 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Thank you very much. Thank you. Your lunch is going to get cold. Well, thank you, Dave and Penny and Bill, and I know Ruthie's out there, too. Well, I'm glad to see so many good friends here, especially because I've got a 90-minute speech. But actually, I'm going to keep my remarks very short. I was told that that was a key selling point for this luncheon. Now, I realize that we're reversing custom here and they're not going to let you eat until I stop speaking. But you know, I'm reminded of a story. It's strange how that happens. I've told this story more than once, but at my age, people aren't surprised when you start repeating yourself. Of course, I've been repeating myself for so many years now that it'd be risky to stop. And then there's some people to be saying, I'm losing my memory. Well, this has to do with the story of ancient Rome. Down on the floor of the Coliseum huddled this little group of Christians waiting there for the lions, and then the gates were open and the twelve hungry lions came roaring in at them. And one man stepped out of the little group and said a few quiet words, and the lions laid down. Well, the crowd was furious. Their show that they were expecting had been done away with, and Caesar sent for the man and they brought him before him and he said, what did you say to them that made them act like that? He said, I just told him that after they ate, there'd be speeches. Well, this is not just an ordinary Washington luncheon. That's because a plain load of Dave's supporters flew in from Minnesota to be here today. So on behalf of Nancy and myself, I want to give all of you a very special welcome to your nation's capital. Now, maybe you can tell me where you all were in 1984. Yes, we're in 1984 when I needed you. But seriously, our friends from Minnesota know what all of us are here in Washington also know so well, and that is what an experienced and effective senator the people of Minnesota have in Dave Durenberger. Now, I have a lot of respect for Dave Durenberger, but I'll tell you right up in front, and if I didn't, Dave would, that we may not always see eye to eye on every issue. Dave's reputation for independence is something he got the old-fashioned way. He earned it. But I will also tell you that on every major issue, Dave Durenberger will be involved. He'll know the details. We'll listen to the voters, and then he'll sit down and make up his own mind. I figure he must be part Irish. And Dave Durenberger is a staunch defender of the rights and interests of his constituents. He spent at least 100 days each year in the state listening to the people so that he can put their concerns first. And in Washington, he's recognized by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle for his dedication and expertise on issues ranging from health care to the environment from tax policy to arms control. On the Hill, he is known as senator health care because of his record of accomplishment in this area, including the major role he's played in the catastrophic health care legislation past this summer. And Dave's strong support for the INF Treaty helped us win ratification by a large margin for the first agreement in history that actually eliminated an entire class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear missiles. Now, next year, there are going to be some tough budget battles, and we're going to need Dave's help. No, I'm not going to be in the White House, I got a pretty good hunch, but my friend George Bush is. Dave knows that the cause of the federal budget deficit is not that America is undertaxed, but that the federal government overspends. And I think having someone in the Senate who understands that will be worth a whole lot more than the cost of this lunch. And he understands what the basis of America's prosperity is. It's not the government, it's the people of this nation, it's an assistant that leaves them free to work their magic. He supports the Graham-Rudman deficit reduction law. He supported our tax cuts and tax reform bills, and he favors an amendment to the Constitution to require that the federal government have a balanced budget. You know, the first man that ever spoke of anything like that was Thomas Jefferson. Right after the Constitution was approved, he said it has one glaring omission. It does not have anything in it that keeps the federal government from borrowing. Well, tomorrow I'm leaving on my last campaign swing as President. Now, listening to the Liberal Democrats' campaigning this year, I'm reminded of what someone once said, that politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy. To listen to the opposition, you'd think that America had fallen on hard times. The fact is that America is now, as Dave told you, in the longest peacetime expansion ever recorded. Quite some time I've been saying over 71 months, I keep overlooking the fact that a couple of more months have been added. Unemployment is near a 14-year low, and a greater proportion of Americans are at work today than ever before in our history. In this expansion, we've created over 18 million new jobs. That's more jobs than Western, Europe, and Japan combined. And these are good jobs, contrary to what you've heard in some campaign rhetoric. 90% of them are full-time, and 85% of those are the kind that pay $20,000 a year and up. Two-thirds of the jobs are high-paying technical, professional, and managerial jobs. And yes, you've heard of this decline, the so-called decline of the middle class. But what they forget to tell you is that it's not that more Americans are slipping behind, far from it. Yes, the middle class is shrunk because there are more Americans better off than ever before, too well off to be called middle class. Yes, they've moved up into another bracket. Before I go on, I just want to put something in here. When I spoke about the proportion of the people in this country that are at work, and you say, well, yes, but there's a 5.5% unemployment rate. Yeah, most of that are people between jobs by choice or newcomers coming into the market. I had to come here to learn that the statisticians consider the potential employment pool in America of everybody, male and female, from age 16 and up. That includes all of them still getting an education, includes all the retirees. Well, 62.7% of that potential pool have jobs in this country today. Well, now the tax cuts that Dave helped us win for America's working people and entrepreneurs were critical to what we've achieved. Now the liberals are saying that what we did was give tax breaks to the wealthy. Nope. When we came to office, the wealthy were paying less than a fifth of the federal individual income tax revenues. Now the latest data shows, with our reforms, that group, the very top, that small percentage, are now paying more than a fourth of the total, a lot more than they were before when the rates were higher. I got a degree in