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The
Agenda is Victory
Ronald
Reagan
February
26, 1982
9th Annual CPAC Conference
Mr.
Toastmaster [Representative] Mickey Edwards, thank
you very much for those generous words - reverend
clergy, ladies and gentlemen, we're delighted to be
here at the ninth annual Conservative Political
Action Conference.
Anyone looking at the exciting program you've
scheduled over these four days, and the size of this
gathering here tonight, can't help but be impressed
with the energy and vitality of the conservative
movement in America. We owe a special debt of
gratitude to the staffs of American Conservative
Union, Young Americans for Freedom, Human Events and
National Review for making this year's conference
the most successful in the brief but impressive
history of this event.
Now, you may remember that when I spoke to you last
year, I said the election victory we enjoyed in
November of l980 was not a victory of politics so
much as it was a victory of ideas; not a victory for
any one man or party, but a victory for a set of
principles, principles that had been protected and
nourished during the years of grim and heartbreaking
defeats by a few dedicated Americans. Well, you are
those Americans, and I salute you.
I've also come here tonight to remind you of how
much remains to be done, and to ask your help in
turning into reality even more of our hopes for
America and the world. The agenda for this
conference is victory, victory in this year's
crucial congressional, state, and local elections.
The media coverage that you've received this week,
the attention paid to you by so many distinguished
Americans in and out of government - conservative
and not so conservative - are testimony to the sea
change that you've already brought about in American
politics. But, despite the glitter of nights like
this and the excitement we all still feel at the
thought of enacting reforms we were only able to
talk about a few years ago, we should always
remember that our strength still lies in our faith
in the good sense of the American people. And that
the climate in Washington is still opposed to those
enduring values, those "permanent things"
that we've always believed in.
But Washington's fascination with passing trends and
one-day headlines can sometimes cause serious
problems over in the West Wing of the White House -
they cause them. There's the problem of leaks.
Before we even announced the giveaway of surplus
cheese, the warehouse mice had hired a lobbyist.
[Laughter] And then a few weeks ago, those stories
broke about the Kennedy tapes. And that caused
something of a stir. Al Haig came in to brief me on
his trip to Europe. I uncapped my pen, and he
stopped talking. [Laughter] Up on the hill, I
understand they were saying, "You need
eloquence in the State Dining
Room, wit in the East Room, and sign language in the
Oval Office." [Laughter] It got so bad that I
found myself telling every visitor there were
absolutely no tape recordings being made. And if
they wanted a transcript of that remark, just
mention it to the potted plant on their way out.
[Laughter]
But Washington is a place of fads and one-week
stories. It's also a company town, and the company's
name is government, big government. Now, I have a
sneaking suspicion that a few of you might have
agreed when we decided not to ask Congress for
higher taxes. And I hope you realize it's going to
take more than 402 days to completely change what's
been going on for 40 years.
I realized that the other day when I read a story
about a private citizen in Louisiana who asked the
government for help in developing his property. And
he got back a letter that said: "We have
observed that you have not traced the title prior to
1803. Before the final approval, it will be
necessary that the title be traced previous to that
year. Well, the citizen's answer was eloquent.
"Gentlemen," he wrote, "I am unaware
that any educated man failed to know that Louisiana
was purchased from France in 1803. The title of the
land was acquired by France by the right of conquest
from Spain. The land came in the possession of Spain
in 1492 by the discovery by an Italian sailor,
Christopher Columbus. The good Queen Isabella took
the precaution of receiving the blessing of the
Pope. ... The Pope is emissary of the Son of God,
who made the world. Therefore, I believe that it is
safe to assume that He also made that part of the
United States called Louisiana. And I hope to hell
you're satisfied." [Laughter]
Now, changing the habits of four decades is, as I
say, going to take more than 402 days. But change
will come if we conservatives are in this for the
long haul - if we owe our first loyalty to the ideas
and principles we discussed, debated, developed, and
popularized over the years. Last year I pointed to
these principles as the real source of our strength
as a political movement, and mentioned some of the
intellectual giants who fostered and developed them
- men like Frank Meyer, who reminded us that the
robust individualism of America was part of deeper
currents in Western civilization, currents that
dictated respect for the law and the careful
preservation of our political traditions.
Only a short time ago, conservatives filled this
very room for a testimonial dinner to a great
conservative intellect and scholar, author of the
"The Conservative Mind," Russell Kirk. In
a recent speech, Dr. Kirk has offered some political
advice for the upcoming elections. He said now, more
than ever, we must seek out the "gift of
audacity." We must not become too comfortable
with our new-found status in Washington. "When
the walls of order are breached, the vigorous
conservative must exlaim: Arm me, audacity, from
head to foot." It was Napoleon, master of the
huge battalions, who once said: "It is
imagination that rules the human races" and
Disraeli who mentioned that "success is the
child of audacity."
