For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
September 17, 2004
Vice President's Remarks and Q&A; at a Town Hall Meeting in Oregon City, Oregon
Abernathy Center
Oregon City, Oregon
10:12 A.M. PDT
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Be seated, please. Thank you very
much. Thank you for singing to my granddaughter. That's never
happened to me before. (Laughter.) Maybe when the election is over
with we can go out.
But we're delighted to be here today, to be back in Oregon. We've
been here a good deal in the last few months. And I'm delighted to
come back. Oregon is an extraordinarily important location for us this
year. We came close last time, and this time we're absolutely
determined that we want to carry Oregon for the Bush-Cheney ticket.
(Applause.)
And I'm delighted to have Liz traveling with me this morning,
filling in. Her mother usually does the introduction chores. And
Daughter Mary also is traveling with us. She works -- she manages the
vice presidential part of the campaign. And Liz is, among other
things, helping with debate prep and making certain I don't make any
mistakes. (Laughter.) And Lynne is not with us today because she had
a major speech back in Washington today. I think it's Constitution
Day, and she had to go down and participate in special ceremonies in
Washington today, otherwise she'd be here.
But I often tell people that we have a marriage that came about as
a result of Dwight Eisenhower's election as President of the United
States in 1952, that in 1952, I was a youngster living with my folks in
Lincoln, Nebraska. Dad worked for the Soil Conservation Service. And
Eisenhower got elected, he reorganized the Agriculture Department. Dad
got transferred to Casper, Wyoming, and that's where I met Lynne. We
grew up together, went to high school, and a couple weeks ago marked
our 40th wedding anniversary. (Applause.) I explained to a group the
other night that if it hadn't been for Eisenhower's election victory,
Lynne would have married somebody else. (Laughter.) She said, right,
and now he'd be Vice President of the United States. (Laughter.) And
every woman here knows exactly what I mean, right? (Laughter.)
But we're embarked, obviously, on the final weeks of the campaign
now. We had a great convention, I thought, in New York. It was a
really tremendous event. (Applause.) You think about it, I've done --
I guess, that was my eighth Republican National Convention now. And
I've been to some pretty dull ones. (Laughter.) And some that were
too exciting. But when you think about that line-up of speakers we had
-- from John McCain and Rudy Guiliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Zell Miller, it really was -- (Applause.) It was a remarkable week.
And of course, I made it clear that I understand now that I do have an
opponent. (Laughter.) That -- of course, everybody says John Kerry
got elected because he's got great hair, he's good looking, charming,
sexy. I said, how do you think I got the job. (Laughter.) Why do
they always laugh at that, Liz? (Laughter.)
But anyway, it's -- this is one of those elections that I think --
well, obviously, I think it's important because my name is on the
ballot. But more than that, as I look back throughout our history, I
think this is a moment in time when as a nation we're making some basic
fundamental decisions that we will live with, and that will be, in
fact, sort of the foundation of how we do business for maybe 30 or 40
years into the future. I think back to the time right after World War
II when we were faced suddenly with the prospect of the Cold War, the
threat of the Soviet Union that had moved all the way into Central
Europe after World War II. We had to put together a brand new strategy
for dealing with that threat, and the whole concept of deterrence --
holding at risk the Soviet Society so they would not be tempted to
launch an attack against us. We created NATO. We created the Central
Intelligence Agency. We created the Department of Defense. All those
things that happened in the late '40s, completely redesigned and
rebuilt our military forces. And then we lived with that basic,
fundamental national security strategy for the next 40 years, until
ultimately we succeeded and prevailed in the Cold War. (Applause.)
But I think the events of 9/11 and all that we've learned since
indicate that we are in another similar sort of turning point, if you
will, or watershed period in American history when once again we're
having to develop and execute a new national security strategy to deal
with the new threats -- because the old strategy doesn't work any more,
and because the new threats are radically different from the ones we
faced throughout the period of the Cold War.
I think back to 9/11, and what I'd like to do is talk a little bit
about some of those basic issues here this morning, and then throw it
open to questions. We can talk about this subject or anything else you
might want to get into, as well, too. I think back to 9/11 and all
that has transpired since, obviously, we learned on that day the
vulnerability of the United States to a handful of terrorists coming
into the country, taking advantage of the openness of our system, and
arming themselves with knives and boarding passes and doing enormous
damage -- mounting the worst attack ever by a foreign power on U.S.
soil, when we lost 3,000 Americans that morning in New York and
Washington and Pennsylvania.
