 Thank you very much. Thank you. Please. Mr. Chairman, Governor Bill Clements, Rita, I can't thank you enough for that introduction and for what you said about this. I'm kind of sorry that we can't steal you for California because I know how well you did in redistricting here. They redistricted California from the other side and the only Republican district left is just south of Tijuana. Governor John Connolly, Nellie, the congressman, Bill Archer and Jim Collins, Ron Paul, Jack Fields, Tom Leffler, our state chairman, our national committeeman who are here, the guests here at the head table and those that we honor tonight and who I can assure you are serving so well in your nation's capital. I, like Mike, yep, we both came from the office, so no black tie, but I would like to call to your attention that I am wearing a tie-tack that is the seal of the state of Texas. And I think my cuff links make up for no black tie because they're a map of the state of Texas that were given to me by your Sam Hall. Mike Dever and Jim Baker, it's true, told me that they're taking me on a turkey shoot tomorrow and when I brought up, when they brought this up, I asked them, well, why are we going all the way to Texas to shoot turkeys? And they said that, well, down here you had a different kind than the turkeys I'd been seeing. And you know, Bill, when you said something about if I were a Texan or not, maybe, I don't know, I love Texas, too, and I love all the people of Texas who've been so wonderful to me every time I've ever been here. And I remember a story about Lyndon Johnson when he was president, and maybe it applies to states, too, but he was leaving the south lawn of the White House and the two helicopters were there and he happened to be going toward the wrong one. And one of the securities stepped up and didn't want to, with all the press covering this, make it obvious, said, Mr. President, that's your helicopter over there. And Lyndon stopped and said, son, they're all mine. I don't know whether that works with states or not, but anyway, I suppose you've been wondering what we've been doing up there in these last nine months or so. Well, this dinner, as you've been told, expresses what we've been trying to do, and that is to make America strong again. I'm so grateful for the words and for John's generous words about that, and make it strong economically, militarily, and spiritually. And I believe we're on the right track for all truly. Yes, the interest rates are high. We have a recession, but those interest rates have dropped three and a half percent since September. Inflation, inflation is just a little more than half what it was when we took office. And to show you how it's going this morning in one of the last meetings we had before we left to come here, the Secretary of Agriculture was waiting for me at a Cabinet Council meeting and presented me with a giant replica of a check. It's for $27 million that the Department of Agriculture has saved on personnel and travel costs, not a budget item, just saved by managers. Yes, I know that recently it's been announced that we have 500,000 more unemployed than we had a year ago. And I haven't been able to figure it out yet because we have 260,000 more employed than we had when we took office and not become helpless dependents. Then I received a letter, a man who said he's on, he lives and is supported by the government. And he said, if it means cutting what I receive in order to restore fiscal integrity to this land, he said you cut what I receive. His letter was written in Braille. 37 years ago as a GI in World War II he lost his eyesight. Somebody once told me before I became governor, I think maybe I repeated it to Bill once when he was getting ready to take over as governor here that some days you'd go home feeling 10 feet tall. Well, I want to tell you yesterday, you know George Bush is heading up a task force to cut away and hack away at those regulations which have tied the hands of local government, which have tied the hands of business and industry in this country, and they're having great success. But a couple of days ago we ran into another regulation and I told the press about it as I learned about it in time for a press conference we were having about a little girl in the Midwest three and a half years old who couldn't live at home. She has been ill virtually since birth and maybe you saw it on television. We never intended that. I did not give her name or anything what the enterprising press found out and on the news that night publicized it. She has spent her entire life in a hospital requiring a care that costs about $12,000 a month and she could be cared for at home for $1,000 a month. The doctors think she'd be better off at home. Her parents, a lovely couple, want her home but they can't afford that and so the $10,000 or $12,000 a month is being paid by the government but under a regulation that would cease if she went home. Well, when they made it public and who it was yesterday when I came to the office Dick Schweiker over at HHS was happy to tell me that regulation no longer applies to her and she's going home. Some days this job's more fun than other days. Well, right now the economy, of course there's a lot of second guessing about the economic plan that we adopted. We were determined to reduce government spending to reduce the percentage of the gross national product that the government was taking in taxes and some with the best intentions now would reject tax reduction as being financially unsound while there is a federal budget deficit but a deficit