Good afternoon. I am Otto Silla president of sill Associates and a member of the Minnesota meeting. I'm glad to welcome all of you to Minnesota meeting today. Minnesota meeting is a public affairs Forum which brings National and international speakers to Minnesota over 1800 corporate government and Community leaders belong to Minnesota meeting. Minnesota meeting is pleased to present today's speaker representative Jack Kemp in cooperation with the Anoka County Chamber of Commerce following representative Kemp's remarks Greg Bergeron. The president of the Anoka chamber will introduce a question and answer session.It's a great personal pleasure for me today to introduce Jack Kemp candidate for the Republican nomination for president older heads may remember him as an AFL and NFL quarterback. Finally with the championship. Buffalo Bills after he hung up his cleats. He was elected to congress in 1970 in his eighth term a republican from a blue-collar district of Buffalo. We can look back upon his record of leadership in the house. When I first met him, he was proposing revolutionary things like tax reduction and Enterprise zones, since then we have seen his successful initiatives Kemp Roth the tax cutting inflation reducing Keystone of President Reagan's domestic policy.Camp Garcia the Enterprise Zone solution for inner city problems and Kemp casting the heart of the tax reform Act of 1986 whether you're a republican Democrat liberal conservative or a plain vanilla dedicated American it's worth your while to listen to Jack Kemp. He has ideas. He knows where he stands. He's a leader. He makes things happen and I'm proud to call him my friend Congressman Jack Kemp.Thank you very much. Well Otto, thank you so much for that. Very generous introduction Greg Bergeron. Thank you so much for the effort that the Anoka County Area Chamber is done to join Minnesota meeting to put on this luncheon. It's a outstanding audience. I guess we're just about packed in here. And I'm honored to have the opportunity to visit with such a prestigious Forum here in the Twin Cities area of the Minneapolis st. Paul particularly delighted to be with my good friend and comrade in arms and many of the battles of the House of Representatives Congressman. Vin Weber. In fact, I'd like to introduce him Congressman Vin Weber of Minnesota. I know I'm in the area of the went one of the winningest baseball teams in an America and they're not even on strike the twins. My favorite Minneapolis story is when Vin Weber invited me here on a Monday night during football season in nineteen, eighty four or five and did a 1984 and the the I've made it a rule do not speak when there's a big baseball or Ball game on television and as it was as it happened that the Vikes were playing the Buffalo Bills my old team in Buffalo and the game of course was on Monday night television and that's back in the days when they were playing professional football and make a long story short. They assured me. However that we get to watch the game the antiquing special pains to put television sets in all four corners of the room and then I would end right as the game came on the lights would go off and we'd all sit around and watch the Vikes and the Buffalo Bills. I got a wonderful introduction. I mean by the time the introduction of finished I was a combination of Bobby Lane Otto Graham Fran Tarkenton and Johnny Unitas gave what I thought was a pretty good speech got a rousing response finished it first time I've ever been on time in my life. I finished it one minute 28 Minneapolis time and the game came on the lights went off. It was a hush over the audience the very first play of The game or the very first pass of the game was from the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills to a defensive back of the Minnesota Vikings. The quarterback was Joe Ferguson and now plays for the Lions, but he was then playing for the Buffalo Bills. It all would have gone unnoticed to the crowd except my buddy Frank Gifford of ABC Monday Night Football put a News Bulletin across the bottom of the television screen that Joe Ferguson. It just surpassed Jack Kemp salt. I'm interception record the lights the lights were off and I crawled out underneath the podium, but I'm thrilled to be here today. And as I said particularly pleased with the wonderful turnout and want to thank Auto not only for that marvelous introduction, but his a very warm and abiding friendship of he and Helen there dear friends of the Kent family and go good Nick. It's a honor to be in your presence. Your presence state representative Guild good. Nick is excused this blatantly partisan statement. He is the state chairman along with Evie access to all of the camp campaign in Minnesota. And that's the last I'm going to mention about 1988 unless you ask me about it. This is probably one of the most fascinating times to be alive in American history. I would imagine as we celebrate 200 years of constitutional government in this country that they're really in history are few moments in time in which men and women know that what is happening has such profound impact upon themselves their families their communities their country and frankly the world. This period of time as I said is not only unparalleled it is so rich in Opportunity. So many things happening. Now. The reason I start out on basically an optimistic note is that there is so much going on so much debate healthy in our democratic form of government to have that type of a debate but there is so much misinformation about problems or challenges that I thought today. I would like to focus my non formal remarks on our recent past history where we are where I think we are going and then open it up for questions. The reason I bring up that sense of pessimism at the beginning is because there is a school of thought that believes that the glass is very much half empty. And get and falling another metaphor that some of my friends in the other party of uses. That is that it's midnight in America and getting darker. I didn't realize it could get darker after midnight. But that is a metaphor that's being used by some there is a recent book. I forget the title. Some of you will prompt me by a writer who talks about the coming crash or depression of 1990. And of course you make a lot of money on Wall Street selling books about the collapse of equity markets and bond markets and the economy and the World Trade crisis and the twin deficits, etc. Etc. Etc. Now when I am introduced as someone who believes in a sense of vision