August 20, 1984
The President. I have a feeling that I ought to quit right now while I'm way ahead. But it's great to be in the city of the Bengals and the Cincinnati Reds. It's great to know that Pete Rose has come back home. I talked to him on Air Force One coming out here.
And it's an honor to stand up here with two of your great sports heroes, Johnny Bench and Bob Trumpy. And I'm heartbroken, because I have an invitation in my pocket that just came and that my schedule won't allow me to accept. And that was that Bob Howsam invited me to the ballgame tonight and said that I could broadcast a couple of innings, which I used to do for a living. But I'm afraid the schedule will have me a long way from here.
Let me add that we have five of America's newest heroes up here, all of them members of America's team at the Olympics.
Have they been introduced? They have?
Oh, they tell me you've already met them, because I was going to ask them to stand up so you could say hello to Darell Pace and Betsy Mitchell and David Wilson and Kim Rhodenbaugh and Julie Isphording. The day after the Olympics closed, they gave me one of those jackets and made Nancy and me members -- honorary members of the team.
It's great also to be in a city that has become a symbol of the economic renaissance that's been sweeping our country. I'm happy to be here, because Cincinnati has always been very kind to visitors, who are almost always impressed by what Cincinnati has to offer.
The writer Stephen Birmingham came here just a few years ago. He suggested that your city is smooth, understated, efficient, and conservative. I like that last part best.
Now, John Gunther, in his book "Inside USA,'' he said Cincinnati is "packed with charm'' and has a certain "stately'' quality. And even Charles Dickens once came here in 1842 and said, "Cincinnati is . . . cheerful, thriving and animated.''
Audience member. No more Reagan! No more Reagan!
The President. But -- --
Audience. Boo-o-o!
The President. You know, as I say, Charles Dickens said that ``Cincinnati is . . . cheerful, thriving and animated,'' -- and I was just going to say, but there are always dissenters. [Laughter]
Now, one writer said in 1981 that "Cincinnati is so disciplined, so straight,'' is how he put it, "that you used to have to cross the river into Kentucky to have a good time.'' [Laughter] Now, that isn't true, is it?
Audience. No!
The President. I didn't think so. I have a feeling it was slander, and I just wanted to make sure. [Laughter]
I'm very proud to stand up here with members of the Taft family of Ohio. William Howard Taft was a great Republican President. His son, Robert A. Taft, was "Mr. Republican'' in the Senate. His son, Robert Taft, was another great Republican Senator, and his son, Robert Taft, is a Hamilton County commissioner. Now, I don't know if there are any other Tafts waiting in the wings, but I wouldn't want to run against them. [Laughter]
And let me say that I don't have to visit Ohio to benefit from the good judgment and support of the Taft family. Back in Washington I have the help of William Howard Taft IV. He is an appointee in our Department of Defense.
I'm also proud to stand up here with two of your great Congressmen, Bill Gradison and Bob McEwen. They've given us such staunch support in Washington. And make sure they continue to be there to give that support.
Now, it's typical of candidates out on the stump that they list all the statistics that back up their assertion that indeed they deserve another term. And I could stand here and outline the economic facts of our national life. I could tell you about how the gross national product is soaring, how inflation has plummeted. I could tell you that 600,000 new businesses were incorporated in this country last year and how 6\1/2\ million new jobs were created in the past 19 months. In fact, we created more jobs in the month of June alone than all the Common Market countries in Europe created in the last 10 years. Now, I could tell you all those things, but I won't. [Laughter]
What's more pertinent and more to the point is simply to talk about what's happening here in the Blue Chip City.
Cincinnati's thriving. You're not in economic recovery; you're in economic expansion. Just look around, look around at all this construction, at the gleaming office towers and the shops and the restaurants below. I understand that 67 new businesses have been created here in the central business district since 1980. The building trades are booming. In the last 4 years, 16,000 new jobs have been created here, and it's estimated that over the next 4 years another 7,000 new jobs will be added. You put that all together, and you realize Cincinnati's a modern boomtown. And she's not alone.
Now, none of this happened by accident. None of it happened by chance. It took hard, concerted effort by the leaders, the builders, business and working people of your city. Men like Tom Nies, who started out 15 years ago with $600 and what he called ``an impossible dream.'' He was a worker at IBM. His field was computers; but he loved Cincinnati, and he wanted to stay here. So, he started his own company, Cincom Systems, and it has grown by leaps and bounds.
In 1980 it had 637 employees; it now has 1,350. Four years ago, it had sales of $36 million a year; now its sales are $95 million a year. Four years ago, its return on investment was 6 percent, and today it's 30 percent. Now, Tom Nies says something very interesting. He says, ``Only in a healthy America can this happen.''
Well, a healthy America is one in which individuals can choose the work they want, start a business if they want -- and those businesses can create jobs. And the jobs create a demand for housing and services, and that in turn creates more jobs as the healthy spiral continues.
Let me tell you more about that healthy spiral. It's based on the simple proposition that growth is good. And it starts with a foundation of faith -- faith in the spirit of a people under God and faith that the Government will continue policies that will reward effort. And as for continuing policies that will reward effort, believe me, we will.
