President Bush Meets with First-Time Homebuyers in NM and AZ
Remarks by the President on Homeownership
Expo New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
10:45 A.M. MST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. (Applause.) Thanks a lot.
(Applause.) Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you all. Be
seated, please. Thanks for coming. (Laughter.)
I am glad to be in New Mexico. (Applause.) The sun is bright and
the people are friendly. (Applause.) Thanks for having me. We're
here to talk about homeownership. We're here to talk about helping
people realize their dreams. We're here to talk about making sure the
business environment, particularly for small businesses, is strong and
open so that people can realize their own dream of owning their own
business.
We're here to talk about the great courage of America. Before I
begin, I do want to thank my friend Alphonso Jackson. He's the Acting
Secretary. That means that the Senate hasn't approve him yet.
(Laughter.) So I made sure he sat next to Senator Domenici on the
airplane. (Laughter and applause.)
But I've known Alphonso for a long time. He was the head of the
Dallas Housing Authority. He did a great job of making sure the
Housing Authority worked well. Now he's in Washington with me to make
sure that the HUD works well. We want -- we want money being spent to
help people buy homes. That's what we want. We want more people
owning their own home in America. And Alphonso, I want to thank you.
(Applause.)
I want to thank John Kaltenbach, who helped arrange this event. I
want to thank the members of the Home Builders Association of Central
New Mexico. I want to thank all the entrepreneurs who are here. I
want to thank the builders who are here. I want to thank Senator Pete
Domenici. He flew down with me. This guy is a fabulous United States
senator. (Applause.) He's really a good one. That's why, when I try
to get things done, I make sure Pete Domenici knows what we're trying
to do. He's accomplished. He also loves New Mexico a lot. He loves
the people here.
And so does Heather Wilson. Heather Wilson, a great
congresswoman. (Applause.) She's really effective, got a decent
soul. She's an accomplished, decent person, and I love working with
her. (Applause.) They let old Steve Pearce in from eastern New
Mexico. (Laughter.) You might remember I was raised in Midland,
Texas. As a matter of fact, that's where Laura is today. She's in
Midland, right across the border from eastern New Mexico. She's
visiting with her mother. But I've spent a lot of time in eastern New
Mexico so I know people like Steve Pearce -- down-to-earth, honest,
patriotic, willing to serve his country as the United States
congressman from that part of the world. Steve, thank you for coming
with us today. (Applause.)
I want to thank Mayor Bill Standley from the city of Farmington for
coming down to say hello. Thank you, Mayor, for being here -- thank
the other local officials who are here. It's good to be in front of a
crowd where people are wearing "gimme" hats or cowboy hats.
(Laughter.) That doesn't happen all the time in Washington. Let me
just say, it doesn't happen nearly enough in Washington. (Laughter.)
Today when I landed, I met a fellow named Irving Hall. Where are
you, Irving? Right there -- stand up. Now you can sit down.
(Laughter and applause.) Irving Hall works for our government at the
laboratories, the high tech -- Sandia -- I think you worked there,
didn't you, Irving? Yes. He worked there, and came time to retire and
his boss said, what are you going to do, Irving? He said, why don't
you make a difference -- I believe that's what your boss told me --
what you told me your boss said. See, he met me at the airplane. I'd
never met Irving before. But the reason he did is because this fellow,
upon retirement, decided he was going to do something to help somebody,
that he was going dedicate his years of retirement for making
somebody's life better by building homes for Habitat For Humanity.
(Applause.)
I love the spirit of volunteerism in America, the fact that people
like Irving are willing to take time out of their life to make a
difference in somebody else's life. A lot of times we talk about the
strength of America being our military -- it's part of our strength,
and we intend to keep the military strong -- or the size of our wallet,
relative to other countries, and that's important. But the true
strength of America is the heart and souls of the American people.
That's the strength of our country. The fact that there are people
willing to love a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself.
And so Irving, I want to thank you for setting such a good example
for your community and your state and your nation. I urge others to
take time out of your life to make a difference in a child who may be
lonely; in helping somebody learn to read; by providing shelter for the
homeless; or food for the hungry; and in so doing, you will make
America a hopeful place for all our citizens. Thank you, Irving.
