For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 14, 2002
President Focuses on Jobs in Speech to Missourians
Springfield-Branson Regional Airport
Springfield, Missouri
Working for America
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. I appreciate
it. Thanks for coming. I thought the Senator -- I thought
the Senator was going to offer me a
pretzel. (Laughter.) Not one of those ones that
are hard to chew.
Now, I see a lot of the students who are
here. (Applause.) This gives me a chance to give
you some good advice: always listen to your
mother. (Laughter.) Mine used to say, never
swallow your pretzel until you've chewed
it. (Laughter.) I guess I wasn't listening.
But it's great to be back here in the great state of Missouri and
Springfield. (Applause.) I want to thank the
Chamber of Commerce for hosting this event. It gives me a
chance to share some of my thoughts with our fellow citizens, as I work
my way down the heartland of America.
I started earlier in Moline, Illinois, at a factory that makes John
Deere tractors. I am here to talk to farmers. I'm
on my way down to New Orleans, to remind people that much of what we
grow and produce in America is shipped overseas, out of that
port. I'm really here to remind people of the great values
of our country, lived in your everyday lives.
So I want to thank you all for coming. I'm grateful for
a fine United States Senator and a good friend of mine, Kit Bond, for
being here. Thank you for coming,
Kit. (Applause.) I appreciate my Secretary of
Commerce, as well as the Secretary of Agriculture for joining me on
this trip. Thank you both for coming. (Applause.)
I want to thank Kenny Hulshof and Todd Akin, of the United States
Congress, for being here today. I want to thank those two
fine members of the House of Representatives for
coming. (Applause.)
I see my good friend, Jim Talent, is
here. (Applause.) I appreciate you coming, Jim;
I'm looking forward to visiting with you on the way out to the next
stop.
I want to thank so very much Roseann Blunt for being here, the wife
of your Congressman. (Applause.) The First Lady
of your fine state met me at the airport and I want to thank Lori
Holden for coming out to say hello. (Applause.)
But most of all, I want to thank you all for taking time out of
your day to be here to greet me. It's been an unbelievable
experience to be your President. Thank
you. (Applause.) I'm so proud to come and be able
to share some thoughts about how to make sure America remains strong
and to make sure people who are trying to find work are able to do so.
You know, my view about this is that the role of government is not
to try to create wealth. The role of government is to create
an environment in which people are willing to take risks, in which the
entrepreneur is willing to expand through capital investment.
The job of government is to create an environment in which people
are willing to create jobs so people who want work or can find
work. And that starts with making sure our nation is
safe. In order to make sure -- in order to make sure that
there's confidence in our economy and that the environment is good for
job creation.
My biggest job is to prevent the enemy from hitting us again, and
that's exactly what I'm going to
do. (Applause.) We take homeland security very
seriously in America now. I put a good man in place, Tom
Ridge, to make sure that any time we get any hint that anybody would
try to harm America again, we'll act and we'll act
strong. And if we get any scintilla of evidence that
somebody may try to harm America, we will bring them to
justice. (Applause.)
I want to thank the law enforcement officers and officials who are
on alert. And we've got to remain on alert. You
see something unusual happening in your community, contact the local
law enforcement. We're on the look. But the truth
of the matter is, the best way to protect America is find the enemy
where they hide and get 'em. (Applause.)
I am so proud -- I am so proud of those who wear our uniform.
(Applause.) We have given them a big task, and they're
performing brilliantly. For those of you who may have a son
or a daughter in our military, I want to thank you from the bottom of
my heart. For those of you who have a husband or wife in the
military, or a mom or a dad, I want to thank you from the bottom of my
heart. Our military is doing us proud. (Applause.)
We have sent them on a difficult mission. It is getting
more difficult as time progresses. After all, we've got our
troops now looking in caves, looking in villages, scouring the
countryside. When I first announced our mission, I told the
American people it may take a while, that we must show discipline and
resolve and we must be steadfast in our purpose. And that's
exactly what the American people -- that's how the American people are
reacting, and for that I'm grateful. And so are our troops.
We had objectives that our troops have
accomplished. One, we said, if you harbor a terrorist, if
you hide a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, you're just as guilty as
the terrorist and the Taliban is paying a price.
(Applause.) I hope you're as proud as I am of the pictures
of joy as our troops have liberated the women of Afghanistan, the
Taliban. (Applause.) We're not only fighting for freedom,
we're liberating people from the clutches of oppression.
And now we're after al Qaeda. They think they can run,
they think they can hide from the mighty United States. But
we're patient, we're strong,
we're resolved. We're going to stay on the hunt
until we bring them to justice. (Applause.)
In order to make sure people can find work, we better make sure
everybody in America is educated. I had an honor -- I had
the high honor of traveling our country last week with authors of a
good education bill. It's one, by the way, that says every child can
learn -- every child can learn. We must teach children the
basics and, in return for help, you must show us, just like you say
here in Missouri, whether or not children can read and write and add
and subtract. And if they cannot, let's correct problems
early, before it's too late.
It also says inherent in that bill, the people who care more about
the children in this part of the world are the moms and dads and
teachers who live in this part of the world. We believe in
local control of schools. (Applause.)
