For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 27, 2002
President Promotes Funding for Emergency First Responders
Remarks by the President to South Carolina First Responders
Wyche Pavilion
Greenville, South Carolina
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. It is
great to be back in South Carolina. I didn't realize I was
going to be giving an address on my old jogging
path. (Laughter.)
Mr. Mayor, I have fond memories of your beautiful
city. And thank you very much for your leadership and your
hospitality and thank you all for coming.
One of the things that I'm not surprised about is how the good
folks of South Carolina responded on September the 11th in the
aftermath. The good people here hurt for the people of New
York, because they realized an attack on one part of America was an
attack on all of America.
And I want to thank you all for donating a brand new fire truck to
New York City. I want to thank you for sending men and women
to New York City in response to the emergency. I know that
fire fighters and casualty experts, emergency management director
headed up north to provide help. And I'm here to thank you for
that. And I'm here also to thank you for what you do every
single day.
You know, the evil ones hit us, but out of that evil has come some
good. I'm going to talk to you about some of that
good. And one of the good things that's come is a sincere
appreciation and respect for the men and women who wear the uniform,
the police and fire and emergency medical units all across the
country. And I'm here to thank you as well for your
dedication and your service to the people of your communities here in
South Carolina.
I appreciate so very much Tom Ridge's service. You know,
he was a governor there in Pennsylvania, just kind of cruising
along. Life was pretty good. And then the
President called him and said, I've got an assignment for you, to come
and set a national strategy for our homeland security. The
enemies hit us and we'd better be ready in case the enemy hits us
again, and we need a strategy.
And I'm telling you, he's come to Washington, D.C., with a vision
and a capacity and we're developing and have got a strategy, some of
which I will share with you today. And, Tom, I want to thank
you for your service. (Applause.)
And I want to thank the other fellow on the stage here, Jim
DeMint. He is a strong
congressman. (Applause.) He cares deeply about
the people of this state. He is -- he is an ally of mine in
the House because he is a man of integrity. He cares deeply
about national issues and issues that affect the people here in his
district. He understands the need for us to be tough and
diligent and forceful when it comes to fighting terrorists. He
understands the need for us to be strong at home, as well.
And that's why he has led a discussion on a strategy to make sure
that the textile industry here in South Carolina gets not only the
attention of the administration, but a strategy to help people who work
in the textile industry. This man is a leader, and he needs
to go back to Washington, D.C. (Applause.)
And we've got some other people from the fine South Carolina
delegation, Lindsey Graham is here, and a little later on, I'm going to
try to give Lindsey a little
boost. (Laughter.) And I appreciate Hank Brown
for being here as well, thank you for coming. And I want to
thank members of the State House who have come.
You've got a fine lieutenant governor and attorney
general. Thank you both for coming. And, of
course, your speaker, a home-grown boy, David Wilkins. I'm
honored that you all have been here today. (Applause.)
I drove in and went by the BMW plant for about the hundredth time,
and it was good that I was traveling by it with Carroll Campbell, who
made sure that the BMW plant came here the first time
around. Governor, it's good to see you. Thank you
for coming. (Applause.)
I want to thank the High Sheriff of Greenville County, Sam Simmons
-- I don't know if you call him the High Sheriff around here or
not. But, play like you do, if you
don't. (Laughter.) But I want to thank the
Sheriff, I want to thank Willie Johnson, the Chief. I want
to thank Tom McDowell, Chief of the Fire Department; John Zaragoza, as
well. And, again, I want to thank you all for coming.
The interesting thing about September the 11th is that even though
the attacks were on two major cities, it reminded us -- and in the
aftermath reminded us that we're all vulnerable as well. I
mean, after all, you might remember that some of the initial
discussions after September the 11th about potential threat was about
crop dusters. Now, they don't have a lot of crop dusters,
you know, in Manhattan. They've got a lot of crop dusters in
South Carolina or Texas.