for the future and basically have a very optimistic belief in America and the American free enterprise system and our ability as free men and free women in a free society and a free enterprise system to resolve problems and move this country forward. Word I speak from some experience. I'm not an economist fact. I'd rather listen to the first 2,000 names in the Minneapolis Minnesota phone book than the Council of economic advisers of the past administration who told us in the 1970s that inflation was a part of our society. So rooted in our democracy that there was no way to get it out short of a massive depression here and around the world. My favorite all-time story is in the energy crisis of 1979 and the inflation of 1979 Professor con Alfred Khan who was the chief inflation fighter of the Carter Administration and he was on The Today Show and the old Today show in the 70s was hosted by Tom Brokaw and one morning. I was sitting there watching The Today Show with my wife and Tom was interviewing Professor con Chief inflation Fighter for the Carter Administration inflation was at 13% Prime rate was at 20% The price of energy was predicted to go to $100 a barrel by Secretary of the Department of energy. I like to call it the secretary of the Department of no energy James lessons said the price of a barrel of oil will be $100 by 1990 or so. I mean you talk about problems gasoline lines price of a Commodities was Rising exponentially. I think the price of gold was 829 dollars inflation seemed endemic to our society. No one really knew what to do. We knew that wage and price controls don't work. And since I am going to be tough on the Carter Administration, I will remind my Republican friends. It was the Nixon Administration that put on wage and price controls and controls on beef which caused such a shortage of beef overnight that they had to reduce and to relax them within a very short period of time and all of a sudden were watching television. Now the chief inflation Fighter for the United States government comes on television with Tom Brokaw and Tom Brokaw asked the question that any man any woman any of us would like to ask. Mr. Khan. What can we the American people do to fight inflation now, this is 1979 as I suggested al-furqan thought for a moment was smoking his pipe. You must have a pipe or a cigar if you're going to be an economist. and he paused for a moment and then he said Mr. Brokaw, the American people must do what I'm doing. Tom Brokaw sighs got very big and he said to Alfred Khan tell us what what what is it you're doing and Alfred Conn said I'm learning to ride a bicycle to work. Now I come from Buffalo, New York. Auto steel manufacturing technology Education Service Industries folks don't look kindly on solutions that suggest that the answer to inflation is to ride bicycles to work. I've got nothing against riding bicycles to work. But the answer to inflation was production output increasing Supply. It was not limiting our vision or our sites for the future now, I want to suggest you and I'm being a little bit tough on the previous administration. I'm going to be equally tough on the current Administration in some areas, but I do want to say this in 1978 79 and 80 and 81 there were some of us campaigning on the idea that the solution to inflation was not to impose austerity and pain and sacrifice and and reduce the aspirations of the American people for a better life. And don't forget that was happening Fortune Magazine did a study by many economists left, right and Center in 1978-79. All of whom came to the conclusion that inflation was endemic and that the only way to stop it was to hold down the growth rate of the American economy to a level consistent with keeping unemployment High because their theory was that too many people working too many businesses doing business too many energy companies producing energy to many folks on senior citizen retired fixed pensions that the people cause inflation left right and center. The idea was that you cannot control inflation and grow rapidly simultaneously. Does anybody doubt whether you are liberal or conservative democrat or republican that there was a loss of faith in the ability of this country to grow without inflation. In fact, I recently recall the the idea by a professor of economics who will go nameless because I'm not trying to pick on anybody. But he moved from the ivy league College to a Stanford University and he said we Keynesian activists economists in the world are terribly discouraged by our inability to explain the simultaneity of inflation and unemployment or how to get out of it. Now. I'm not suggesting we've cured the business cycle. And I think there's plenty of room for improvement and you can't come to the Twin City area and then know that there are areas of Minneapolis or st. Paul that are still struggling with high levels of unemployment then was talking to me earlier about the Selby Dale area the Plymouth Avenue area. I am sure Iron Range and minnesotans and certainly in Buffalo or the South Bronx or Bed-Stuy or Liberty City, Miami or rural Minnesota or rural Iowa that there are very severe problems with which were wrestling. But you cannot understand how to solve a problem or wrestle with a problem without understanding what are the ingredients that have both caused the non-inflationary recovery as well as left some parts of this economy behind in the recovery. I'd like to suggest with you suggest to you several things that I think had something to do with the recovery and make some suggestions about what we might want to do about those areas of the economy that have been left behind and then it opened it up for questions. Number one. We changed our thinking about inflation. We changed our thinking about inflation. We took that Fortune magazine article of 1978 or 79 and we throw it in the Dustbin and said that inflation is not caused by people who are working. It's not caused by businesses making a profit. It's not caused by consumers inflation in each and every instant is caused by governments that fail to maintain the value of their unit of account who met who failed to maintain the value that the principal responsibility to maintain a currency is in the hands of the government not in the hands of Labor or capital or business or employees or senior citizens or whatever the way to fight inflation is to get a handle both on fiscal and monetary policy to have a government stabilize that currency we talked about cutting tax rates not to give a bonus to people so they