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We
Will Not Be Turned Back
Ronald
Reagan
February
18, 1983
10th
Annual CPAC Conference
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr.
Chairman, [Representative Mickey Edwards, ACU
Chairman], reverend clergy, I thank you very much
for those very kind words, and I thank you all for
certainly a most hearty and warm welcome.
I'm grateful to the
American Conservative Union, Young Americans for
Freedom, National Review and Human Events for
organizing this third annual memorial service for
the Democratic platform of 1980. Someone asked me
why I wanted to make it three in a row. Well, you
know how the Irish love wakes. [Laughter]
But I'm delighted to be
back here with you, at your 10th annual conference.
In my last two addresses, I've talked about our
common perceptions and goals, and I thought I might
report to you here tonight on where we stand in
achieving those goals - a sort of "State of the
Reagan Report," if you will.
Now, I'm the first to
acknowledge that there's a good deal left unfinished
on the conservative agenda. Our cleanup crew will
need more than two years to deal with the mess left
by others for over half a century. But I'm not
disheartened. In fact, my attitude about that
unfinished agenda isn't very different from that
expressed in an anecdote about one of my favorite
Presidents, Calvin Coolidge. [Laughter]
Some of you may know that
after Cal Coolidge was introduced to the sport of
fishing by his Secret Service detail, it got to be
quite a passion with him, if you can use that word
about "Silent Cal." Anyway, he was once
asked by reporters how many fish were in one of his
favorite angling places, the River Brule. And
Coolidge said the waters were estimated to carry
45,000 trout. And then he said: "I haven't
caught them all yet, but I sure have intimidated
them."
Well, it's true we haven't
brought about every change important to the
conscience of a conservative, but we conservatives
can take a great deal of honest pride in what we
have achieved. In a few minutes I want to talk about
just how far we've come and what we need to do to
win further victories. But right now, I think a word
or two on strategy is in order. You may remember
that in the past, I mentioned that it was not our
task as conservatives to just point out the mistakes
made over all the decades of liberal government, not
just to form an able opposition, but to govern, to
lead a nation. And I noted this would make new
demands upon our movement, upon all of us.
For the first time in half
a century, we've developed a whole new cadre of
young conservatives in government. We've shown that
conservatives can do more than criticize; we've
shown that we can govern and move our legislation
through the Congress.
Now, I know there's concern
over attempts to roll back some of the gains that
we've made. And it seems to me that here we ought to
give some thought to strategy - to making sure that
we stop and think before we act. For example, some
of our critics have been saying recently that they
want to take back the people's third-year tax cut
and abolish tax indexing. And some others, including
members of my staff, wanted immediately to open up a
verbal barrage against them. Well, I hope you know
that sometimes it's better if a President doesn't
say exactly what's on his mind. There's an old story
about a farmer and a lawyer that illustrates my
point.
It seems that these two got
into a pretty bad collision, a traffic accident.
They both got out of their cars. The farmer took one
look at the lawyer, and walked back to his car, got
a package, brought it back. There was a bottle
inside, and he said, "Here, you look pretty
shook up. I think you ought to take a nip of this,
it'll steady your nerves." Well, the lawyer
did. And the farmer said, "You still look a bit
pale. How about another?" And the lawyer took
another swallow. And under the urging of the farmer,
he took another and another and another. And then,
finally, he said he was feeling pretty good and
asked the farmer if he didn't think that he ought to
have a little nip, too. And the farmer said,
"Not me, I'm waiting for the state
trooper."
I wonder if we can't learn
something from that farmer. If our liberal friends
really want to head into the next election under the
banner of taking away from the American people their
first real tax cut in nearly 20 years; if, after
peering into their heart of hearts, they feel they
must tell the American people that over the next six
years they want to reduce the income of the average
family by $3,000; and if they want to voice these
deeply held convictions in an election year - well,
fellow conservatives, who are we to stifle the
voices of conscience?