In other words, some of the intelligence we were getting was that
not only were the enemy willing to use airplanes, obviously, as
weapons, but what we were concerned about was that they would use other
methods -- like using a crop duster to spray a weapons of mass
destruction, if possible. It's an indication that we had to be on
alert to defend all sites and all locations in our country.
We knew they were evil. And we're beginning to learn how
really evil their intentions were after September the
11th. And that's why Tom and I and many of you all and
others around the country have got plans in place to defend power
generating plants, dams and reservoirs, livestock and crops, all kinds
of areas.
I mean, the truth of the matter is, homeland security in the
heartland is just as important as homeland security in the big
cities. And that's what we're here to talk about today; to
make sure that America is safe. See, that's my most important
job. My most important job is to work with federal, state
and local officials to prevent the enemy from hitting us again and
taking innocent life.
I think about it every day. And even though they're
still under threat and we are under threat, we're getting better
prepared every day. I sent a budget up to Congress that
reflects my priority. The first responders of America, all
across America, must have the resources necessary to respond to
emergencies and save lives. (Applause.)
In the budget we sent up, there is a thousand percent increase for
first responders; $3.5 billion, to make your jobs
easier. I've requested $327 million right away, right off
the bat, to provide critical training and equipment to first
responders; $327 million will come this year, hopefully, $3.5 billion
is for next budget cycle.
In places like Pickens, South Carolina and Union and Greer -- and,
by the way, I've been to all three, and enjoyed every minute of it.
One of the bedrock principles of small-town life is you help a neighbor
in need. A volunteer firefighter in Fort Mills, South
Carolina put it this way: we may not be a big department
like New York City, but we have the same goal, to help our neighbors in
time of trouble.
That's how you all feel, too. That's how the Crawford,
Texas volunteer fire department feels, as well. I'm a proud
booster.
And one of the things we've got to do is to understand that we've
got to strengthen security in small town America, as well, by helping
smaller communities and smaller counties develop what we call mutual
aid agreements. And in the budget that I've submitted to
Congress, there's $140 million to do just that.
If one town has got them a good hospital facility, another may be
able to lend fire trucks, a third may be a home to hazardous material
experts -- but we've got to develop these mutual pacts so that we can
coordinate efforts, pool resources, all aimed at helping a neighbor in
need, if we need to.
So one of the things we're doing is focusing on the big cities,
medium-sized cities like Greenville. But we understand we've
got to have a strategy for rural South Carolina and rural America, as
well. And I'm here to assure the good folks of South
Carolina that the strategies that we're putting out, the strategies
that we're going to outline and work with the states and local
authorities on will also include rural South Carolina, to make sure
that assets are pooled, personnel is coordinated. All aimed
at buttoning-up the homeland of the United States and preparing our
country.
But I want you to know that the best homeland security, the best
way to secure the homeland and protect innocent life is to find the
enemy wherever they hide and bring them to justice. And
that's exactly what we're going to do. (Applause.)
We will hunt them down one-by-one. And after September
the 11th, we started. And I said as plainly as I could
speak, mustering up as much Midland, Texas as I could find -- I said
either you are with us or you're against
us. (Applause.) And I made it clear that if
anybody harbored a terrorist or they fed a terrorist or they hid a
terrorist, they're just as guilty as the murderers who took innocent
life on September the 11th.
And thanks to a mighty United States military, the Taliban found
out exactly what I meant. (Applause.)
I'm proud of our military. And for those of you who have
got a relative in the military, I want you to thank them on behalf of a
grateful nation. But we've got to do more than thank
them. We've got to make sure that they've got the best
training, the best equipment, the best pay possible. And
that's why the budget I submitted to the United States Congress not
only includes a significant increase for first responders and homeland
security issues, but it is the largest increase in military spending in
two decades.
Because I understand that the price of freedom is high; but as far
as I'm concerned, it is never too high when it comes to the defense of
freedom. (Applause.)
