 My fellow Americans, hello again. It's great to be back speaking to you over weekly radio. I hope this is the first of many broadcasts to come. I've missed these weekly visits. Just 12 days ago, I went on television to ask your support for a bipartisan tax reform and spending reduction bill. As you'll recall, I told you I had to swallow hard to support that bill myself. I didn't like the idea of revenue increases and still don't. But to get the spending cuts, which I think most of us want and which we must have to reduce deficits, keep interest rates going down, and get the unemployed back to work, we had to accept the increased revenues. But I argued then and I repeat now. Most of the revenue part of that bill was not really a tax increase at all, but a reform of existing tax laws. The tax cut passed last year remains the biggest tax cut in history. Even with the $99 billion increase, the tax cut over the next three years will amount to $335 billion. The savings to the average American family this year is $400. Next year it will be $788. Even more important, however, we'll reduce the deficits over these next three years by $378.5 billion. If we stay on course and work together, we can look to a day when we can start reducing that trillion-dollar debt. And I think you like that working-together idea. I received a letter just the other day from a lady in Florida. I hope she won't mind if I share it with you. Patricia Morgan writes that she sees unity among us again, the kind of unity we had during World War II. We Americans all pulling together. That's what America is. That is our power. Well, Patricia Morgan, I couldn't agree more. American power is reasserting itself. Day before yesterday, the Federal Reserve lowered the discount rate to 10 percent, the lowest it's been in two years. Double-digit inflation, once 12.4 percent, has been for the last seven months only 5.4 percent. The prime interest rate, 21.5 percent a year and a half ago, is now 13.5 percent and very probably going lower. The other day, the security savings and loan of Milwaukee, Wisconsin made $100 million available for home mortgages at 11.9 percent interest. And we've just seen a week-long breaking of virtually every record on Wall Street for trade in stocks and bonds. No, we're not out of the woods yet, but we can maintain this momentum, reopen factory gates, rebuild America, and make this country number one again. Not overnight, of course, but slowly, surely, we can do it. It all hinges on one question. Do we as a nation have the unshakable determination to get federal spending under control once and for all? With 20 unbalanced budgets in the last 21 years, the burden of proof is on us. We need a constitutional check against red-achspending. Four or five of you support this idea. The Senate recently passed a bill that takes us one step closer to such a constitutional amendment. It is now up to the House leadership to make sure the full House votes on this issue as soon as possible in this session of the Congress. If not, you and the voters will have an opportunity in November to make your feelings heard about that. On the subject of spending, though, I can't wait till November. A few days ago, a supplemental appropriations bill to fund several programs and agencies for the rest of this fiscal year was sent to me for signature or veto. The legislation contained funding to meet payrolls in the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. It also included a vital new program we've sought that is essential to our hemispheric solidarity and security, the Caribbean Basin Initiative. But it also contained funding for several things I vetoed already as being unnecessary and was almost a billion dollars over budget for domestic programs. We've gone on record as committed to reduce projected deficits by $380 billion over the next three years. I believe that commitment begins with holding the line on a budget that has little more than a month to run. So, even though it means delay in getting legislation I believe is vital to our nation's welfare, I have therefore vetoed that supplemental appropriations bill. Until next week, thanks for listening and God bless you. My fellow Americans, I'm glad to join all of you on this final weekend of the summer. Family vacations are now ending, kids are going back to school, and communities all over the nation are preparing for Labor Day parades. And, by the way, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the first Labor Day parade. It isn't true that I was in that first parade, I've just read about it. On Monday we celebrate the dignity and productivity of America's working people. Our country is prospered because we're a nation of workers and today there are nearly 100 million at work. More than 100 million according to the unadjusted figures and 99.8 million in the seasonally adjusted figures. Now, if that confuses you, well, I'm confused too. Unfortunately on this Labor Day, however, too many of our fellow citizens are unemployed. That's a terrible word, unemployed. It means hardship, uncertainty, frustration, helplessness. Many who are unemployed feel caught up in something they don't understand and over which they have no control. And they're right. It's not the fault of the laid off fellow in Detroit that he's out of work. It's not his fault the autos aren't rolling down the assembly line. It's not the fault of the unemployed mother in Delaware that the printing plant closed down, throwing her out of a job. The fact is unemployment has been gaining on us for years. Since 1976, the unemployment rate in this country has averaged over 7%, far higher than in earlier post-war years. It was only 2.9% in 1953. I'm convinced that in these last few decades, the increased intervention by government in the marketplace, tax policies that took too great a percentage of overall earnings, plus burdensome and unnecessary regulations, reduced economic growth, and kept us from creating new jobs for newcomers