could run out and spend it but to lower the marginal income tax rate. So the after tax rate of return on working and saving Investing producing and engaging an entrepreneurial activity would increase it was a massive if you will behavioral modification program. I don't want to sound like BF Skinner, but it was a it was altering the rewards in the system for men and women who were the backbone and the engine of the dynamic economy workers Savers and entrepreneurs. I know I'm in a room of entrepreneurs. I recently was in a room of entrepreneurs in Paris. My wife and I were on a trip to Paris and met with some folks who were part of the small business entrepreneurial economy community of Paris, and I said, I think it's the only French word. I know other than Renaissance I said what an honor it is to be in Paris with my fellow entrepreneurs. I let it roll off my tongue. The woman who was doing the translation was talking to the fellow next to her and she gave the French translation. I said, what did she say it took a long time to say it and he said this he said that you're pleased to be in Paris with your fellow Undertaker's. Entrepreneur is the French verb to undertake. But that is what this is all about with so to all my fellow Undertaker's we began to recognize that you cannot create jobs. Now. This will come as a shock to some of my friends in the government. You cannot create lots of new jobs without creating lots of new employers. Entrepreneurs, there's no way to create employees without creating employers. I say that's a shock to some of our friends who think that jobs just come, you know by virtue of government activity. Increasing the rate of return after taxes for both labor and capital both employee and employer and fostering entrepreneurship. I think has been a demonstrable success in the post tax cut era of 1981 the camp Roth Bill brought the top rate down from 70 by ninth and is led to the Bradley Gebhardt Kemp Caston Reagan Jim Baker Vin Weber. Rudy boschwitz but by 1988 the top tax rate on personal income and the United States of America will be the lowest of any industrial nation in the western world are top rate will be low lower than that of the bottom rate in the UK in the in Great Britain 85% of all the families and the Twin City area of Saint Paul. Mini appleís will be in a flatfish 85 85 percent will be in a flat 15% rate. Tax reform is not over. It's not simple. To be sure if I'd written it had been a lot more simple. You could have filled out your taxes on a postcard if I had written it but how do I need a glass of water? But I think there's been tremendous progress and every country. I can't say every country many many countries in the world are beginning to rethink their idea that a steeply graduated income tax rate system is good for poor people. You see the whole purpose of a highly graduated or steeply progressive income tax rate system was predicated upon the idea that if you take it away from the rich, you can redistribute it to the poor that you can help the poor by redistribution redistribution of income and we found out that the poor we're getting poorer there were some who are getting rich because we found out that a steeply graduated income tax rate does not redistribute wealth is simply redistributes taxpayers. And it redistributes the time that people spend trying to defend their source of taxable income. Malcolm Forbes are Steve Forbes. I forget in a recent issue of Forbes Magazine said that prior to the camp broad tax bill 33 and a third percent of all the time spent by middle management executive men and women in small businesses around America 33 and a third percent of their time was spent figuring out the tax consequence of either a personal or a business decision. Can you imagine the time spent in America on figuring out what are the tax consequences of a particular spending or investing or a shelter economic decision? What a waste of talent what an incredible loss to the Capital stock of America to have folks all trying to figure out how to reduce their taxable source of income. So we came up with a radical idea is a radical because it was Radical. It was a shibboleth in America to believe in a steeply graduated income tax rate system. And all of a sudden folks are running around led by a 73 or 74 year old president who suggested that he was going to cut tax rates for all fact, I made the point if you really want to soak the rich talk about radical cut the rates. Make it in uneconomical to invest in shelters that the lower the rate the less incentive there is to shelter and to look for loopholes and take out loopholes to broaden the base, but lower the rates Minnesota has done it. It's happening all over the country and state level. It's happening in Puerto Rico. It's happening in Canada. It's happening in the UK. It's happening in France. Francois made a wrong has begun to move towards some liberation of the market economy from a state-run economy towards a more private sector run economy. They're beginning to reintroduce that wonderful word of Entrepreneurship. When mrs. Thatcher spoke to the US Congress. He said that she was amazed by the ability of the American economy to stimulate entrepreneurship. I keep talking about that word, but it is essential to recognize that in the last three years of our recovery. There have been on average 607 650 to 750 thousand new business starts each and every year for the past three years with very little inflation to speak of At that rate ladies and gentleman by 1990 the unemployment rate in the United States of America will be around 4% Can you name a country in the industrial World other than Japan with an unemployment rate below the average of eight or nine? It's 11 in certain parts of Europe. It's nine in in West Germany and I think 11 or 12 and France 13 and a half million new jobs. They're not McDonald's hamburger jobs. What an outrage many of them are high-tech medium Tech many of them professional many of them are the restructuring that this country is going through as we enter not a post-industrial age, but in my view a new Industrial Age, this is not a post-industrial age. We're going to see in this coming decade the application of Applied technology to the production of Steel to the production of automobiles to the production of those basic Machine Tool and machine and Trine oriented facilities so important to the future of our country. We must have an industrial economy. We're going to have a new industrial economy and it's going to be led by technology fiber