 United States. I'd like to give special thanks to Richard Lawson, Berm, who did such a terrific job and arranged this wonderful event here today. It's great to see so many friends and familiar faces and also so many new faces, CLCS, so many new members. There wasn't room in the White House big enough to fit us all in. I had two reactions. First, I was proud to know that there are so many dedicated and active Republicans. Second, I wanted to apologize and let you know that Nancy and I just sort of rent the place. But this year, I'm especially happy to see you all. You see, since the postal rates went up, people have been writing me. That happened since I first spoke to you in 1981. We rebuilt our armed forces. We liberated Grenada from the communists and helped return the island to democracy. And I don't know whether any of you had a chance to know this or not, but I was very thrilled recently to find out that the tourists that are visiting down that lovely little island of Grenada now, they buy postcards and they bring them back because the postcards, the pictures on the postcards are of the graffiti that is still painted on the walls there. And you know how many years we've regretted that here and there in the world there are people saying, Yankee, go home. Well, the graffiti on the walls of Grenada is, God bless the USA and come time anytime to Ganistan. The INF Treaty has been signed and we're working on the Strategic Defense Initiative to defend ourselves and our allies against nuclear terror. We've filled nearly half the federal judiciary with judges committed to the law and the Constitution. The United States has had 66 consecutive months of economic growth. It is the longest peacetime expansion on record in our country. 17 million new jobs. That's more than all of the countries of Europe put together have created in a longer time than this. The top personal tax rate has been cut in half and we brought inflation, non-employment and interest rates down to their lowest level in the years. And it seems to me that all in all, it's not a bad record. You only work a few hours a day. Candidates for Congress, you've been a part of everything that Vice President Bush and I have accomplished in office. It's no exaggeration when I tell you that every single House seat has made a difference. There have been some breathtakingly close votes, some that we've won just by a couple of votes and others like aid to the Nicaraguan freedom fighters, which just barely went the other way, and which we're determined with your help to turn around. When a liberal Democratic member of Congress has to cast a tough vote, it can really make a difference if that person knows that there's a well-funded Republican challenger ready in his district to put the issue before the voters. So by helping our candidates to wage strong campaigns and get elected to Congress, you're helping to move the whole country forward. I don't have to tell you that the House of Representatives has been the key Democratic stronghold that has tried to block us on issue after issue. As a matter of fact, the House of Representatives for 56 straight years now has only seen a majority of Republicans for four years out of those 56 years. And that means that every 10 years they've been in charge when we re-apportioned. So what we are is the victims of a half a century of gerrymandering by the opposite party. And I have said when we get in and be an awful temptation, if we can get a majority for us to turn around in gerrymandering, but you know something, I don't think it would be in keeping with us. I would like to see us once we had the chance say no, let's have a bipartisan Blue Ribbon Citizens Committee be the ones that reapportion the congressional districts in the United States. George Bush is tremendous record. He has been a part of everything we've accomplished. At the top of our ticket and with a Massachusetts liberal at the top of theirs, I think we can make big gains in 1988 with something about his financial habits as a governor. I see it made all the press this morning. But I did that, I did that because he made a remark about me and the remark was that I have been in charge of the biggest deficit in this country from Jordan, from George Washington through Jimmy Carter, that this is bigger than that. He's asking for the job and doesn't know that the president can't spend a dime. Hungers that's been doing this for a half a year. A few things about that and about the deficits. My first budget was the 1982 budget. The budget since I've been here. The law says I have to submit one every year, but every year they thrown it away. If they had given us the 1982 budget that I asked for, the cumulative deficits through 1986 would have gone down 207 billion dollars. So who's blaming who for the continued deficits? Well, I've been in enough campaigns myself to know how important it is to have the resources to win. I don't know of a single new house seat that we've picked up where your generosity didn't help provide the margin of victory. And you can be sure that I'll be out there campaigning for Republicans, and I'll probably see most of you out there along the way. I just want to thank each of you for all that you've done over the years and continue to do and let you know how very much I appreciate it. Now, I know I've come to the end of my remarks and so forth, but would you forgive me if I told you that I've developed a very bad habit? I have begun collecting stories that I can tell are told by the Russian people among themselves that show they've got a great sense of humor and also they're a little cynical about their system. And I've collected a number of those and I just delight in telling a few of them if you wouldn't mind. Soviet government had issued an order that anyone caught speeding, anyone gets a ticket. But you know, most of the automobiles there are driven by members of the bureaucracy, what they call renown plature. So Gorbachev came out of his dacha, his country home one day, and he knew he was late getting to the Kremlin. He told his driver to get in the back seat and he tried. And he got in the front seat and down the road. Well, why not? We were told no matter who it was to give him a ticket. Well, he says this one was too important. Well, he said who was it? He said I couldn't recognize him, but his driver was Gorbachev. About the two countries and the Americans said, look, in my country, I can go into the Oval Office, pound the president's desk and say, Mr. President, I don't like the way you're running our country. And the Russians said I can do that. America said you can. He says yes, sir, I can go into the Kremlin, into the general secretary's office, pound the desk and say, Mr. General Secretary, I don't like the way President Reagan's running his country. This one is about the man walking down the street in Moscow and a soldier yells halt and he starts to run and the soldier shoots him. And another Russian said to the soldier, why did you do that? Well, he said curfew. But he said it isn't curfew yet. He said, I know he's a friend of mine. I know where he lives. He couldn't have made it. One of my Secret Service agents told me one that I'd missed had me in it. Gorbachev, he said the Secret Service, he said that their story now is that Gorbachev and I are in his limousine and my Secret Service man is with me and his top security man with him and we're sightseeing and he takes us out to the scene of a waterfall and we all get out of the car and we're standing looking at this great waterfall and Gorbachev says to my man, go ahead, jump, go over the fall. My man said I've got a wife and three kids. So he turned to his own man. He said, you jump, go over the fall and he did. Well, my man went down on the rocks around the fall to see what had happened down there at the other end and down there. Well, the guy was all right, but he was wringing out his clothes. My man said, why, why did you, when he said jump, why did you do that? He says, I got a wife and three kids and St. Peter said, well, of course, being an atheist, you can't come in here. He said, you would have to go down to Hades down there and he said, but you've got a choice. There are two. There's the communist hell and the capitalist hell and Churnenko said, well, I choose, of course, the communist hell. Well, he said, I think I better tell you the capitalist hell is a little more comfortable. He says, yes, but the communist hell is the only one where I can be sure that the heating system will fail.