 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, please. Please. Who's ten to the store? Well, I appreciate this opportunity for us to be together. First and foremost, I want to offer each of you my deep and sincere thanks for your hard work and the professionalism of these last few months. With all that's been going on, it's taken real pros to meet our responsibilities and get the job done. As far as I can see, you haven't missed a beat, and I'm grateful. Looking around, I can't help but think about the story of another gathering of clergymen. Ministers and priests from all over town came to hear lectures on management techniques and such. One morning was set aside for the conference to break up into groups of three, so the clergymen would be able to speak candidly about their personal problems. Well, in one trail, a minister spoke up about his secret burden. You see, he explained, every time I taste the communion wine, it sets something off. I end up on a binge, and my congregation doesn't even know where I am. The second minister then admitted that he had a problem too. With me, he said, it's the collection plate. When the congregation's gone, I'm left there with all that cash. The temptation's just too great. And I take $50 or $100 off the top and spend it on a wild time. The third minister then stepped forward, and he says, I've got a problem too. I'm the biggest gossip in town, and I can't wait to get out of here. Well, I think one of the greatest strengths of any administration is its spirit of camaraderie, its sense of shared purpose. And I know that this is true of us as well. So don't let anyone tell you that in these next two years, we're going to be running a caretaker operation, that the window of opportunity is closed. What we accomplished in the next 22 months will go a long way in determining how the United States of America fares in the 21st century. Let's always bear in mind that we're not passive observers of history. We're making history and shaping the future. What we do or don't do, for example, will set the course for Central America and the security of our southern border. Soviet bloc has poured over a billion dollars' worth of military aid into Nicaragua. Terrorist groups and eastern bloc personnel are as thick as flies down there. And you can bet they aren't part of a people's hygiene program. We face nothing less than a strategic maneuver aimed at exploiting what our adversaries perceive as an area of American vulnerability, and we can't afford to waver. In the months ahead, while the freedom fighters are slugging it out in the Central American jungles, our political battle in Washington will be just as vital. The outcome has yet to be determined, and so many brave souls are counting on us. If we stand by our friends, if we take our case to the American people and let them know what the stakes are, it'll be democracy, not communism, that is the wave of the future in Central America, and yes, even the world. And you know, it's as simple as that. The simple truth, and we can't evade it, and some people would like to evade it can't, but if anyone is opposed to trying to help the freedom fighters there, whether they like it or not, they are then on the side of a godless, communist, totalitarian state that has already taken over. It can't, there can't be any neutrality in there. Well, that's challenge number one, and just ahead we've got the battle of the economy. Our success or lack of success in a series of individual firefights involving a variety of seemingly unconnected issues will decide whether or not our economy will grow, whether our country will prosper or sink in decline. Graham Rudman Hollings' amendment was a giant step forward, and we cannot afford to permit Congress to retreat from this commitment. Last year's tax reform was also a great accomplishment, and again we cannot and will not permit Congress to move backward. Those who speak loudly about raising taxes as a solution to federal deficit spending have no solution. Raising taxes in the long run will not increase revenue if it knocks the legs out from under growth. And let's bring that point home time and again. We're committed to bringing down the deficit, and that is why we cannot afford to raise taxes. That's why we must hold the line on spending. We've provided the American people with 52 months of stability and growth. Some liberal economists still can't believe how far we've come. You know, economists, I can't tell ethnic jokes anymore of any kind in this job, but I can talk about certain things like economists because my degree was in economics. They're the only people I know who see something working in practice and wonder if it also works in theory. There's a story about that too that I can't resist telling, and that is that there were three gentlemen up at St. Peter's Gate, and St. Peter said there was only room for one at the time, and therefore they were going to take the one that was practicing the oldest line of work. Well, one spoke, broke up and said, well, I guess that's me. I'm a surgeon. He said we know that the Lord made Adam and took a rib from Adam and made Eve, and that required surgery. Before he could move, the second one said, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. He said for six days before the Lord did that, all was chaos, and the Lord worked six days to clear the chaos. That took engineering. I'm an