Davenport, Iowa Remarks on Arrival at the City.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Did you enjoy the music? Doc Hathaway, wasn't he great? We're really excited coming back to Davenport, and thank all of you for coming out to welcome us.

This last 3 days have been very exciting for me and for Amy and for Rosalynn-to see the beautiful Midwest, to enjoy the Mississippi, and above all, to see the wonderful people that have made us feel so welcome. Thank you very much. God bless you.

We believe that we live in the greatest country on Earth. Do you agree with that? [Applause] Our Nation is so strong and so good to all of us. And, as you know, God's blessed us with personal freedom, a chance to live in a democracy where we can choose our own government, solve our own problems, meet our own challenges, answer our own questions, if we as Americans can be unified, can see a common problem and work together to solve it.

We do have one serious common problem-and I'm going to talk to you about that on the telephone this morning in just a few minutes. But I think that with this tremendous crowd, I would like to say that we can solve our energy problem if we work together. It's serious enough to challenge our Nation's security. And shortly before I left Washington, I took the last action that's available to me as President by decontrolling the price of heavy oil, very heavy oil. This will add about 500,000 barrels of oil to our Nation's supply in the future without having an adverse impact on inflation.

Now the other action that can be taken by our Government must be taken by Congress. And I want all of you to help me convince the Congress—I might say John Culver is already convinced, and he's helping me—that we need to put a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. This must be done.

The choice is, do we let the oil companies keep enormous profits or do we tax them and use that money to conserve energy, to shift towards solar power, to have more gasohol made in Iowa, and to have a nation strong and free and independent of dependence on OPEC prices and OPEC oil. Will you help me with the Congress to have an independent nation? [Applause] Right on.

We will soon have a very fine energy experiment work—that I'll describe to you on the radio this morning—that will let our entire Nation have advice on all 50 States about how we can conserve energy. We've tried it out now for 2 years in 10 different States throughout the country. It has worked very well. And we'll have several hundred thousands of dollars available in' Iowa, beginning next year, to help us plan in every local community like Davenport how we can conserve energy, eliminate waste, and make sure our Nation is better able to meet this challenge. This is a very important program that in the long run will not cost anything—it will save much more than it costs.

So, I hope all of you will work with me and the Congress to make the greatest nation on Earth even greater in the future. I'm very glad to be back in Davenport. You were wonderful to me a couple of years ago, and as President, you've been even nicer to me. And I believe that all of us working together can make sure that our Nation stays strong, stays happy, stays united, and that we will have indeed in the rest of our lives and for our children the greatest and the strongest nation on Earth.

Thank you very much. God bless all of you.

We'll be on the radio at 9: 30. Listen in, call if you can. We'll see you later.