We must approach the upcoming elections with a
forthright and direct message for the American
people. We must remind them of the economic
catastrophe that we faced on January 20th, 1981:
millions out of work, inflation in double digits for
two years in a row, interest rates hovering at 21
1/2 percent, productivity and the rate of growth in
the gross national product down for the third year
in a row, the money supply increasing by 12 percent
- and all this due to one overriding cause:
Government was too big and had spent too much money.
Federal spending, in the last decade, went up more
than 300 percent. In 1980 alone, it increased by 17
percent. Almost three-quarters of the federal budget
was routinely referred to as
"uncontrollable," largely due to increases
in programs like food stamps, which in 15 years had
increased by 16,000 percent, or Medicare and
Medicaid - up by more than 500 percent in just 10
years. Our national debt was approaching $1
trillion, and we were paying nearly $100 billion a
year in interest on that debt - more than enough
money to run the federal government only 20 years
ago.
In an effort to keep pace, taxes had increased by
220 percent in just 10 years, and we were looking at
a tax increase from l980 to 1984, already passed
before we got here, of more than $300 billion.
Unless we stop the spending juggernaut and reverse
the trend toward even higher taxes, government by
1984 would be taking nearly one-quarter of the gross
national product. Inflation and interest rates,
according to several studies, would be heading
toward 25 percent - levels that would stifle
enterprise and initiative and plunge the nation into
even deeper economic crisis.
At this point last year, much of the smart money in
Washington was betting, as it is today, on the
failure of our proposals for restoring the economy,
that we could never assemble the votes we needed to
get our program for economic recovery through the
Congress. But assemble the votes we did. For the
first time in nearly 25 years, we slowed the
spending juggernaut and got the taxpayers out from
under the federal steamroller. We cut the rate of
growth in federal spending almost in half. We
lowered inflation to a single-digit rate, and it's
still going down. It was 8.9 percent for all of
1981, but ourJanuary figure, at an annualized rate,
is only 3 1/2 percent.
When they talk of what should be done for the poor,
well, one thing alone, by reducing inflation, we
increased the purchasing power of poor families by
more than $250. We cut taxes for business and
individuals and index to inflation. This last step
ended once and for all that hidden profit on
inflation that had made the federal bureaucracy
America's largest growth industry.
We've moved against waste and fraud with a task
force including our Inspectors General, who have
already found thousands of people who've been dead
for as long as seven years still receiving benefit
checks from the government. We've concentrated on
criminal prosecutions, and we've cut back in other
areas like the multitude of films, pamphlets, and
public relations experts, or, as we sometimes call
them, the federal flood of flicks and flacks and
foldouts.
We're cutting the size of the federal payroll by
75,000 over the next few years and are fighting to
dismantle the Department of Energy and the
Department of Education, agencies whose policies
have frequently been exactly the opposite of what we
need for real energy growth and sound education for
our children.
Even now, less than five months after our program
took full effect, we've seen the first signs of
recovery. In January, leading economic indicators
like housing permits showed an upturn. By 1983 we
will begin bringing down the percentage of the gross
national produce consumed by both the federal
deficit and by federal spending and taxes.
Our situation now is in some ways similar to that
which confronted the United States and other Western
nations shortly after World War II. Many economists
then were predicting a return to depression once the
stimulus of wartime spending was ended. But people
were weary of wartime goverment controls, and here
and in other nations like West Germany those
controls were eliminated against the advice of some
experts. At first, there was a period of hardship -
higher unemployment and declining growth. In fact,
in 1946, our gross national product dropped 15
percent, but by 1947, the next year, it was holding
steady and in 1948 increased by four percent.
Unemployment began a steady decline. And in 1949
consumer prices were decreasing. A lot of the
experts underestimated the economic growth that
occurs once government stops meddling and the people
take over. Well, they were wrong then, and they're
wrong now.
The job of this administration and of the Congress
is to move forward with additional cuts in the
growth of federal spending and thereby ensure
America's economic recovery. We have proposed budget
cuts for 1983, and our proposals have met with cries
of anguish. And those who utter the cries are
equally anguished because there will be a budget
deficit. They're a little like a dog sitting on a
sharp rock howling with pain, when all he has to do
is get up and move.
On the spending cuts now before the Congress and
those tax reductions we've already passed for the
American people, let me state we're standing by our
program. We will not turn back or sound retreat.
You know, if I could just interject here, some of
those people who say we must change direction when
we've only been on this new direction for five
months - and it's only the first limited phase of
the whole program - it was described pretty well by
Mickey Edwards, sitting right here, while we were
having dinner. He said, "If you were sliding
downhill on a snowy hill, and you know there's a
cliff down there ahead of you at the bottom and
suddenly there's a road that turns off at to the
right," he said, "you don't know where
that road to the right goes, but," he says,
"you take it." We know where that other
one goes.
