 the President of the United States. I've only got a few minutes. Thank you all very much. I appreciate that. And I'm pleased that you're here, because I think in large part, one of the things underlying the program upon which you've been briefed and are going to continue to be briefed today is the balance between state and federal and local government. And I think that balance is the key to economic recovery in our country and recovery of a lot of other things that you have to deal with every day. You know what's best for your states. You know what's best for your communities. You are the closest to the people. You hear them. And we in this administration want a partnership with you. And I think with such a partnership, there'd be no limit to what we can accomplish. We need your help in getting the consolidation of categorical grants into block grants. Granted, there are going to be reductions in the budget if you've been told. But I think if you were given the flexibility to use those block grants in your judgment, the way they should be, set your priorities that I don't think that you'll feel the pain of those cuts as much as maybe somebody in the bureaucracy up here is going to feel it. Now, I know that this afternoon that's going to be the subject that you hear, so I'm not going to get into great detail about it. There is one other thing that I think you, if you haven't heard today, that you would be interested in is our task force on regulations. So far more than 100 of them have been targeted for elimination. And more than a third of that 100 will remove the restrictions that are presently imposed on local and state government entities. And having been in state government myself, I've got some experience with some of those regulations and restrictions and the additional paperwork that they cause for. You know what's happening in the country. You're closer to the people, and you hear the cry of the people for some reform. We hope that we'll soon have, I'm hoping anyway, I know you've, Don Regan has spoken to you this morning already about it, but I hope that very shortly we'll have a bipartisan tax policy similar to the Graham-Latter bill that one that we can all go forward together on. One last point here, Senator Paul Oxalt is chairing a task force and an advisory committee, chairing both of them, and they're on federalism. And this, if we only look at it, is the secret of America's success. We're unique in all the world in that we were set up to be a federation of sovereign states with as much law as possible kept at the local level. Now, you know, you hear a lot of jokes every once in a while about the sound of Cal Coolidge, but I think the joke is on the people that make jokes because if you look at his record, he cut the taxes four times. That's probably the greatest growth and prosperity that we've ever known, and I have taken heed of that because if he did that by doing nothing, maybe that's the answer that the federal government better saw. I have a quote in 1926 from Cal Coolidge. He said, No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline of all forms of government. Those administered by duroes are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people. Being irresponsible, they become autocratic, and being autocratic, they resist all development. And less bureaucracy is constantly resisted. It breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It is the one element in our institutions that sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody. Now, I know the time is limited and that we can have some dialogue at least here before they grab me. I'm surprised that Joe Malone was important to me, and much has been said about the responsibility of being in a national worker program. Will the administration be any problem in the national worker program? This is what we are hoping we can achieve. It was an experiment that we tried in California when we reformed welfare out there of getting the able-bodied welfare recipients to work at useful community projects in return for their welfare grants. And the way we operated it there and what the plans are that are going forward over in Senator Schweiker's office now but I know he's heart and soul in favor of the support of it. What we did was there were 20 hours a week, not 40. And we assigned representatives from the State Labor Department to them as what we called job agents to, in other words, we did not want them as permanent. But we started first by getting every element of local government from school districts to communities, counties, whatever, to submit to us those things that as we defined it they would be doing if they had the manpower and the money but which they were otherwise not able to do. In other words, don't invent, make work. And we screened all those to make sure they were legitimate undertakings. Then these people sent forward to go to work, report for work, and those projects. And the job agents watched them with what they saw. They actually acted as agents and went out and tried as quickly as possible to move them from those jobs into private enterprise jobs. And this was most successful in putting tens of thousands of people through that program out into private enterprise jobs at a time that unemployment was increasing in the 73-74 recession. There was another sideline benefit. Thousands of those people didn't report. And we stopped sending their checks and we never heard from them again. Good. How do you propose to get fair treatment for, let's say, and in the state like Ohio where we have Cleveland which is a very urban area and you have rural areas and the black grants are going to come through the state. How do we get fair treatment on that? Well, again, I just feel it and have faith that the state government has got to be fair in this or there will be a different state government. And we haven't had an opportunity I haven't had yet in the arranging of this program to talk about whether there would be any recourse kept available for the federal government if someone cried unfair tactics. But I've met with all the governors on this and I know a number of them are very supportive and I believe these are honorable men who are not going to let that let that happen. They think they represent all the people. Well, you need federal revenue sharing. You mean by way of the block grants that we're talking about. Let me tell you, we need your help because this is going to be probably one of the most difficult of all the parts of our reform program to bring about. There is a great reluctance in the part of the federal government to trust the people out there and I believe that inhaling a sense of wisdom that is not generally shared we are going to need help to get that. There's a reluctance to give up that authority. I have to tell you that I think the block grants my long distance dream is that the block grants are an only and a bridge that the real ultimate goal should be to transfer the actual sources of taxation to state and local governments. Well, Mr. President, I would like to thank you for this and appreciate the administration's effort in their deregulation program and the bureaucracy that causes so many problems on counties and municipal governments. Mr. President, this is just a little change of the procedure here for our constituents in Tinkman County and Jersey to go to home and I think you might have sent it to me and I said I was going to read it but I got the opportunity. This is a dream. It is all that we need to carry us on with the galloping steed. With eyes to the future, let us pray God bless America and the American way. I agree this country started with the dream. Ladies and gentlemen, you next. Mr. President.