Now, in talking about our
legislative agenda, I know that some of you have
been disturbed by the notion of standby tax
increases in the so-called "out years."
Well, I wasn't wild about the idea myself. But the
economy is getting better, and I believe these
improvements are only the beginning. And with some
luck, and if the American people respond with the
kind of energy and initiative they've always shown
in the past, well, maybe it's time we started
thinking about some standby tax cuts, too.
But you know, with regard
to the economy, I wonder if our political
adversaries haven't once again proved that they're
our best allies. They spent the last 16 months or so
placing all the responsibility for the state of the
economy on our shoulders. And with some help from
the media, it's been a pretty impressive campaign.
They've created quite an image - we're responsibile
for the economy.
Well, I assume that we're
responsible then for inflation which, after
back-to-back years in double digits before we got
here, has now been reduced to 3.9 percent in 1982.
And for the last three months of the year, it ran at
only 1.1 percent. In 1982 real wages increased for
the first time in three years. Interest rates, as
you've already been told, have dropped dramatically,
with the prime rate shrinking by nearly 50 percent.
And in December, the index of leading indicators was
a full 6.3 percent above last March's low point and
has risen in eight of the last nine months. Last
month housing starts were up 95 percent and building
permits 88 percent over the last year at this time.
New home sales are up to by 54 percent since April,
and inventories of unsold homes are at the lowest
levels in more than a decade. Auto production this
quarter is scheduled to increase by 22 percent, and
General Motors alone is putting 21,400 of their
workers back on the jobs. Last month's sharp decline
in the unemployment rate was the most heartening
sign of all. It would have taken a $5 billion jobs
bill to reduce unemployment by the same amount - and
it didn't cost us anything.
It's time to admit our
guilt, time we admitted that our liberal critics
have been right all the time. And they should go
right on telling the American people that the state
of economy is precisely the fault of that wicked
creature, Kemp-Roth and its havoc-wreaking twin,
Reaganomics.
Let's confess, let's admit
that we've turned the corner on the economy. And
we're especially proud of one thing: when we hit
heavy weather, we didn't panic, we didn't go for
fast bromides and quick fixes, the huge tax
increases or wage and price controls recommended by
so many. And our stubborness, if you want to call it
that, will quite literally pay off for every
American in the years ahead.
So, let me pledge to you
tonight: Carefully, we have set out on the road to
recovery. We will not be deterred. We will not be
turned back. I reject the policies of the past, the
policies of tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and
elect. The lesson of these failed policies is clear;
I've said this before: you can't drink yourself
sober or spend yourself rich, and you can't prime
the pump without pumping the prime - as somebody
did, like to 21 1/2 percent in 1980.
And a word is in order here
on the most historic of all the legislative reforms
we've achieved in the last two years - that of tax
indexing. You can understand the terror that strikes
in the heart of those whose principal constituency
is big government. Bracket creep is government's
hidden incentive to inflate the currency and bring
on inflation, and indexing will end that. It will
end those huge, hidden subsidies for bigger and
bigger government . In the future, if we get
indexing planted firmly as a law of the land, the
advocates of big government who want money, more
money for their social spending, their social
engineering schemes, will have to go to the people
and say right out loud: "We want more money
from your weekly paycheck, so we're raising your
taxes." Do that instead of sneaking it out by
way of inflation, which they have helped bring on.
So, all the professional
Washingtonians, from bureaucrats to lobbyists to the
special interest groups, are frightened - plain
scared - and they're working overtime to take this
one back. Well, I think I speak for all
conservatives when I say tax indexing is
non-negotiable. It's a fight we'll take to the
people, and we'll win.
But I think you can see how
even this debate shows things are changing for the
better. It highlights the essential differences
between two philosophies now contending for power in
American political life. One is the philosophy of
the past - a philosophy that has as its constituents
an ill-assorted mix of elitists and special-interest
groups who see government as the principal vehicle
of social change, who believe that the only thing we
have to fear is the people, who must be watched and
regulated and superintended from Washington.