(Applause.)
I am very optimistic about the future of this country for a lot of
reasons. One, I know the character of the American people. When you
know the character of the American people, you can't help but be
optimistic because we're a can-do group of folks. (Applause.) We
refuse to let anything get in our way. And we're able to overcome
challenges and we have overcome a lot of challenges during the past
three years.
Let me remind you of what we have overcome as a nation. We have
overcome a recession. That means things are going backwards.
(Applause.) A recession is a time when things are going backwards, when
people are having trouble finding work, where there's not much hope in
certain quarters of our country. We overcame that. And as we came out
of a recession -- and by the way, the stock market had begun to decline
in March of 2000. The recession began in early '01. And when the
stock market declined, that, too, affects people's attitudes. When you
think about it, there's a lot of retired folks who look at their
portfolios and see it going down. That's kind of a discouraging moment
when that happens. You begin to wonder whether all the savings you put
aside are going to be there when you really need them most.
And as we started to come out of the recession, we got attacked by
an enemy on September the 11th, 2001. And it affected us. We lost
nearly 1 million jobs in the three months after the September 11th
attack. It also affected the way we have to think in America. We used
to think that oceans can protect us. We now realized that America can
be a battleground, and therefore, we have to do everything in our power
to protect America. We're doing everything at home we can. But I'm
going to tell you, the best way to protect America is to stay on the
offense and get the terrorists before they get us. (Applause.)
September the 11th affected us. It was one of the challenges that
I talked about. We also had some corporate scandals that affected the
confidence of America. You know, it's important in a system like ours
that people have confidence in balance sheets and numbers. If you're
an investor or an employee or a shareholder, you've got to have --
trust people. And yet there are some people who have betrayed the
trust.
We had some corporate citizens who were not responsible. They
didn't do their duty as responsible citizens. We passed tough laws.
The three members here worked with us. We sent a clear message: We're
not going to tolerate dishonesty in the boardrooms of America. You
cannot lie and cheat shareholders and employees without consequences in
this country. But we overcame that. We're overcoming it.
And then I made a choice to defend the security of the country,
which also affected our economy and affected the confidence of the
people. September the 11th taught a lesson. It's an important lesson
for America. We must deal with threats before they fully materialize.
That's the lesson of September the 11th. You can't see what you think
is a threat and hope it goes away. You used to could when the oceans
protected us, but the lesson of September the 11th is, is when the
President sees a threat, we must deal with it before it -- before it
comes to fruition through death on our own soils, for example.
I looked at the intelligence and saw a threat in Iraq. The United
States Congress looked at the same intelligence, and they saw a
threat. The United Nations Security Council looked at the
intelligence, and it saw a threat. In fall of 2002, I went back to the
United Nations, I said, look, why don't we deal with this threat
together? We all see a threat, so why don't we get Saddam Hussein to
do what the world has been demanding to do for over a decade, which is
to reveal the weapons programs and get rid of him, for the sake of the
security of the world. Your choice, Mr. Saddam. He said, no, I'm not
interested.
You see, given that choice whether to trust the word of a madman, a
man who had used chemical weapons on his own people, or to defend our
country, I will choose to defend America every time. (Applause.)
Thank you all.
The challenge we overcame was the fact that on your TV screens you
saw the words "Marching to War." I don't know if you remember that or
not. As we were trying to get Saddam to disarm peacefully through the
United Nations, and the collective will of the world, you see "March to
War," that's hard if you're a business person. It's hard to risk
capital or expand your business when the country is marching to war.
It's not a good thought.
Or if you're a consumer, maybe thinking about buying a house, if
you look on your TV screens that say "March to War," you're not so sure
you want to buy the house then, because you're not sure what the
consequences of marching to war will be. Now we're marching to peace.
We're marching to peace and the world is better off. We've overcome
that obstacle. And the reason I say we've overcome these four things
is I want to remind you of the facts.
First, our economy is growing: It's strong and it's getting
stronger. Secondly, inflation is low, and interest rates are low.
