 Hey, John, how are you? Well, my role is the greeter, the role of the greeter. And I really was just going to do exactly that to thank particularly those up here for their leadership. Liddy Dole, the responsibility for coordination with the White House, doing a superb job in keeping the focus of this massive complex here focused on the private sector, Bill Verity, whom I've known for a long time, and I know many of you have worked with him, respect his stick-to-it-ness and his creativity, is just doing a superb job in all of this. And John Filer came with John Gardner and others early on, urging into my office, and I know communicated with the president on this, early on urging the emphasis on this whole private sector. And so it is out there and moving. We're in, there's some complicated economic times. There's some good things happening, inflation, particularly is responding. There's some other trends that are encouraging. There's some things that are rough, frankly, unemployment, these kinds of things. And the thing I wanted to say is nobody has created this to be an excuse for something. Nobody is putting the emphasis on this. The president has felt strongly about the private sector and what it can do for a long, long time. And it was created in his mind, this whole concept of emphasis is totally compatible with his view as to how things should happen. And I believe in good economic times or bad, this is a good insensible approach. And I believe that when we have tough times, the success is essential. And I am just delighted to have had an early report from Liddy Doe as to how these initiatives are beginning. We clearly need the support of everybody in this room, not just your individual business organizations and community organizations, but need your advocacy in convincing skeptics where encountered that this is the best way to help each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald had a line in a novel talking about America is a willingness of the heart. And a lot of this whole concept has to do with that, a willingness of the heart. And de Tocqueville, of course, early on, as everyone here knows, took a look at this country and the thing that he noted along with many other observations, but one of the key ones was about the propensity of Americans to form into private associations and the propensity of one to help another. And somehow the president feels, and certainly I feel, that we've moved away from that concept. Not that we think government has no role in the alleviation of suffering or in helping from time to time in various areas. We know that, the general welfare clause. We're sensitive to that. But we also know that the best answer in terms of employment, in terms of dignity, is to see this private sector as vital. And it's also just a kind of a wonderful ethic to think that you're involved in something where one human being, one organization, helping people to have a better life. And so this is what drives it. And I just wanted to make the point that it wasn't driven out of the idea that you have to replace a categorical grant by a stimulation. It's too fundamental to the way that we look at these things. I sometimes address myself. I noticed the president did last night to the concept of compassion and concern and all of that. And we know that we have to always be out there projecting the concern that in this instance our president does feel about things. Because it's very easy to say, well, he doesn't care. And he does care. And the success of this, I think, will demonstrate that the whole country cares. The whole concept of neighborhood and helping each other is just fantastic. So I just wanted to wish you well and to encourage you to do everything Bill Verity tells you to do, regardless of how painful that may be, knowing him and respecting him and trying to stay out of his first strike zone as much as possible, lest I be pressed into further service. I would only say that you've got a great man helping and leading in this effort. It is acumenical in the sense that it transcends just business. It's got to include and will include and does include, thanks to him, a leadership in education and religion and so many other areas as well. So thank you very, very much what you're doing, not for any administration, but for what you're doing for your country. We're deeply, deeply appreciative. Thank you. Bill, thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President, for being here. Presser. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you. Well, thank you all very much. Really, I should be applauding you. I think your presence here disproves an old army myth, never volunteer. Well, we're delighted you could all come and I won't use that cliche from so many mystery movies of, you won't know or wondering why I asked you here. You all know. I just hope that Bill Verity and John Filer are right that your being here means that you're ready to make a commitment to this project. It's not only close to my heart, it's important to the future of our country. We want to rebuild America, not from the government down, but from the people up. All of us together as partners, community by community. And I'm asking you today to help us make it work. Our system of economic freedom has provided more opportunity, more mobility, more abundance, and distributed it all more widely among our people than any time or anywhere else on earth. Personal initiative, ingenuity, industry, and reward help make America the envy of the world. I say help because always there was that extra dimension of faith, friendship, and brotherhood. That made us good neighbors, good people, made America a great country. What'd you say? The press conference is Monday. But recently, I must say we, I flew to flood stricken Fort Wayne, Indiana. When I said last night in New York, I discovered that we still have that spirit we've always had. I saw again how Americans can rally