In the dicussion of federal spending, the time has
come to put to rest the sob sister attempts to
portray our desire to get government spending under
control as a hard-hearted attack on the poor people
of America. In the first place, even with the
economies that we've proposed, spending for
entitlements - benefits paid directily to
individuals - will actually increase by one-third
over the next five years. And in 1983 non-defense
items will amount to more than 70 percent of total
spending.
As Dave Stockman pointed out the other day, we're
still subsidizing 95 million meals a day, providing
$70 billion in health care to the elderly and poor,
some 47 million people. Some 10 million or more are
living in subsidized housing. And we're still
providing scholarships for a million and a half
students. Only here in this city of Oz would a
budget this big and this generous be characterized
as a miserly attack on the poor.
Now, where do some of these attacks originate?
They're coming from the very people whose past
policies, all done in the name of compassion,
brought us the current recession. Their policies
drove up inflation and interest rates, and their
policies stifled incentive, creativity, and halted
the movement of the poor up the economic ladder.
Some of their criticism is perfectly sincere. But
let's also understand that some of their criticism
comes from those who have a vested interest in a
permanent welfare constituency and in government
programs that reinforce the dependency of our
people.
Well, I would suggest that no one should have a
vested interest in poverty or dependency, that these
tragedies must never be looked at as a source of
votes for politicians or paychecks for bureaucrats.
They are blights on our society that we must work to
eliminate, not institutionalize.
Now, there are those who will always require help
from the rest of us on a permanent basis, and we'll
provide that help. To those with temporary need, we
should have programs that are aimed at making them
self-sufficient as soon as possible. How can limited
government and fiscal restraint be equated with lack
of compassion for the poor? How can a tax break that
puts a little more money in the weekly paychecks of
working people be seen as an attack on the needy?
Since when do we in America believe that our society
is made up of two diametrically opposed classes -
one rich, one poor - both in a permanent state of
conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the
expense of the other? Since when do we in America
accept this alien and discredited theory of social
and class warfare? Since when do we in America
endorse the politics of envy and division?
When we reformed the welfare system in California
and got the cheaters and the undeserving off the
welfare rolls, instead of hurting the poor we were
able to increase their benefits by more than 40
percent. By reducing the cost of government, we can
continue bringing down inflation, the cruelest of
all economic exploitations of the poor and the
elderly. And by getting the economy moving again, we
can create a vastly expanded job market that will
offer the poor a way out of permanent dependency.
One man who held this office, a President vastly
underrated by history, Calvin Coolidge, pointed out
that a nation that is united in its belief in the
work ethic and its desire for commercial success and
economic progress is usually a healthy nation, a
nation where it is easier to pursue the higher
things in life like the development of science, the
cultivation of the arts, the exploration of the
great truths of religion and higher learning.
In arguing for economy in government, President
Coolidge spoke of the burden of excessive
government. He said: "I favor a policy of
economy, not because I wish to save money, but
because I wish to save people. The men and women of
this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost
of the government. Every dollar that we save means
that their life will be so much the more abundant.
Economy is idealism in its most practical
form." And this is the message we conservatives
can bring to the American people about our economic
program.
Higher productivity, a larger gross national
product, a healthy Dow Jones average - they are our
goals and are worthy ones.
But our real concerns are not statistical goals or
material gain. We want to expand personal freedom,
to renew the American dream for every American. We
seek to restore opportunity and reward, to value
again personal achievement and individual
excellence. We seek to rely on the ingenuity and
energy of the American people to better their own
lives and those of millions
of others around the world.
We can be proud of the fact that a conservative
administration has pursued these goals by
confronting the nation's economic problems head-on.
At the same time, we dealt with one other less
publicized but equally grave problem: the serious
state of disrepair in our national defenses.
The last Democratic administration had increased
real defense spending at a rate of 3.3 percent a
year. You know how much inflation was, so they were
actually losing ground. By 1980 we had fighter
planes that couldn't fly, Navy ships that couldn't
leave port, a Rapid Deployment Force that was
neither rapid nor deployable and not much of a
force.
The protection of this nation's security is the most
solemn duty of any President, and that's why I've
asked for substantial increases in our defense
budget - substantial, but not excessive.
In 1962, President Kennedy's defense budget amounted
to 44 percent of the entire budget. Ours is only 29
percent. In 1962, President Kennedy's request for
military spending was 8.6 percent of the gross
national product. Ours is only 6.3 percent. The
Soviet Union outspends us on defense by 50 percent,
an amount equal to 15 percent of their gross
national product. During the campaign I was asked
any number of times: If I were faced with a choice
of balancing the budget or restoring our national
defenses, what would I do? Every time I said,
"Restore our defenses." And every time I
was applauded.
