and loans to needy students from college by fifty two percent since we've been here now I'd only cite these as things find out and then you bet you can do a job if you're the one that can raise your hand in a group and say wait just a minute and correct the demagogue that is out there with all the cliches and I'm keeping you here too long because you're beginning to melt I bet you were here in the summer of 81 the first one here hi to see you Mr. President Matt introduced you megan lot who was the organizational director of national teenage republicans Mr. President we think you are the absolute greatest and we all love you very much we love Nancy too on behalf of teenage republicans all across the country we would like to present you this very special plaque the inscription reads president Ronald W. Reagan 1980 through 1989 big men wear big shoes and dream big dreams Mr. President thank you for making America great again and ensuring our future presented by national teenage republican leadership conference June 17th through 22nd 1984 and Mr. President as a post script on our feelings about the fall campaign I'd like you to read the last line of our plaque it says let's give Fritz the boot well if I needed any inspiration I have it now I'll try my darndest to fill these boots and with regard to dreaming dreams yes and don't you be afraid to dream dreams that's what made this country what it is dream and then go after those dreams that's what it's all about and we'll do our darndest if we have those next several years whatever time we've got left to try and hands you a little head start on those dreams of what this country can be we'll keep on swinging back here God bless you well thank you very much thank you all very much oh I did you're still hands up there and I I know all right all right listen I can take I can take one more I'll take one more question and that's because we have run out of time and and you've you're gonna be running out of comfort here in it about a new party well there's that that always goes on there are people that and sometimes they have very worthwhile goals and aims if they do and if they're not going off on some tangent that takes them in the opposite direction of everything we believe in then the best thing that we can do is to try and convince them that cooperating with our party is maybe the quickest way to get started on the things that they aspire to if we've got the safe they've got the same goals and they look the same goals as we have let's go after them and tell them that together maybe we can bring about some of their their dreams I don't know of any better suggestion than that my time is up and I know you I thought that I was in the worst climate in the world in Sacramento as governor but here no you really melt it's it's terrible well again listen wait a minute now wait wait one second I'll come right back