optics and micro technology and of course lasers and all of the robotics that are moving forward now, there are some who want to dump them off the cliff. We have our modern-day luddites. We do who believe that technology destroys jobs technology does not destroy jobs technology creates jobs, and you only have to come to the Twin City area of Minneapolis. St. Paul and look at what's happened in this area as two technologies application to the economy of this community. We should facilitate it. We should encourage it and I want to suggest three ways. Number one the tax system should encourage not only the working men and women of this country. It should encourage. The entrepreneur and the formation of the capital in the seed corn. It's so necessary to the Future levels of production output productivity employment of our assets. Our greatest asset is our people and the mind of the talent of the American people. I think one great myth that we have destroyed in the 1980s as the idea that people are a drain on the resources of America. People are not a drain on resources. They are the greatest resource we have And the Freer and the more opportunity the greater the chances there are of not only additions to the wealth of our nation but to the additional wealth to the world and that's a good sign because ultimately our trade depends not on stopping Imports into the United States our trade depends on exporting to the rest of the world. So we want countries around the world that are growing and prosperous the idea that we should introduce Neil mercantilism. Then Neil mercantilism means protectionist. I was thinking the other day and watching the trade Bill slamming itself through the Senate there is the idea that you reduce the trade deficit by limiting Imports. Are punishing your trading partners as opposed to what we should be doing getting down to the business of reducing barriers to our exports encouraging economic growth in Europe and in Japan and around the world and particularly and particularly in particularly in Latin America, the overwhelming Debt Service of Latin America is preventing them from buying anything from Minnesota or Buffalo or Iowa or Texas or this country because all of their ability to earn income is being used to service the debt being paid off to New York City Banks. I'm not blaming anyone person but I'm suggesting that it is essential that we as Americans think not only about our own problems, but think about a world that could be growing that's what we've lost about a hundred and forty billion dollars of export potential by the problems that have been suffered to the Latin American debt crisis. So it is very very important at this moment in history that we not turn inward that we not turn pro. Machinist that we not begin to bash our allies that we begin to work with them to do some very very important things. I'd like to suggest a couple and then get back to my basic three points about tax reform monetary reform and of course fiscal reform. I think we ought to negotiate that free trade zone with Canada immediately. It is essential that we with our biggest trading partner show the rest of the world that we are willing to enter into a free trade bilateral relationship with Canada that opens up the market for hundreds of billions of dollars of potential trade between our two countries is already up to a hundred and thirty billion dollars a year and it would even be greater the idea of slapping tariffs on Wood Products coming in from Canada. And then they slap a tariff on corn coming from Iowa into Canada is the type of 0 some static thinking that has caused the smoot-hawley Tariff Wars of the 1929 1930 1931 period we must we I hope that this Administration will get down to business and negotiate a free trade zone with Canada and we ought to extend it as quickly as possible to Mexico to Central America the answer to the imposition of soviet-style marxist communism. And Nicaragua is to hold out the hope in Latin America, particularly Central America for additional trade more democracy more free enterprise and the opportunity for those countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to trade in our markets. It is essential to their future to have an alternative to the Marxist ideology that is spreading through the third world because it holds out the hope of creating bread out of stones. You can't do it and we ought to be shitting me. We ought to be the example of how to create wealth Adam Smith should make Adam Smith did not write a inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of rich people. He didn't write an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of Great Britain. Adam Smith wrote a book called an inquiry into the nature and causes of The Wealth of Nations in the plural ladies and gentlemen, that book is written for Any Nation rich or poor black or white hot climate cold climate Latino African Asian. In fact, there are countries on this Earth today who have proven the efficacy of that model for economic and social development. They happen today to be on the rim of Asia that have proven that capitalism and Democratic capitalism can work. I would like to see that exported to Central America. I would like to see it exported to Africa. This country should be a model of showing third world countries how to develop economies and how to develop democratic governments. And of course the hold out the hope for more peaceful and more Progressive and more positive response to these problems and drawing up barriers. We can compete we can out trade out produce out sell out manufacture any product on this Earth if the playing field is level if currencies are stable and if the other countries will Steps to stimulate their economies. So we'll have some place to sell products from Minnesota or from Iowa or from Buffalo or any other place in the country. I want you to know that the president I want to say it publicly should veto that trade Bill coming through the United States Senate and make sure that it is vetoed as soon as possible. Number two, we need to reform the way we spend money. The Congress just has no way of balancing its budget because it doesn't even understand what his budget is all about. We don't we don't have a capital budget. We have a unified budget. We mix current service expenditures with capital expenditures and we call that a budget ladies and gentlemen, there must be budget reform then Weber from Minnesota Tom Taki of Iowa myself were conservative and moderate and liberal try to pick out which is which