And we've learned since that these terrorists, or the al Qaeda
organization are trying to do everything they can to get the things on
-- their hands on deadlier weapons, on chemical or biological agents,
or perhaps, even a nuclear weapon if they could. And there's no doubt
in anybody's mind -- there shouldn't be -- that if they ever acquire
that kind of capability that they will, in fact, use it because there's
nothing to deter them from doing that. They are absolutely committed
to jihad, to killing infidels. We're at the top of the list. They're
perfectly prepared to sacrifice their lives in doing so. And the old
strategies that worked with the Soviet Union during the Cold War don't
have much relevance when you're talking about al Qaeda, or a group of
terrorists. There's nothing you can put at risk that would deter them
from launching an attack against the United States. So we're faced
with the necessity to develop a new way to secure the nation.
And 9/11, of course, the President made a series of decisions
subsequent to that. We moved very aggressively to enhance our defenses
here at home. We created the Department of Homeland Security, the
biggest reorganization since the Defense Department was created over 50
years ago. We passed the Patriot Act to give law enforcement the tools
they needed to prosecute terrorists. We've enacted Project BioShield
to fund specialized research that's needed to develop countermeasures
against biological attack -- a whole series of steps that we've taken
over the course of the last three years.
But we also had to go beyond that. The President made a decision
very early on that mounting a good defense wasn't enough, that when you
consider the nature of the threat, the possibility of the terrorists
acquiring deadlier weapons than anything we've ever seen before to be
used against that even if you're successful 99 percent of the time on
defense, that's not enough, because if they get through once, we've got
a terrible problem, with a possible loss of thousands or even hundreds
of thousands of American lives. And so it's absolutely essential that
we also go on offense. That's been a vital part of the Bush strategy
in terms of dealing with the threat that we're now faced with.
And he annunciated a new doctrine, a so-called Bush doctrine that
we've adhered to ever since, and that was that not only would we go
after the terrorists, but we would go after the terrorists, but we
would also go after those who sponsor terror, and those who support
terror, and those who provided sanctuary and safe harbor for
terrorists. (Applause.)
Now, the consequences of that, of course, were first visible in
Afghanistan. When we went into Afghanistan, we took down the Taliban
regime that was there. We've captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda.
We closed the training camps that the terrorists have used in training
to attack the United States. That's also where they trained some
20,000 terrorists by one estimate in the late '90s, who have
subsequently then gone out and gone back, oftentimes, to their home
countries and established cells various places around the world.
And having done that, obviously, we then -- are now embarked upon a
course of action in Afghanistan, standing up a new government. We've
got Hamid Karzai there as interim President. They will have elections
here in a few weeks, before our elections. They have in the last few
weeks registered 10 million Afghans to vote for the first time in
history. (Applause.) And over 40 percent of those registered voters
are women for the first ever in Afghanistan. (Applause.)
In Iraq, obviously, somewhat different set of circumstances. There
we had Saddam Hussein who for 12 years had defied the international
community, who had started two wars previously, who had previously
produced and used weapons of mass destruction -- specifically chemical
weapons against the Kurds and against the Iranians, as well as worked
on developing -- trying to develop a nuclear weapon, biological weapon;
a government that had sponsored and been a state sponsor of terror, was
carried for years on the roster by our State Department as one of the
leading sponsors of terror in the world; had a historic relationship
with the Abu Nidal organization, which had been headquartered in
Baghdad for some time, had previously supported Palestinian Islamic
Jihad, who was paying $25,000 to the family of suicide bombers who
would go in and kill Israelis; and who had a relationship with al
Qaeda. And of course, the results of that are that the government of
Saddam Hussein is no more, his military is gone, and Saddam Hussein
himself, obviously, today is in jail, which is exactly where he
belongs. (Applause.)
But in Iraq, we're also working now to stand up a new government.
