For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 6, 2001
Remarks by the President at Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Chicago, Illinois
2:27 P.M. CST
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you
all. Thank you very much. Scott, thank you very
much. I thought I had seen just about everything in life,
until I came here. (Laughter.) It is an honor to
be in entrepreneurial heaven. What an exciting
place. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the
hospitality, and I appreciate you giving me a chance to come and talk a
little tax policy with you. (Applause.)
I've had quite a day here in
Chicago. I got a Chicago political lesson for
lunch. (Laughter.) I dined with the
Mayor. It's the second political lesson I've had in recent
weeks. (Laughter.) The first lesson I
got was in early November -- (laughter) -- if you know what I mean.
(Laughter.) I told the people of Illinois every time I came
here, I said, I wish the Mayor were on my side. Because he's
good.
But more importantly, he's a really good
Mayor. He's a good Mayor of a big
city. (Applause.) We've had our time for
politics; now it's time to
do what's right for our country and for the cities. The
Mayor and I share something in common -- we're both problem
solvers. We try to have a clear-eyed view and a common
sense approach to solving problems. And so we're going to
have a good relationship. And I'm so honored the Mayor was
gracious in dining with me.
I'm also honored to be here with the Speaker
of the House -- just happens to be from the state of
Illinois. (Applause.) I'd like to describe the
Speaker as a trustworthy man. He's the kind of fellow who
says, when he gives you his word he means it. Sometimes that
doesn't happen all the time in the political
process. Sometimes they'll look you in the eye and not mean
it. (Laughter.) The Speaker means it when he
tells you something.
I look forward to working with you, Mr.
Speaker. I'm honored to be traveling with your United States
Senator Fitzgerald. We flew down on Air Force One today --
he's a good young leader. (Applause.) Congressman
Lipinsky is with us. We're going to fly back from here to
Washington. He and I will have a little quality time
together. (Laughter.) I'm looking forward to it
because he's a quality person. I appreciate the Lt. Governor
coming as well. And thank you very much for your
hospitality. (Applause.)
There's a lot of people here reminding me that
they're from Texas, and
I appreciate my fellow Texans who are here. A lot of
Chicago folks thanking me for the Sammy Sosa
trade. (Laughter.) I'm reminded about the truth
when I come to a place like this -- the entrepreneurial spirit is what
America is all about. That's what this country is
about. (Applause.)
The job of government is not to try to create
wealth. That's not the role of our
government. The role of government is to create an
environment
in which the entrepreneur can realize his or her dreams, which the
small business person can start a company and make it
grow. So my job is not only to deal with problems; my job is
to understand the philosophy that has
made the country great -- and never forget it, never forget it -- and
that is that we're going to have dreamers in
America. (Applause.)
We're facing a problem. And the
problem is our economy's slowing down. You all know that as
well as anybody does. This kind of great boom is beginning
to sputter a little bit. And the question you need to be
asking the President is, what do you intend to do about it, Mr.
President. And here it is.
One, have sound budgeting in the federal
government. It's to say to the spenders in Washington, D.C.,
here are the priorities for our country. A priority is
educating children. And let me -- as an aside, as I continue
to praise the Mayor, he has done a good job of setting high standards,
strong accountability in the schools of Chicago. So a
priority of mine is public education. I believe every child
-- every child -- ought
to be educated, and not one child left behind.
A priority is to make sure we keep the peace
by having a strong military. We need to pay the men and
women who wear the uniform more money, to keep morale
high. (Applause.) A priority is Social Security,
to
make sure the moms and dads of the World War II generation get the
promises made. But it's also to be bold enough to reform the
system, to let younger workers take some of your own payroll taxes and
manage it for your own account. That's a priority of
mine. (Applause.)
Medicare and health care is a
priority. And we double the Medicare budget over 10 years;
we pay down $2 trillion of debt. But guess what? There's
still money left over. If you don't spend like they spent
the last
couple of years, if you're wise and set priorities, there's still
money. And the fundamental question is, do we grow the government, or
do we trust people with their own money? That's the
fundamental question facing the United States
Congress. (Applause.)
I had the honor of speaking to the
Congress. I reminded them that when the government has a
surplus, somebody is getting overcharged. And I'm here
asking for a refund, I said. I want to reduce those taxes.
(Applause.)