So, let me be very clear. We will press for further
cuts in federal spending. We will protect the tax
reductions already passed. We will spend on defense
what is necessary for our national security. I have
no intention of leading the Republican party into
next fall's election on a platform of higher taxes
and cut-rate defense. If our opponents want to go to
the American people next fall and say, "We're
the party that tried to cut spending, we're the
party that tried to take away your tax cuts, we're
the party that wanted a bargain-basement military
and held a fire sale on national security,"
let's give them all the running room they want.
There are other matters on the political agenda for
this coming year, matters I know that you 've been
discussing during the course of this conference. I
hope one of them will be our attempt to give
government back to the people. One hundred and
thirty-two federal grants-in-aid in 1960 have grown
to over 500 in 1981. Our federalism proposal would
return the bulk of these programs to state and local
governments, where they can be made more responsive
to the people.
We're deeply committed to this program, because it
has its roots in deep conservative principles. We've
talked a long time about revitalizing our system of
federalism. Now, with a single, bold stroke, we can
restore the vigor and health of our state and local
governments. This proposal lies at the heart of our
legislative agenda for the next year, and we'll need
your active support in getting it passed.
There are other issues before us. This
administration is unalterably opposed to the forced
busing of school children, just as we also support
constitutional protection for the right of prayer in
our schools. And there is the matter of abortion. We
must with calmness and resolve help the vast
majority of our fellow Americans understand that the
more than one and a half a million abortions
performed in America in 1980 amount to a great moral
evil, an assault on the sacredness of human life.
And, finally, there's the problem of crime, a
problem whose gravity cannot be underestimated. This
administration has moved in its appointments to the
federal bench and in its legislative proposals for
bail and parole reform to assist in the battle
against the lawless. But we must always remember
that our legal system does not need reform so much
as it needs transformation. And this cannot occur at
just the federal level. It can really occur only
when a society as a whole acknowledges principles
that lie at the heart of modern conservatism. Right
and wrong matters, individuals are responsible for
their actions. Society has a right to be protected
from those who prey on the innocent .
This, then, is the political agenda before us.
Perhaps more than any group, your grassroots
leadership, your candidate recruitment and training
programs, your long years of hard work and
dedication have brought us to this point and made
this agenda possible.
We live today in a time of climactic struggle for
the human spirit, a time that will tell whether the
great civilized ideas of individual liberty,
representative government, and the rule of law under
God will perish or endure.
Whittaker Chambers, who sought idealism in communism
and found only disillusionment, wrote very movingly
of his moment of awakening. It was at breakfast, and
he was looking at the delicate ear of his tiny baby
daughter, and he said that, suddenly, looking at
that, he knew that couldn't just be an accident of
nature. He said, while he didn't realize it at the
time, he knows now that in that moment God had
touched his forehead with his finger.
And later he wrote: "For in this century,
within the next decades, will be decided for
generations whether all mankind is to become
Communist, whether the whole world is to become
free, or whether in the struggle civilization as we
know it is to be completely destroyed or completely
changed. It is our fate to live upon that turning
point in history."
We've already come a long way together. Thank you
for all that you've done for me, for the common
values we cherish. Join me in a new effort, a new
crusade.
Nostalgia has its time and place. Coming here
tonight has been a sentimental journey for me, as
I'm sure it has been for many of you. But nostalgia
isn't enough. The challenge is now. It's time we
stopped looking backward at how we got here. We must
ask ourselves tonight how we can forge and wield a
popular majority from one end of this country to the
other, a majority united on basic, positive goals
with a platform broad enough and deep enough to
endure long into the future, far beyond the lifespan
of any single issue or personality.
We must reach out and appeal to the patriotic and
fundamental ideals of average Americans who do not
consider themselves "movement" people, but
who respond to the same American ideals that we do.
I'm not talking about some vague notion of an
abstract, amorphous American mainstream. I'm talking
about " Main Street " Americans in their
millions. They come in all sizes, shapes and colors
- blue-collar workers blacks, Hispanics,
shopkeepers, scholars, service people, housewives,
and professional men and women. They are the
backbone of America, and we can't move America
without moving their hearts and minds as well.
Fellow Americans, our duty is before us tonight. Let
us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a
vision of man with God, government for people, and
humanity at peace. For it is now our task to tend
and preserve, through the darkest and coldest
nights, that "sacred fire of liberty" that
President Washington spoke of two centuries ago, a
fire that tonight remains a beacon to all the
oppressed of the world, shining forth from this
kindly, pleasant, greening land we call America.
God bless you, and thank you.
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