And it's a very important piece to finishing the task. You can't just
simply go in and take down the old regime and then walk away because
what you'll have is failed state. You'll have an area that will go the
way that Afghanistan did, or that Iraq had in the past. We got to
complete the task. And completing the task means going and standing up
a democratically elected, representative government in Iraq -- one that
will be broadly representative to the Iraqi people and will not again
become a threat to its neighbors or to the United States, never again
be a safe haven, if you will, for terrorists, or a state that
aggressively pursues and uses weapons of mass destruction, as Saddam
Hussein had.
Now, it's not an easy task. But we are, in fact, making
significant progress. A lot of people said, well, it will never work,
or the other question we get is, well, why haven't you finished the
job? Of course, we've been at it for 17 months. And I like to remind
people of how long it took us from the time we declared our
independence in 1776 until we finally had a Constitution in place and
elected George Washington President and got started with the government
that we all know and revere and the Constitution that we live under now
was 13 years. So this is a tough, difficult thing we're trying to do.
But it's absolutely the right thing to do, and we've got Prime Minister
Allawi now in power. We were told that you'll never be able to
transfer sovereign authority to the Iraqis, well, we did it before June
30th. They said, we could never stand up an interim government that
would have any kind of legitimacy. Well, we've done it. Mr. Allawi is
the Prime Minister. All of the ministries in Iraq now are manned by
Iraqis. And we're actively and aggressively training security forces
so that they'll eventually be able to take over their own
responsibilities for securing their country and dealing with the bad
actors who still remain from the old regime, as well as the other types
of terrorists that are operating out of Iraq.
The bottom line is that next week, Mr. Allawi will come to the
United States and address a General Assembly session of the United
Nations as the new interim head of the government of Iraq. They've got
a national assembly that has now met once. They've got elections
scheduled for next January. That group will, in turn, write a
constitution. And by a year from December, they should have in place a
democratically elected government in Iraq for the first time.
(Applause.)
Now, these are difficult tasks that are hard to do. And I don't
want to underestimate how difficult it is, or mislead anybody into
thinking that we can sort of wave a wand over it and everything is
going to be fine. We will continue to be engaged both in Afghanistan
and Iraq for the foreseeable future until they're on their feet and
they're capable of providing for their own security. But it's
essential, having gone this far, that we, in fact, complete the task at
hand. And our strategy has to be in terms of conducting this global
war on terror and ultimately prevailing, has to be that we
fundamentally change circumstances on the ground in a place like
Afghanistan and Iraq so that we, in effect, drain the swamp so to
speak, so that we don't have, or leave behind breeding grounds for
dictatorial regimes like Saddam Hussein's, or the Taliban, or states
that become safe havens and sanctuaries for terror. And we can kill
terrorists all day long, but we need to change the circumstances on the
ground out there, and that's what we're about now in both those two
nations.
Now, the decision that we're going to make on November 2nd is
whether or not we're going to continue to pursue this strategy that the
President has laid out, and that we've pursued now for the last three
years since 9/11; or whether we're going to change course. And I think
there's no doubt in my mind about what the right course of action is.
I think George Bush is the real commodity here, and is exactly what we
need for the next four years. (Applause.)
Now, the problem I have trying to assess what the alternative is,
is it's hard from day to day to tell exactly what John Kerry thinks
about the war on terror and how we should go forward in dealing with
Iraq. (Laughter and applause.)
If you think back about the various positions he's taken -- the
count this week I think was eight -- (Laughter.) But you can clearly
go back, you can hear him saying the same things in the late '90s when
Bill Clinton was in the White House, you hear him raising the flag of
concern about Saddam Hussein and, so forth, and his failure to comply
with U.N. resolutions. When we asked authority to use force to remove
Saddam Hussein, he supported the effort, voted for it in the Senate.
Then he got involved in the Democratic primaries this year and
announced that he was an anti-war candidate. And then we came around
to the vote on the $87 billion that we asked for to support the troops
once they were committed, and he voted against that. Subsequently, he
was asked just a few weeks ago if knowing all that he knows now, would
he have voted the way he did when he supported the go-to-war resolution
earlier, and he said, yes, he would. He's since then said, wrong war,
wrong place, wrong time. And yesterday, or the day before -- I guess,
the day before, he was on Don Imus -- if you get Imus out here in
Portland. But I watch him every once in a while. But the intriguing
thing was after a fairly lengthy interview by Mr. Imus, and when he was
asked specifically a series of questions about what his policy was on
Iraq, it was absolutely incoherent. (Laughter.) You could not tell
where he stood on that basic fundamental issue.
