For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 3, 2001
Remarks by the President Upon Departure from Green Bay, Wisconsin
Austin Straubel International Airport
Green Bay, Wisconsin
11:01 A.M. CDT
THE PRESIDENT: Happy Labor
Day. (Applause.) Thank you all for coming out to
say hello. Every time I've come to Wisconsin, I've been
greeted by the friendliest folks that I've ever met. I'm so
honored that you would take time out of your Labor Day celebrations to
come and say hello to Laura and me. I look forward to saying
hello to you after I give you a couple of remarks.
First, let me say something about your
governor. I appreciate so very much his
hospitality. I know you appreciate his
leadership. You've got a good one as Governor of Wisconsin
and make sure you send him back here in two years'
time. (Applause.) And like me, he married
well. (Laughter.)
We're honored to be here with the First
Lady of Wisconsin and, of course, I'm honored to be traveling with the
First Lady of the United States. (Applause.)
I'm really proud of the job that Laura is
doing. She's spending a lot of time heralding literacy all
across America. And she's also working on making sure we
convince folks to spend time in the classroom. We need more
teachers in America. We need to herald those who
teach. We need to welcome new folks into the classrooms all
across the country. And Laura's doing a great job of
promoting the noble profession of teaching.
I'm also here with your fantastic United
States Congressman. I can't tell you what a great job Mark
Green is doing on behalf -- (applause). We're also traveling today
with Congressman Tom Petri, who is right south of here. I
appreciate you reducing your immigration standards and letting him
in. (Laughter.)
I put together a fabulous
Cabinet. A President can't do the job alone. It
requires putting together a good team. And I brought one of
my Cabinet officials with me. After all, today, we're
celebrating Labor Day. And so the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, is
traveling with me. Please welcome Elaine
Chao. (Applause.)
By the way, my Cabinet has got a good man
from Wisconsin in it. (Applause.) Your former governor is
doing a fabulous job, and that's Tommy Thompson. (Applause.)
Today is Labor Day. We had the
honor of going down the road to meet with some carpenters and joiners,
to thank them for their hard work, to remind our fellow Americans that
the strength of our country is the fact that we've got hardworking
people all across our land, people who aren't afraid of labor, people
who work hard to enhance their communities.
Traveling with me today is a good, solid
leader. He's the President of the United Brotherhood of
Carpenters and Joiners, a man named Doug McCarron, I'm proud to call
him friend. The carpenters are proud to call him
boss. And he's a good American. Doug, thank you
for coming. (Applause.)
I hope Coach Sherman noticed what kind of
jacket I was wearing. (Applause.) A while ago, I had the
honor of meeting Coach Sherman and members of the mighty Green Bay
Packer team as they were working out at the
stadium. (Applause.) He asked me if I was old
enough to remember the Ice Bowl. I told him, just
barely. (Laughter.)
But, Coach, I can't thank you enough for
being here and I want to thank Bob Harlan as well. I wish
you all the best this season. You've got a good man as the
head coach of the Green Bay Packers. (Applause.)
And I want to thank the Bishop for being
here as well. I'm so honored you're here,
sir. Thank you very much for coming. And I want
to thank my fellow Americans for giving me the opportunity to serve as
President of the greatest nation on the face of the
earth. (Applause.)
We've been there eight
months. It has been a fantastic eight months to represent
our country. And I believe we're making a
difference. I told the American people if you gave me a
chance to be President, I would work hard to get some things
accomplished. I would work hard to try to change the tone in
Washington, D.C., to get rid of all the bitterness and all the ugliness
and finger pointing and name calling. I felt that it wasn't
serving our nation well, that people would rather tear each other down
than lift our nation up.
And so I believe we're making progress on
changing the tone in Washington, D.C. It's going to require
a lot of work. Old habits are hard to break. But
one way to do it is to focus on getting things done. It's to
say to the people up there in Washington, let's get some things done on
behalf of the American people. And I'm proud to report we're
making progress.
I had the honor of signing the first major
tax relief in a generation. (Applause.) When I came to
Wisconsin all those times during the campaign, I said, give me a chance
and I'll take your message of tax relief to Washington, D.C., and guess
what? It worked. (Applause.) They
heard your voice. Mark Green didn't require much
convincing. Evidently some of the members of the Senate
didn't hear too well. (Laughter.)
But nevertheless, we did the right
thing. Tax relief was the right thing for our
country. Our economy is not clicking on all
cylinders. As some of you all know, for the past 12 months,
our economic growth has been anemic at best. We haven't
achieved the kind of growth levels necessary to keep our folks
working.
There's people in Wisconsin who hurt
because they laid off their -- they've been laid off their
job. There are families who are hurting. And I
understood that was taking place.
And one thing the federal government can
do is to stimulate the economy, and we believe the best stimulus
package is to give people their own money back. So tax
relief was important for economic growth and economic
vitality. (Applause.)