We've tried to create an environment in which business can bloom and people can blossom. We've failed to create the kind of America that we seemed to be sliding into a few years ago. What we've done is simply a people's program. You can call it populism or some other high-sounding phrase; but what it comes down to is creating an environment that will help the people help themselves.
Now, there are those -- and they will go unnamed here -- who sit back and see our success, and they try to peddle the tired old cliche that helping the economy means helping the rich. They encourage envy and division and resentment. They deal mostly in falsehood and fiction. But I don't think the American people will buy what they're selling.
The truth is, what we've done has been done to help all the people. And we couldn't have done it without you, the people. Somehow, that truth, that message, always seems to get lost. But when inflation was lowered, it helped all the people. When interest rates were lowered, it helped all the people.
When tax rates were cut for every living American in this country, everyone -- not just the rich, not just the middle class, not just the poor -- when income tax rates were cut across the board, it helped all the people. And today the average family is giving Uncle Sam $900 less than if our tax cut had not been passed. And when tax indexing goes into effect next year, it will help all the people, because never again will the Government be able to benefit from your efforts to keep up with inflation by moving you up into higher tax brackets.
And we ask for no great credit, because in the truest sense, no credit is due to us. We didn't do anything but get government out of the way of the American people. It's your recovery. All we did was remove some of the obstacles so you could make the race. And let me tell you about what else we're going to do to get out of your way. We're going to simplify the tax system, actually make it understandable and clear and fair. And when we do that, your tax rates are going to come down, not go up.
Now, that's what we've done; this is what we've achieved; and this is what we mean to do.
And the central question of 1984 is, do we want to go back to the old days?
Audience. No!
The President. Do we want to listen to the falsehood and fiction of the other side? Do we want to retreat?
Audience. No!
The President. I don't think we do. In 1980 the American people were in a mood to win, and they did. In 1984, again, they're in a mood to win, and they will.
I've been talking about what we did to help the people with the help of the people. But let me tell you what the other side will do to the people. They will -- and they've declared it -- raise your taxes.
Audience. Boo-o-o!
The President. They'll put the roadblocks up again. They'll provide the kind of leadership that will make sure we all put on our hair shirts and feel properly despairing and itchy again -- [laughter] -- the kind of leadership that will stop growth and start talking about the age of limits. Do you remember 4 years ago when they were talking, we had to get used to an age of limits? Things couldn't be as good as they were. Well -- --
Audience member. They're better!
The President. Thank you. [Laughter]
The only thing that's limited is their optimism and imagination. Calling for a tax increase was their typical knee-jerk reaction, and believe me, when their knee jerks, you get kicked. [Laughter]
You know, months back, when Senator John Glenn of Ohio was running for President, he got a bad rap. The leaders of his party wouldn't listen to him. His opponents ignored him and his policies. But he told the truth. He said the policies of the current Democratic nominee would cause a huge increase in spending and taxing. He said those policies revealed a fundamental lack of support for an adequate national defense.
Well, I think the Senator with the Right Stuff was right when he criticized the candidate with the Left Stuff. John Glenn is an authentic American hero. And it's too bad the leaders of his party stopped listening.
He knows, as you know, that we do not live by material things alone, that the hunger for spiritual values has transcendent importance in the life of man on Earth. We all need to believe in things that are bigger than us: to believe in the importance of religion and the central importance of the family; to believe there is a God to be worshiped and ideals to be honored; to believe in the principles upon which this nation was founded, and have pride, honest pride, in the success of those principles. These are things which, in the past few years have been renewed and reborn -- taken out and looked at again, considered again as a new thing, a helpful thing, by which we live.
The past few weeks, the whole Nation watched the Olympics, and we were moved by what we saw. We saw all the pride and love of America unabashedly on display. We saw all that America can do when she sets her sights high, all that individuals can achieve when they dedicate themselves to achievement. We saw our young people, in many ways the trendsetters of society, show that it's in style again to put your hand over your heart when the flag goes by, and it's in style again to sing the words of the national anthem.
Did you see the people in the stands and our athletes on those winning blocks? Did you see how they held those hard high notes when they came to that part about ``the land of the free, and the home of the brave''? They held those notes. They were proud. And we were proud of them, too.
It happens that -- you might have suspected -- I'm involved these days in a race. [Laughter] And I have no hesitation about setting my candidacy before you, the working men and women of America. That's why I'm here, and that's why I came here -- to put my case before you as I make my way to the convention of our party in Dallas. You are the judges in this contest, and that makes me glad. Our whole impulse, in all our policies, in all of our administration comes down to this: Trust the people. And we do. And I'm happy to put my faith in your hands.
I thank you. I thank you for coming here to see us and thank you for listening to this speech. And the day is beginning to get warm. I thought maybe I wasn't going to be able to say that, but it is kind of warm out here in the sun, so I better let you go so we can get back to the air conditioning. [Laughter]
Audience. No! No!
The President. No? But anyway -- --
Audience members. We love you, Ron! We love you, Ron! We love you!
The President. Thank you. And I love you, and God bless all of you. Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 12:35 p.m. in Fountain Square. Prior to his remarks, he toured the atrium area of the Procter & Gamble World Headquarters building.
Following his remarks, the President traveled to Decatur, IL.