And the problem that I have with that -- and admittedly, I've got
strong feelings since I've been there and watched the President make, I
think, some of the most difficult decisions that anybody ever has to
make in the Oval Office -- this is the fourth President I've worked
for, and I've watched two others up close from the perspective of
Congress, and I have -- I think -- some sense of what is required,
especially when we think about the most difficult decisions that we ask
the President to make, and that's in his capacity as
Commander-in-Chief, and dealing with life-or-death propositions, not
only for the nation, but especially for our men and women in uniform
who he has to send in harm's way to deal with some of these most
extraordinary threats that we're faced with from time to time. Not
every President has to make those decisions. But many of them do
sooner or later, and certainly, George Bush has had his share of those
tough decisions to make.
Now, what is -- I think -- essential in a President, in that
capacity is somebody who has clear vision, who can identify an
objective, analyze a problem, listen to advice from various quarters
and then make a decision. But he has to make a decision, and then he
has to execute on it. He has to stick with it. He's got to stick with
it through thick or thin. He'll be criticized from time to time. The
polls may go south on him. He'll get hammered by the political
opposition and by the editorial writes and the cartoonists. That's
life. That's why we pay him the big bucks and he lives in the White
House. (Applause.)
But, frankly, what worries me about John Kerry when I look at his
track record over the years, not only most recently with respect to
these issue centering on Iraq, but also 20 years of voting in the
United States Senate, I don't see that kind of fundamental, core
capability to make decisions and then execute on them. I see a guy who
seems to blowing with the wind, if you will, from time to time; that
the pressures that come to bear lead him, for one reason or another, to
shift position frequently on probably what is the most fundamental
issue of the day. He's taken more positions on this issue than I can
recall any major candidate in all the elections I've participated in
and watched over the years doing. Maybe two positions, or three
positions, but it's -- as I said, the other day, the count was at least
eight. I think that the quality that we want in a Commander-in-Chief,
in terms of his capacity to make those basic, fundamental decisions for
the country, to recognize what is at stake, but also then to be able to
carry out those policies is absolutely essential. And I see a lot of
that capability in George Bush. And, frankly, I don't see much of that
in John Kerry. (Applause.)
He said when he spoke to the National Guard earlier this week that
he'll level with the American people on the good days and the bad
days. And I look at his performance, and sort of my conclusion is that
when the headlines are good, he's with us; and when his poll ratings
decline, he's against the policies we've been pursuing. And it's sort
of the on-again, off-again proposition I find deeply disturbing in a
man who wants to be Commander-in-Chief.
Now, let me emphasize I have never been critical and will not be
critical today and never will be critical of his military service. I
think his service in Vietnam was, as it was for anybody who had to go
and serve, any of our veterans, they've rendered honorable service to
the nation and deserve to be thanked for their service. (Applause.)
And John Kerry is in that group.
What I do question is his judgment. And I think there's a 20-year
record there to look at in the United States Senate where he opposed
most of the things that Ronald Reagan did during the 1980s that were
vital to rebuilding our military and making it possible for us to
prevail in the Cold War. He voted against Desert Storm when I was
Secretary of Defense, back in 1991 and the issue was whether or not we
go into Kuwait and eject Saddam Hussein and his forces from Kuwait.
John Kerry opposed that.
The list of positions he's taken on those issues over the day --
over the years does not lead one to have confidence that, in fact, he
would make the right decisions were he in the number one position as
President of the United States.
When we -- the decision on November 2nd that we make with respect
to how we're going to proceed down the road and what kind of nation
we're going to pass on to our kids, and our ability to maintain the
safety and security of our country, especially for our children and
grandchildren may be the most important kind of voters ever get to
make. And I think that's what is at stake on November 2nd. We have to
decide which course we want to follow in the future.