I'm the moderate your the liberal. We are trying to work on a reform of the budget process and would give us a better understanding of capital expenditures. I got to ask the question today in Ames, Iowa. What about this fact that we're a debtor Nation ladies and gentlemen, you must measure debt by your ability to finance debt to accuse the United States of being a debtor Nation because capital is flowing into our country from every country on this Earth is to miss to misunderstand what this economy is all about. It is true that people are buying t-bills and buying equities and investing in in factories and frankly. That's healthy. That's healthy. I saw the other day. I think it was in USA Today. We're in Ohio a plan Honda plant is being built. I'm sure with Japanese and American investors United Auto Workers will work at the plant and they are going to ship Honda's made in Ohio by United Auto Workers with Japanese management techniques to Japan to Japan and I saw today we're semiconductor companies not the semiconductor companies. The the computer companies are begging the Japanese to increase the production of semiconductors to ship into the United States and it wasn't so long ago that this Administration was slapping a tariff on semiconductors which are the raw commodity a PCS coming into the United States ladies and gentleman. We have taken a rather bold step in suggesting that today that little D Ram that fits on the end of our fingernail that can store up to a Million pieces of information is the future commodity for the computer industry and the lower the price for 64k drams or 256k drams or one thousandth of a mega chip random access memory and it is the future for this country. We control 70% of the PC market for the world. It is ridiculous for us to say that Japanese cannot sell semiconductors in the United States and then raise the cost of PCS. We should be a country in stimulating trade between our two countries. We should force them to reduce their markets and I think one way to do it is to tell Canada we're going to go with a bilateral trade zone. We're gonna have a North American common market and then we're going to say to the Japanese or to Korea or to Taiwan or do Europe that we want you to take steps if you put Spector continue to trade and then its North American Common Market, we want you to take steps to reduce your barriers to us exporting into your markets that world would be healthier more peaceful more prosperous. First and I think that'd be a far better answer than raising tariffs and limiting the import into the United States. I won last month one last comment. I want to make and then open it up for questions the last issue of extreme importance of vital importance to keeping this recovery go and moving it Forward particularly important to the farm community of Minnesota to the farm community of the Midwest and certainly the small businessmen and women and home builders and manufacturers and exporters around the world anybody involved in Commodities. And that is to reform the way we value your money. I will not I repeat. I will not give a speech. On how the government should once again guarantee the purchasing power of the dollar but I think it is essential that this country move forward on the ultimate reform which is to reform the way we value money here and internationally and the Administration has an obligation at this G7 meeting this government's of the seven leading industrial countries meeting that's going on to begin to move towards a stable exchange rate system for the world. So the field of international trade can be leveled out. You cannot continue to trade in a world in which countries are using their currencies one against another to compete and one country has strengthened its currency. Another one is weakening. Its currency. We need stable currencies because we need standards. We need rules. We need a plain field that is level and I'm convinced that we need the type of international monetary reform that would lead not only to a more stable exchange rate system and a fair and Level Playing Field for the world, but would help bring interest. Down here and around the world. There's nothing wrong with the American economy that a healthy dose of historically normal interest rates of five or five and a half wouldn't go a long way towards resolving be it would be bullish for stocks and bonds every time there's a nudging up of interest rates the bond market goes down and stock suffer and home sales go down and auto sales are off by 38 percent just by that little increase in the discount rate by the FED just a few weeks ago. You say well Camp, how can you defend the dollar fuel? If you in if you lower interest rates, how can you defend the dollar? It's the other way around defending the dollar and making a sharp and clear signal that we have a plan in a rule by which we will defend the dollar against those who would devalue it or debase it or or inflated or deflated would in and of itself help give Assurance to the markets. So that interest rates could come down. I want to suggest here today and this Twin City area of Minneapolis st. Paul. That part of the interest rate phenomenon in modern-day America is the risk premium that we're paying for not having a rule around which people can predict the future conduct of monetary policy the very lack of a rule the very lack of a standard the very lack of confidence in the value of the currency remaining stable causes an interest rate premium to be charged and I think it is in the range of two full percentage points and people say well you'll never get interest rates down to five or five and a half percent and I think it's a sign of pessimism. I think it is a mistake to believe that I think it would have a not only a healthy beneficiary impact upon the economy. I think it would be a wonderful signal to this world that is trying to restructure debt refinance debt rollover debt and to grow out from underneath dead. If we said to the world, we want an era of unfettered democratic entrepreneurial capitalism to replace the type of redistribution of income schemes that have for so long kept the third world stifled and kept inner cities under employed. And if kept people's hopes and aspirations and in a environment of disparate of despondency, I want to say this to conclude there's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed. There are no limits to what free men and free women that free markets and free trade and free enterprise can accomplish when people are free to follow