Today we are asking our political system to do things of which the founding fathers never dreamed. The government they designed for a few hundred tho… - Jimmy Carter

Yes, I think that sugar prices ought to be supported. I think that a 13 1/2-cent sugar price is about the minimum that would be advisable, both for domestic producers and also for imported sugar. We have supported the new farm bill which provides price supports until the international sugar agreement can be implemented. I did this reluctantly, as you may know. We did not support the de la Garza amendment in its original form and-accepted it only if the conferees would agree that the price support mechanism would be terminated at the time an international sugar agreement was reached, if the international sugar agreement encompassed a price of about 13 1/2 cents. Tariffs are a terrible thing to impose, because many of .our friends in Latin America depend heavily upon sugar. One of the most democratic nations in the world derives almost its entire income from the export of sugar. And for us to put an obstacle to their shipment of sugar to our country would, I think, almost destroy their economy, their government, probably shift it toward a complete dependence on totalitarian assistance and would not be fair, as well. We've tried to avoid a protectionist policy since I've been in office. And I think the best way to do it is through international agreements that, in effect, set minimum and maximum prices for commodities whose prices, without constraint, fluctuate so wildly. We've seen this happen in the case of coffee. We've seen it happen in the case of sugar, where it went almost up to a dollar and then dropped down to about 8 cents. Well, we can accommodate that. It's devastating to a sugar farmer or to the sugar producers, but our national economy is so varied that we can accommodate it. But for a country where 85 percent of all their exports is sugar, this is devastating. So, I don't like tariffs as such. They would particularly be damaging to our closest friends and allies in this hemisphere. They also, I think, would cost the American taxpayer a great deal more. And I think that an international agreement on sugar of about 13 cents would be the preferable approach, and until that can be put into effect, I have reluctantly agreed to support the price support aspects of the new farm bill.

At first, we had a shaky start in just knowing how to deal with the Congress. We were eager to do the best Ave could. I've consulted with Congress, perhaps more than any President who has ever served in this office. And I've consulted with the Joint Chiefs more than they've ever seen the President. I had lunch with the Joint Chiefs last week, and I said, "How do I compare in negotiating with you and getting help and advice from you, compared to previous Presidents? I met with you at the Blair House before I was President. I met with you about 6 or 8 or 10 times since I've been President." We had long discussions about Korea and about China and about Taiwan, and about the Middle East and about SALT and everything else. And they said, "Mr. President, we saw you more than we had ever seen any President that first meeting at Blair House before you ever came into office." [Laughter] So, I've learned and I've benefited from it. I want to thank you again. I got to go, but I want to thank you again for letting me have this chance to meet with you. This is an enormous job. It's one that taxes any individual human being to encompass the challenges and solutions to problems. The ones that arrive at my desk are obviously the ones that can't be solved in a home or in a city hall or at a State Governor's office, and they come to me. But I've really enjoyed it. It's been a reassuring thing to have a superb Cabinet. There's not a single weak person on it. I've really been pleasantly surprised with them. And the Congress has given me strong and good support. The differences that have arisen between me and the Congress have been that the much more easy job of my preparing a proposal and drafting legislation, than the Congress debating it and passing it. There's an inherent delay in the congressional process which I think is very good and very healthy. And as you know, I've never served in Washington before at all. I've got a good, sound White House staff. I use my Cabinet more than previous Presidents have. We have a full-scale, at least 2-hour session here every Monday morning, with the full Cabinet sitting around this table. Most of the time, we have a 100-percent attendance. And it's a lively discussion, and the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Secretary of HUD have a chance to listen to an explanation of what Cy Vance is doing, what Bob Strauss is doing, what the Secretary of Treasury is doing. So, there's a good interchange and good team spirit. I don't have the same need for a chief of staff or a strong, powerful, autocratic White House staff that President Nixon felt. There will never be an Ehrlichman or a Haldeman in my White House staff that gives orders and commands to the Cabinet members who are trying to run the major agencies of Government. This is not the way I ran the Governor's office. in Georgia. It's not the way I am going to run it here. And some of the local press have deplored the fact that I don't have a similar set-up as was the case when President Nixon was in office. It's just not my way of running things.

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.