On the other hand, our
philosophy is at the heart of the new political
consensus that emerged in America at the beginning
of this decade, one that I believe all - well, I
believe it will dominate American politics for many
decades. The economic disasters brought about by too
much government were the catalysts for this
consensus. During the '70s, the American people
began to see misdirected, overgrown government as
the source of many of our social problems - not the
solution.
This new consensus has a
view of government that's essentially that of our
Founding Fathers - that government is the servant,
not the master; that it was meant to maintain order,
to protect our nation's safety, but otherwise, in
the words of that noted political philosopher,
schnozzle Jimmy Durante: "Don't put no
constrictions on da people. Leave 'em da heck
alone."
The overriding goal during the past two years has
been to give the government back to the American
people, to make it responsive again to their wishes
and desires, to do more than bring about a healthy
economy or a growing gross national product. We've
truly brought about a quiet revolution in American
government.
For too many years, bureaucratic self-interest and
political maneuvering held sway over efficiency and
honesty in government. Federal dollars were treated
as the property of bureaucrats, not taxpayers. Those
in the federal establishment who pointed to the
misuse of those dollars were looked upon as
malcontents or troublemakers.
Well, this administration has broken with what was a
kind of a buddy system. There have been dramatic
turnabouts in some of the more scandal-ridden and
wasteful federal agencies and programs. Only a few
years ago, the General Service Administration was
racked by indictments and report after report of
inefficiency and waste. Today at GSA, Jerry Carmen
has not only put the whistleblowers back in charge,
he's promoted them and given them new
responsibilities. Just listen to this little set of
figures. Today, General Service Administration
work-in-progress time is down from 30 days to seven,
even while the agency has sustained budget cuts of
20 percent, office space reductions of 20 percent,
and the attrition of 7,000 employees.
At the Government Printing Office, under Dan Sawyer,
losses of millions of dollars have suddenly been
ended as the workforce was cut through attrition and
a hiring freeze, and overtime pay was cut by $6
million in one year alone. The government
publication program, which ran a cumulative loss of
$20 million over a three-year period, registered a
Mi3 .9 million profit, and the GPO as a whole has
experienced a profit of $4. 1 million last year.
It is said by some that this administration has
turned a blind eye to waste and fraud at the
Pentagon while overzealously concentrating on the
social programs. Well, at the Pentagon, under Cap
Weinberger's leadership and our superb service
Secretaries, Jack Marsh, John Lehman, and Verne Orr,
we have identified more than a billion dollars in
savings on waste and fraud, and, over the next seven
years, multiyear procurement and other acquisition
initiatives will save us almost $30 billion.
Now, these are only three examples of what we're
attempting to do to make government more efficient.
The list goes on. We have wielded our inspectors
general as a strike force accounting for nearly $17
billion in savings in 18 months. With Peter Grace's
help, we've called on top management executives and
experts from the private sector to suggest modern
management techniques for every aspect of government
operations. And with an exciting new project called
Reform 88, we're going to streamline and reorganize
the processes that control the money, information,
personnel, and property of the Federal bureaucracy -
the maze through which nearly $2 trillion passes
each year and which includes 350 different payroll
systems and 1,750 personnel offices.
There is more, much more - from cutting down
wasteful travel practices to reducing paperwork,
from aggressively pursuing the $40 billion in bad
debts owed the federal government to reducing
publication of more than 70 million copies of
wasteful or unnecessary government publications.
But, you know, making government responsive again to
the people involves more than eliminating waste and
fraud and inefficiency. During the decades when
government was intruding into areas where it's
neither competent nor needed, it was also ignoring
its legitimate and constitutional duties such as
preserving the domestic peace and providing for the
common defense.