together in times of trouble. Certainly it was a terrible tragedy for many people, but at the same time you had to be inspired by what you saw. First, my first sight was walking up to a dike. The water was right at the level of the top of the dike and standing on that dike, hundreds of young people who had volunteered standing there in a line and passing those heavy sandbags to keep that dike line above the flood crest. One of them gave me his boots. And so I took my place in the line for a little while. The young lady told me she'd been there for three days. They were all volunteers, girls and boys from all backgrounds, all the mix that you would find anytime, any place in America of the kind of people that make up an American group. And looking at their happy and enthusiastic faces while they were doing this. And I heard they'd been there since early morning and it was coming on evening then. And there was no griping about what was going on. I just looked at them and I thought I was looking at the face of the future in America and I can tell you the future looked mighty good. We've always done well when we've had the courage to believe in ourselves and in our capacity to perform great deeds. We got in trouble when we started looking to government for too many answers. When we listened to those who insisted that making a government bigger would make America better. Well, forgive me, but I happen to believe that the best view of big government is in the rear view mirror as you're driving away from it. I know they were well intentioned with all the social experiments, but too often their cure only led to despair and dependency for the very people that needed genuine opportunity. The era of rising savings in technological supremacy that we once knew somehow seemed to slip further from our grasp. Did we forget that government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid? Did we forget that government must not supersede the will of the people or the responsibilities of the people in their communities? Did we forget that the function of government is not to confer happiness on us, but just to get out of the way and give us the opportunity to work out happiness for ourselves? Now these are not Republican or Democratic principles, they're American principles. 30 years ago, John F. Kennedy said, only by doing the work ourselves can we hope in the long run to maintain the authority of the people over the state. Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders and shift that problem to the hands of government, we are sacrificing the liberties of the people. Well he was right, we must reaffirm our faith in the people and put America's future back in their hands. Now this doesn't mean, however, that we abandon our responsibilities to those in need. In 1983, or for 1983, we have proposed that 28% of all federal spending go to the elderly, an average of $7,850 per individual in payments and services, that the federal government subsidize approximately 95 million meals per day in percent. Sent that's 14% of all the meals that are served in the United States. Almost 7 million post-secondary awards or loans will be available to students or their parents through federal student assistance programs. Through increased funding for Medicaid and Medicare, the federal government will provide medical care for some 47 million aged, disabled and needy Americans. About 20% of our total population and 99% of those who are over 65. Approximately $2.8 billion will be spent on training and employment programs, providing skills for almost one million low-income, disadvantaged people. 90% of whom will be below the age of 25 or recipients of federal aid to families. Spending on essential services will not go down as some would have us believe, it'll go up. But you know, as leaders of your major national organizations, that too much taxing, spending and control from Washington leads to bigger and bigger problems. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding their destiny and benefiting from their own risks, only then can societies remain dynamic, prosperous, progressive and free. So we're restoring incentives for personal enterprise. We're encouraging self-reliance again. And as a complimentary action, we've launched a nationwide effort to encourage citizens to join with us, find where need exists and then to organize volunteer groups to meet those needs. Bill Verdi, Chairman of our Private Sector Initiative's Task Force, is spending about 23 hours every day. He's recently retired, so he's taking it easy. He's doing this, trying to build partnerships between the public and private sectors in every community of America. Already, 20 governors have expressed an interest in forming statewide task forces, and several have started putting in place their own statewide groups. 80 to 90 community partnerships are already in existence in one form or another. And now, many new groups are being formed thanks to the efforts of his Task Force. This is a good beginning, but today, with you, we want to kick off a much greater effort. What we need now are your organizations which do such a fine job representing individual groups at the grassroots to step in and help us. The corporations, unions, churches, family farms, and mom and pop stores all across the country look to you for leadership. We're not asking you to take over the social welfare system. What we're asking is that you give generously of your time, your know-how, and your imagination. And then we'd like to publicize your own good works so that together we can strengthen this system, which is such a mighty engine for human progress. I hope that we can count on your making private sector initiatives a top priority for the balance of this administration. Some of you are already taking the initiative. Let me just cite a few examples of what's being done to point out the enormous potential for good nationwide. John Filer, the PSI