THE PRESIDENT: Well, thanks for that warm
welcome. It's nice to be back in Iowa. I spent
some quality days here in Iowa. (Laughter.) I used to tell
people that Iowa was the friendliest state that I campaigned in, and I
want to thank you for the hospitality, coming back as your President.
I appreciate the governor being here. Governor, thanks
for taking the time. We had the honor of hosting the
governors -- the national governors at the White House last Sunday
night. I'd just gotten in from China, rented my tux and had
the governors over. (Laughter.) But it was good
to see your governor, and thanks for being here. I'm honored
you're here.
And I also appreciate so many friends and members of the Iowa House
who are here. I see my friend, Mary Kramer. I see
the Speaker. I want to thank you both for
coming. I want to thank all the members. I hope
the governor is doing everything you tell him to
do. (Laughter.) That's not the way it's supposed
to work.
I appreciate very much Leonard Boswell, the congressman, for being
here. And I want to appreciate my friend, Tom Latham, as
well, for traveling with me -- two fine members of the United States
Congress. Anyway, I thank all the elected officials for
coming. I appreciate a chance to say hello.
I also want to thank the Benskins for inviting me
here. I didn't realize Bill -- I guess the employees
probably didn't realize it either -- he's such a silver-tongued
devil. (Laughter.)
But I appreciate so very much the chance to visit with Bill and
some of the employees. Let me tell you what my first
impression is, is that this is a company that deeply cares about the
people who work here. And Bill and Marty understand that if
you treat the folks that work with you well, you'll more likely have a
good product; that if you care about the future of the people who are
doing the work for your company, the company is going to have a culture
of success. And I could feel that instantly when I came
here. And I want to congratulate the Benskins.
See, small business is the lifeblood of the American
economy. Most new jobs are created in small
businesses. I'm a big believer in the entrepreneurial
spirit. I'm a big believer in understanding that the role of
government is not to create wealth, but an environment in which small
businesses can flourish. And people like the Benskins can
realize their dream and, in turn, provide good, steady, honorable
employment for the people who work in this company. So I
want to thank you for giving me a chance to come and talk about
security.
Before I talk about retirement security, I see people wearing our
uniform -- the uniform -- and I've got to talk about national security
from a defense perspective. I submitted a budget to the
United States Congress that sets this priority: we will
defend freedom at any cost. (Applause.)
The budget I submitted says basically this: if you wear
the uniform of the United States of America and you're fighting to
defend our freedom, you deserve the best equipment, the best training,
another pay raise. And Congress best heed that
call. We're in for a long and difficult struggle when it
comes to fighting terrorists.
It's long and difficult because, unlike other wars, these kind of
faceless folks, nameless folks hide and burrow into countries that may
be weak. They hide in the caves. These are the
kinds of people who send young advocates, young believers to their
suicide, and they, themselves, hide.
When they attacked our country, they really didn't understand
America. They thought we were soft. They thought we had a
culture that was so materialistic that nobody in this land would be
willing to sacrifice for something greater than
ourselves. And they made a huge mistake.
I made it absolutely clear to the world, a couple of
points. One, that if you harbor a terrorist, if you feed a
terrorist, if you hide a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the
terrorist who attacked America and you'll be held
accountable. And that's exactly what happened to the
Taliban. They wish they'd never heard of
America. But our country showed up not as conquerors, but as
liberators.
Our United States military liberated a nation from the most
barbaric -- one of the most barbaric regimes history has now shown, and
now young girls get to go to school and women are free. And
I can't tell you how proud I am of the efforts of the United States
military in Afghanistan. (Applause.)
I also made it clear to our coalition and our country that this is
a new kind of war, that we've got to think about our children's future,
that we can't rest until we have routed out terrorists wherever they
try to hide, wherever they think they can accumulate and gather to hurt
us again.
Listen, we're doing everything we can to protect the homeland of
the country. Our law enforcement is on alert, our FBI has
got thousands of agents now chasing down every possible lead, every
hint. Every opportunity to make the country safe, we're
seizing it. We've got a national strategy in place to have a
good first-time responders initiative. I know the governor
is working on that, along with local law enforcement officials, to make
sure that if we're attacked, there is a good response mechanism in
place. We're working on a bioterrorism
initiative. We're strengthening our
borders. We're going to have a better understanding of who's
coming in and who's going out of the United States of
America. And we've got better intelligence
sharing. We're doing everything we can.
But the best way to secure the homeland is to chase down those that
would harm us and bring them to justice, and that is precisely what the
United States of America is going to do. It doesn't matter
how long it takes, it doesn't matter where we have to go. We
will protect freedom and this administration will protect the innocent
lives of American citizens. (Applause.)
I'm confident the congressional appropriators will not let our
military down and will not let the American people down, because the
American people are united and patient and strong and prepared to
defend freedom. I can't tell you how proud I am of our
country, how proud I am of those who understand the task ahead.
