 I'm so happy that I've worked on this. Thank you, Paul, and I want to thank all of you for coming by this afternoon. We're delighted to have you here. First of all, let me say how glad we are to have some Floridians with us today. It's good to have a reminder of the sunshine that's not too far away, while we even produced a little watery sunshine for you here. Your state also combines old and new primitive surroundings and modern high-rises, scientific explorations and leisurely tourism, and contains just about every ethnic and racial group in America. Pearl Buck calls you a heady American brew, and so you are. I'm partially your part of the country, so we're glad to have you, but most of you are from Chicago. Perhaps you know I'm also very partial to your part of the country, because in addition to being an Illinois boy myself, I also spent some time as a broadcaster of the Chicago Cubs Games. Now, all I have to do is mention the word Chicago or the word sports, and people start expecting me to tell stories. I really don't know how I'll let business about my weakness for storytelling get started. There won't be any Chicago Cubs stories today, none. Well, maybe just one. Some of the fellows were saying that I should be telling you the story about Frankie Frisch. Many of you are not old enough to remember when Frankie Frisch managed the Cubs for a time. He was known as the Fordham Flash, but the story, and it's almost as old as I am, is the story is that Frankie Frisch one day sent a rookie out into center field, and the kid came in a fly ball, fell down and missed it, tried to pick up a grounder and fell again and couldn't get that, threw the ball to the wrong base, and finally he'd done enough things like that that Frankie went out, took the glove away from him and said, go on over there and I'll show you how to play this position. And the first ball was a line drive over the second base. Frankie came in and the ball, he stumbled, fell down, couldn't pick up the ball again, and finally turned around, threw the glove on the ground and yelled at the kid and said, see, you've been out in that position long enough that nobody can play it. But I think that I've used that story a few times to remind my political supporters that however much we might be critical of some things done in the past, there was no time to be moaned in the past. Just we had to get on with the work before us. A vital part of this work means leaving to future generations a country that's not only strong and prosperous, but one that's deeply aware of its heritage and its historical roots. It was Lincoln, Illinois' first president, who reminded us how much a nation relies on those mystic chords of memory for its identity, for its very being. Each of you is continuing this important work and I want you all to know how terribly grateful I am to you. And I also want you to know that you're earning as well the gratitude, I think, of many future generations of Americans. Now that's enough monologue from me, and I know I only have a few minutes left, and then before we go, I'm going back to the East Room and hope that you will all come through. So again, I can have a chance to say thank you and shake your hand. But in the meantime, and this scares the hell out of some of my people, if we just have a few minutes and somebody has at least for a couple of questions, if you haven't heard anything you needed to hear this morning, fire away, and I'd like to take a crack and try and answer a question or two. You want to tell us anything about Libya? I have made it clear that when we have the irrefutable evidence of Mr. Gaddafi's part and what's been going on with regard to terrorism, we will respond, and I intend to keep that pledge. Mr. President, what's the one thing that you're most proud of with regard to your administration and the one thing that you're most frustrated about? Oh, boy. Well, one thing, and this isn't really something about my administration, but one thing I'm just more proud of than anything else, are the young men and women who are in uniform today in our armed forces. I'm not sure that we've ever, having been in there myself, I'm not sure that we've ever had anything quite like it. We have the highest percentage of high school graduates ever in the history of the United States in an all-volunteer military, and even when we had the draft available, we couldn't match this. There are three intelligence sections in military in the Army and deciding where and what you're going to do with personnel. We have the highest percentage in the top bracket of intelligence that we've ever had, and the morale and the esprit de corps is just something that when I see them, well, I was getting very bothered for a time because those Marines out there, when you get on the helicopter and they throw that high ball at you, and I know I'm not in uniform, so I'm not supposed to be able to answer a salute, but they'd still stand there holding that salute. Finally, one day I said to the commanding general of the Marine Corps that if I'm the commander-in-chief, there ought to be a regulation that permits me, even though I'm not in uniform, to return a salute. And I learned something about the job. He said, Mr. President, if you do respond, I don't think anyone will say anything. So I know very happily. But I'm proud of them. I guess Paul talked about a change. I think of something the administration and one of the things we've done is that the whole debate that has characterized the Congress for the last 50 years or so, which only a few times have we had a majority and one or both houses of the legislature, that a debate that once dealt with spending programs and whether you should have additional ones and so forth has changed, and the whole debate is based not on whether we should reduce spending, but how we reduce it. And I think that is a monumental change, and I hope we can put that in concrete so it will be here long after some of us are gone. Proud of that. And then you ask, what is the most frustrating? I'm frustrated so often. I think it has to do with, I'd have to say, the budgeting process and the fact that the Congress could vote down a balanced budget amendment. Most, every state in the union has a balanced budget either in legislation or in its constitution. That plus a line item veto and 43 governors, including when I was governor in California, have a line item veto and to see that we still are unable to get that for a president of the United States and thus you have the practice, we're going to face it on a very important issue shortly, I think, of tying something to a bill that just must be passed. And then you would either have to veto that all-important bill to get out that little bit of pork that's been infused or accepted. And it goes on, it's a common practice. As governor of California for eight years, I vetoed, line item vetoed, 943 times and was never once overridden on the veto. Now in California, the budget has to be passed that the governor presents by the legislature by a two-thirds vote, which is the same vote you need to override a veto. So the same legislature that would have a two-thirds vote in passing the budget could not get a two-thirds vote to override my veto when I picked out those line item things in the budget that were just pork barrel spending and vetoed them out. And I think it would be the greatest tool that we could have for getting us back to a balanced budget. So anytime you're talking to any of your representatives, tell them to give me a line item veto. Mr. President, what are your reading right now on Congress's compromise with the Senate and