Now, let me -- (Applause.) Let me just finally close by saying that
there's on group in particular that has been absolutely essential
through this whole effort, and that we could not have done what we've
done, I don't think we could have been successful in all that we've
been able to accomplish, especially for example, in fending off any
further attacks here at home, because we know they're still out there
and they're still trying to launch some kind of an attack against us,
but also they've done a remarkable job for us all over the globe over
the course of the last three years, and that's the men and women of the
United States military -- (Applause.)
What I'd like to do know is throw it open to questions. We've got
proctors in the audience. They're the folks with the attractive orange
jerseys on. (Laughter.) And they've got -- they've got microphones
with them. And if you've got a question or a comment, just flag down
one of the proctors, and I'll try to bounce around and call on as many
of you as possible in my time available. So we got anybody over here,
number six?
Q I just -- in the next four years of your administration, or
George's administration, what efforts are in the works for securing and
strengthening our borders?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we've done a lot with respect to control
of our borders. We've got a lot more to do, I guess, is the way I
would describe it. Our historical practice -- and it has been an
important part of our success as a society is to support and encourage
the free flow of goods and people and ideas and service and so forth
back and forth across the borders. We've had an open society, and
we're the world's number one trading nation. We're also a nation of
immigrants. And we, I think, dominate in terms of ideas and that has
been just a crucial characteristic, if you will, of American society.
And what we've now discovered, obviously, is that the openness of our
society also represents a threat, that we've got to make certain that
without doing damage to our basic economic infrastructure, for example,
and our ability to engage in international commerce, we've still got to
find a way to make certain that terrorists, or people conspiring with
terrorists aren't able to smuggle deadly weapons into the United
States, or to send in a group to launch further attacks against the
United States.
And that has forced us to look at several things. We've had to
look at our whole visa policy and how we handle people who want to come
visit from foreign lands, the whole question of the borders with
respect especially to Canada and Mexico. We have -- part of the
reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security, we've combined a
number of those organizations that used to deal -- Customs and Border
Patrol and so forth -- on our borders, and we've beefed up those
services. And we've gotten more cooperation out of Canada and Mexico
than we had previously. But there's still a lot to do. And we're
still such a magnate for illegal immigration that we get a large number
of people coming here because they want to work, obviously. And that
flow is stead, and we need to do everything we can to make certain that
we're open for legal immigration. But that we effectively control our
borders so that we are not subjected to illegal immigration, and to
having a large influx of people coming in. We don't know what they're
doing while they're here. (Applause.)
One of our major concerns, obviously, and it certainly affects
Portland, as one of the leading ports in the nation, is the whole
question of what we ship in, especially our container cargo. And it's
absolutely essential in terms of our overall economic capability, but
it also represents a threat if we don't know what is coming in --
somebody would try to use that as an avenue to get deadly substances or
capabilities into the United States. So we've spent a lot of time and
effort on that, as well, too, trying to improve and tighten up on our
procedures, insisting upon having a lot of those containers inspected
overseas before they ever embark for the United States; and identifying
the most problematic areas where containers might come from that are
troublesome, and making certain that we put our resources where they
can do the most good in terms of protecting us and defending us.
But we'll have to keep working at it. And there's a balance that
you try to strike between tightening up so much in terms of protecting
all of us against a further terror attack, and on the other hand, going
so far, in effect, that the terrorists win without ever launching
another attack because we've absolutely closed down our society and
give up, or just sacrifice basic fundamental rights that are just an
important part of being an American. So you're always trying to strike
that balance out there. And that's one of the toughest jobs we have.
But I think we've made significant progress. I think we are safer
today. I would say, though, we're not yet safe -- as the 9/11
Commission said the other day. And we do know that the terrorists are
still out there. We know they're plotting to try and launch another
attack against the United States. We're doing everything we can to
disrupt those kinds of planning efforts. And we've been very
successful in a number of areas. But we can't let our guard down.
Just because it has been three years since the last attack doesn't mean
that we can relax now, everything is fine, we're not going to get hit
again. We can't say that.
You have to remember not only did we get hit, but look at all of
the attacks that have happened around the globe since 9/11 -- in
Casablanca, in Madrid, in Mombassa, in Bali, in Jakarta, Istanbul,
Riyadh, and of course, most recently in Russia, in Beslan, where they
lost over 300 people, the majority of them school kids just a couple
weeks ago. So the task will be with us for some considerable period of
time, and I hope -- I just ask everybody to bear with us. I know it's
not pleasant sometimes. Of course, I don't fly on commercial
airliners. (Laughter.) But I hear from people who do. (Laughter.)
