 This check that I have in my hand represents the receipts from three record sales in the pilot program of Loan Assets Sales. The loans that were sold are part of the Department of Education's program of college, housing and academic facilities. The loan program is there. And the proceeds of the sale of assets loan of the Department of Agriculture's Farmers Home Administration. It is with a great deal of pleasure that on behalf of the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture, I present to you this check worth $3 billion, $410 million. Are you having made my day? Why don't I make Jim Miller's day? Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Secretary Layton. Jim, you have it now, so that ought to reduce this fiscal year's deficit by over $3 billion. And I welcome Professor Leno's and the members of the Privatization Commission. These loan assets sales were very successful, as you can see. And they sold easily and on very favorable terms because of a great deal of hard work on the part of officials at the Departments of Education and Agriculture and by people like Joe Wright at OMB. The loan sales proceeds of approximately $3.41 billion constitute a significant step toward reducing the federal government's deficit, as I've said. And even more can be done to privatize federal loans. Presently the federal government is the nation's largest lender with $252 billion in direct loans, $450 billion in loan guarantees, and $453 billion in government-sponsored loans. We'll be taking a close look at these assets to determine which loans can be better handled by the private sector. But while all agree that the deficit must be cut, there's a new roadblock to the promising approach of asset sales. As part of the Graham-Rudman Hollings fix in the debt ceiling extension, Congress prohibited counting the proceeds of asset sales toward reducing the deficit. This reflects the choice of some in Congress to achieve deficit reductions through higher taxes or lower national defense. Others agree with our position to reduce the deficits through cuts in wasteful domestic spending and through privatization measures such as the one that we announce here today. Any congressional restriction on deficit reduction which would increase the tax burden on every taxpayer is wrong. The difference in perspective here is useful. There are those who believe in less government and low taxation. And there are those who believe in big government and high taxation. And that's a choice I've always felt we could confidently leave to the American people. They've made their feelings known in the past and I think they will do so again. So we're going to carry on and you, I think, are contributing nobly to this task that we have of getting the government back into the business of government and getting it out of the hair of private business in this country. So, I'm going to bless you all and thank you for watching. Then what I'm doing? Mr. President, it sounds like your Judge Forte nomination is in trouble. Well, I'm very optimistic. I think the common sense will prevail and they will realize he's the best choice in the market today for that post. Senator Cranston says that he's lit already. He's counted the books. Well, Senator Cranston's been wrong before. Well, the paper is off the book's operations, which have stunned this town and the country. What? Off the book. Casey's operations. I think that there's an awful lot of fiction about a man who was unable to communicate at all and is now being quoted as if he was doing nothing but talk his head off. Well, did you sign a directive that led to a massacre in Beirut? No. And I have a copy of the measure that I signed. Can we see it? It was nothing but that we were approving a plan requested of us by the government of Beirut of Lebanon, to help them encounter terrorism. Never would I sign anything that would authorize an assassination. I never have and I never will and I didn't. Did he carry out any actions without your knowledge, Mr. President? He'd keep him on his feet and get back. Did he carry out any covert actions without your knowledge, Mr. Casey? Not that I know of. Don't you think you should have known it seems to me that he did a lot of things you didn't know about? No, I think I did know. And there are a lot of things he's being charged with right now. I was going to say credited with, but you couldn't describe him as charged with. And I don't think any of him has a basis in fact. It's important that you ran wild with him.