I know how much I love my own children. Just a few minutes ago, Amy and I were out in the front yard of the White House designing a tree house that's… - Jimmy Carter

Another thing that occurs is for a family that stays intact when the father shifts from a State where his family gets welfare assistance to one where he doesn't get many of the programs to aid him and his family, for instance, a father--and this happens to be Wisconsin--who is working full time at the minimum wage, after he pays his taxes and draws tax credits for earned income and receives food stamps, has an income of $5,691, working full time. If that father quit his full-time job and took a half-time job at the same wage scale, minimum wage, his income would jump almost $3,000, a little more than $3,000--$1,300 to $6,940. This is another defect in the hodgepodge welfare system that runs counter to the basic commitment of American people that work on a full-time basis--for those who are able to work--is beneficial, ought to be beneficial to a family. Another thing that happens in the welfare system is that those who are working and receiving benefits, if their income should increase, either to more hours per week, or to a higher wage scale, is quite often counterproductive, and it doesn't take a working person, adult, long to figure out that an increased effort pays no dividends.' For instance, for a family head who again is earning the minimum wage, if they got an increase in income of $100, they would lose--this is kind of an average for the whole Nation--they would lose $66.67 in AFDC payments! The earned income tax credit--they would lose $10; food stamps--they would lose $9.90; housing assistance, where that is paid, lose $8.25. So, they would lose, out of the $100 increase in check, salary, $94.82, which means that they would have a net reward of only $5 out of an increase in earnings of $100. So, you can see there's very little incentive to work your way off welfare. I might point out that the legislative leaders, particularly Congressman Ullman and Senator Long, have been through these proposals with us the last time this morning. And this is going to require a very close working relationship with the committees involved. It's one of those long-standing needs in the Federal Government that has not yet been addressed, and comprehensive welfare reform is long overdue. I think we have an excellent chance to meet all the principles and goals that we've described here. We will meet the time schedule to present to the Congress the complete legislative package by the first part of August.

For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.

Well, I can't say that I depended on overdrafts to run my business, but as I have said in one of my regular news conferences that was televised nationwide, yes, I've had overdrafts. Let me add one other thing. There is a fairly common practice--and I am not trying to criticize banks, because I don't know how wide the practice is-but there's a general sense at home, not because it's in the South, but because I live in a small town, that if you have several accounts and a substantial balance in all those accounts, but then you become overdrawn in one of those accounts, then that's not considered to be an illegal or an unethical act. I run, I would say in my business, six or seven individual accounts, different aspects of my farm or my warehouse business. Also, I have a personal account. I never write any checks. I haven't written three checks in the last 5 years. My wife does all the check writing. But if we should have $50,000 or $100,000 in my warehouse account, and in my own personal account my wife should buy a dress and give a $25 check to pay for it and the check bounced 'because we were overdrawn, they would not send for the sheriff or call me on the phone to say, "You've disgraced yourself by having an overdraft." They would say, in effect, "We'll honor this check. We'll put a notice in your mailbox, and then you can shift some money from your warehouse account over into the personal account." But I don't excuse overdrafts. You know, it's obvious that I would rather my own life have been completely free of any overdraft. But I can't say that it's an acceptable thing. But I still don't believe that it's an unethical or illegal thing in the banking circles in which I've had to operate.