And it -- the process can sometimes be burdensome, but a lot of those
efforts are necessary in order to make certain that we do everything we
can to defeat the next attack before they can launch. (Applause.)
You're next. We'll get him over there in a minute.
Q Mr. Vice President, I'm an obstetrician. And I work in a
hospital in Oregon. And my question comes with a story first.
(inaudible) I was going to work, minding my own business,
delivering babies. I deliver (inaudible) babies. And part of the
(inaudible) is agreeing to take care of women, no matter what their
background was -- whether poor or rich, whatever -- and we were doing
that successfully. We had a serious lawsuit that happened and we were
really sure (inaudible) since that time I've had to drop (inaudible)
had to eliminate any (inaudible) patients, which many times there are
poor people that have (inaudible) situations (inaudible) for them
because the next lawsuit could (inaudible) business. So my question to
you is what are we going to do protect our unborn babies (inaudible)?
Tort reform is very important to Oregonians not to protect doctors, but
protect mothers and babies -- our mothers, our parents, our
grandparents, the elderly, all of us -- and what are you going to do to
protect all of us? (Applause.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That is -- it's a major problem. We've just
had an experience with it in my home state of Wyoming. I run into it
various places around the country, in Ohio, Pennsylvania, states that
are at a crisis stage. It's that way now. In Wyoming, we just had a
special session of the legislature, which we almost never do. We only
allow the legislature to meet for 40 days every other year in Wyoming.
(Applause.) But this is an extraordinary session, and it was called for
one reason and one reason only and that was because of the rising cost
of malpractice insurance. And we'd reached the point in Wyoming that
the cost of a malpractice insurance policy for a doc in Casper -- a
general practitioner in my hometown had gone from something like
$40,000 to a $100,000 a year just in two or three years. And we've
seen difficulty recruiting new doctors coming in. Somebody just out of
medical school probably hasn't got $80,000 up-front to plunk down for
an insurance policy. And we had policy leaving the state.
Yesterday, down in Albuquerque, I talked with a guy whose specialty
was OB/GYN. He runs a four-physician clinic that specializes in that.
And the impact on them has been so significant that they're in danger
of having to close their doors in terms of because he can't do business
any more. It doesn't all add up. If you do that, you get rid of over
50 percent of the OB/GYN capability in their part of the state. And it
has a significant impact on their patients and others.
The answer, I believe, is to do a couple of things. First of all,
I think we need to cap non-economic damages in the medical liability
area. (Applause.) Now, some states -- California has done this with
some degree of success. And in effect, people would be compensated to
the extent that they could demonstrate economic loss -- whatever that
was. There would be no cap there. But on the other pieces of it, pain
and suffering and so forth, there would be a cap of about $250,000 is
what has been imposed in a couple of places.
And the second key ingredient is to limit the fees of the trial
attorneys, the trial lawyers. (Applause.) And again, there's
experience there in California, I think they've got a sliding scale, in
effect, the bigger the award, the smaller the percentage that the
attorney gets. (Applause.)
Now, there's been a recent study done by the Rand Corporation that
went in and evaluated the California plan, which has been in business
for some time now. And there are several conclusions that came from
it. One, while rates are going up in California, they've gone up
significantly less than they have in the nation at large. Secondly,
the reduction in awards fell not so much on the plaintiff, the
individual who had the problem they were trying to get compensation
for. There's been about 15 percent reduction there. But there's been
about a 60 percent reduction on attorney fees. (Applause.)
Most of the -- I shouldn't say most -- but the studies I've seen
show that upwards of 50 percent of the settlements are taken up in
overhead, administrative overhead, and primarily legal fees. So the
plaintiff, the person who has been injured and who goes to get the
compensation for that
is probably only getting 50 cents on the dollar anyway at that. So
the system does need fixing. We passed legislation through the House
of Representatives that does deal with tort reform, and also with
trying to place a ceiling on non-economic -- I believe on non-economic
damages. They've not yet -- I don't believe they've yet acted on the
limitation on provision fees. We have not been able to get it through
the Senate. (Laughter.) Lost my train of thought there. (Applause.)