I'll talk about that in a moment. I know you've
already heard about that today, some of you. But on
the matter of domestic order, a few things need to
be said. First of all, it is abundantly clear that
much of our crime problem was provoked by a social
philosophy that saw man as primarily a creature of
his material environment. The same liberal
philosophy that saw an era of prosperity and virtue
ushered in by changing man's environment through
massive federal spending programs also viewed
criminals as the unfortunate products of poor
socioeconomic conditions or an underprivileged
upbringing. Society, not the individual, they said,
was at fault for criminal wrongdoing. We are to
blame.
Now, we conservatives have been warning about the
crime problem for many years, about that permissive
social philosophy that did so much to foster it,
about a legal system that seemed to specialize in
letting hardened criminals go free. And now we have
the means and the power to do something. Let's get
to work.
Drug pusher after drug pusher, mobster after mobster
has escaped justice by taking advantage of our
flawed bail and parole system. Criminals who have
committed atrocious acts have cynically utilized the
technicalities of the exclusionary rule, a
miscarriage of justice unique to our legal system.
Indeed, one National Institute of Justice study
showed that of those arrested for drug felonies in
Los Angeles County in 1981, 32 percent were back out
on the streets because of perceived problems with
the exclusionary rule.
Now, the exclusionary rule - that isn't a law that
was passed by Congress or a state legislature, it's
what is called case law, the result of judicial
decisions. If a law enforcement officer obtains
evidence as the result of a violation of the laws
regarding search and seizure, that evidence cannot
be introduced in a trial even if it proves the guilt
of the accused. Now, this is hardly punishment of
the officer for his violation of legal procedures,
and its only effect, in many cases, is to free
someone patently guilty of a crime.
I don't know, maybe I've told you this before, but I
have to give you a glaring example of what I've
taken too much time to explain here. [In] San
Bernardino, California, several years ago, two
narcotics agents, based on the evidence they had,
obtained a legal warrant to search the home of a man
and woman suspected of peddling heroin. They
searched the home. They didn't find anything. But as
they were leaving, just on a hunch, they turned back
to the baby in the crib and took down the diapers,
and there was the stash of heroin. The evidence was
thrown out of court and the couple went free because
the baby hadn't given permission for the violation
of its constitutional rights.
Well, this administration has proposed vital reforms
of our bail and parole systems and criminal
forfeiture and sentencing statutes. These reforms
were passed by the Senate 95 to 1 last year. Our
anti-crime package never got out of committee in the
House of Representatives. Do you see a target there?
The American people want these reforms, and they
want them now. I'm asking tonight that you mobilize
all the powerful resources of this political
movement to get these measures passed by the
Congress.
On another front, all of you know how vitally
important it is for us to reverse the decline in
American education, to take responsibility for the
education of our children out of the hands of
parents and teachers. That's why the Congress must
stop dithering. We need those tuition tax credits.
We need a voucher system for the parents of
disadvantaged children. We need education savings
accounts, a sort of IRA for college. And finally -
and don't think for a moment I've given up - we need
to eliminate that unnecessary and politically
engendered Department of Education.
There are other steps we're taking to restore
government to its rightful duties, to restore the
political consensus upon which this nation was
founded. Our Founding Fathers prohibited a federal
establishment of religion, but there is no evidence
that they intended to set up a wall of separation
between the state and religious belief itself.
The evidence of this is all around us. In the
Declaration of Independence, alone, there are no
fewer than four mentions of a Supreme Being.
"In God We Trust" is engraved on our
coinage. The Supreme Court opens its proceedings
with a religious invocation. And the Congress opens
each day with prayer from its chaplains. The
schoolchildren of the United States are entitled to
the same privileges as Supreme Court Justices and
Congressmen. Join me in persuading the Congress to
accede to the overwhelming desire of the American
people for a constitutional amendment permitting
prayer in our schools.
