For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 14, 2002
President Discusses Economic Growth at John Deere Facility
Remarks by the President to Employees of John Deere Harvester Works
John Deere Harvester Works
East Moline, Illinois
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Thank
you, all. I thought for a while, when they told me that I
was going to receive a gift here that old Chuck was going to bring a
pretzel. (Laughter.) Those kind that are easy to
chew. (Laughter.) If my mother is listening --
Mother, I should have listened to you, always chew your pretzels before
you swallow. (Laughter and applause.)
When I work the rope lines people bring their children -- I always
turn to the child, especially the teenagers and say, listen to your
mother, it's the best advice I can give you. I, obviously,
needed to do the same thing last night.
But I'm feeling great and so honored to be here. Thank
you very much for letting me come to this fantastic
plant. (Applause.) I'm impressed by the size of
these monsters. (Laughter.) It kind of makes me
think I need a bigger ranch. (Laughter.)
I'm also impressed by the quality of the
work. (Applause.) It's a great tribute to the men
and women who work the floor here, which is a great tribute to the
country, that we've got such good workers; such an entrepreneurial
spirit. And part of my job is to make sure we preserve that
spirit.
It's also an honor to be here on the Mississippi
River. The River really links our country together, and so
I'm going to start here and then I'm going to go down to Missouri, to
talk to some farmers. And then I'm going to go down to New
Orleans, to the Port of New Orleans, from whence your product and the
products you help harvest leave our country for foreign markets.
It's my way of doing a couple of things. One, reminding
America about how important the food and fiber system is to our
economy; reminding America that those who grow food and those who help
the farmers harvest that food are an incredibly important part to the
future of our country. The food and fiber industry
represents $1.3 trillion of gross domestic product in the year
2000. It employed over 24 million people.
I'm also here not only to remind people about the importance of
food and fiber, but to remind people that we need to make sure we
create jobs in this country. And I've got some ideas I want
to share with you on how we do just that. There's no better
place to do this than on the mighty Mississippi
River. (Applause.)
I appreciate members of my Cabinet traveling with
me: Secretary Evans and Secretary Veneman, both of whom are
doing a fine job representing all segments of our society. I
want to thank members of the United States Congress who are
here: Senator Harkin, from Iowa; Senator Fitzgerald, from
Illinois. Thank you both for being
here. (Applause.)
I appreciate a member of the United States House, Lane Evans, who
represents this district. (Applause.) And they
must have changed the immigration laws, because they let two
congressmen from Iowa in
here. (Laughter.) Congressman Ganske and
Congressman Leach, thank you both for coming. (Applause.)
I appreciate the Mayor of East Moline and the Mayor of Moline for
greeting me here today. Thank you both for
coming. I want to thank the officers of John
Deere. I want to thank Bob Lane and John
Gault. And I want to thank Chuck Thompson and all the
hard-working folks here at this plant. Thank you for
greeting me. It's my honor to be
here. (Applause.)
The role of government is not to create wealth. The role
of government is to create conditions in which jobs are created, in
which people can find work. And I want to share with you
some of my thoughts about how best to do that.
The first condition to make sure that people can find work is to
make sure our nation is secure, secure against an enemy that wants to
attack us. That starts with having a robust, active, strong
homeland security for our country.
People say, what does that mean? Well, it means any time
you get a hint that somebody wants to harm us, you do something about
it. It means you share intelligence with people all across
the world, so that we know if somebody is coming our way. It
means we've changed the nature of our law enforcement, so that
preventing an attack is the number one priority of the FBI and local
law enforcement. It means we're going to have our ears up,
and our eyes open. It means we'll be alert. And
it means if we catch anybody trying to harm America, or thinking about
harming America, we're going to bring them to
justice. (Applause.)
Bob mentioned the confidence of the American consumer, and there's
no question the attacks on America on 9/11 have affected our
confidence. But the more the American citizen realizes that
our federal government, in combination with state government and local
authorities, are working day in and day out to prevent any other kind
of attack -- confidence will return.
But I want to remind my fellow citizens this, that the best way to
secure the homeland of America is to find the enemy where they think
they can hide and bring them to justice, no matter where they
are. It's amazing to me that we've got an enemy, on the one
hand, that's willing to convince young males to commit suicide on
behalf of a cause that's empty and, at the same time, try to escape the
justice of America in caves.
They can run, they think they can hide, but this patient, strong
nation will stay on the job until we find them, rout them out and get
'em.
I'm proud of our military. And for those of you who have
got sons and daughters or brothers and sisters or moms and dads wearing
the uniform, you need to be proud, too. They're
accomplishing the mission that we set out; a mission that is dangerous;
a mission that is just. After all, we are fighting for the
freedoms -- the freedom to live the life the way you want to; the
freedom to worship the way you want to; and the chance for our children
and our grandchildren to grow up in a peaceful and safe society.
The enemy made a mistake. They thought this nation was
soft. They thought because we're a wealthy nation that we
wouldn't rise to the occasion. Oh, my, are they
wrong. (Applause.)
