 Such power until you stop and realize that every day somebody's got to put a piece of paper in front of you tells you What you're doing every 15 minutes? but When you've had coffee and all and dessert and when we've had our little conversation here why I'm going to get a chance to Individually greet each one of you in the next room and we'll have some pictures taken all that's going on So first of all, let me thank you all not only for being here, but thank you all for What your presence means and what you have done in the past there have been a few moments when I didn't feel like thanking anyone for But Somebody had suggested some prepared remarks for me and I know that you've been briefed by several other people And I'm sure that almost anything I'd pick out to talk about You already would have heard Like that for the last 12 months the inflation rate has only been running at 2.6 percent and I have told some people before and tell you that I Know that our plan is working because back when things look so dark our critics and opponents named it Reaganomics and Now that it's working. They don't call it that anymore But a great many of you are why it's working If there's one thing I'm proud of above all others it is what happened when we set out to have a task force as we once did in California on the private initiative and What the private sector could do and we have a computer filled now with more than 3,000 Programs all over the United States in which people at the community level or business groups You name it private citizens have found Ways to treat with some of the problems that confront us Just as we used to do once upon a time before government thought that was its main mission and It has just it's been thrilling and exciting to see what's going on and how much is being solved by the citizens of this Country who stepped in but I'm not going to go on because I said I'll be if I talk I'll be saying some of the same things you said but I thought and while you're having your coffee and your dessert that There must have been some times when you've said to yourself boy if I had a chance to ask him Well, that's how we can have a That's how we can have a dialogue. So ask me. Let's have a little Q&A. Yes Thank you very much I Have to tell you that I can't answer that right now because I don't know how it is Going to be sandwiched and what they're going to send up it. I can tell you they have waited down to the very last minute and This is why someday I Wish that a president of the United States could have what we had in California and so many states have the right of line item veto Here in Washington you have to take the whole package or veto the whole package and they can really put it in with Some things that there's no way you can veto. So I'm waiting to see what's going to come to my desk Thank you all the this is probably one of the least most least understood things that we have out there on the airwaves and in the print printed press and so forth and We've tried and tried to make the people understand not only the proximity But what is actually going on down there a very simple situation is this over? What a century or more? We have seen Latin American revolutions and they've always been simply exchanging one set of rulers for another set of rulers But in El Salvador we've had a situation where they are attempting real democracy This is an elected government and when they went to the polls for that election last year More than 80% of the voters turned out and the stories of those people Congressional delegation of ours went down as observers to make sure these were legitimate elections First of all the gorillas had destroyed hundreds of buses and trucks Bombed them and set them on fire so that the people couldn't get to the polls But they went trudging for hours and hours through the hot sun to get there They brought back stories these congressmen of a woman in the line waiting to vote They had to wait as much as eight and I can you imagine Americans? Only about half of us vote and you can vote within about three minutes after you get there They stood in line as long as eight and ten hours Waiting for the opportunity to vote this one woman was wounded by rifle fire because the gorillas had a slogan vote today and die tonight and She would not leave the line for medical treatment until she had voted Another grandmother that was she and her family threatened with death. She says you can kill me. You can kill our family You can kill our friend. You can't kill us all and when the press would go by The congressman told me that these people standing in line would turn and chant to the press tell the truth So this is what it is that we're trying to keep Going with their their reforms. They haven't made it a hundred percent. There are violations of human rights by our standards but For a hundred years, they haven't known what human rights are. They're trying they're working hard at it The gorillas on the other hand are trained in Cuba and even many of them were trained with the PLO In the Middle East There are we have 55 military advisors not advisors military trainers These are mainly enlisted men who are there trying to train the Salvadoran army Which had never been anything but a garrison army so they can deal with these expertly armed and trained gorillas and In Nicaragua right now Nicaragua is supplying the arms and weapons by way of the Soviet or the Soviet Union in Cuba supplying them by way of Nicaragua to El Salvador They have thousands literally thousands of military personnel from Cuba and from some other countries there in in Nicaragua and yet The big fuss is being raised because we have 55 mainly enlisted men trying to teach the Salvadorans how to have a military and As you said It's closer from Miami is closer to El Salvador than Miami is to Washington This is our backyard and our dream is and this is why we've appointed a commission I made a trip down there to Central and to South America. I met with the heads of state I know we've gone there with plans before Good neighbor policies and so forth, but we never really did anything about them And the worst thing is we went as the big colossus of the north and said here's our plan for how you must all better yourselves Well, we went down this time and said to them