economics years ago and I've sometimes thought it was honorary. But I remember out of that teaching one thing that I've never forgotten. Back in the year 1200, there was a man in Egypt known as Ibn Khaldun and he cited something that we could all find, understand is true today. And that is, he said, in the beginning of the empire, the rates were low and the revenue was great. At the end of the empire, the rates were high and the revenue was low. Well, now that we're talking numbers, you may remember something called the Misery Index. That was an election year gimmick that candidates Carter and Mondale cooked up for the 1976 campaign. They added up the unemployment and the inflation rates and it came to 13.4% in 1976 and they declared that no one, meaning Jerry Ford, had a right to seek re-election with a Misery Index that high, 13.4%. Well, four years later, after they had been in office, in the 1980 campaign, they didn't mention the Misery Index. Perhaps because during their term in office it had soared to almost 21%. And this year, the liberals still aren't mentioning it. You see, it's dropped more than half. It's down to less than 10% today. And if you care about working Americans, I think that number is something to cheer about. Now, I thought our liberal opposition would thank us for fixing what they broke and they haven't. Instead, they've dreamed up the charge that real family income is no higher today than it was 20 years ago. Well, the fact is that it's 14% higher and one reason it's not even higher than that is because between 1977 and 1981, I don't know why I happened to pick those years. After inflation, income of the typical American family dropped by nearly 7%. And now, since 1981, I don't know why I picked that year either. It's risen by more than 10%. And America's new prosperity also includes a lot more affordable housing. Real estate economists report that back in 1980, with inflation, interest rates, and housing costs soaring, while real income plunged, the average family earned only three quarters of what it took to buy a home. It was so bad, the top housing official in that administration threw up his hands and disbared. If the liberals are good at anything, it's throwing up their hands and despair. And said, for many hard-working families, housing is growing beyond their reach. Well, that's changed. Today, the average American family makes nearly 110% of what it takes to buy a home. And for families who rent, there has also been strong improvement. When the other fellows left the White House, low and medium income families faced a low vacancy rate for apartments of just 5%. That made rentals scarcer and more expensive. Now vacancies are up around 8%, and the apartments are more available. And it's the landlords who are having to wait longer to find tenants. So there you have it. Inflation cut by two-thirds, interest rates cut in half, housing more affordable, rates and employment at an all-time high. This is record prosperity we've achieved. I want you to remember one thing. Our economic recovery would not have been possible if George Bush and I had not had the help of a Republican majority in one house, the Senate, for our first six years in office. That's why it's so important to elect as many Republicans this year as possible and regain control of the Senate and help America to sustain and expand on the prosperity that we have today. It is vitally important to return Dave Durenberger to the Senate, important for Minnesota to have his strong and independent voice, and also important for the man who I believe will be the next President of the United States, George Bush. Well, I just want to thank all of you because you're working to make this happen, and I'm confident that with your help Dave is going to win. Let me just add one thing in here, another set of figures. Counting this year is the 58th. For 58 years, the Democrats have controlled 54, for 54 years, the House of Representatives. And for 48 years, both Houses of the Congress. Those six years that we had the one House were very exceptional. A Republican President in these 58 years has only had a Republican Congress in both Houses for a two-year stretch, and that was Ike. He had them for two out of the eight years. The Democratic Presidents, except for these years here, where we had the six, they have only had two years that a Democratic President had a Republican Congress in both Houses, and that was back in two years of Truman's administration. So it's 48 with both Houses and 54 for that other House. And that means, as we know, that every 10 years, the reapportionment laying out the congressional and legislative districts takes place. They've been in charge for that reapportionment. We're sitting here with a gerrymandered America that, over a half a century, they have been laying out the districts to suit themselves. Well, they can't change the state lines, so we may have trouble still getting even in the House of Representatives, but not in the Senate. Go out there and do the right thing. Get Dave back there in the Senate. Thank you, and God bless you all. Thank you very much. On behalf of the President, thank you very much. The first time I had heard about his economics degree I referred to as honorary because I started admiring this man in 1961 or two when he came and gave his general electric speech at the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, and I got to tell you in reflection now that's almost 30 years ago that your consistency is incredible. The very same things you talked about then are the values that have been our foundation in both the six years that we had the majority in the two years in which the Democrats had it, but we were able to dictate some of the good things that happened in this country. Now, each of you has at your place a little gift, a small gift from a couple of wonderful women in Hopkins, Minnesota, but this is a slightly larger one I'm going to present to President and Mrs. Reagan. Just thank you. Actually, it says thank you for eight great years, which is the way we, a lot of us, think about Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan, but for those of you, I just mentioned that I heard a little bit of the governor in here, and you really have to remember that this person has been in public life in a wide variety of ways a lot longer than the last eight years, and this just happens to be the most visible part of it, but for all of those many years, Mr. President, especially the last eight years from Penny and myself, this gift does our way of saying thank you for all those here. Thank you very much. And thank you all again, and now a little nine-year-old girl wrote me a letter the first week that I was in office here, and I've tried to follow her teachings. She outlined all the things that had to be done, and by golly, at that age, she had them correct, the taxes, everything else, and then wound up the letter saying thank you to get back to work.