I stood up in front of the American people there on this trip and I
said, you all may not believe this -- certainly the people in the
Crawford, Texas coffee shop may not believe it when I say it -- but Ted
Kennedy did a fine job on this
bill. (Laughter.) I never thought I would hear
myself say that. (Laughter.) Of course, he never
thought I would say it. (Laughter.) But I meant
it. I meant it.
It goes to show what can happen when Republicans and Democrats set
aside their political differences and focus on what's right for
America. Let me tell you what we need in
Washington. (Applause.) We need people to put
party aside and say, America is the most important thing in Washington,
D.C. (Applause.)
In order to make sure people can find work, this nation better --
better knock down trade barriers. See, one of the things
we're good at, really good at, is growing food. We're the
best in the world. And it makes sense that if we're good at
growing food, that we ought to be trying to sell it not only at home,
but when we have a little extra, overseas.
If you want to be -- if you're good at something and the best at
something, it makes sense to allow that product to be
overseas. One of the things I'm fighting for, and one of the
things I think makes great sense is for this nation to be a free trade
nation -- not to be afraid to compete, but let us
compete. And when we can compete in a fair way, we can whip
anybody when it comes to selling food. (Applause.)
The other thing we need to do is to make sure we have an energy
policy. We're a blessed nation because we can grow our own
food and, therefore, we're secure. A nation that can feed
its people is a nation more secure. Now, if you're secure
when you feed the nation, it seems like one of the things we ought to
try to be more secure about, as well, is having an energy policy that
makes us less reliant on foreign sources of
energy. (Applause.)
We can do a better job of conservation, and we will. We
can do a better job of distribution, and we must. We can use
some innovative products to provide energy, like
ethanol. But one of the things we've got to do is to explore
for energy in our own lands in an environmentally sensitive
way. (Applause.)
We had a trade bill bottled up in the Senate. I hope
they move it when we get back. We've got an energy bill
bottled up in the Senate. I hope they move it when we get
back. It is in the nation's interests that we move those two
bills.
And, finally, in order to make sure people can find work -- and I'm
worried about the fact that the evil ones hit us and it caused people
to lose their job -- in order to make sure they can find work, we've
got to have good, solid economic policy coming out of Washington, D.C.
And that starts with understanding how jobs are
created. One way you can create jobs is to lower people's
taxes. (Applause.) If people have more money to
spend, it means somebody has got to produce more for them. And the
producers then need to hire people. It's economics
101. Except sometimes people in Washington haven't taken the
course. (Laughter.) We passed a meaningful tax
cut. And now some of them want to take it away from you, by
delaying it.
AUDIENCE: Booo.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I agree. The best way --
the worst thing to do is, in the face of this recession, is to not let
people have their tax break. It doesn't make any economic
sense. And that's why we're not going to let them -- that's
why we're not going to let them repeal this tax cut. (Applause.)
And not only that, we can help workers who got laid
off. We need to extend the unemployment
benefits. And we need to help them with their health
care. And we can do that, if we make our mind up to put
people's lives ahead of partisan politics. But I'm going to
remind the folks in Washington that what people don't want is an
unemployment check. What they want is a permanent
paycheck. (Applause.) And therefore we've got to
put plans in place to stimulate our economy; that creates jobs; that
says to employers, if you buy equipment, you get a little extra in
order to help people find work.
No, we can do a better job in Washington, D.C., of addressing this
economic downturn. And I'm confident when the people's voice
rises up, the good folks up there elected to represent you all, and
everybody else, will hear you loud and clear.
One of the things that the evil ones didn't figure out was how
strong we are. (Applause.) Oh, they knew we had a
nice military, but they didn't think we'd use it. They made
a bad mistake. (Applause.) But what they also
don't understand is the character of our nation. They don't
understand what I know: that the great strength of this
country really isn't in our airplanes or guns; it's not in our stock
market -- those are parts of our country that are
strong. But the great strength is in the hearts and souls of
our fellow citizens. (Applause.)
This is a nation of a lot of character. It's a strong
nation because we're strong people. It is a nation that is
determined and patient. But it's also a nation that's
compassionate and decent.
The evil ones hit us and they caused a lot of loss of life and a
lot of anguish, a lot of fright and a lot of fear. But they
also caused folks all across our country to search their soul about
life. They caused moms and dads to ask the fundamental
question of what was the most important thing for them. The
good news is about America, moms and dads all across America are now
saying, my most important job is to love my children with all my
heart. (Applause.)
What the evil ones did is they reminded us that there are things
important in life, such as loving your neighbor like you'd like to be
loved yourself. People ask me all the time, what can they do
to help fight terror. And one thing you can do is walk
across the street and tell a neighbor in need you love
them. If you find somebody who's shut-in, just spend a
little time. If you want to fight evil, mentor a child who
needs to learn how to read. Support your teachers; get
involved with public education. If you want to fight evil,
make a contribution to a local charity. Go to your church or
synagogue and mosque, and figure out how you can help a community
become a better place.
That's what's happening all across America. You know,
folks, we're going to win the war, but we're also going to win because
the goodness of America will overshadow the evil of those who take
innocent life. (Applause.)
It is such an honor to be moving around the country, to be with the
good folks who make the country strong. I want to thank you
so very much for your hospitality. I want to thank you for
your prayer. May God bless
America. (Applause.) Thank you
all. Thank you all very much, and God
bless. Thank you. (Applause.)
END
|