 Well, good afternoon and welcome to the White House. It's a pleasure to have you all here. And I know you want to get to the question and answer period, so I'll keep these opening remarks brief. I often recall the difference between President Washington and President Harrison. George Washington gave an inaugural address of less than 150 words, and he was a great leader, as we all know. William Henry Harrison gave an inaugural address that lasted nearly two hours on a cold, wintry day, and a month later he died of pneumonia. So with your permission, I'd like to touch just briefly on two of our administration's main efforts, and with my luck, probably they were covered in some of your briefings already. But anyway, first the economy. When we took office, I think we inherited a mess, raging inflation, assigning real wages, soaring interest rates. Indeed, the month of the inauguration, the prime interest rates soared to over 21 percent, the highest level since the Civil War. Our administration moved quickly to turn that around. We cut the growth of federal spending. We pruned needless regulations, passed and across the Board personal income tax cut, and enacted an historic measure called tax indexing. Indexing means that government will never again profit from inflation at the people's expense. And today we have one big program that we think is helping every man and woman in America. It's called economic expansion. Since we took office, inflation has plummeted. Productivity, investment, and real wages have risen. And for the past year, the gross national product has been growing at a rate that's astounded the professors and pessimists. I don't know why I separate them. The best news of all, since the expansion began, is that some 6.7 million Americans have found jobs. The unemployment rate has taken the steabest nosedive in more than 30 years. And our country has produced new jobs faster than any other industrialized nation on Earth. But these are all statistics. I think there's a better way that you can tell our program is working. And I understand that what reference was made to it already this morning. And, Don, you stole my thunder. It's true. The critics don't call it Reaganomics anymore. But second, foreign affairs. We're working hard to give American policy new strength, new firmness, and new purpose. In Europe, we're helping to hold the Atlantic Alliance together under intense pressure from the Soviet Union. In Central America, we're strengthening the forces of democracy and economic progress. And in Grenada, we joined the Caribbean democracies in setting a nation free. In our dealings with the Soviets, we've shown again and again that we remain unshakably determined to support freedom and the struggle for freedom in the world. But we're also eager and willing to negotiate genuine and verifiable arms reductions. And we continue to hope that the Soviets will sit down with us this fall as they themselves first suggested to discuss the control of weapons in space and, we hope, on Earth as well. Recently, Morton Condracchi, the executive editor of the New Republic, summed up our foreign policy very well. He wrote that our administration, and I quote, has altered the correlation of forces in the world in America's direction. Well, I believe America is stronger, prouder, and more joyful than she was just a few years ago. We still have a long way to go, but we've made a good beginning. And now, I know you must have some questions. Yes, ma'am. Mr. President, I'm Sukho from WCDR, a law firm. I just wanted to know, did you look into a couple of weeks or few weeks down the latitude of convention and what we might expect to emerge as a platform in the coming? Well, that's going to be up pretty much to those that are framing the platform, because I'm not going to give any orders to them. I think that from what I have heard from some people that are involved, it's probably going to be, pretty much, of a broad statement of principles of what it is we try to do without trying to get down too much into specifically how it must be done. Now, there's another young lady, and then I'll... Mr. President, I'm James Saston, in the University of San Francisco. I wonder what you and your government and your party would like to do this fall to attract black voters, if it is. Or if the Republican Party is merely going to be right to collect it? Certainly, we are not counting them out or simply ignoring them. Not at all. As a matter of fact, I think one of the great frustrations I have is that this, what we have done with regard to minorities, with regard to people who still have a way to go to have some of the advantages that they have been denied in the past, that that is one of the better kept secrets of our success in what we've done. We've had a program to aid the black colleges and universities because when I came here, I said, I think they're such a part of history, they fulfilled a need for so long when there was discrimination that made the advantage of education hard to get for many of our minorities that they must, that institution, must be preserved. And we've been working on that. I think the very recovery program, the fact that the greatest decrease in unemployment was in the minority community and particularly among blacks. We have two programs before the Congress that are buried now or stopped in the House of Representatives without coming to the floor for a vote that both would be of especially advantage to and particularly young blacks would be the two-step minimum wage to allow employers to hire young people who have no job experience who are starting out to get their first job at a lower rate than the present minimum because that minimum today has priced a great many jobs young people used to have priced the jobs out of existence. People are just not having things done that they would have done. The other one is the enterprise zones. We started that almost three years ago. It is still buried and has never come to the floor for a vote. Some states have already moved out on their own and they can't as effectively because the tax incentives aren't as great just at the state level. But in that regard, in those states where they've done it, some of the stories are just miraculous of what the advantages have been. So I think that it has to do with our own administration here and this isn't a new thing with me or born of politics. When I was governor of California, I appointed more members of the black community to executive and policy making positions than all the previous governors of California put together. And as I say, this is a rather well kept secret and if we can find a way for those people to know what we've done, I think that they would choose our policies rather than the policies of the past and that would be of the future if the Democrats were in control because those policies sentenced too many people to the bondage of welfareism rather than opening up jobs and opportunity for them. Mr. President, jury total, KCMO Radio in Kansas City, do you feel that the recent battles and negotiations by Reverend Jackson might send a signal to future presidential candidates and these candidates for nomination that such activities are okay and will not be prosecuted under the Logan Act or any other way? Well, the prosecution under the Logan Act and I think in answer I gave you a question recently on that sort of led me or suggested I was astray on that. The Logan Act is very specific and I was only calling attention to the fact that there is such a thing and that private citizens cannot go and literally try to negotiate terms and arrangements with foreign governments. I don't think there's been any evidence of that being broken by Reverend Jackson. I think that it would be very dangerous if this became a political ploy for candidates in the future. Anyone that wants to go simply as a citizen, a private citizen and try to do a humanitarian thing as he was successfully did in Syria and I'm grateful to him for it because I know it's something I couldn't have done officially. I'm grateful that those people were released that were in the Cuban