Except during my childhood, when I was probably influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel depiction of God with a flowing white beard, I have never… - Jimmy Carter

The same thing applies to basic welfare reform that's going to be presented to the Nation on the 1st of May; energy policy, the 20th of April. Another very major effort that we are undertaking this year on which I need your help is basic tax reform, income tax reform. This will be presented to the American people by the end of September. There are many other major goals that I tried to express as a commitment to the American people during the long campaign. They all touch your lives in one way or the other. I don't claim to know all the answers. I need you to help me with your support when you agree, with your advice when we're evolving policy, and with your criticism when you think I've made a mistake. I need all three. And I pledge to you a continuing, unswerving, never-diminishing commitment on my part, as your President, to the goals that you and I know are crucial to a better life for all Americans, including of course the majority of Americans who happen to be women. Thank you very much. I love all of you, and I appreciate it. Thank you.

I've never called for an independent Palestinian country. We have used the word "entity." And my own preference as expressed in that talk that I made in New Jersey, I think, and now, is that we think that if there is a Palestinian entity established on the West Bank, that it ought to be associated with Jordan, for instance. I think this was the case among many Israeli leaders as their preference in the past. So, we have been very cautious, very careful, very consistent in spelling out our posture on the Middle Eastern settlements. When we have gone around, for instance--I haven't, but Cy Vance has gone around to Israel, to Jordan, to Syria, to Egypt, to Saudi Arabia--to talk about a future Middle Eastern conference and, hopefully, a settlement, we have taken the same exact written set of principles so there would be no difference among them, and discussed it with Sadat and Hussein and Asad and Fahd and with Mr. Begin, so that there would never be any allegation on any part of theirs that we took one position with the Israelis and a different position with the Arabs. Sometimes the Israelis would say, "We don't accept this principle number 4." Sometimes the Arabs would say, "We don't accept principle number 1." But we've tried to negotiate in good faith. I might say one other thing. We are not just an idle bystander. We are not just an uninterested intermediary or mediator. Our country has a direct, substantial interest in a permanent peace in the Middle East. And I sincerely hope and I believe that the nations who live there also want to have a permanent settlement and a permanent peace in the Middle East. And the principles that I described in that speech, the principles that the Vice President described in a speech he made in California earlier this year, and the principles that we espouse in our public and private conversations with Arabs and Israelis and with Prime Minister Barre, yesterday, from France, and others who are interested, are exactly the same. We've never deviated. We have learned a lot. And as we've learned, we've added additional new items onto our basic proposal. But ultimately, the Middle Eastern settlement has got to be an agreement among the parties involved. Now, I hope that all the countries are eager to negotiate in good faith. I hope that none of them are putting up deliberate obstacles to prevent a Geneva conference from being convened. That's my hope and that's my present expectation.

The most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them.