A second way to make sure we've got sustained economic growth is to
make sure our public school system works well. Recently,
last week, I had the honor of traveling the country touting the fact
that I was able to sign a good education
bill. (Applause.) I know I shocked
people when I stood up and said, Ted Kennedy is all
right. (Laughter.) Probably shocked him more than
anybody else. (Laughter.)
But we showed what can happen in Washington when you put party
politics aside and focus on what's good for the country. And
what's good for the country is to make sure our education system
produces smart, intelligent, literate children. And this
bill I signed goes a long way for helping. It's a great
piece of legislation, and I want to thank both Republicans and
Democrats for working with me to get an education bill that America can
be proud of. (Applause.)
I believe the third condition necessary to make sure people can
find work, and those who have work can work harder, is to make sure
that we open up the world for American products. Fearful
people want to build walls around America. Confident people
believe we ought to tear them down. I'm confident in the
American worker. I know the American worker can outproduce
anybody, anywhere in the world. (Applause.)
I'm confident in the American farmer. I know the
American farmer is more efficient, and can raise more crop than
anybody, anywhere in the world. I'm confident we need to
open up markets, not close them down. I'm confident we've
got to get my friend Putin to be buying John Deere
products. (Applause.) I'm confident what this
nation needs is to level the playing field, and have trade that will
create jobs all across America.
The fourth ingredient is to make sure we've got an energy supply,
as we head into the future. I oftentimes talk about how
important it is to have -- to be able to grow your own
food. Part of the national security of the country is to
know that we're self-sufficient when it comes to food production, that
we can grow our own food, we don't have to rely upon another nation to
feed our people. It's one of the luxuries this nation has.
We don't have the same luxury when it comes to
energy. We are too reliant upon foreign sources of crude
oil. We've got to do a better job of not only conserving
energy, but it seems to make sense to me that when we've got energy on
our own hemisphere, and in our own states, we ought to explore for it,
to make us less reliant. It's in the national security
interests of our country to have an energy
policy. (Applause.)
And we need to get Congress to act on a good one. It's
one that will make us less reliant. It's one that encourages
more conservation. And it's one that's good for American
workers and American jobs.
And, finally, in order to make sure we have jobs; in order to make
sure the economy expands, we've got to have good economic policy out of
Washington, D.C. I know there's a difference of opinion on
about what's good economic policy. But mine starts with
saying this -- and when the economy slows down, one of the best things
we can do is let people keep their own money so they can spend
it. If the economy slows down, one of the best answers is
tax relief. It trusts local people to spend the money the
way they want to see fit. (Applause.)
If you have more money in your pocket, you buy more things, which
encourages more production. Consumer demand is stimulated by
tax relief. And the great thing about our society is when
consumers demand, generally somebody is there to
produce. And so there's more jobs as more production takes
place.
Now, there's going to be a debate when we go back to Washington
about tax relief. But I've made up my mind, the tax relief
plan we passed -- which you're now beginning to feel the effects of --
is going to be permanent. (Applause.)
There are some more things that we can do. We need to
take care of the workers whose lives were affected as a result of the
evil ones attacks, by extending unemployment benefits and by helping
with their health care. I'm confident we can find common
ground in Washington, D.C. and a way to help people.
But, you know something? Americans don't want an
unemployment check. Americans want a permanent paycheck, and
that's got to be the mission of any good stimulus
package. (Applause.)
So we need to work together to figure out ways to create
stimulus. Deductibility for more equipment purchased;
speeding up tax relief. There are some positive things we
can do. We make up our minds to do it, that will give a
little extra umph to an economic recovery that I hope is beginning to
happen.
So those are some of the thoughts I wanted to share with you as I
travel down the Mississippi River. Good stimulus policy,
good economic policy, based on trusting people with their own money,
good education policy, good trade policy, and a good policy to bring
these terrorists to justice.
You know, I am amazed that anybody would think they can attack the
country. They just didn't understand us. But I
understand the great strength of our country. And it's the
people. It's the people that live all across our
land. I don't care whether you're a Democrat or Republican
or independent, it's the people that make us great. You know
why? Because this nation is a nation of heart and soul and
strength.
I am so pleased to hear the stories of moms and dads sitting around
their dinner table, asking the fundamental question about life, people
assessing their values. What's the most important thing in
life, and moms and dads realizing it's to love your children with all
your heart, and all your soul. No, the evil ones struck us,
and they did serious damage. But in so doing, they really
lifted the spirit of the country in a unique way. They
brought out the very best in America.
The best in America takes place when somebody walks across the
street and says to a neighbor in need, what can I do to help
you? Somebody knows, or somebody's shut-in, and says, I
think I'm going to go spread a little love today. The best
of America takes place is in our churches and synagogues and mosques,
when people walk out, and listen to that call to love a neighbor like
you'd like to be loved yourself, and then do something about it.
All this takes place, by the way, these millions acts of kindness,
on a daily basis, which helps define the soul and spirit of
America. It takes place not because of government, it takes
place because of the people of the greatest land on the face of the
earth.
My call to you is, work hard like you do, love a neighbor like
you'd like to be loved yourself. Love your
children. Tell them you love them every single
day. Make sure they turn off the TV, so they become good
readers. (Laughter.) And always remember, that
we're lucky to live in such a fabulous nation, the nation called
America. (Applause.)