 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States and Congressman Michael. Mr. President, Senator Percy and my colleagues Tom Corcoran and Lynn Martin and Ken McMillan and our state candidates Jim Edgar and John Daley, Doc Adams and I saw Park Livingston, our candidate for University Board of Trustees, all our party officials and ladies and gentlemen and friends of Bob Michael and the President. Let me first also thank our Peoria County Republican Central Committee, its Chairman, Camille Gibson, our Rally Chairman, Chappie Chapman and those unsung heroes of political campaigns, the hundreds of volunteers who put this event together and for the part they'll still be playing in the remaining days of this campaign to bring us victory on November 2nd. Say we're very privileged to have you in our midst, Mr. President, and looking over this audience it's quite obvious our fellow citizens are mighty proud to have you here too. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Percy, representatives of the members of Congress who are here, the candidates who are here, Corinne Michael who is here and I too am very proud of my two good friends from another life that are here with us tonight, Mr. Mayor and of course the man whose campaign has brought us here, Bob Michael. You know I've been here before, I don't mean during the campaign, I was here then of course and I don't mean in this fine new facility, that's a first for me but I remember coming here to play football against Bradley and Bradley won that night or I wouldn't have brought the subject up but as enthusiastic as you are I'm sure that you weren't, I thought maybe you were expecting the Bradley Braves. Bradley University has given us not only last year's NIT champions and I just met them outside here but it's given us that outstanding Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Bob Michael. Bob is a graduate of Bradley, he's received an honorary doctorate from Bradley, he's a member of the Board of Trustees of Bradley. Bob have you gone out for the team yet? When I tell you if he did he'd make a fine captain, he's one of the most effective Republican minority leaders of this century but I dream of a day, I know it can't happen in just one election but I dream of a day when I can stand up here and say a fine majority leader of the House of Representatives. Let me tell you something about Bob, he's been your congressman for 13 terms not because he likes the prestige, that gets old fast, he's not a congressman because he likes being away from his family, he's not in it for the money, he could do a lot better out in the private sector. Bob Michael is a congressman because he believes in something, he believes in the values of Illinois and the values that built this country, for 26 years he's been working for those beliefs and for you the people who share them. I don't know what this country would do without the sacrifices of people like Bob Michael. You know there were times this year when he could have taken the easy way out on certain votes yet he did what he believed was best for America, he put country before politics. Now he doesn't always agree with me like on the pipeline sanction but he makes his arguments genuinely and honestly and they can't be ignored and that kind of integrity is hard to find. I know how you feel so I'm just going to say something, I think a man of Bob Michael's character and principle deserves a standing ovation from all of us, an ovation born of appreciation for what he has done. If I were still in show business I'd quit right there. Illinois has a lot of other fine republicans like Governor Thompson whose reelection victory we'll be celebrating his election victory in less than two weeks and there's another excellent Illinois republican I'd like to mention. Ed Derwinsky one of the highest ranking republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We don't want to lose Ed's experience when he leaves the congress at the end of this session so we've taken care of that. Right I'm announcing that I intend to nominate Congressman Derwinsky to the post of counselor at the State Department a good man and one of the most important posts in our country. But I also wanted to come tonight so I could speak directly to the people of this area to the people who've lost their jobs at Caterpillar and Papst and Hiram Walker. Bob has told me personally and I might say eloquently of the hardships of the people in his district. He understands what's going on out there so perhaps this might be a good time to say something about those pipeline sanctions. I know they're not popular with Peoria or Bob Michael but our president sometimes has to make decisions that are painful to even his best friends since one of the toughest parts of the job. We must remember the sanctions were imposed as tangible evidence of our opposition to the Soviet inspired repression of the Polish people but there were additional reasons even had that not happened. It seemed to us that our European friends and allies were putting themselves in a dangerous position of dependency on an undependable provider the Soviet Union for the energy that would run their industry. And it also seemed to us that in as much as that dependency would turn over about ten billion dollars a year in hard cold cash to the Soviet