And finally, on our domestic agenda, there is a
subject that weighs heavily on all of us - the
tragedy of abortion on demand. This is a grave moral
evil and one that requires the fullest discussion on
the floors of the House and Senate. As we saw in the
last century with the issue of slavery, any attempt
by the Congress to stifle or compromise away
discussion of important moral issues only further
inflames emotions on both sides and leads ultimately
to even more social disruption and disunity.
So, tonight, I would ask that the Congress discuss
the issue of abortion openly and freely on the
floors of the House and Senate. Let those who
believe the practice of abortion to be a moral evil
to join us in taking this case to our fellow
Americans. And let us do so rationally, calmly, and
with an honest regard for our fellow Americans.
Speaking for myself, I believe that once
implications of abortion on demand are fully aired
and understood by the American people, they will
resolutely seek its abolition. Now, I know there are
many who sincerely believe that limiting the right
of abortion violates the freedom of choice of the
individual. But if the unborn child is a living
entity, then there are two individuals, each with
the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Unless and until someone can prove the
unborn is not alive - and all medical evidence
indicates it is - then we must concede the benefit
of the doubt to the unborn infant.
But whether it's cutting spending and taxing,
shrinking the size of the deficit, ending
overregulation, inefficiency, fraud and waste in
government, cracking down on career criminals,
revitalizing American education, pressing for prayer
and abortion legislation, I think you can see that
the agenda we've put before America these past two
years has been a conservative one. Oh, and there are
two other matters that I think you'd be interested
in. First, as part of our federalism effort, next
week we will be sending to the Congress our proposal
for four megablock grants that will return vital
prerogatives to the states where they belong. And
second, the Office of Management and Budget will
press ahead with new regulations prohibiting the use
of federal tax dollars for purposes of political
advocacy.
And these important domestic initiatives have been
complemented by the conservative ideas we've brought
to the pursuit of foreign policy. In the struggle
now going on for the world, we have not been afraid
to characterize our adversaries for what they are.
We have focused world attention on forced labor on
the Soviet pipeline and Soviet repression in Poland
and all the other nations that make up what is
called the "fourth world" - those living
under totalitarian rule who long for freedom.
We publicized the evidence of chemical warfare and
other atrocities in Cambodia, which we're now
supposed to call Kampuchea, and Afghanistan. We
pointed out that totalitarian powers hold a
radically different view of morality and human
dignity than we do. We must develop a forward
strategy for freedom, one based on our hope that
someday representative government will be enjoyed by
all the people and all the nations of the earth.
We've been striving to give the world the facts
about the international arms race. Ever since our
nearly total demobilization after World War II, we
in the West have been playing catchup. Yes, there's
been an international arms race, as some of the
declared Democratic candidates for the Presidency
tell us. But let them also tell us, there's only
been one side doing the racing.
Those of you in the frontline of the conservative
movement can be of special assistance in furthering
our strategy for freedom, our fight against
totalitarianism. First of all, there is no more
important foreign policy initiative in this
administration, and none that frightens our
adversaries more, than our attempts through our
international radios to build constituencies for
peace in nations dominated by totalitarian,
militaristic regimes. We've proposed to the Congress
modest but vitally important expenditures for the
Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
and Radio Marti. These proposals stalled last year,
but with your help we can get them through the
Congress this year. And believe me, nothing could
mean more to the Poles, Lithuanians, Cubans, and all
the millions of others living in that fourth world.
Now, it would be also unconscionable during any
discussion of the need for candor in our foriegn
policy not to mention here the tragic event that
last year shocked the world - the attack on His
Holiness, Pope John Paul II - an act of unspeakable
evil, an assault on man and God. It was an
international outrage and merits the fullest
possible investigation. Tonight, I want to take this
opportunity to applaud the courage and
resourcefulness of the government of Italy in
bringing this matter to the attention of the world.
And, contrary to what some have suggested, you can
depend on it, there is no one on our side that is
acting embarrassed or feeling embarrassed because
they're going ahead with that investigation. We mean
to help them.