But it's also an important philosophical
statement. You see, we said loud and clear that once the
federal government meets its needs, we ought to trust the people with
their own money. It's a fundamental question of who do you
trust. Do you trust the government or do you trust the
people with their own money? I'd rather have the Wisconsin
families -- (applause).
So those checks are hitting
home. I saw a sign coming in that said, Mr. President,
thanks for the $600. I felt like stopping the limo --
(laughter) -- and giving her a big hug. But reminding her,
it wasn't the government's money to begin with. It's not the
government's money; it's your money. (Applause.)
I'm proud of the tax relief
package. It's going to make sense for our
economy. It says loud and clear, we trust you with your own
money. And, by the way, there's a good feature in the tax
relief plan that makes a lot of sense for Wisconsin farmers, and that
is we're finally getting rid of the death tax so people can pass their
farm from one generation to the next without getting taxed
twice. (Applause.)
We have been working hard to fulfill
another promise, and that's the promise of making sure every child in
America gets a good education. A domestic priority of mine
is to make sure every child -- I mean every child -- learns to
read. I fully understand a literate child is one more likely
to be able to learn. And yet we've got to admit, there's too
many children that can't read in America.
Now, lest you think I forgot where I came
from, inherent in the education bill that I proposed is this solid
principle: I trust local people to run their
schools. I would rather the people of Green Bay, Wisconsin,
make the decisions on the public education than people in Washington,
D.C. (Applause.)
So we passed legislation that has bills --
has power coming out of Washington to empower local people to run the
schools. But inherent also in the education bill, as passed
the House and passed the Senate, not only says we're going to spend
more money, we're going to spend it more wisely. And in return for
more money, we're going to ask the question, can our children read and
write and add and subtract?
We expect there to be
accountability. Because by measuring, we will
know. By measuring, we will make sure we correct problems
early before it's too late. By measuring, we will make sure
that no child gets simply shuffled through the system. And
so we've got a plan that makes sense. And I call upon the House and I
call upon the Senate conferees to get together and get that education
bill on my desk so I can sign it, so that public education fulfills its
hope and promise for every child in America. (Applause.)
Dick Cheney and I made this
promise. And, by the way, he's doing just fine. I
couldn't have picked a better man as Vice President of the United
States than Dick Cheney. (Applause.)
We say this. We say we'll have
a foreign policy that's clear-eyed and steady and
realistic. And good foreign policy starts with making sure
our military is well funded and that there's high morale amongst those
who wear the uniform. And we're making good on that
promise. (Applause.)
It starts with making sure our troops get
paid well and are housed better. Morale begins with the
understanding that those who wear the uniform deserve the utmost
respect and the utmost help by their federal government. I
signed an appropriations bill that does just that.
I also requested the highest increase in
defense spending since Ronald Reagan was the President. A
strong defense means we'll have a more peaceful
world. (Applause.)
And I call upon the appropriators in
Washington, D.C., to let the country know the level of defense
appropriations and the level of education appropriations early in the
process rather than late. These are national priorities and
they ought to be priorities of our appropriators in the halls of
Congress as well.
And finally, we're making good
progress. I want to thank Congressman Green for his work on
what I call a faith-based initiative. (Applause.) It's an
initiative that recognizes there are still people who hurt in
America. There are people who suffer. There are
people who are trapped in addiction, in neighborhoods without hope.
And yet, this nation doesn't believe in
leaving people behind. And so I proposed to the United
States Congress that we capture the true strength of the country, and
the strength of the country lies in the hearts and the souls of our
citizens. We are a compassionate nation because we are a
compassionate people. And there are faith-based programs and
community-based programs all across our country that asked the
question, what can I do to make my neighborhood a better place, what
can I do to love a child who needs love, what can I do to help a
citizen who needs help.
And the federal government ought not to
fear faith-based programs. We ought to welcome faith-based
programs. (Applause.) We ought not to
discriminate against those programs based upon a universal call to love
a neighbor just like we'd like to be loved ourselves.
We passed a good bill out of the
House. I call upon the United States Senate to get the
faith-based initiative moving, to make sure that no person in America
is left out of the great American experience.
No, we're making good progress, I believe,
in Washington, D.C. It's because I'm listening to the
people. I understand the strength of the country lies not in
the halls of our government but lies in the hearts and souls of our
people all across America, and that's why it's such a huge honor to be
your President. It's an honor to be a President of a nation
that's been blessed by great values and blessed with wonderful people.
Laura and I love the
challenge. We respect the process, but we also understand we
have responsibilities. And the responsibilities inherent in
our job are to call upon the best of every American. And
that begins by making sure that we set the right example for young and
old alike. It's a challenge I accept. It's a
challenge I welcome. And it's a challenge that -- I am
bolstered because of the prayers and thoughts of people such as
yourselves.
Thank you all for coming. May
God bless you and may God bless America. (Applause.)
END 11:15 A.M. CDT
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