For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 9, 2001
Remarks by the President in Lafayette, Louisiana Send Off
Lafayette Regional Airport Lafayette, Louisiana
4:30 P.M. CST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very
much. I'm sure glad I came here to Louisiana; thank you for
coming. (Applause.) I want to thank you all for
coming. I want to thank the thousands of people who lined
the road on the way in here. I wish the hangar were ten
times bigger, but thank you all so much for being here.
First, I want to thank my friend, and your
Governor, Mike Foster. I appreciate his
friendship. One thing you can say about him is, you know
where he stands. (Applause.) And I know he stands
as my friend, and I appreciate that so very much.
I appreciate John Cooksey, the Congressman who
is here. (Applause.) I appreciate Susie Terrell, who is
here. (Applause.) I want to thank Senator Michot
for being here. (Applause.) Ernie Alexander, my
friend, is here, I want to thank
him. (Applause.) My friend, Ernest Johnson, who
heads the Louisiana NAACP is with us today; and I want to thank you,
Ernest, for coming. (Applause.)
There is one other fellow, a man who stuck his
neck out in the course of the campaign. You see, he doesn't
happen to have the Republican label by his name -- his name is Dan
Morrish, he's a Democrat. (Applause.) He put
party aside and did what he thought was right for the
country. And, Dan, I'm honored to have your support, I thank
you for your friendship. (Applause.)
And it's great to be here. I tell
you, it is important for me to make sure I get outside the nation's
capital on a regular basis. I love people in
Louisiana. (Applause.) I like the idea of coming
to bring my message to you. I hope by now the people of the
country are beginning to realize that we all have adopted a
common-sense message. It's a message of the
people. It's a message that understands that the most
important element of politics are the people of this country -- the
hardworking Americans who make the country
go. (Applause.)
I get proposed things in Washington -- I don't
get to vote on them. I'm not a member of the legislative
branch. But the biggest influence in our government is the
people, and I know that. So I'm here today in Lafayette,
Louisiana to explain a common-sense budget. And if you like
what you hear, you might decide to maybe e-mail or call some of those
who represent you and let them hear from you. (Applause.)
If you like the common-sense approach to how
we spend your money, it may make sense to pick up the phone or drop a
note to people who may not see it our way. That's what
politics is all about, as far as I'm concerned -- it's the people's
will. And I'm here to talk about the people's
business. And the people's business is to bring some fiscal
sanity to the budgeting process in Washington,
D.C. (Applause.)
It starts with understanding this important
principle: that the surplus is not the government's
money. (Applause.) The surplus is the people's
money. (Applause.) And so what makes
sense? Well, what makes sense is to set
priorities. That's what makes sense. Here's some
of my priorities: education is a
priority. (Applause.) Making sure children learn
is a priority.
So we increase spending at the Education
Department. It's a priority of the country, but in case you
might think that I forgot where I came from, I'll understand that the
people who can run the schools best in Louisiana are not people in
Washington, D.C., but the folks of Louisiana. (Applause.)
So we're spending a little more at the federal
level, but we're going to work with Congress to pass power out of
Washington, to empower the local folks, to empower parents and teachers
to make the right decision for the children of the great state of
Louisiana. (Applause.)
The people's health is a
priority. Today, I talked about expanding a number of
community health centers around America to make sure that the poor are
able to get primary care. I also want to make it crystal
clear in the budget I submitted to the Congress that we have doubled
Medicare spending over a 10-year period of time, that we're going to
make the commitment that we have made to the elderly.
It not only requires more spending, which we
will do, it also requires an attitude of reform that says we'll trust
seniors to make choices for themselves, seniors to match their needs
with a variety of programs, all of which include prescription
drugs. (Applause.)
And I want to praise one of your senators from
Louisiana. John Breaux and I are going to work on this
issue. We will spend a lot of time making sure that Medicare
is properly reformed, so that the promise we have made to our seniors
will be a promise that will be kept. (Applause.)
There's a lot of talk about Social Security,
as there should be. The message to the Congress is loud and
clear: we're not going to spend payroll taxes on anything
other than Social Security. We're not going to take the
money aimed for Social Security and spend it on anything else.
(Applause.)
There's money in my budget to make sure that
we're able to keep the peace by making sure we pay our military folks a
good wage. (Applause.) There's money in the budget for
priorities. As a matter of fact, we increased what's called
the discretionary spending by 4 percent. That's greater than
the rate of inflation.
But it's not enough for some in
Washington. Because, you see, they're used to spending a lot
of money up there. The last session, they spent your money
to the tune of 8 percent. It's like they had a bidding
contest to see who could get out of town. Those days are
over with. (Applause.)