But John Kerry and John Edwards do not support medical liability
reform. They are opposed to it. And they've either voted against it
-- there have been a few votes in the Senate in recent years, they've
either voted or haven't been there to vote at all. And getting a
handle on medical liability reform -- I don't mean to go on so long --
but it's an important part of trying to get a handle on health care
costs. And the last estimate I saw, the total cost on this society for
the fact that we haven't fixed that problem is about $108 billion a
year that gets layered on and gets paid for in other ways by your
situation, by higher rates for others, by -- has the impact, as you
say. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that we get into people
being -- doctors being forced to practice defense medicine in order to
avoid being sued.
You mentioned you began to have to make choices about which
patients you'll serve, and which ones you won't simply because if you
take a high risk patient and end up with a lawsuit of some kind, it
could shut down your whole operation. So I think it's a big issue, I
find, as I get out and talk about it around the country that there's
more concern about that than just about anything out there. It often
gets the kind of reaction I got here today. And it is a top priority
for us. We'll continue to push it hard in the future, and if we can
pick up a couple more Senate votes -- we're also working on that -- we
may be able to get something done in the next session of Congress.
(Applause.)
Q Vice President Cheney, this is a very important election.
And I'm part of the ballot integrity team. And Oregon has vote by
mail. And the problem isn't how we cast our votes, but what happens
later. This year, our ballots will be removed from secrecy envelopes
seven days prior to the election -- seven days prior. And those
ballots will be scrutinized. These are the instructions that have been
given to country elections offices. They will be scrutinized, A, for
flaws that might prevent them from going through the computer tally
machines, and, B, to help interpret the votes of people who may have
made some kind of mistake, and enhance those votes. (Laughter.) I'm
seriously worried. And I don't think it's enough to have a provost
there because what happens after hours. For seven nights, those
exposed ballots are there. And anything can happen. Now, we've been
told that if President Bush and you should win, it's probably needs one
or two extra votes per precinct. And for you to lose, it's probably
takes the same number of votes. That means an under-vote can be turned
into a vote within enhancement, and a vote can also be discounted by
another vote being an over-vote. I ask you what can we do? Can we
have any help to change this? Can we have some federal marshals sent
to watch over? (Applause.) Can we have a federal -- can we have a
federal injunction to stop this process? (Applause.) We're the only
state that does this? Help us. Thank you.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well. (Laughter.) That doesn't somehow fit
with my image of Oregon. I see. Well, all right, great. This is
going to get a lot of attention back in -- (Applause.) So I appreciate
you're bringing it to my attention, and I'll go back and sit down with
our lawyers and see what the story is. I know we've got -- been
working generally a ballot security program nationwide. And after the
last go-round, obviously, it could be pretty important.
So we've got a young man over here with a question. Maybe we can
get a proctor to him. They always ask the toughest questions.
(Laughter.)
Q I was wondering what your favorite part about being the Vice
President is? (Applause.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well. That is a great question. I feel
enormous sense of gratitude, if you will, and privilege for having the
opportunity to serve as Vice President. It's hard sometimes to feel
that way when you're reading the newspapers every day, or looking at
the latest attack. But all of that stuff is not of any great
consequence. What I find remarkable -- I started out in life, I
thought I wanted to be a teacher, and then I got side-tracked. I got
off to Washington, and it's been -- I was going to stay 12 months, and
that was 1968. (Laughter.) And I've spent most of my career in public
life, and I had the privilege of serving as President Ford's Chief of
Staff, as a congressman for 10 years in Wyoming, as a Secretary of
Defense for four years. And I thought I had finished my time in
government when I left there in '93 and went off to the private
sector. And then President Bush persuaded me to sign on as his running
mate four years ago. (Applause.) And it has been a remarkable
experience. We could not have anticipated all that we've encountered
as a nation during that period of time. But the thing that keeps you
going are the people you get to work with, the issues you get to
address, to be at sort of the heart of what I think is one of the most
remarkable features of our civilization, our political system -- the
way we select our leadership and hold them accountable, the way we all
get to participate in that process, to cast that vote, to run for
office if you want. It's just a very, very special privilege that we
all have as Americans that all too many people take it for granted.