Task Force lays on with national organizations, is chairman of the Board of the National Alliance of Business. NAB is coordinating a major campaign to find jobs for youth this summer, targeting 100 cities across the country. They'll be looking to you for support, and I should warn you this won't be the last time you hear from me about this project. Bill Verity has done some great things in his hometown, Middletown, Ohio. The community partnership they established took inventory of all federal funds coming into the city. The U.S. Chamber then shared this example with their members, and now 36 local chambers have formed their own partnerships. I'm also told 150 communities have been targeted by the U.S. Chamber for special attention to encourage them to establish public-private partnerships. Sandy Trowbridge, president of the NAM, has requested his members to offer special help to job training agencies, city halls, colleges, school systems, and neighborhood groups that provide worthy social services. Sandy has stressed that there's a clear-cut relationship between stable, productive communities and the ability of companies to attract and retain skilled employees, and he's even gone ahead and printed up this brochure, which is kind of a checklist to help firms assess their community's needs and then decide how to help. One of the greatest roadblocks to job training and personal advancement is inadequate education. This problem is especially troubling in the black community, where too many of our black children are not acquiring the skills they will need. Led by Dr. Nathan Wright and Mrs. Leon Sullivan, black Americans are planning to mobilize over 60 major organizations and 500,000 black community volunteers to attack this problem at its root. The drive will be called the National Assault on Illiteracy program, and you can be sure that we'll be looking to help them any way we can. Americans are ready to act, and they'll respond when asked. Those youngsters I told you about in Fort Wayne, within 24 hours after they were up there on the dykes and doing that, the volunteers started and they ended up with 30,000 volunteers who laid a million sandbags, and even with the oncoming rain, additional rain, the dykes held, and Fort Wayne people are now going back to their own homes. The waters have gone down. I think it's significant that despite these difficult times, when you would expect the average charity drive to fall short of its goal, that the United Way set a new record in last year's campaign. The dollar value of total time volunteered by Americans is now estimated at $64.5 billion. One recent poll showed that 44% of adults who got involved in volunteer work in the last year did it because someone asked them. Isn't that really what it's all about? That each of us does have an obligation, a personal responsibility, to give something back to this country which has given us so much. We can't all be the best, but we can each give our best, and America deserves no less. Each of you here today is an acknowledged leader, a mover and shaker. Well, let us start asking ourselves in 1982, what did I do today that will help a fellow American in need? And if the answer is nothing, the next question should be, well, what am I going to do about that tomorrow? With your help, we have begun to make the changes in Washington that America's needs. And it's time to take this program and make it work at the grassroots. I think back to a statement Herb Brooks made that seems more and more meaningful every day. You know that name. He's coach of the New York Rangers. But as you probably remember, he coached those young Americans of our Olympic hockey team that made us so proud at Lake Placid when they defeated that great Russian team. Coach Brooks was in the locker room with his team before they took the ice. He wanted to fill his players with confidence to play the game of their lives. And he told them, you're born to be a player. You are meant to be here at this time. This is your moment. And as you know, when they left the ice, those kids were chanting USA, USA. Well, this is your moment, our moment, I should say. Yours and mine. Our chance to correct the mistakes of the past. Our chance to justify the belief or the brief time that we spent here. We're not asking you for a miracle. We're doing what needs to be done. So help us do what we know is right and help us to do what we know will work. Thank you for being here today for the cause that unites us. Maybe I've told somebody of this story or maybe someone else has told you. But I just have to tell you, I have a great admiration for people like you and what you are doing in this regard. People who can go out and solicit others, ask them for money. I've never been good at that. I've always get self-conscious. That's why I'm in government. Now, we don't ask for it, we just take it. No, no, no. But I have to tell you the little story about the gentleman who finally accepted the job of chairman of the charity committee in his hometown. And he looked at all the records and then he went to a gentleman, and this was some time ago and back when $90,000 a year was an awful lot of income, more than it is now. And he said, our records show that your income is above $90,000 a year, and yet you've never contributed to the local charity. And the old fellow said to your records, also show that my widowed children was left with four children in absolutely destitute. He said, did they show that my older brother was disabled in the war, has been totally disabled ever since? And kind of a bash, the chairman said, well, no, our records don't show that. And he said, well, I don't do anything for them. Why should I do something for you? Now, forgive me, but I'm already late for my next appointment, and Bill Verity and John Filer will have some important business with you. So I'll leave it to them. And again, God bless you and thank you very much for being here.