Union it would enable them to further build up their military might which is the greatest build up of military might the world has ever seen. And so we felt that something had to be done. The sanctions have substantially hurt the Soviet Union already but of course they've hurt some of our own companies such as Caterpillar as well. The Siberian pipeline will be a major source as I said of hard cash income for the Soviet Union for decades and I won't go into all the geopolitical reasons why that could be dangerous. I know it's the loss of jobs that's of more immediate concern to Peorians right now. They're receptive to alternative measures that would be equally or more effective than the current sanctions and certainly if we can establish restrictions that put greater pressure on the Soviets and less on our own companies we will enthusiastically consider them and we've been in constant consultations with our NATO allies trying to bring that about. Tonight in homes across the country including a home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue unemployment is the problem uppermost in everyone's mind. Getting Americans back to work is an urgent priority for all of us and other than keeping the peace I have no higher priority. You know there's a story about a fellow who said to a friend of his I was sorry to hear that your wife ran off at the gardener and the fellow said well that's alright I was going to fire him anyway. When it comes to the economy that's about how scrambled the logic has been in recent years and scrambled thinking led us to a scrambled economic mess. Americans are asking themselves how do we straighten out this mess. Well you can't solve unemployment without solving the things that caused it. The out of control government spending skyrocketing inflation and the interest rates that led to unemployment in the first place unless you get at the root causes of the problem which is exactly what we're doing you may temporarily relieve the symptoms but you will never cure the disease. I realize there is hardship in Peoria and if I thought what we were seeking to accomplish would be only temporary I wouldn't ask for your patience but for the first time in our post-war history we're trying to build a recovery that will last and not just a quick fix to see us through the election. You know before we went to Washington those in charge of the economy ran it with the accelerator to the floor then they'd slam on the brakes then they'd swerve to miss the oncoming crisis then they'd swerve back and then they'd floor it again but you can't run an economy or a car that way without eventually wrecking it and that's exactly what was happening in January of 1977 just after Jerry Ford left the White House inflation was at 4.8 percent the prime interest rate was under 7 percent you could get a home mortgage for 9 percent and consumers could afford not only mortgages but auto loans but then America took a giant step backward how many of us remember we had five economic programs proposed in four years our economic policy was flip-flopping like a fish on dry land and those five programs of the last administration left us with five gigantic head headaches well wait a minute maybe I should only say four because the fifth economic program was proposed in August just before the 1980 election and that was the only one that proposed a tax cut they said it would be 27 billion dollars well they never gave us the tax cut and the program was never implemented by the time we took office we faced double digit inflation high unemployment a 21 and a half percent prime interest rate runaway government spending in the highest peacetime tax burden we have ever known we also had nearly a trillion dollar debt now that means that this year before the government can spend a dime to feed the hungry care for the sick or protect our freedom it must plan to spend 110 billion dollars in this one year just to pay the interest on that debt 110 billion dollars is much more than the total federal budget was just 20 years ago and still the big spenders wonder why the American people want what a stubborn minority in the house denied them a constitutional amendment to balance the budget they're gonna get another chance to vote on that because we're gonna keep shoving it at them our nation is still paying the penalty of those tragic excesses of the past unfortunately many are paying with their jobs I didn't cause this recession Bob Michael didn't cause it but I do have a responsibility for getting us out of this recession and I can't do it without Bob Michael in the Congress we all want a strong and lasting economic recovery and there isn't a member of the House of Representatives more critical to making recovery happen than Bob Michael recovery means jobs Bob Michael's re-election means jobs from our very first day we've been working to undo the economic wreckage that was left behind as a matter of fact when I finished taking the oath of office on that January inaugural day the first thing I did was go back into the Capitol building and I didn't even take off my topcoat I signed a memorandum freezing the size of the federal government at my age I didn't go to Washington to play politics as usual I didn't go there to reward pressure groups by spending other people's money and most of all I didn't go