can result from waste and the weakness of the economy and we can try to eliminate the deficit by raising taxes which further weakens the economy or we can restore to full prosperity this nation and balance the budget with the revenues that such an economy would generate. Now, in the 14th century there was a Muslim philosopher I've told about this a few times who knew this about the economy and he said in the beginning of the dynasty the dynasty reaps large tax yields from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty it is reaping small tax yields from large assessments. Well, John F. Kennedy knew this in the 20th century and he said our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and avoidance of large federal deficits on the other and economy stifled by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance the budget just as it will never produce enough for jobs or enough profits. Well, President Kennedy was selling a tax cut proposal against all the advice of the leadership of his own party and against that kind of economist that has got a 580 kappa key at one end of his watch chain and no watch on the other. Well, he had his way and he got his tax cut and he was asked by again those same people well, what if it doesn't work? Well, I'm being asked now by the Democratic leadership of Congress and John Connolly told you who has been responsible all these years for the problems that we're now in. Perhaps we should just refer them to the history of those years just prior to the Kennedy tax cut when employment in America was increasing by 1.19% a year and how in the years immediately following the rate of increase in employment was almost doubled. We... the real great, the real gross national product the rate of growth went from a little over 3.5% before the tax cut to over 5% after the tax cut. The savings, the growth rate of personal savings jumped from 2.3% to 8% of the American people's earnings. Now this is not only evidence of recent history of what can happen when more money rather than less is left in the hands of the people. There is more. 1969, there were 698 American business firms each one with a net worth under $5 million who were in the stock market raising by way of that marketplace $1,400,000,000 to fund expansion and continued growth. And then in 1969 the capital gains tax was doubled and shortly thereafter there were only four such firms in the stock market raising a mere $15 million. With the help of your congressman and yes with the help of you because believe me when the phone started ringing in Washington when we asked for it and the telegrams and the letters to the state of Texas with their help, your help we have passed the greatest reduction in federal spending in history we didn't get all we asked for we got about $35 billion worth and now the recession brought on by high interest rates and the increased cost of government borrowing to pay for the built in deficits that we inherited has altered our estimates of revenues and deficits for the next few years ahead and so immediately someone pushed the panic button and says we should call off the tax cuts or we should pass new increases in taxes so that we could take back with one hand what we'd given with the other the democratic leadership in September proclaimed that our plan doesn't work well as John told you it didn't start until October but they were like Monday morning quarterbacks who were sounding off on Friday night our plan as I say didn't start until later and we won't really feel the effects of it as John indicated for some time now because additional tax cuts will go into effect in January more in next July and so forth now in the meantime we are asking for additional cuts in spending and that is new when we got the first package we told them that there were at least 70 odd billion dollars in unspecified cuts that we would require over the next three years to make this plan work but there's one thing I don't believe we need and one thing I'm against we're not going to have a tax increase our program was designed to stimulate the economy, increase productivity and create jobs now let me give you a figure that doesn't appear in the static numbers that are used in estimating the future deficits they're all related to the budget we must cut the budget X amount or we must get more tax revenue by a tax increase to meet this size budget well let me tell you some figures that aren't static if our belief in improving the economy is correct by just reducing unemployment by one percentage point you will reduce the deficit by 25 billion dollars and you can take it from there as to having a goal what should it be to stifle the economy with increasing the taxes on the people's backs or to improve the economy by plating not only one but two and three percent percentage points of those unemployed back to work in an industrial America that is once again leading the world that's what our target is you know Senator Kennedy at a dinner just recently the 90th birthday party was being celebrated for former Governor and Ambassador Averill Harriman and Teddy Kennedy said that Averill's age was only half as old as Ronald Reagan's ideas and you know he's absolutely right the Constitution is almost 200 years old and that's where I get my ideas Marie Montessori when she was asked why she didn't reply to her critics replied if she were climbing a ladder and the dog came yapping at her heels she would have two choices she could either stop and kick the dog or she could continue to climb the ladder and she preferred to climb well I'll conf-