We will set priorities and fund
them. But we'll be wise about how we spend your
money. We don't want the federal government exploding in
growth. We want the federal government to be lean and
efficient and focused with your money. And that's exactly
what's going to happen with new leadership in
Washington. (Applause.)
There's a lot of discussion about paying down
debt. I want to remind you, there are two types of debt --
there are a lot of types of debt, but there are two types of debt that
I worry about. One is debt at the national
level. And under the plan I submitted to the Congress, we
pay down $2 trillion in national debt over 10 years -- $2
trillion. It's the biggest amount of debt repayment ever.
There's also consumer debt, the credit card
debt that burdens many of the working families in
America. Yes, we talk about national debt, and we're paying
a lot down. But you're fixing to hear me tell you part of
the remedy for people who have got a lot of credit card debt is to make
sure people get some of their own money back. (Applause.)
We have met priorities. We grew the
budget at a reasonable rate; not this fantastic rates that exploded
during the last session. We pay down debt, we protected
Social Security. We have also set aside $1 trillion over 10
years for contingencies.
Who knows what will happen. And so,
we put $1 trillion aside. That makes
sense. That's common sense to do that, it seems like, to
me. We may need money for our farmers. And I'm
going to tell you something about agriculture in America. It
is an incredibly important part of our economy. Who knows what we'll
need money for.
So we set aside money to do so but, guess
what? There's still money left over. The
fundamental question is: what do we do with that money? The
fundamental question that I want Congress to hear from you about is
what to do with the money. Do we increase the size and scope
of the federal government?
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: Or do we trust you
with your own money?
AUDIENCE: Yes! (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: There's a lot of
discussion about how to get tax relief. I worry about what's
called targeted tax cuts. I worry about people sitting
around Washington saying, you're targeted in; but, oh, by the way,
you're targeted out. It seems like to me the fairest way to
handle the people's money is to say that everybody who pays taxes ought
to get relief. (Applause.) The federal government ought not
to try to play favorites. It's likely people in Louisiana
may not be considered a favorite. You will be, as far as
this President is concerned. (Applause.)
So the plan that was passed out of the House
-- and, John, thank you for your support -- is fair. It
reduces all rates on everybody that pays taxes, and it simplifies the
code. It drops the bottom rate from 15 percent to 10
percent. It increases the child credit from $500 to $1,000
per child. And let me explain to you why. Let me
explain to you why this tax code we have is unfair.
One of the things that the people must stand
for is fairness in life. If you're a single mother in the state of
Louisiana trying to raise two children, and you're making
twenty-something thousand dollars a year, under the code that's written
today, for every dollar you earn above $22,000, you pay a higher
marginal rate on that dollar than someone who is successful. You pay
nearly 50 percent on that dollar. And that's not right, and
that's not what America is all about.
No, this country stands for rewarding hard
work, not penalizing it. And we must understand -- (applause) -- and
when we find people working the hardest job in America, which is the
single moms in this country, and they're struggling to get ahead, we
ought to have a tax code that welcomes hard work and says, you can
access the middle class, and you can realize your dreams.
This plan that passed the House yesterday
makes this code imminently more fair. It also reduces the
top rate. And oh, I know there's a lot of discussion about
that, dropping the top rate, but let me tell you why. First, there
ought to be some principle involved in the tax code. And
this principle is, the federal government ought to take no more than a
third of anybody's check. (Applause.)
But there's another principle. And
that is, our nation must understand that the small businessman and the
small businesswoman is the backbone of job creation. Our
nation must never forget. (Applause.) We must
never forget that good public policy will encourage entrepreneurial
spirit in America, encourage the growth of the small business owner.
And we must also realize that many small
businesses are unincorporated. They're sole
proprietorships. They're Sub-chapter S's. They pay the high
marginal rate. And by cutting the rates from 39.6 percent to
33 percent, we send a clear signal that we encourage entrepreneurship
and small business growth, that we understand. (Applause.)
That we send a loud message to Washington that
the role of government is not to create wealth, but the role of
government is to create an environment in which American risk-takers
and dreamers and people willing to work for a dream have got a better
opportunity to realize those dreams. (Applause.)
The plan that we've submitted to the United
States Congress recognizes that the death tax is unfair to Louisiana
farmers and small business owners, and we need to get rid of the death
tax. (Applause.) The plan that I submitted to the
United States Congress recognizes that when you penalize marriage, we
send a bad signal about families and the role of families in our
society. (Applause.)