you tell her what are your ideas? How can we bring all these countries in these two continents north and South America? Together as equal allies here in the Western Hemisphere. We worship the same God from pole to pole When we cross the borders into another country here, we're still among Americans because we're Americans in all of these two continents Same heritage and they were enthusiastic about this and this is what our Commission on Central America is supposed to do find a long range plan by which we can end this these lands of an oligarchy of wealth and the rest of the people in poverty where we can bring them up to where they can have any Economy similar similar to ours where they can be self-sustaining where there's opportunity for their people But you can't do that while someone is shooting their heads off They've got a land reform plan thousands of people in El Salvador have been given land that never allowed to own it before They can't go out and work the land because the guerrillas will kill them if they try and So we think that it's proper to help them economically socially But at the same time to provide a shield and we're not going to have American people down there as we did in Vietnam As a matter of fact President Monago was just here and he's openly stated. He says I don't want That kind of help we can do the job ourselves If you will see that we're provided with the wherewithal with the weapons and the ammunition and so forth to do it So that's what we're going to do and there isn't there isn't any similarity between what we're doing and Nicaragua and Maybe when they're so busy criticizing that they might look back and see that the first armed forces that were sent into Nicaragua Were sent by Democratic administrations And it was a Republican administration that finally got us out of there During the pre-convention days of 1980 and there probably were a few of us who maybe even did some second guessing of you in Detroit But in the last two and a half years I don't think we could have asked for a more loyal stronger more effective voice of the vice president in Articulated your policies and if you should decide to run again, I don't think there's one of us here that would not totally Quite honestly May I tell you that somebody else in this room for two and a half years has Discovered the same thing that you have discovered and I couldn't have asked for anyone that has been more involved More engaged in what we're doing and worked harder And the vice president has done and I don't want to go You understand why I can't answer You know, there's it's a really a Hobson's choice If a fellow said no, he'd be a helpless lame duck for the rest of his term here And if a fellow said yes everything you tried to do they would oppose on the basis that was campaigning That's just about lady and then you Well, it'll be it'll be my fourth trip Out there and I have to tell you that having been governor of California I came to Washington with the idea that really the future Lies in the Pacific Basin and we are a Pacific state as well as a As a state that looks toward Europe that I think the old adage of go West young man still holds true And that is where the great new development has taken place Bob says we got to make it the last question Well, it is true that the polls indicate that more women vote the other way than vote for me But I figured that there's two gender gaps on account of more then vote for me than vote for the Democrats But again, I think it's a case of not really understanding What we've done and what we're doing first of all in California. I was governor there We started in then and we found and changed 14 statutes that actually Deliberately discriminated against women and we had all 14 of those laws cancelled when I came here the first thing we did was Set up an operation to communicate with the rest with all the 50 governors and tell them of our California experience and Every one of them appointed a representative within their state to start inspecting their own laws and regulations to do At their state level what we had done in California, but we didn't stop there and to date we are far ahead of Virtually any previous administration that we know of certainly than the one that just preceded us with regard to what we have done our tax policy Relieved to a great extent the marriage income tax penalty that was unfairly imposing on married couples We almost doubled went from 400 to 720 the tax credit for childcare for working mothers We did a number of other things in that regard tax wise for example the changes in the inheritance tax that a spouse Does not have to pay inheritance tax a number of things of that kind but also From the civil court or the Supreme Court appointment to three members of the cabinet This is never before happened in our country, but also More than a thousand appointments at a different level than than cabinet of women in virtually every Facet of what our activity that we have in the administration and then I was what happens and distorts this picture Is that the other day I? saw on the news Comparison of the figures of the Carter administration with regard to women and dollars And made him gave him a little edge Except that they'd no one said that they were using his figures for the total four years And they were only using ours for the first two years now At two years if you compare what he had done at two years and ours We're way ahead in every department just as we are in the whole subject of civil rights Here again from the very first and beginning in California. We started down that path and I will match our record against that of any administration that has ever served in this government and yet We're getting no recognition and now One legal case that the Justice Department has brought has earned us the accolades of the press in that they're saying well Now we're doing it just as a grandstand stunt Our legal cases with regard to housing violations Human rights violations discrimination and education top At this moment those that are pending those that have been completed top anything that any figures that we've ever found in any previous administration and We're going to keep on in that direction too But I guess I did more than answer a question didn't I I know I've got as late