entering the job market. Today, the unemployment rate is 9.8%, and still the number of people with jobs is a higher percentage of those of working age than we had in times of full employment. Higher than in 1953, when, as I said, unemployment was only 2.9%. I guess what I'm trying to point out is that our unemployment problem is due to more than just the present recession. We must not only work our way out of the recession, we must adopt policies that will stimulate economic growth and create new jobs for the increased numbers entering the job market. This is the goal of our economic recovery program. Yes, it marks a decided turnaround from government tax and spend policies of the past four decades, deliberately so, and I believe it'll work. Indeed, the signs are there that it's beginning to work. Last week, I called attention to the decline in interest rates, 21.5% down to 13.5%, inflation down from 12.4% to 5.4% since the first of the year. A family of four with a $15,000 income has $1,000 more in purchasing power than it would have if inflation had stayed at 12.4%. I know this is hard to see because prices keep going up, but they aren't going up as fast or as much as they were. What we're all waiting for is that zero weight when the stay where they are or even drop a little. Well, that too is what our program is designed to accomplish and the leading economic indicators by which we know whether the economy is improving or getting worse have climbed for the fourth month in a row. That hasn't happened for a long time. Clearly, the most important question now before us is whether we have the will and determination to hold our course. The next test will come when the Congress returns to Washington and decides whether to sustain my veto of a supplemental spending bill that would drive up spending once again. I hope we can work together to develop a more responsible bill. In the meantime, I hope you'll join me this Labor Day weekend in saluting the workers of America. And while we're doing that, perhaps we can spare a moment of prayer for some workers in another country. Here in America on Labor Day, we hold parades to support the principles of freedom. In Poland a few days ago, the people peacefully gathered to mark the second anniversary of Solidarity, a labor movement which revived our hope that nonviolent change and basic human rights could come to a closed communist community. Their parade was met with guns, concussion grenades, tear gas, and water cannons. As we attend our parades and picnics, let us remember how fortunate we are to be a free people. Let us remember the handwritten prayer that was recently found in an alcove of a Polish church. He'd read, thank you, Lord, that into this temple I may bring verses. It's the only place in our homeland where every pole feels free and where he may evoke his pain. I beg you to give my country the strength to endure. Well, let us in America be thankful for the strength of our free labor movement. May it long endure. Thanks for listening, God bless you. I'll be back next week at the same time. Why is it community instead of society? I don't know. Who was that? The sirens? I don't know. I think that we should have done the crime to the message. Yeah, but it sounds like forestry fires. Yeah, forestry fires, though. Let's look at the horizon. They say there's one of those. In Los Angeles, they said yesterday. That was forestry fires. Here in America, on Labor Day, we rule three. How was it? I don't know. We don't know very shortly. What? We don't know very shortly. I've never heard a thing. You didn't hear the sirens? I'll be done. I'm not talking. I didn't hear that either. You were talking really close to the microphone, which meant that nothing else got on. Dove M. Dove M? We're in care of place. Man, they were about 1,400. I dried this week. Better? Yeah, it's clearer now. I'm still eating. Ah, yes. The doctor, the eye doctor. He said there's really nothing you can do about it. He said it takes about two weeks to leave. Well, it's two weeks today. It's still a week. But he said maybe you could speed it up a little. But I had diet and breakfast. I did an injection. People had certain kinds of bad facts. And I know that they put it up now in tablets. And it's advertised as a major ingestion. You know, that patch of cactus up in the ear, that's the only cactus up here in all these mountains. It continues to be. See, this house was built in 1972. And this porch part around it. Main house. But it used to be a self-sustaining farm. I've got an article in here about the place. And they raised corn and beans. They had vines. They made their own wine. And it was a totally subsistence farm. And I've always looked at that cactus up there. And I don't know this much about the cure. But I hope it's just that. The cactus from which you make the cure. And I don't care about that also. Because it just isn't any place in these mountains. It's Saturday night entertainment. It's Saturday night entertainment. Self-sustaining farms. Are you going right into the entertainment program? Yeah. We'll be watching you for a while. That's the top of the hill. See that? You see where the grass is on top? Yeah. It's about two and a half miles away. Yeah, last night we did a barbecue. A couple of them complained to me, why didn't we go riding earlier? Because they said they could go home after we... That's true. That's true. It's also nicer in the morning because the heat waves make it very blurry. It'll be nice in the fall and the wintertime. Well, gee. I'll tell it. The guy that's been doubling me on the ride. He didn't even worry that much. If any colder, you need to put make-up on. We were all set. We were all set. I tracked her, but I figured out a ride that kept us in the woods all night. Probably didn't get much. You had a white voice? Yeah. That's what the fortune gave you? Yeah. How's it doing? He's good, right? Yeah. Oh, okay, that's all right. There's a lot of tape on this. 20 minutes right now.