 Mrs. Reagan. Thank you all very much. Oh, please, sit down. Sit down, that's an order. Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate that very much. And seeing the great number of you and that there are many more appointees than would be here today makes me very proud. But I'm not just proud of some quota or number or statistic. I'm proud of, because of the qualifications, the ability and the energies that each of you bring to this administration. All of you are here as part of this administration for one reason and one reason only because your country needs you. I appreciate the sacrifice that many of you have made to be here in government, and since most of you have been on the job for some time, why my message is not so much one of welcome as it is to thank you for your hard work and to rally you once again to the cause that brought us all here. We come to government at a time of economic crisis and we've only begun to sort out the mess that had been building for 40 years. But that was before any of us were born, of course. But the difficulties we face today only prove the failure of the programs that came before. The rough and tumble of political debate as the temptations grow to waiver from our course when each day brings new tests to our convictions, let us remember that our time here is very short. We're only temporary stewards of this great land and we're not here to make our careers as bureaucrats advocates of the status quo. We're here to make the federal government work for the people, to make it once more play the positive but limited role that it was intended to play. You know, I've had the pleasure sometimes of talking to young people on campuses or in high schools and questions come up about the Constitution and so forth and I've read the copy of the Soviet Constitution and it contains a great many terms that are in ours. They talk about a lot of things that don't happen there like freedom of speech and right to assemble and so forth. But then I always delight in pointing out to them, everybody has a Constitution but what makes ours different? And I just mentioned it in that last sentence. What makes ours really different is all those other Constitution tell the people what the government will do for them and let them do. And ours is a Constitution that says we the people will allow the government to do the following things and anything we don't allow government to do, government can't do. Governments tend to forget that lately. Each day as you go into your offices, remember we came to this place to pair the unmanageable size of government to reduce its massive bulk, its powers and its waste to free our people and our economy from its oppressive hand. The minute that any of you start to think of government as we instead of they, we've been here too long. I told maybe some of you the other day in a talk that I know it's hard, it's hard when you're up to your armpits and alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp. But this is our chance to restore America and as I look at you I'm confident we can do it. Our programs are designed to bring prosperity to all people, to start all people moving up again in the economic ladder and reforms in our tax code such as increased allowances for IRAs, a reduction in the marriage penalty and easing of inheritance taxes that will allow virtually all estates to pass untaxed to surviving spouses will have particular benefit for women and I got news for you, it ain't going to hurt the men either. But we must root out discrimination wherever it exists, whether on the basis of race, religion or sex or any other arbitrary barrier. Together we can work to remove it from this government and working with state and local officials we can eliminate it at other levels. We've launched a new task force on legal equality for women and a 50 states project that will examine state laws and regulations for discriminatory language. And incidentally while it's true I confess that I don't believe in the Equal Rights Amendment is the best way to end discrimination against women I do believe such discrimination must be eliminated. When I was governor of California we looked at our laws we looked at our laws, we found 14 statutes it was difficult to believe that anyone had ever passed such laws and that they were still on the books and we wiped them off the books and got rid of them. So we have to look for others and repeal them. We must continue our progress toward the America we all dream of the America where people are hired and promoted and rewarded on the basis of ability and willingness to work and of all of us, not just those of us in this room but all of us are committed to that goal then together we can and will achieve it. I said on the anniversary of our assuming office that our days of quick and sensational victories are behind us and we have left the glamorous days of initial commitment and faced the grit of the long haul I heard somebody the other day on the air on one of the panel shows saying that the honeymoon is over Well as I remember back the last year I want to tell you if that was a honeymoon romance is dead in Washington. In the days ahead I'll be relying more than ever on your commitment, your ideas and your staying power. I believe in the course we've chatted for America with your help we're going to stick to it. If our priorities are clear and if we pull together there's nothing that we can't accomplish all we have to do is just remember why we're here and again I thank all of you very much because you're here. Thank you.