And that's what we're defending. We don't seek
revenge. We seek justice. But it's more than just
justice. This nation will defend freedom. We
defend the freedom to worship; we defend the freedom to speak; we
defend the freedom for all Americans -- regardless of their background
-- to enjoy a country that says if you work hard, you can realize your
dreams. That's what we defend.
And this enemy of ours hates what we stand for. They
can't stand us. They're ruthless murderers. And they must
not have understood America when they attacked us. They
thought we were weak. They thought we were so self-absorbed
in our materialism that all we would probably do is just sue
them. (Laughter.) Man, were they wrong.
We've thrown the Taliban out. And this past weekend, for
the first time, many young women went to school. We went
into Afghanistan not as conquerors, but as liberators; as people who
are willing to sacrifice to defend our freedoms.
The first phase of the war is over, holding people accountable for
harboring a terrorist. That message is now loud and
clear. I think other governments have heard that
message. And the next message is this: we're
going to keep you on the run. If you're a killer, we're
going to treat you for what you are, an international criminal with no
place to hide, no place to sleep.
Oh, I know some of them think there's a cave deep
enough. We're patient, we're determined, we're
united. (Applause.) As
proud and patriotic Americans, I can assure you that this distance
between September the 11th is not going to cause me to weaken in my
determination to defend our country and to fight for freedom.
I also want to explain right quickly what I meant when I was
talking about the axis of evil. Let me put it to you this
way: we cannot allow nations that have got a history of
totalitarianism, dictatorship -- a nation, for example, like Iraq that
poisoned her own people -- to develop a weapon of mass destruction and
mate-up with terrorist organizations who hate freedom-loving
countries. We can't afford to do that for the sake of our
children and our children's children.
History has called this nation into action, and we're not going to
let the world's worst leaders develop and maintain and deploy and aim
at us or our friends the world's worst weapons.
My fellow Americans, we've got a lot at stake. We've got
a lot at stake at home and a lot at stake around the
world. We've been called, and I'm here to assure you this
great country is prepared and willing and will answer the call to
freedom. (Applause.)
And I believe there's another calling at home, as
well. I believe that we have an opportunity to fight evil at
home in a different kind of way than people would have
imagined. I'm asked all the time by people, what can I do in
a war against terror? You all are answering that call.
But there's something else I'd like for you and others in South
Carolina and around America to do. You see, in order to
fight evil, we can stand strongly in the face of evil with acts of
kindness and compassion. We can better love our neighbor like we'd
like to be loved ourself.
You see, the great strength of America is not necessarily our
military might and it's certainly not our government, even though the
system is great and the military is strong. The great
strength of America are the hearts and soul -- the great strength is
the heart and soul of our country, that's our strength. The
strength of the country comes when somebody walks across the street to
a neighbor in need and says, what can I do to help you? When
somebody walks in to a shut-in and says, I care about
you. Or somebody mentors a child, teaching that child how to
read. Or a church or a synagogue or a mosque comes up with a
program based upon faith of the Almighty to help a person whip alcohol
or drugs. That's the great strength of America.
And I believe out of this evil will come incredible
goodness. I know this country can stand squarely in the face
of evil by loving a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved
yourself.
And today we've got a high school student, Gus
Samuel. Please stand up, Gus. Gus is here,
because he is a living example of what I'm talking
about. This guy goes to high school, and yet he is active in
the Salvation Army and he finds time to work with youngsters in the
Girls and Boys Club.
Our society can be changed one heart, one soul, one conscience at a
time. And it's the gathering momentum of millions of acts of
kindness, because of guys like Gus, that we will show the world the
true heart of America. And we will stand squarely in the
face of the evil ones who did not understand who they were attacking.
Out of the evil will come a more lasting peace if we're tough and
firm. And out of the evil will come a new renewal of heart
in the greatest land on the face of the earth.
May God bless you all, and may God bless America. Thank
you all. (Applause.)