We have established the following goals: I've been over these with the congressional leaders, with representatives of the Department of HEW, with Lab… - Jimmy Carter

In the meantime, a very important and necessary step has been taken and that is in the administration's proposed reform for the Food Stamp Program to limit the level of assistance based on income and to cash out the Food Stamp Program, or rather to eliminate the mandatory payment for food stamps. We hope the Congress will go ahead with this without delay. Some of the problems that have been apparent for many years are described on these charts on my left. The widely varying Federal contributions to welfare recipients around the Nation are illustrated very vividly here. There's a factor of 500 percent or more between the lowest payments in some of the States colored in green compared to the highest payments in the yellow colored States with dots on them. I don't know if you can read it from there, but the States with the yellow and black dots 'have an average Federal contribution of $1,125 to $1,688. The orange colored States have an average Federal contribution of $860 to $1,125. The blue cross-hatched States, $575 to $860; and the green States from $283 to $575.

We're concerned about young people's health. We propose an $18.9 million program to immunize 5 1/2 million poor children from preventable diseases over the next 30 months, and we'll raise the number of poor children screened for medical purposes from less than 2 million last year to 9.8 million before I go out of office. I said during the campaign that the tax system was a disgrace, that it was most unfair to people with low and average incomes. We've been working now for 6 months on a tax proposal that will be simpler and fairer and will reduce the burden on the average American. But in the meantime, we have already gotten Congress to agree--the bill has been signed, it's been passed into law--to reduce taxes $4 billion with the primary emphasis on the low- and middle-income families, which means that a family that makes about $10,000 a year on a permanent basis would have a 30-percent reduction in their income tax payments. That's already been done. Walter Mondale, my Vice President, worked for years unsuccessfully, 8 years, to try to get a $100-million increase in the Title I programs for a better education for poor people, poor children. We have already proposed, and the Congress has already agreed, to increase the Title I program more than $350 million.

Tonight, I'd like to mention two subjects that are important among all those others. One is the economy as it relates to agriculture. Yours is a great agricultural State. It provides one of the ties between me and you. The economy of our country is based upon agricultural production. We're the greatest nation on Earth in the production of food and feed and fiber. Your State is preeminent. But we have some problems in agriculture that we're also trying to address. Agriculture and the people who participate in this effort are not well understood. It would be a serious mistake to think that we have no inherent problems. We can't take for granted bountiful crops. We can't take for granted economic health. We can't take for granted food supplies. We are now forming efforts to bring about our hopes. We have an Agriculture Secretary, Bob Bergland, who's a dirt farmer. He's the kind of man who understands the special problems of farm families. He's been there. He went to Florida as a migrant worker. He came 'back home and borrowed money to start a small rent farm operation. He now has about 600 acres of farmland, as you know, in the northernmost part of Minnesota. And he's working on the extremely complicated subjects that deal with the farmers' lives in a very enlightened, down-to-earth, practical, and effective way. We've come out this year with a comprehensive farm bill that will help in many ways to carry out the promises that I made to you when I was campaigning in your State. We've established target prices which on an average will meet production cost, and it's done in a conservative way which will help to hold down the rapidly escalating prices for farmland. We've also set price supports that will keep our products competitive. We've increased exports. In this last 12 months our farm exports were $24 billion, the highest they've ever been in the history of our country. This year, on a worldwide basis, we have fairly good crop weather. Exports may not be as good in fiscal year 1978 as they have been last year, but we'll try to hold them up.