But it's to get out around the country, to spend time with so many
Americans, to travel -- I've been in 48 states now in this election
cycle. I've only missed Vermont and Hawaii and the campaign is not
over yet. (Laughter.) But you get outside of Washington, and you meet
with just a remarkable cross-section of America, of American people.
It's folks that -- I got off the airplane the other day and waiting at
the foot of the stairs for me, was a young man who was just back from
14 months in Iraq. And he wanted to thank me for supporting them while
they were there, and say he was ready go to again if we needed it.
(Applause.) Spending time with a farmer or a rancher who is maybe
working a farm or ranch, maybe fourth or fifth generation, and all that
they represent. It's coming to places like Oregon City, or
Albuquerque, where I was yesterday, or Key West, Florida, or Atlanta,
Georgia, just the whole broad sweep of the nation -- it's so varied,
but so fantastic in of its physical attributes, but most especially in
terms of the people -- 270 million Americans. And so many of them say
thank you and God bless you and we're praying for you and are deeply
and fervently committed to the success of this nation and all that it
represents. And to get to be the Vice President and serve alongside a
man like George Bush is -- it's just a very special privilege.
(Applause.)
MRS. PERRY: I think we just have time for one more. Just one
more.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We'll do a couple. Number four.
MRS. PERRY: You're the boss. (Laughter.)
Q Thank you for coming to Oregon, Vice President Cheney. And
that sounds good for another four years. A couple of fellows and I
have a small business that cleans radioactive contamination out of
soil. It's been tested and proven by the Oregon State University's
Radiation Center. Four United States senators have signed on in
support of it. This technology can also clean a city in the event of a
dirty bomb. And it has been proven effective cleaning -- the Manhattan
Project site. What are your plans for streamlining deployment of
cost-effective new technologies to rid our country of radioactive
waste?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: You're talking that's done on a commercial
base, or as part of a security measure in terms of dealing with
threats? Both. Okay. Well, give me your card and I'll make sure we
-- (Laughter and applause.) Okay.
All right, one more question. We got somebody over here? Sure.
There you go.
Q Yesterday, a teacher of mine refused to sign an absence slip
to come here. (Laughter.)
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Booo!.
Q And she said do you realize once -- if Bush gets reelected,
that he'll make a draft. And I was just wondering what your thoughts
were on the draft, and if this teacher what she said was at all
necessary. (Laughter.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Did you get your -- did you get your absence
slip?
I don't foresee a situation in which we'd want to go back to the
draft. We made a decision after Vietnam to go with an all-volunteer
force. And when I was Secretary of Defense, we were sort of towards
the end of that transition that we started back in the '70s. I was
there in the late '80s and early '90s. And it produced -- the
all-volunteer force has produced an absolutely remarkable group of men
and women in the service. (Applause.)
And I think it works. It works extraordinarily well. And I'm a
great believer in it -- from having sat there as Secretary of Defense
and watched it operate. The other thing I'd say about it, and the
reason it's so important and this oftentimes doesn't get mentioned is
the transformation that it has worked on the services themselves. An
organization, including the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines has to
think very differently about how they operate, how they treat they
people, what kind of training they provide, and housing and so forth,
how to motivate them -- if they have to persuade people to serve rather
than if they are in a position they're just sort of -- it's a free
good. They get however many bodies they need through the selective
service system. And it really has had a remarkable impact, I think, on
the quality of our organization, as I say, not just in terms of the
people serving but because everybody who is there, has signed up, wants
to be there, but also because the services themselves know full well
now -- we've got 30 years of experience -- that the key to having a
really, first rate military is they really have to look after their
people first, last and always. And that has had a quantum effect, as
well, I think on the capability of the U.S. military. So I don't
foresee a set of circumstances.
Now, we keep the law on the books. It's always conceivable, I
suppose, at some point down the road we'd have such a national crisis
or emergency, but it would have to be on the scale of World War II
before I would think that anybody would seriously contemplate the
possibility of going back again to the draft. I think what we have
works very well. As I mentioned earlier, one of the great privileges
of my career was serving as Secretary of Defense for four years, and
serving with the remarkable people today who wear the uniform.
Thank you all very much. (Applause.)
END 11:04 A.M. PDT
|