Within our system of government every American has a right and duty to help shape the future course of the United States. Thoughtful criticism and cl… - Jimmy Carter

Well, in the first place, as I mentioned briefly in passing, I think we've got a very good farm bill that was passed this year, that will be in effect for the next 5 years. We've had some increase in farm prices since I came into office. Corn prices are up about 38 cents--the last time I checked the market. Wheat prices are up about 60 cents a bushel compared to when I came into office. I certainly don't attribute that to the fact that I'm here. But we have got a Secretary of Agriculture who's a dirt farmer who understands the special problems of farmers. And with the exception of the time I've served in the Federal (and State) 2 Government, all of my income all my life has come from the farm. And I have a sense, too, of what agriculture does need. I think we've had a very good step forward in having grow, in the Department of Agriculture, a special concern about consumers. We don't have enough farm-supported Members of Congress to prevail in a showdown vote. But the more we can let the average American consumer who comes from, perhaps, the urban areas know how valuable a resource we have in our land and in our food and fiber production, the better off we'll be in prevailing and treating the farmers fairly. We've got a very good price support, target prices, that approach the cost of production, at least in the areas where the efficiency is high. I think we've got this Printed in the White House press release. past year, up to the 1st of October, the highest farm export level we've ever had in history--$24 billion worth of American farm products were sold overseas. We've never done that before. We are even emphasizing that effort much more in the future. We'd like to open up permanent sales possibilities in countries that don't presently buy food from us. My first stop on my trip will be Poland. We want to maintain our sales of agricultural products grown in this country to the so-called Eastern European countries, to the Soviet Union, to the People's Republic of China, as well as to our natural allies and friends in this hemisphere and others. In the energy package--we've tried to put it together in such a way that it would not only protect the farmers and the agricultural communities but also open the way for increased use of, as you refer to it, biomass, and also forestry products. I spent about 4 1/2 hours this morning--I got up at about 5 o'clock and came over here early to work on it--and I will be spending 2 1/2 hours immediately after this meeting, in this room, working on the budget for the Department of Energy next year. And I'll be analyzing and making final decisions, pending congressional approval next year, on how much research and development money to put into things like the use of biomass, wood products, forestry products, shale, and other energy supplies. But I think the fact that I do know agriculture, do know farm families' needs, and have an Agriculture Secretary the same way, gives me a sense of judgment that maybe I wouldn't have if I had a different background. So we've got, I think, a good thrust now to resolve some of the longstanding problems. I disagreed very strongly with some of the policies that Secretary Butz had when he was in office. There are not any easy answers. I would say that Bob Bergland has one of the most difficult jobs in Washington. It's a tough proposition.

The revelations about October's balance-of-trade deficit were quite disturbing. We analyzed this and found that the same monthly rate of deficit that had existed ever since last May or June, about $2.4 billion per month, is exactly the average of September and October. So, we apparently have a fairly stable pattern per month of a $2.4 billion deficit, primarily caused by two factors: One is our extraordinary importation of foreign oil. We import $3.7 billion worth of oil every month. This means that we have, if we didn't import the oil, about a $15 billion trade surplus per year. And we have got to cut down on the excessive importing of oil from overseas before we can hope to get our trade balanced. The other reason for an adverse balance is that our own economy has improved in the last few years--few months, much more than has the rest of the world. Because of our improvement in the economy, we are much more able to buy and much more willing to buy goods from overseas than those nations are able to buy from us because their economies have not been restored as much as ours. We have one major element that can be introduced to cut down on our trade deficits-and that's obvious--and that is to reduce oil imports.

Our fifth major concern is the health of our people. On the airplane coming here from Washington early this morning, I had a chance to talk at length with Congressman Jim Corman about the future of our national health program. Good health for every American is one of my primary concerns, and I know it's one of yours. Again, it's a complicated question. If it weren't complicated, the problem would have been solved many years ago. We must deal with the cause of illness. This means promoting a cleaner environment and safer and healthier work places. And we will be submitting these proposals in about a week. It means helping our children avoid preventable diseases--as was the case when I was a child and, perhaps, when many of you were young-some 5 1/2 million children will be immunized over the next 30 months. Also, under our proposed Child Health Assessment Program now before the Congress, 10 million young children will be screened annually by 1982. This is five times more than are presently examined at this time to see what childhood diseases might be prevented as they approach adulthood as students. In order to make medical care available in inner cities and rural areas, we proposed legislation already that will make nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants available to help fill the gap. And finally, I'm committed to the phasing-in of a workable national health insurance system. It's certainly not difficult to guess which union has made national health insurance a national issue. Beginning many months ago, Leonard Woodcock has given me an education about the need and the possible ways for meeting it. He's a member of the advisory committee that will help design the whole system and will hold its first meeting later on this week. And we are aiming to submit legislative proposals early next year. We must move immediately to start bringing health care costs under control. If we don't--and I want you to listen carefully to this--if we don't bring the health care costs, particularly hospitals, under control, no matter what kind of health system we have in our country, the cost will double every 5 years. Now, we can't afford that. We can't afford that. Hospital costs now take 40 cents of every health dollar, and they've gone up an incredible 1,000 percent since 1950. I proposed hospital cost containment legislation that would put the brakes on these increases. Sixty other nations nave managed to come up with national health programs that meet the needs of our people-of their people. It's not beyond our own ingenuity to do the same, and I want this program to be established during my time in office. There's a lot that we can do as consumers. In many instances, medical doctors, hospitals, and others, have been very careless about how much health care actually costs. Late last month, my wife was found to have a tumor on her breast. She went to Bethesda Hospital about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. She had a long incision made, 4 or 5 inches long, and the tumor was removed. She was back home at 5 o'clock. Quite often, if doctors and hospitals want to hold down the time we spend in intensive care and the extraordinary cost of medical care, they can do it. But we, as consumers, need to help.