their dreams. We must have a new era of leadership that helps promote those type of ideas which led to the greatest expansion of the American system. The world's ever known it led to the development of the islands of Great Britain and it can lead to the development of the whole world if it's given a chance and I think that would be a more peaceful more positive and far more progressively Democratic World in that sense. Thank you very much. It's going to be time now to ask some questions and answer some questions and this has been a very stimulating speech and address to us. Mr. Steve Young of Minnesota meeting will be out in the crowd and we would like to have you asked your questions and be fairly succinctly with them so that we can get as many questions in as possible before Congressman. Kim has to leave at 1 p.m. Steve. Thank you very much. As you all know been to the Minnesota meetings last year. I will try to walk through the room and take your questions and you can have the mic and ask them directly to Congressman Kim. Jae mrazek will be on this part of the room. So those of you who have questions, please raise your hand and let Jane see you over there. Let me try to catch your eye here as I slipped between these narrow aisles. Doing these tables. It's a very full crowd today. There's someone have a question at this table. Yes, George. Yes. I have a question with respect to our Middle East policy and the military confrontation with Iran. Do you agree with the administration's policy and would you do something different? That's you're gonna ask me about free enterprise zones or something. I agree that America has a vital security and strategic interest in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf. I would have much preferred that the presence of u.s. Flags Jews many flags on Kuwaiti tankers have been replaced by NATO flags and I certainly would prefer that there be more support by our allies around the world and helping keep the Persian Gulf open. Having said that I support the president's efforts to keep the gulf open. I support his efforts to not allow the Soviet navy to have a presence in the Persian Gulf and I don't think we should tip our ever our hand. Either way in the iran-iraq war we should play a mediating role and help bring it to an end without a victory on either side. There should be no in my view tipping our policy either for Iran or Iraq. We should do everything we can I was glad to see that the UN finally began to suggest that they would play a more active peacekeeping role, but, irr role should be just to bring that conflict to an end without either side winning. But I do support the president's effort to keep that Persian Gulf open and keep the Soviet navy out. Yes, sir. Thank you. Mr. Congressman. Another question from here. Mr. Congressman. If I could direct one to you have reminded us of the importance of getting back to basics. You've also stretched our perspective to look out into an a high-tech economy of the future, but that economy is going to require some Highly Educated people wondering if I could ask you if you think our Educational Systems in this country can produce the kind of entrepreneurs middle managers and workers that we're going to need in the future. I think it can I think it has in the past. I think it must in the future. I've talked a lot about getting back to the ABCs accountability the basics and character as far as accountability goes. I'm a strong supporter of the idea of magnet schools. I don't know if there are magnet schools in your area but the idea of magnet schools that attract people to one curricula one curriculum, I think is an outstanding idea and then let parents choose. School system between those competing curricula in Buffalo New York. We have magnet schools for traditional education for the Science and Arts for Math and the basics and there's one for vocational parents and buffalo are taking their children out of private schools and putting them back into the public schools because the schools are designed for several things one to provide greater Choice number two to provide the to the principal with greater flexibility with regard to who he hires and fires and then he's held accountable or she is held accountable. And the number three there is a discipline code that the students sign when they go to school and they require dress code Behavior code homework code and honor code and it is a working SAT scores are up in our public schools. There is a tremendous Improvement and I'm very proud to have played a role in helping to fund that with Federal money. And I think clearly the idea of vocational education more accountability more Choice more support for the type of training that would prepare our young people for a high-tech and I future of in a new Industrial Age is applicable but I don't think we should suggest that there is an economic reason for Education. We want the development of all the tremendous resources, and potentially young people have in my answer is fundamentally us. Thank you. Mr. Congressman. We have a question here. Could you comment on your recent fact-finding trip to Central America and the area's peace plan? I think the moment of truth is come in Central America where the people of the Congress have to choose between some version or other of the Brezhnev Doctrine or the Monroe Doctrine very frankly. The choice is quite clear when you're on the ground in Central America as to whether or not this country is going to provide resources not only for the development of the fragile economies of Central America, but also the support for the men and women who are fighting for freedom. I happen to believe that the Arias peace plan was a response to the right Reagan plan, which basically said we will on the on the when a paper is signed by Daniel Ortega for a ceasefire that somehow we then would shut off all Aid to the Freedom Fighters. I think we should have required Ortega and the sandanista government to keep the pledges that they made to the organization of American states back in July of 1979 before we shut off Aid to the Freedom Fighters. The president did not agree with me now. They're trying to come back and find an excuse to get out of eight packets through the Congress and it's tough going because they let the momentum pass away. Are I think some rather dramatic testimony by Ollie North? My concern is that we're not doing enough on either side. We're not doing enough to offset the presence of a Soviet and Cuban Basin and the Isthmus of Central America. We're