I think it is particularly appropriate to not
only cut taxes to make sure there's fiscal discipline in Washington,
but it's necessary to make sure this economy doesn't continue to
sputter. When you give people some of their own money back,
or don't take it in the first place, they will have money in their
pockets to spend.
There's some debt, all right, at the national
level, and there's plenty of debt on the consumers of
America. I bet you've got friends, and maybe yourself,
understand what it means to have credit card debt. And when
you couple that with high energy bills, there are some people beginning
to feel pinched.
It makes sense to take some of your money and
pass it back to the people who pay the bills. And that's
exactly what my tax relief plan does. It drops all
rates. (Applause.) It dropped all rates on all
payers. Sometimes in Washington, you hear the talk, we'll have
targeted tax cuts. That means the elected officials get to decide
who's targeted in and who's targeted out. That's not fair,
and that's not the right way to do it. If you're going to
have tax relief, everybody who pays taxes ought to get tax relief.
So we drop all the rates, and simplify the
code. We drop the bottom rate from 15 percent to
10 percent, and increase the child credit from $500 to $1,000 to make
the code more fair. The tax code's unfair for people at the
bottom end of the economic ladder. The harder you struggle,
the more -- higher marginal rate you pay in America. And
that's not right. So we make the code more fair.
But we also drop that top rate, from 39.6 to
33 percent. And we do so
for this reason: Much of the capital that accumulates in
the private sector ends up being managed by small business
owners. Small business is the backbone of the
country. Many of you all are small business owners.
Ninety-five percent of small business owners pay the highest marginal
rate in our tax code. They're unincorporated
businesses. They're what we call sole proprietors.
When we cut that top rate from 39.6 percent to
33 percent, we're saying a loud and clear message that the
entrepreneurial spirit will be reinvigorated as we head into the 21st
century. It's a way to pass capital
formation in the small business sector in America. And it's
the right thing to do.
It's the right thing to set priorities, it's
the right thing to pay down $2 trillion of debt over 10 years, and it
is the right thing not to grow the federal government bigger than it
needs to be, and trust people with your own money. I like to
tell people in Washington, the surplus isn't the government's
money. The surplus is the people's money, and we need to
share it with the people. (Applause.)
I like to move around the
country. I like to get out of Washington, because you see a
lot of interesting things and you hear a lot of wisdom from people who
are just average, everyday people. And I want to tell you
what a grandmother told the other day, in Council Bluffs,
Iowa. She said, I have a lot of children and grandchildren
go through my house. She said, and I know if there are
cookies left on the table, they will be eaten. She
said that in the context of your taxpayers -- of tax
dollars. That's what she was talking about. And
her point is this: If we leave the money up in Washington,
and don't send it back to the people, it's, sure enough, going to be
spent.
Now is the time, now is the time for
meaningful, real tax relief. And
as we're changing the tax code, by the way, we need to eliminate the
death tax, too. We need to allow it so that you don't get
taxed twice for your assets. (Applause.) And we
need to do something about the marriage
penalty. (Applause.) It doesn't make sense to tax
marriage.
And so I'm here to ask for your
help. See, I believe in the power of the
people. I truly do. I do. I believe
that when you email a congressman or a senator, it makes a
difference. It makes a difference. And so that's why I'm
traveling the country. And that's why I came here. I'd like
for you to contact your congressman, and contact your senator, and
tell them to come on the side of the people, when it comes to what to
do with your money. We have a fundamental choice, and the
right choice is to stand on the side of the people.
And let me conclude by telling you, the tax
policy's important and there will be a lot of tax
policy. And, of course, good health policy's important, and
keeping the peace is important. But there's nothing more
important than remembering that the most important job you'll ever
have, if
you happen to be a mom or a dad, is to love your children with all
your heart and all your soul. (Applause.)
I was reminded of that when I walked through
and saw the pictures that
many of the entrepreneurs here in the Merc had of their children --
it's such a refreshing sight to know that priorities are kept all
across America.
This is a fabulous nation we live
in. It's a nation based upon great values. It's a
nation based upon the principle that if you work hard, anybody,
regardless of where you're from, can get ahead. But it's
going to
be made better when all of us understand that there are certain
responsibilities in life. I have a responsibility as your
President. And when I put my hand on the Bible, I swore to
uphold that responsibility, and
I will. And you have the responsibility to love a neighbor
like you'd like to be loved yourself. But it all starts
with loving your children.
Thank you for letting me come
by. God bless. (Applause.)
END 2:40 P.M. CST
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