the Contra A? This is the all-important legislation I mentioned that I suspect that when it's supposed to come to a vote this week in the House, it's been passed to the Congress. I suspect we're going to see an effort to hang that on as an amendment to a supplemental bill that I have been holding a pen in my hand for weeks waiting to veto because it's so damn fat with overspending that we should be eliminating. And I suspect they may make an effort to do this. But other than that, I know that there are a lot. It's bipartisan. There's good bipartisan support. Our problem is only with the leadership. There's good bipartisan support there for Contra A. 17 out of 19 Congressmen have a large vote for your bill. You have first-hand information as to what the results can be. Mr. President, I'm not in the oil business, nor do I propose to get into it. But I am very concerned that we might be being led down the primrose pass by the Arabs in their overproduction of oil that drives our stripper wells out of existence. Two million barrels of our oil a day are produced in wells that produce less than five barrels a day. And I'm concerned that we should be doing something to make foreign oil more expensive. Well, this was one of the things that George Bush was misquoted very badly on his recent trip. One of the things he was there for was to make sure, if we can make sure in advance, but at least to let them know how we would look upon some effort. You see, it's all well and good for us to talk about the free market. But in the case of oil, it isn't really a free market because some of the biggest producers are government-owned oil, Mexico and in the Persian Gulf and all. And he wanted them to know that we would not sit by and see them deliberately force the price down to where they could eliminate the competition. And then, of course, once they had done that backup would go the price. We still believe in the free marketplace establishing that price, but we're going to keep our eyes open for any hanky-panky. Mr. President, not a question simple statement. This has to be the last one. President George Washington founded our nation. President Abraham Lincoln reunited it. President Ronald Reagan resurrected it from the depths of despair. And for that, God love you, we'll be eternally quick. Thank you very much. Thank you again. I'm going to win the Blue Room now, and I hope I see you all in there for a minute. Thank you very much. I'm pleased today to have four internet experts here on the Soviet economy. Our purpose is to give you their views on the prospects for the Soviet economy and the implications to the West. This is part of our preparations for your unstructured time at the Economic Summit. And it's also a useful background for your expected meeting sometime this year for the Secretary of Overjohn. You'll recall, Mr. President, that you have selected as the theme for this specific journey to win the Freedom. That is the recognition that the world has put in a significant movement toward economic and political self-determination. On the Allied side, as Alan Wallace mentioned to you, but in your first Summit of Economic Review last week, we looked at the Tokyo Summit as a celebration both of the Freedom and unparalleled cooperation in the economic as well as political and military spheres. On the other side of the curtain, so to speak, we have the Soviet Union. Struggling to make its antiquated machinery function properly from what is really needed is a new decentralized factor. We think it is premature to offer our summit partners specific policies for addressing the failing Soviet economy, but that it is important that they be made aware of this long-term problem and the choices it presents to the West. What we'd like to do today is outline for you the long-term predicament facing the Soviets. I'm going to pause. Are you? Good. Mr. Secretary, you're here. Oh, thank you. Thank you for what you were saying. Well, I heard you speak about the importance of some features in your past life. I appreciate it. You're a great expert in communications. I'm not a white-scammer. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I'm not a C.D.U. I want to present this to you as the national teacher of the year. As you mentioned, I hope all of us have in our memories what a teacher or a teacher should make this at some point in our life. I want to present this to you, but I can't even say it's single. I don't know whether you've ever known it or heard of it before, but a well-known journalist, Dr. Momenhoff, has written a poem about teachers. And I just couldn't resist. I've kept this for a long time. What he has to say I think is so appropriate. His poem is, just teach me, You are the moinders of their dreams, the gods who build or crush their young beliefs of right and wrong. You are the spark that sets a flame in the poor's hand or lights the flame of some great singer's song. You are the god of the young, the very young. You are the guardians of a million dreams your every smile or frown can heal or pierce a heart. Yours are a hundred lives, a thousand lives. Yours the pride of lovin' them, the sorrow of them. Your patient worth, your touch, make you the god of hope that fills their souls with dreams to make those dreams come true. That is gorgeous. You read my writings and I scratched it off here so I could do this. Thank you so much for taking time. I sure appreciate it. On behalf of all teachers. I was just trying to tell some of my people that they're wonderful to hear, but I let you say this morning it's so evident about not teaching this subject or that subject or its spelling or reading about it. You taught students. Yes. Well said. Thank you very much. Another job of education has become very complicated with some of the changes in social forms today. Some of the problems didn't exist back when I was going to school. That's true. Those are the things that are the greatest concern of the life coping skills that we also have to teach today. And my feeling is we have to re-instill some of those basic traditional values that are in our country great and emphasis on home and family. That's the challenge. Mr. President, on behalf of the state of Minnesota, I'd like to present you with this hand carved wood. It's carved out of one block of wood by a local brainer, Minnesota artist, named Mark Sel, his wife, Paula, painted it. And you know it's very close. All the feathers are detailed. It's all one solid block of wood. The loon is a beautiful animal. It's our state bird. I'd like to present that to you. Thank you very much. I'm very pleased and proud to have this just happens that all the ranch I have a few hand carved wood. I usually use them for shooting purposes. Oh, please don't shoot this off. No, I have them on shelves. Just to join the collection as a matter of fact, it'll be the centerpiece of the collection. Oh, that's tremendous. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I thought you were going to stand up on what happened in the third grade today. Or octenation. Please stand up. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is of the varying origin there. And maybe it was like that. That wasn't it. I thought it was the bottom. It came to that post. It still braves about it. It looks like it varied with the room. Excuse me, sir. And really, there's the job. Yeah. There's the American challenge. Yeah. There is the Chancellor of the Year. Respections, of course. Yeah. That's the days going on. It is the President of the Chancellor. I think, certainly, at that time, it gives a statement of the request himself yesterday, press conference.