prisons. I could have done without some of the criticisms of American policy that were made while he was in those foreign countries but it is a thin line that has to be walked and I would hope that it would not become a general practice. Now I promised you. I'm speaking of foreign policy. I'm wondering when our president will lift the restrictions and sanctions against the Polish people specifically let Polish air lines which does not allow people to go back to Poland. It's quite a job to get to Poland today with the sanctions that have imposed on your country. I can tell you that this is very much on our minds and we are seeking to find a way to remove the restrictions that are penalizing the people of Poland more than they are the so-called government of Poland and we would like to do that at the same time we don't want to send a signal that might be interpreted is that we no longer feel as we do about the Polish government so we're trying to find a way. I am very much committed to it just as I'm very much committed to the entire problem of the environment and that's one of the other best kept secrets about our administration. No, this you couldn't be here in this proximity to that and it is the largest such body of water on the entire thousands of miles of coast of the United States and it's it's decline in quality what has been done to it just is unconscionable and we are pledged to reverse that just as we're pledged to and have added millions of acres to the wilderness territory have made the most extensive cleanup of the national parks that's ever been made to restore their safety and health features and now we're going to add additional park land to those parks but no it was done for that reason it's a great and a very unique ecosystem and yes. We're grateful for the invitation since we're not part of Washington press tour thank you for looking for the rest of the country as well. We hear of human rights of citizens rights of our rights and women's rights and I'm wondering Mr. President when and how for the rights of the unborn human children are going to again be protected in this nation? Well we're striving very hard to do that I know what you're talking about in first of all with regard to those who some would deny life to after they're born because they are born less than perfect I wish everyone could have been where I was a few Sundays ago at the opening of the disabled games the international games that take place every four years this year for the first time in the United States up in New York and seen those people and their happiness and their enthusiasm and to think that someone might have decided at their birth that they should not be allowed to live I ran the 440 in high school and it was quite a shock to me to see that a man today is running the 400 meter in under 50 seconds with one artificial leg and I never got under 50 seconds I didn't get within about 9 seconds of that oh yes Mr. President, both of us are going to be asking you Mr. President, do you think that the airport that needs to be renovated for the Russians and the humans and I understand almost your conclusion and I'm wondering, sir, if you're planning to renovate it with Air Force One say sometime in October oh don't you think that'd look a little obvious no but I'll tell you the job that our people did down there was magnificent and anyone who thinks that that was a mistake should simply talk to some of the people from Grenada not just our medical students, our American students there the people of Grenada believe they were rescued from a communist domination that had already affected their lives so I'm very proud of our military they only had 48 hours to plan that too and they did it incidentally, could I just take a second I left off a part of the answer to your question too I know the other part must have had to do with abortion and I still have to feel that the Constitution already protects the unborn unless and until someone can prove that the unborn child is not a living human being and after months of hearing before committees in the Congress no one could prove that now if anyone of us came upon a body and we couldn't determine whether it was living or dead we certainly wouldn't bury it until someone proved to us that it should have been buried and I feel that one of the great moral sins is violating our very constitutional guarantee of right to life is now prevalent in abortion on demand President Cameron Parker from WTHR Indiaapolis this will be the last question that always happens all morning long your advisors have been telling us and you mentioned it at the beginning of your remarks about the economy improving but as the economy improving inflation is maintaining much more while in fact going down prime interest rate in this country is going up who's to blame for the prime interest rate going up and at what point do you think it will continue it will turn around and go back down well I had made a prediction that fall and I know that there are a lot in the press corps here in Washington that are just wringing their hands waiting to see whether I'll have to say I was wrong or not maybe I was guessed too soon I'll still stick with it because I'm an optimist and I think that most economic prognosticators are pessimists I think the interest rates are where they are and it is psychological it is because after seven previous recessions since World War II the money market out there is just not convinced that we have inflation under control or that politically we will not yield to the previous practice of artificially stimulating the economy to get an artificial fix a quick fix to bring us faster out of the recession and every time they did that in those seven previous times they came out of the recession but with an inflation rate that was higher than it was before now the man is going to lend money or the woman is going to lend money has to know that they can get an interest rate that is going to cover the depreciated value of their money during the period of time that money is lent and I think it is every sign we get a good sound recovery going and then they say maybe it is heating up too fast well we had about 50 years or so back there a little around and before the turn of the centuries in which this country had an economy that was at a boom rate and it didn't bring on inflation and it didn't bring on any of the evil things that they say there is nothing wrong with economic growth and so I hope we will continue it but I think it is just the psychology that they are fearful it has been done to them before it is an election year they believe if anything should start to happen there will be an attempt at a quick fix well there won't be we don't believe in it there is going to be sound recovery like a follow up sir you are known for a fairly persuasive power when it comes to dealing with individuals and I think in particular in your opinion at least for the prime rate being up why can't you persuade them to do your own thing well we think that maybe the persuasion should be based on a few deeds for example I think as it moves through the congress and it looks favorable our down payment on the deficit is going to have I think a salubrious effect out there when that has passed when they find out that the deficits are not going to be as great as they've been projected and when they find out also after the election that is we're still here that we're not through fighting the deficits because I've been out in the mashed potato circuit for 30 years preaching against deficit spending and I'm determined that we're going to eliminate it and to that end I would appreciate your editorial help in getting past the balanced budget amendment and then please give me a line item veto don't let me face those pork barrel bills and bills in which I've got to sign the good and take the bad with it I as a governor I line item vetoed in 8 years 943 budget items without ever having the veto overthrown so thank you very much and you thought I was the boss I'm sorry we can't get to this if you have further briefings remember those questions for those who brief you thank you