not doing enough to build up the trade and Democratic development opportunities for the for the Central American democracy. So we need what I would consider to be something like a marshall Aid plan for Central America, which would combine trade investment a common market more trade opportunities for them in our markets and vice versa and more support for the democracies of the development of democracy, but then I would definitely support the cause of the Freedom Fighters until such time as there's a change in the government in Managua kisser. One thing that happened concerning the latest tax plan that was passed by the Senate is that it was severely restricted the use of individual retirement accounts for certain people and if you're elected president, Will you try to restore some of those cuts and in addition to that there's been some talk about allowing people that have kids that are getting ready to go to college to be able to save money in an account similar to a naira. Right? And would you support that? Well, I love the idea of expanded Ira accounts fundamentally. But really if we had a choice if I had total control over tax policy, I would continue to work for lower tax rates on the income from employment and and income from investment and Savings in other words rather than abolish the tax on the savings account. I would rather lower the tax rate. So the after tax rate of return is so high on saving and investing in producing income that people will not look upon it as a shelter. They will look upon it as a direct incentive. So I have nothing against individual are accounts when they're when the rates are high. But if you gave me the choice between a naira count and a lower marginal tax rate on the earning of income, I would choose the lower marginal tax rate and I will have to wait until I get into office before I know how much support there is for that type of an idea. I would abolish the capital gains tax women now, let me let me you don't know what I'm going to say. What would you think about the idea of abolishing the capital gains tax on any man or any woman of any color of any Creed of any economic or socio-economic background who invests in a business in one of those areas that we could point to pretty easily. I think we could identify those areas of the nation's economy in which there is an inordinately high unemployment a shrinking tax base lost population or social and economic distress. Take it like a free trade zone where we abolish non-tariff barriers and duties and literally establish zones for compensatory treatment in the tax system to create more entrepreneurial opportunity. I can I can see this country and from Indian reservations to ghettos and Barrios to rural areas of Minnesota in Vin Weber's congressional district beginning to develop again around the ideas that have taken root in the Twin City area. I understand that the unemployment rate in the Twin City areas in the three-percent range. That's an astounding fact I come from Buffalo or it is a much higher but clearly getting unemployment down has to be a national commitment not by government, but by allowing the flourishing of that sector of our economy upon which we rely for healthy tax base. So I didn't mean to take your question a field but I don't like the idea of abolishing a tax on income from savings as much as I like the idea to which I have alluded but I do we do have Ira accounts for people under forty thousand dollars. Thank you. Mr. Congressman. I think we have our last question from back here. Let me take a couple more. I apologize. I won't take so long and answering them. Well, first of all Congress and as a black American I appreciate what you just said. I'm over here anything that would help encourage investment within the black Indian our peoples of color to encourage the labor. I support. I'm also amazed to how you as a former football player can surround these economic adjectives, so And I and I didn't even finish in the top half of my graduating class. I didn't finish in the top half of my law school class either. Yeah. I was a PE major. So you gotta go ahead but my question getting away from the economic policy for a moment is that I'm a little bit concerned at how the Russians seem to be manipulating us into making foreign policy decisions that may not be in our best interest. That's what general question so I'll get a little more particular specifically. What do you think about the arms agreement that's currently being proposed the reduction to complete elimination of the missiles in Europe. And as the second part of that my question is also how can we in this country? Stop bashing America and and putting ourselves down and start realizing that we are one of the greatest countries in this world and as One of the greatest countries. It doesn't hurt the toot your horn a bit. Could I recruit you to run for Congress? I want to talk to you later. We need you in our campaign. Boy, hey, you're talking this you're asking me a question. And we've only got a few minutes left and it takes me an hour and a half to watch 60 minutes. So I'm gonna have I'm gonna have trouble doing this as swiftly as I would have liked or I pledge to you but generally speaking I find much of with which I agree with your comment. We always let the Soviet Union or our adversaries established the conduct or the ground rules for the debate piece. Did you know in Europe today Gorbachev is considered working for peace to a greater extent in some areas of Europe than the United States or Ronald Reagan. The word for peace in Russian is the same word for the world. So when they use the word peace, it has a somewhat different meaning than how you and I would mean the so I'm not now just trying to pick a fight but I think it's important that we have a strong defense that we lay down the terms of what an agreement would be like if it were up to us and require that before we sign any new treaties with the Soviet Union. I have a radical idea. We shouldn't sign we shouldn't sign new treaties with the Soviet Union until they're required to keep the past treaties to which they are signatory and I would just I would conclude by saying I don't favor the elimination of all nuclear weapons. I do not favor denuclearizing Europe. I do not favor the elimination of a nuclear deterrent. I favor a change in the global strategic posture of the United States of America that would move our country away from relying on offensive nuclear capability to a greater Reliance and Strategic Defense, but I strongly I