We've submitted a good plan, and it's working
its way through the system. It came -- a major portion came
out of the House, and I want to thank the 10 Democrats that stood with
a hundred percent of the Republicans that spoke on your
behalf. (Applause.)
And now it's headed to the Senate, and it's
time for your voices to be heard. Now, I want to give you
some ammunition if you agree with what I'm saying. Not only
have we got a common-sense budget -- in other words, we can afford what
I'm telling you, we can afford it -- but that makes economic sense to
give people their own money back. You see, our economy is
beginning to sputter a little bit. There are some places
around the country where people are beginning to get laid off; economic
growth is slowing down.
It is important to act quickly to get people
their own money back, so you can spend it and serve as a second wind
for our economy. It makes
sense. (Applause.) It makes sense. We
need it now. And so I appreciate the fact that the plan that
came out of the House will make some of the tax cut retroactive, which
means when it passes, it's as if it took effect of January of this
year. (Applause.)
But there's another reason why this tax plan
is important -- because it sends a signal about the priorities of our
government. And the priorities of our government is to trust
people with their own money. We must send a clear message
that once we meet our priorities, the people who can best handle the
people's money is the people, themselves. (Applause.)
Today, I've asked the Anderson family to join
us here from Lafayette. We've got Richard and Jenifer and first, I
want to say to their teachers, and you can't thank teachers enough for
being a teacher. (Applause.) And with Richard and
Jenifer are Jane, Noah, and Sam, their three children, who they love
more than life.
And the reason I've asked them to join us is
to help make my point -- that when we're talking about taxes and
budgets, it's more than numbers that we're talking
about. We're talking about people's lives. We're
talking about the fact that this is a plan that understands that there
are a lot of folks working hard to get ahead.
Remember, we haven't had an energy policy for
a while. And anybody that understands that is the people of
this part of the world. (Applause.) There's a lot of people
paying high energy bills in America now. It's like a new tax
on American families. By the way, we're going to have an
energy policy, and it starts with finding more energy here in America.
(Applause.)
But I'm worried about hardworking folks like
the Andersons. I'm worried about the fact that people all
across America are paying high energy bills. I'm worried
about the fact that a lot of folks have got credit card
debt. I'm worried about the folks -- folks who are working
longer hours. And it seems like to me that if you've got a
little extra money in Washington, instead of spending it on programs,
why don't we let people spend their own money. (Applause.)
And so, here are the facts -- here are the
facts. These good folks now pay $4,300 in federal income
taxes on an annual basis. Under our plan, they will save
$2,600. (Applause.) Oh, that may not sound like a
lot to some -- it's a lot to me, and it's a lot to the Andersons.
You see, the principle is, do we want that
$2,600 that's their money to begin with to go to excess federal
spending? Or do we think it's better spent by
them? Would we rather have the government spend it, or would
we rather have it for them to save for their children, to meet their
priorities? (Applause.)
I want to tell you what a grandmother said the
other day in Council Bluffs, Iowa -- you see, I've been moving around
the country, making our case. And she said -- she's had a
lot of children and grandchildren go through her house. And
when you bake cookies and you leave them on the table, sure enough,
they'll be eaten. (Laughter.) That's kind of how
I view that $2,600. If you leave it on the table, sure
enough, it will be spent. (Applause.)
The right thing to do, the fair thing to do,
the thing to do that's based upon common sense, is to understand whose
money it is to begin with, and to trust the good people of America to
spend their own money to meet their own
priorities. (Applause.)
I have great trust in the American
people. I can't tell you what an honor it is to be your
President, and to travel our land, and to see people come out and
wave. It reinvigorates my spirit, because it helps me
understand yet again the spirit of America. The true
greatness of this country does not lie in the halls of our governments;
the true greatness of our country lies in the hearts and souls of the
American people. (Applause.)
My job is to represent the folks in Washington
and to fight for sound budget and tax relief. But my job
also is to call upon the spirit of this country, is to say to the moms
and dads of America, your most important job is to love your children
with all your heart and all your soul. (Applause.) It's to
thank the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Boys and Girls Club leaders
who are teaching our children common-sense values, the difference
between right and wrong. (Applause.) It's to
thank those folks who, when they see a neighbor in need, put their arm
around them and say, what can I do to help you, brother or
sister? What can I do to help you on your walk?
No, the greatness of America is our
people. It's important to trust the people. It's
important to trust the people with their own money. But it's
also important for our President to understand that by rallying the
spirit of America, we can trust the people to make America a
compassionate, decent place for all of us who are fortunate enough to
live in this land.
I'm proud to be your
President. Thank you for coming. God bless.
(Applause.)
END
4:55 P.M. CST
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