We cannot know the mystery of the future. - Jimmy Carter

We have established the following goals: I've been over these with the congressional leaders, with representatives of the Department of HEW, with Labor, my own economic advisers, OMB, Treasury, to make sure that they are feasible and also advisable. And they will be guidelines for us in the next 3 months as we put together the final legislative proposals. First of all, the new system will be at no higher initial cost than the present systems combined. Second, under this system every family with children and a member of the family able to work will have access to a job. Third, incentives will always encourage full-time and part-time private sector employment. Fourth, public training and employment programs should be provided when private employment is unavailable. Fifth, a family should have more income if it works than if it does not work. Sixth, incentives should be designed to keep families together. Now many of the incentives, deliberately or not, encourage families to be separated. Seventh, earned income tax credits should be continued to help the working poor. Eighth, a decent income should be provided also for those who cannot work or earn adequate incomes, with Federal benefits consolidated into a simple cash payment, varying in amount only to accommodate differences in the cost of living from one community to another. Ninth, the program should be simpler and easier to administer. Tenth, there should be incentives encouraging honesty and designed to eliminate fraud. What this means is that the accurate reporting of income and financial status will be naturally encouraged among those who receive benefits. Eleventh, the unpredictable and growing financial burden on local and State governments should be reduced as rapidly as Federal services or resources permit. And twelfth, local administration of public jobs programs should be emphasized. Now, we have varying estimates on the number of jobs required to carry out all these programs depending upon the analyses and the basic premises. For instance, to provide this kind of service, we estimate that about 2 million total training and public jobs would be required. We now have plans for about 925,000 public service jobs.

I guess my biggest failure was not getting reelected. [The loss taught me] not to ever let American hostages be held for 444 days in a foreign country without extracting them. I did the best I could, but I failed.

We have now reached an agreement as far as the Federal Government is concerned, represented by me, and the Indian tribes. It would not require any further negotiation nor litigation by any landowner in Maine who owns less than 50,000 acres of land. It does leave up to the State of Maine and, I think, 14 landowners who have more than 50,000 acres, an option without any constraint on them—they can either accept the negotiated settlement, they can negotiate further for a better settlement for themselves, perhaps, or they can continue to litigate in court. The reason that I got involved in it, reluctantly, I might say, was because almost every piece of property in Maine was potentially tied up in a lawsuit, could not be bought or sold, and I could foresee a very serious economic consequence to Maine unless I made some effort to address it. This settlement would cost the Federal Government about $25 million. But I would like to point out, too, that we are bound by law—that is, the Department of Interior, represented legally by the Attorney General—to represent the Indians. And this is a recent development, brought about, as you know, by the discovery of some old treaty papers, I think in 1971, and we've tried to expedite the process. But there is no constraint on the large landowners nor the State to accept the settlement that we have evolved. That's up to them.