And, now, Cap, you can breathe easy, because here we
come. We must continue to revitalize and strengthen
our Armed Forces. Cap Weinberger's been waging an
heroic battle on this front. I'm asking you, the
conservative leaders here tonight, to make support
for our defense buildup one of your top priorities.
But besides progress in furthering all of these
items on the conservative agenda, something else is
occuring - something that someday we conservatives
many be very proud happened under our leadership.
Even with all our recent economic hardships, I
believe a feeling of optimism is now entering the
American consciousness, a belief that the days of
division and discord are behind us and that an era
of unity and national revewal is upon us.
A vivid reminder of how our nation has learned and
grown and transcended the tragedies of the past was
given to us here in Washington only a few months
ago. Last November, on the Mall, between the Lincoln
Memorial and the Washington Monument, a new memorial
was dedicated - one of dark, low lying walls
inscribed with the names of those who gave their
lives in the Vietnam conflict. Soon, there will be
added a sculpture of three infantrymen representing
different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
During the dedication ceremonies, the rolls of the
missing and dead were read for three days, morning
till night, in a candlelight ceremony at the
National Cathedral. And those veterans of Vietnam
who never were welcomed home with speeches and
bands, but who were defeated in battle and were
heroes as surely as any who ever fought in a noble
cause, staged their own parade on Constitution
Avenue.
As America watched them, some in wheelchairs, all of
them proud, there was a feeling that as a nation we
were coming together, coming together again, and
that we had at long last brought the boys home.
"A lot of healing ... went on," said Jan
Scruggs, the wounded combat veteran who helped
organize support for the memorial. And then there
was this newspaper account that appeared after the
ceremonies. I'd like to read it to you.
"Yesterday, crowds returned to the memorial.
Among them was Herbie Petit, a machinist and former
marine from New Orleans. ' Last night,' he said,
standing near the wall, 'I went out to dinner with
some ex-marines. There was also a group of college
students in the restaurant. We started talking to
each other, and before we left, they stood up and
cheered. The whole week,' Petit said, his eyes red,
'it was worth it just for that .' "
It has been worth it. We Americans have learned
again to listen to each other, to trust each other.
We've learned that government owes the people an
explanation and needs their support for its actions
at home and abroad. And we've learned - and pray
this time for good - that we must never again send
our young men to fight and die in conflicts that our
leaders are not prepared to win.
Yet, the most valuable lesson of all, the
preciousness of human freedom, has been relearned
not just by Americans but all the people of the
world. It is the "stark lesson" that
Truong Nhu Tang, one of the founders of the National
Liberation Front, a former Viet Cong minister and
vice-minister of the postwar Vietnamese Communist
government, spoke of recently when he explained why
he fled Vietnam for freedom. "No previous
regime in my country," he wrote about the
concentration camps and boat people of Vietnam,
"brought such numbers of people to such
desperation. Not the military dictators, not the
colonialists, not even the ancient Chinese warlords.
It is a lesson that my compatriots and I learned
through witnessing and through suffering in our own
lives the fate of our countrymen. It is a lesson
that must eventually move the conscience of the
world." This man who had fought on the other
side learned the value of freedom only after helping
to destroy it and seeing those who had had to give
it up.
The task that has fallen to us as Americans is to
move the conscience of the world, to keep alive the
hope and dream of freedom. For if we fail or falter,
there'll be no place for the world's oppressed to
flee to. This is not a role we sought. We preach no
manifest destiny. But like the Americans who brought
a new nation into the world 200 years ago, history
has asked much of us in our time. Much we've already
given; much more we must be prepared to give.
This is not a task we shrink from; it's a task we
welcome. For with the privilege of living in this
kindly, pleasant, greening land called America, this
land of generous spirit and great ideals, there is
also a destiny and a duty, a call to preserve and
hold in sacred trust mankind's age-old aspirations
of peace and freedom and a better life for
generations to come.
God bless you all, and thank you for what you're
doing.
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