engineer. Before he could move, the third one spoke up and said, I'm an economist. Where do you think they got all that chaos? Well, the economy has been vigorous, and inflation has remained low, and the doors of opportunity have opened as never before. Some 13 million new jobs have been created since the recovery began. And don't let anyone tell you these are all dead-end jobs. This morning you know the figures on unemployment for February were given. I can't keep up with the statisticians. There are something like 35,000 more people at work than there were last month. But the rate of unemployment stayed the same in spite of the fact that you know what the potential labor pool is supposed to be. It is every man and woman in the United States from 16 years of age all the way up as long as they're breathing. That is the potential employment pool. And as a result of this morning's news, today the percentage of that pool employed is the highest ever in our history, 61.6 percent. And yet the unemployment rate is still 6.6 percent as it was last month. And I don't know how they figure that out, but anyway, the better things get, sometimes they stay the same. Well, I know that we've been making progress in that, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggests that many of these jobs are in the better paying categories. And even lower echelon jobs pay off on the job learning. What will not create jobs, however, is low paying or high paying is protectionism. I kind of stumbled over that one for a minute there. The best thing that we can do for our economy and the world economy is to keep commerce and trade flowing. And I don't have to tell you, this too will be an area of political confrontation. And in these next two years, we have an opportunity to work with the states and with Congress to revolutionize America's welfare system to do tremendous service to our country's less fortunate citizens. Today, as never before in the last two decades, a consensus is emerging. The role of family in breaking the cycle of poverty is no longer being ignored. And I still remember when as governor of California, I first proposed requiring welfare recipients to work in return for their welfare grants. I was called about every bad name you can imagine. Today it's almost universally accepted that work requirements must be part of meaningful welfare reform. Back on the foreign front, we've stood firm in our dealings with the Soviets, as in the case with the Intermediate Range Missile Deployment, and our tenacity may now be paying off. There's a real chance for dramatic progress. For the first time, we're within striking distance of an agreement, not just to control nuclear weapons, but to reduce their number. The watchword for this effort is realism, and that's what got us this far. And that's what will win the prize of a more peaceful and secure world, if that prize is to be won. And I think it can be. So you see, this is not a time for standing still. This is an exciting, energetic moment in this administration, and each of you is an indispensable member of the team. I know you've already met them, but I'd like to introduce you to two new star players. First is our new chief of staff, Senator Howard Baker, whom you've just heard. And Howard actually applied as White House photographer, but I had had something better in mind. And Howard, we worked well together, and we got a lot done when you were majority leader of the Senate. And we're going to be wowing them again. Another new member of the team is, and you've met him, is our new national security advisor, Frank Carlucci. And Frank is a renowned public servant, having been a key player in saving Portugal from communism, and long ago in saving legal services from me. The bottom line is, it's always better to have Frank on your side. But finally, let me just note that over the history of this great republic, presidents Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, both Teddy and Franklin, huddled with their staffs. When you stop and think about it, putting aside the meetings and phone calls that are so much a part of our hour-by-hour existence here, who cannot be haunted by a sense of history that surrounds us? One need only think of Jefferson, agonizing over sending a naval force to combat the Barbary pirates, or Lincoln discussing with his staff those monumental decisions that saved the Union. Mr. Presidents may well listen for our voices and remind their staffs that at a pivotal moment, we charted a course that ensured the peace and prosperity of generations to come. And let's never forget that's why we're here, and that would be our greatest legacy. Well, we've got our work set out for us, and together with the American people, we're going to achieve great things in the times ahead, and I'm proud to be going forward in the fourth quarter with a team like all of you. And now, I'm going to recall what the first week I was here, I received some letters from school children that told me what I should do, and you'd be surprised how familiar they were with the basic problems. Maybe they'd heard their parents talking at the table or something, but one that I always remembered was a little 11-year-old girl wrote me with all these things that I should straighten out and get straightened out and then wound up with the line now get back to the Oval Office and get to work. Thank you again and God bless you all.