there to further mortgage the future of the American people just to buy a little short-term political popularity I wanted to try and solve some problems not sweep them under the rug and leave them for those who would come along later now I don't pretend for a moment that in 21 months we've been able to undo the damage of 20 years or more 21 months ago we faced five immediate and critical problems runaway spending double digit inflation the worst interest rates in 100 years the highest peacetime tax burden as I've said in our history and high unemployment but we've made dramatic gains on four of those five problems the inflation rate that reached a high of 18 percent in January of 1980 has been cut to 5.1 percent for the first eight months of this year the expert said it couldn't be done but we did it the prime interest rate that had reached 21 and a half percent before we came to office is now down to 12 percent and we're not finished with it yet we've cut the growth the annual growth in spending government spending by nearly two-thirds and we will have cut tax rates 25% by next July and look what's been happening to the stock and bond markets they're trying to poo poo that a little bit on the other side but if you haven't noticed that market today closed 20 points up at 1,034 plus point 12 and that is the highest point the market has hit since early 1973 10 years ago confidence is returning to America's economy sadly unemployment is always just about the last to feel a recovery if you look at the charts that they can show you of those seven preceding recessions and they go up in the big nine then they go down but each time when they come out of the recession unemployment stays a little higher than it was the time before so it always starts from a higher level that's why the other day I said that I'd take the responsibility for the 2.7% that unemployment's gone up since I took office if they'll take responsibility for the 7.8% that it was up before we took off we're going to beat that just as we're beating the rest of the economic problems and when we get it licked this time it's going to stay licked now I just want to see if you've been paying attention this evening so I'd like to give you a little true false exam having gone to school not too far from here I'm feeling very academic if the statement I read is true you say true and if it's false you say false first question we've knocked the inflation rate down by half and or more and we're going to keep it down there we've reduced interest rates in this country and we're going to reduce them even further here's a hard one we've cut both the growth in federal spending and federal income tax rates and we're not letting either one of them rise again we're going to beat that devil unemployment and provide real and lasting jobs for the people of this nation I want the people of Illinois the people of America well wait a minute here's the last one Bob Michael is the best darn congressman this district ever had we'll send you your certificates of graduation right after November 2nd well you pass I knew this was a smart area that's why you keep sending him back to Congress we're on a new road now a road that's leading America to better times but we've got to keep the courage to stay our course it's the only way to lasting recovery if we don't our problems will just grow worse than they were before and that's the sad story sorry history of past decades lost nerve and squandered opportunities the people deserve better from their leaders now I want all of you to know this that I intend to stay the course and to turn this economy around and I need your help to do that so please promise me that you will mobilize your friends and neighbors to get out the vote for a great victory on November 2nd for Bob Michael we have a mission to renew all the dreams and the hopes that our nation was placed on this good earth to provide I met someone else before I came out here tonight a young lady sixth grade of Sterling school was won a statewide essay contest and she won it with a letter that she wrote to our country and I was pleased to meet her I you maybe you've all seen the letters but let me just remind you if you have it at that first sentence she wrote as I say it as a letter dear America I just thought I would write you a letter to let you know how great I think you are and in the close of her letter she said it really doesn't matter whether we're black or white atheist or Christian your doors of opportunity are always open so knock knock America here I come the Stacy Hodgkins and all those young people and the young people that are here tonight they're what this election is all about what kind of an America we're going to leave them and I pray every day of my life that before we leave the stage we will have made some down some payments installment payments on that trillion dollar debt and not leave all of it for them to take care of in the best way the most immediate way to keep our rendezvous with destiny and to achieve those dreams and those hopes that I spoke of is to reelect Bob Michael and those from other districts send these other representatives back send these candidates into office and let's us have a turn at being the majority in Washington and see what we can do for the people of this country thank you all and God bless