Now, the second major challenge I want to discuss with you this morning is energy. The energy crisis is the greatest domestic challenge that our coun… - Jimmy Carter

After 9/11, America stood proud -- wounded, but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world. But in just 34 months, we have watched with deep concern as all this good will has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations. Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combating terrorism. Let us not forget that the Soviets lost the Cold War because the American people combined the exercise of power with adherence to basic principles, based on sustained bipartisan support. We understood the positive link between the defense of our own freedom and the promotion of human rights. But recent policies have cost our nation its reputation as the world's most admired champion of freedom and justice. What a difference these few months of extremism have made. The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of preemptive war.

I believe that you would agree that when John Kennedy was President and when Lyndon Johnson was President, that the community action agencies had a life of their own and helped to make decisions about government programs. In the last 8 years--and I won't call the names of the Presidents who were in the White House--[laughter]--those community action agencies were put into a very secondary position and lost the influence and the decisionmaking authority that they formerly had under the leadership of people like Joe Califano in HEW, who helped to put into effect many of the Johnson programs 10 years ago. And under the leadership of Pat Harris and Juanita Kreps and Grace Olivarez and others, we're trying to bring back the life of those community action groups. I think that it's impossible, no matter how intelligent or how dedicated a Washington official might be--it's impossible for them to know what the needs are in your community as well as you know them. That's the reason that I brought Grace Olivarez with me today, because that's her responsibility, working with the people that I've just named, to make sure that in the future we have a reviving of the community group influence and authority, whether it's a Hungarian American community or a Spanish-speaking community or a predominantly black community in Youngstown where a steel mill has shut down or a community of older people in Florida who have moved down there on a very low income; that doesn't matter. I want that particular community to let me know, through the Government agencies, how we can best address your problems. I want to thank you for that good question. I think Grace would agree that we're making a move in the right direction. And I think meeting with you today will help to expedite what we want to do. I think that everybody in the audience would agree that we've had a superb panel. They've asked very good questions, brought forward very good ideas for us. And I and all my staff members who are here, the different Federal agencies represented-and almost all of them are represented-the national news media that will repeat what you have said to the world at large tonight will benefit greatly from the sound, good judgment that you have provided and the personal experience that make your words carry even more authority than the words of a President. You know what you're talking about. I'm trying to learn what you're talking about.

Well, Scotty Reston asked me that the other day. Always, I think, in your life--and mine as a farmer and mine as a naval officer and mine as a candidate, if I knew everything then that I know now, I would have done some things differently. I made some mistakes in judgment that weren't fatal. I underestimated, first of all, the quality of the Congress, the intense concentration that individual Members of Congress put on a specific issue, sometimes for 25 or 30 or 40 years. They become experts in that issue. And the quality of their staff work is equivalent completely to the quality of my own staff work here in the White House. This was something that I had not experienced in the Georgia State Legislature, when they only meet for 40 days and then go home. There's no continuity of the legislative process in my State. And I was pleasantly surprised and underestimated the competence of Congress. I think it's a very. good thing that no longer do you have a dominant White House as sometimes existed--I don't say the country suffered when, say, Franklin Roosevelt was here and he could send up bills to the Congress and almost immediately they would be voted on without thorough analysis. I overestimated the Congress in its ability to deal with complicated subjects expeditiously. This is particularly the case with the Senate, where every Member of the Senate is autonomous and prides himself on being independent, has the ability if he chooses to delay action on any bill no matter how important it is to the country; a constant threat sometimes realized, some not exercised, of a filibuster. Even when you have enough votes to override a filibuster, it takes 5 or 6 days to go through the legislative procedures to do that. And I think you've noticed that the burden of work we've put on the Congress has just been more than they could handle in the time allotted, so I've had to delay the implementation of some of the programs that I wanted to put forward much earlier. I had anticipated having a comprehensive tax proposal to the Congress by September. And now, of course, we are ready to go with it as far as the executive branch is concerned, but I don't want to send up a comprehensive tax proposal until I see what the impact on the tax structure might be from social security and, say, energy. And as soon as I get those answers, we'll have the package ready to go. But I don't know of any serious mistakes we've made; probably expecting a little too much from the Congress on expeditious passage, underestimating their competence on the other hand.