I also understand that part of my job is to battle a
recession. And I spent a lot of time here in Iowa talking
about the need for tax relief. And we passed tax relief right about
the right time, because the best way to battle an economic slowdown is
to get people your own money back so you can spend it. And
as you spend it, it encourages new products and jobs.
There are some in Washington who want to argue that we shouldn't go
on with tax relief that we passed. They're reading the wrong
economic textbooks. They are mistaken. Tax relief
is good for American workers and tax relief is good for the American
economy. (Applause.)
I know we need to take care of workers whose lives were affected as
a result of the terrorist attacks on America. We need to
extend unemployment benefits and we need to help with health
care. And I've laid out an initiative to do
that. The House of Representatives passed a good bill to do
that.
But people want more than an unemployment check in America; they
want a paycheck. And what people in Washington ought to be
asking is how -- what do we do to create more jobs so people can find
work, what does it require? And one of the things that I
think needs to happen is we have a stimulus bill, an economic growth
bill, a jobs bill that will encourage more investment in plant and
equipment. If companies invest more in plant and equipment,
companies are more likely to hire more workers. We need a
stimulus bill out of Washington, D.C. (Applause.)
And we need a good farm bill to help with jobs. And I'm
looking forward to working with Congress to get a good farm bill, one
that recognizes a couple of things. One, farming is an
incredibly important part of our economy. It's a huge
industry in America. And the more vibrant the farm economy
is, the more vibrant our national economy will be.
Secondly, we've got to think about value-added processing when it
comes to agriculture. I believe in ethanol. I
believe ethanol is good for the quality of the air, I believe ethanol
is important for the agricultural sector of our economy. I
think it makes sense. And we've got to explore additional
ways. (Applause.) We've got to have a farm bill
that provides a safety net, but doesn't encourage over-production.
And at the same time, we must open up markets for Iowa corn growers
and soybean growers. When I was in China, I spent a lot of
time talking to the Chinese leadership saying, buy those Iowa
soybeans. You said you would do so. Open your
markets. Because the more markets are open around the world
for food products, the more likely it is American farmers, who happen
to be the best at growing food in the world are going to be able to
sell their products. We ought to be feeding the world
because we're the best at growing food. And so I want a good
farm bill, and I expect to get one here pretty quick. And I
look forward to signing it.
And also we need an energy bill. Listen, we import over
50 percent of our energy from oversees. And that doesn't
make sense. We have to do it. Because we're not conserving
enough, nor we are producing enough. For the good of the
national security of our country, we ought to encourage more
exploration in an environmentally friendly way on American
soil. We ought to be less dependent on foreign sources of
crude oil. (Applause.)
And I also want to talk about retirement security
today. And I came here not only because I wanted to herald
the importance of small business in our society, but because this
company has a good 401(k) plan. A good 401(k) plan has got
some features to it. One, that there is an encouragement for
people to save. And Bill was telling me that one of the
smart things they did was they put a certain amount of money in
everybody's 401(k) plans to begin the process and everybody said, what
is a 401(k) plan? It got everybody's attention when they saw
they had a little money, something set aside for them.
A good plan is one that where the company says it's to your
advantage to put as much money as you can away when you're younger and
understand the power of compounding interest rates. In other
words, watching that money grow on a tax-free basis makes a lot of
sense. And the workers here at The Printer, Inc. understand
that.
You see, we're going to have to encourage more savings in America
because people are going to live longer lives. I mean, you
and I, the baby boomers, if we behave ourselves, will live way beyond
the average life span of 20 to 30 years ago. And I don't
know about you, but I plan to be active after I've reached the
so-called retirement age. And, therefore, it is to our
advantage to start putting more money aside early so we've got more
money to spend and to live on later on.
And the 401(k) is a great way to encourage savings. And
Bill was telling me there's no guarantees, but on bonus years it goes
in the 401(k)s, which is a way to encourage workers to pay attention to
the plan. He also tells me that there's a web page designed for
instant access to your money. This isn't the government's
money, by the way. This is your money, this is the workers'
money and you ought to be trusted with your own money. And a
401(k) recognizes who owns the money.
And a good company is one that provides the instant access to
accounting of your money, so you can see how it's
growing. And then you have the option, obviously, within the
law, to make investment decisions that you think is important.
Now, one issue that I am concerned about is that a company like
right here cannot offer sound investment advice, third party advice to
the workers -- because they're afraid to get sued. Now, that
doesn't make any sense to me. That if on the one hand a
business such as this sets up a 401(k) plan and encourages investment,
that they can't bring a third party advisor to sit down with the
workers, to give people objective advice as to what's happening in the
marketplace or what makes sense, without fear of
lawsuits. We've got too many lawsuits in our society, to
begin with. And it doesn't make any sense to force workers
not to be able to have good advice because somebody is afraid of
getting sued.
And so it seems like to me it makes sense for Congress to help
reform pension laws by making it easier for people such as Bill to get
good advice for the workers -- without fear of some junk lawsuit or
some throw-away lawsuit.