would suggest that we should be working for a reduction and offensive strategic offensive theater and offensive short-range nuclear weapons and a reduction in conventional capability by which the Soviet Union have a preponderance of almost 42621 over the NATO pact countries. So I believe in globality in that I think in those Summit meeting between President Reagan and general secretary Gorbachev. We should look at their human rights Behavior. We should look at the behavior and Afghanistan. We should look at their behavior in Central America and we should require that there be a change in modification of the behavior of the Soviet Union before we enter into a new agreement which relies upon their good faith to tell us that they have abolished all the ss-20 missiles. I frankly do not trust them to do so and particularly when they have a preponderance of the first strike capability. So I'm I would say this is not a time for saber-rattling but it is a time to put our eyes or make our eyes be very clear with regard to what we're getting into. You have been you going to we have one more question here which Congress Okay, ma'am, Congressman Camp. I am dismayed by what I see in Washington at the Judiciary Senate hearings and judge bork. I think it's a blatant character assassination of a really Superior judge and I wondered if there's any way we can turn that around and secondly would he have been your choice if you were president and what do you feel are some of the qualities of a supreme court if you were president and guys don't mess around at the Minnesota Club. I thought Antonin Scalia was a good choice. I thought Sandra Day O'Connor was a good choice and I think Bob bork is a good choice. I saw the other day in the Wall Street Journal where the article by a professor of law school Professor suggested that in 1913. It was the New York Times and the senior senator from Massachusetts who led the opposition to Louis Brandeis. And he turned out to be a pretty good judge. I think Mark would turn out to be an outstanding judge. I think he's going to be confirmed but it's going to be a bloody battle right down to the floor of the US Senate. I think it is character assassination misinformation Justice Burger did a great defensive Bob bork bork was unanimously confirmed by the senate in the second highest court of the land the First District Court of Appeals. So it seems to me that there is reason to confirm him. You've been held up to a standard that very few people on the Judiciary Committee could ever match what I have what I have appointed him. I don't know whether I would have appointed him, but we don't know what's going to happen the confirmation process, but I would be very proud to appoint men and women like Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor people who believe in the Constitution who believe in judicial restraint who believe in traditional Values and new are conservative with regard to their belief and those judeo Christian ethics upon which our system was based and I don't consider that to be a philosophical litmus test. I do believe though that we should be discriminating with who we place on courts. We want people on the courts and on the federal bench and on the bench at large who do have the some understanding of the real world and I happen to be someone who suggest that a center-right philosophy Progressive conservative philosophy to protect civil and human rights is the best thing. Let me just this this audience. If you don't mind me saying so reminds me of one recently in Florida where I was speaking and they had a microphone like this and they were going around the room and I finally got a chance to wrap it up. And as I did I said that I'd been brought up on my parents to believe in the Old Testament view that as gold and silver are tested in the furnace of adversity. The acceptable person is tested in the I'm sorry. Is gold and silver are tested in the furnace of fire. The acceptable person is tested in the furnace of adversity and we go through adversity as a challenge to our own person. It tests are metal. It makes us a better country and that the Book of Ecclesiastes was right as I was taught by my mother I paused in a fellow took the microphone and he said Congressman it wasn't Ecclesiastes. It was Proverbs and I absolutely chagrined and red in the face and he stood back up and he said don't worry. I'm Rabbi with Merman of Miami Florida and it was the same author and I thought I thought I would just like to say to you that that meant a lot to me that 9 because as you know, Rabbi means teacher and he was teaching something that night to me the Solomon wrote part of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, but I think he was suggesting that God was the author David wrote the Psalms. God was the author Now when Jefferson wrote these words we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men all women all people all children of God are created equal in his sight and should be the site of government. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights among which your life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I think those words had to be inspired. They had to be inspired. I think our constitution is an inspired document now, I don't mean to get theological. I hope this isn't considered trespassing on the First Amendment because I don't think it is. I'm simply suggested that this country could not have been found and had it not been for men and women who believed that freedom and life and the pursuit of happiness were something to came to us not by virtue of government, but by virtue of an inalienable Source a Creator God and I am convinced I am I am personally I am personally absolutely convinced. That those words are inspiring to people all around the world. The Constitution was written for we the people but the Declaration of Independence was written for all people not white folk, but all folks not for one generation, but all generations not for one continent on this Earth, but all continents and in this country is to reach his potential and be the shining example to other countries that we want it to be. It must be a nation of civil rights and human rights and legal rights and voting rights and equal opportunity for every man and every woman and every child of God to reach his or her potential because the world is crying out for that type of leadership. And I think this is the place from which it can emanate. God bless you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Congressman.