And so I'm proud of what's happening here in this company, and I
know that we need to do more when it comes to encouraging
savings. And we did some good stuff in the tax relief -- the
tax cut, tax relief bill I talked about last year. Let me
tell you about some of the reforms we made to encourage others to save
more.
One, we relaxed the restrictions on how much workers can invest in
their individual retirement accounts and 401(k) plans, in other words,
made it easier for people to invest.
Two, it allows people over the age of 50 to catch up, to put more
money into their retirement fund. And why would that
happen? Well, somebody might have been laid off for a
while. Or, if you happen to be a woman and you stayed at
home for a while to raise your kids and came back into the workplace
late, you ought to be allowed to catch up. You ought to be
allowed to put more money in to make sure your 401(k) was sound and
whole.
We have -- as well, we've reduced the tax burden on small
businesses who want to start a 401(k) plan. As Bill will
tell you if you were to ask him, it's pretty expensive to start one of
these plans. You've got to hire a lawyer, you've got to hire
an accountant. There are some start-up costs. And a lot of
small businesses take a look at the start-up costs and they say, what
the heck do I want to spend money on this for, and therefore
don't. And the workers lose out on a fantastic opportunity.
And so it makes sense for the government to make it easier for the
small businesses to be able to deduct the cost of such start-ups on the
tax credit basis, so that we encourage more 401(k) plans in America,
and therefore encourage more savings. The more savings there
are, as Americans grow older, the more likely it is we'll have a
vibrant society where people are more productive, more happy and more
healthy.
I also am deeply concerned about pension plan abuse. I'm
worried about what's taking place, what we've seen in the newspapers
here in America. First of all, there's such a thing as
corporate responsibility. We've seen that here in this company, people
responsible for the employees. Corporate America has a responsibility
to disclose all the assets and liabilities of their companies.
As well, we need to make sure that workers don't lose everything if
their company were to fail. In other words, there needs to
be some safeguards in some of these 401(k) plans, particularly as it
relates to publicly traded companies. And let me cite some
of the reforms I think that Congress ought to pass.
First, workers would be free to sell any stock their company
contributes to their retirement plan after participating for three
years. In other words, if you've been a three-year employee and your
company has used stock as part of your retirement plan -- which, by the
way, is a good thing. I hope Congress understands it's a
good thing to encourage companies to contribute their own stock to
their employees as part of an incentive plan. On the other
hand, an employee ought to be able to sell that stock after she or he
has worked there for a three-year period of time.
Secondly, they have what they call a blackout period sometimes,
when they change a fund manager, for example. And here's
what I believe ought to happen. If there's a blackout period
in which employees can't conduct transactions, first an executive
shouldn't be able to sell if the employee can't sell. What's
good for the executive ought to be good for the employees in
America. If the boss sells, so should everybody
else. And if everybody else can't sell, the boss doesn't get
to sell. (Applause.)
There ought to be a guarantee that employees get to see at least
quarterly reports on what's taking place in the 401(k)
plans. Here, you get a minute-by-minute
report. You know, the information flows so freely these
days, it seems like it makes sense to give everybody instant access to
what's going on in their accounts, and that's what ought to be
happening. There ought to be, you know, at least quarterly
reporting, as well as I mentioned, to make sure that small businesses
have got an incentive to set up a plan, as well as liability protection
against those employers who are anxious that there be as much
information and as much knowledge passed between advisor and employee.
The whole point is this, we ought to do everything we can in
Washington, D.C., to encourage people to own a piece of the
future. The more somebody owns something, the more somebody
builds up an asset base, the better off America will be. And
whether it be in Social Security or 401(k)s, we've got to understand
the power of compounding interest, the importance of savings, and the
beauty of ownership in the American society. (Applause.)
And what a great society this is. America -- you know,
when they hit us, they didn't realize that out of this terrible evil
was going to come some good. Nobody, nobody in America
wishes what happened on 9/11 would ever occur again, of
course. And we're still sad when we think of the events --
at least I am.
But there's going to be some incredible good that comes out of
this. The world will be more peaceful if we're strong and patient and
resolved, and we will be. But as a result, I think our
communities are going to be better. I think the American
people have taken a good, hard look at what's important in
life. They understand that loving your child, if you happen
to be a mother or dad, is the most important job you'll ever
have. America knows that.
I like to tell people that, if you're interested in fighting evil
and want to join in the war against terror, love your neighbor like
you'd like to be loved yourself. It's what I call the
gathering momentum of millions of acts of kindness which define
America, and which enable America to stand tall in the face of
evil. It's all these acts of goodness that take place in our
society. Right here in Des Moines, Iowa, somebody walks
across the street on a daily basis and says to a shut-in, I love you,
what can I do to help you? It's that accumulation of all
those acts which define our country.
What a great nation we are. We're a strong nation, we're
a proud nation, and we're showing the world we're a deeply
compassionate nation as well.
Out of evil will come good. They thought they hit a weak
nation, but instead they found a strong, strong group of people, and
I'm proud to be your President. God bless.