Manufacturing activity is up. The unemployment rate today is lower
than the average rate in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. New Mexico's
unemployment rate is 5.7 percent, down from 6 percent a year ago.
Things are improving. Things are getting better. Thanks to being the
most productive work force in America -- and I might say thanks to good
policies -- this economy is strong, and it's getting stronger.
(Applause.)
I look forward to continuing to make the argument that the reason
why things are improving, besides the fact that the character of this
country is strong is that we let people keep more of their own money.
That's what tax relief is. (Applause.)
When you got more of your own money in your pocket, pretty good
chance you're going to demand an additional good or a service. And
when you demand an additional good or a service, somebody is going to
provide that for you. And when somebody provides an additional good or
a service, somebody is more likely to keep a job or to find a job.
That's the way the economy works.
And so the tax relief we passed came at the right time. The
recession was a shallow recession, thanks to the tax relief. The tax
relief helped families because we raised the child credit to a thousand
dollars per child. The tax relief helped marriages because we reduced
the marriage penalty. What kind of tax code is that that penalizes
marriage, by the way? (Applause.) We helped our seniors by reducing
the taxes on dividends.
We also helped the small business community a lot in our tax relief
plan. I'll tell you why, most small businesses are sole
proprietorships, or subchapter s corporations, which means they pay tax
at the individual income tax rate. So when you hear me talking about
reducing all taxes, I want you to think about the benefit that does for
the small business community. Seventy percent of new jobs in America
are created by small business owners. And therefore, if you're worried
about job creation, it makes sense to stimulate the small business
sector of this country, and the tax relief did exactly that.
(Applause.)
One of the great successes of this period of time, a period of time
that had a lot of challenges is the fact that housing starts and
homeownership are incredibly strong right now. Low interest rates
help. It makes it easier, obviously, to afford a mortgage. But so did
the tax policies. See, when people feel more confident they're going
to have money in their pocket, they're more likely to go out and buy a
home.
The home sales were the highest ever recently. That's exciting
news for the country when you think about it. Good for the builders.
(Laughter.) But more importantly, it's good for the owners. We want
people owning something in America. That's what we want. The great
dream about America is, I can own my own home, people say. Or I can
own my own business -- like many back here do. Or I can own and manage
my own health care account, or my own retirement account.
See, we want more people owning something because when somebody
owns something, they have a vital stake in the future of the country.
The more people who own their home, the better off America is. And
we're making good progress. Our nation's 68 percent homeownership rate
is the highest ever. More people own homes now than ever before in the
country's history, and that's exciting for the future of America.
(Applause.)
There's a homeownership gap in America that exists for minorities.
And we got to do something about it. So Alphonso mentioned the goal --
I set a good goal, which is adding 5.5 million new minority homeowners
in America by the end of the decade. When we're talking about
homeownership, we're talking about for everybody. That's what I'm
talking about. The more people who own their home, the better off
America will be.
Since then, since I laid out the goal, more than 1.5 million
minority families have become homeowners. And for the first time ever,
more than half of minority households own their own home. We're making
progress closing the gap. But more importantly, people are
understanding what it means to be a buyer and an owner. People
understand what it means to say, this is my house. (Applause.)
Lori Benavidez is with us. Lori, thank you for coming. She's a
mom with two. She brought her own mother with her -- that would your
grandmother. (Laughter.) Lori is -- when I met her backstage -- the
kind of person that you want really owning a home because she's so
thrilled with the idea. We helped her. I say we -- people here in
this part of the world did. We got a program that helps people who
rent through voucher eight programs to afford a down payment. It helps
them take some of those payments and set it aside for a down payment so
that she can afford to buy her own home. What she did is she got
counseling services. I know there's some -- we'll talk a little bit
about that in a second.
Let me tell you what she said, though, about owning her first
home. She said, I never thought the day would happen when my girls and
I would be sitting in our own home. It's a miracle, she said.
(Applause.)
Yes, Lori said, you made it possible -- I think she told me that.
I said, no, Lori, you made it possible. You're the reason why the
miracle happened -- because she decided she wanted to follow her
dream. And the role of government is to help people realize their
dream, not stand in the way of dreams, but to make it easier for people
to realize their dream.
And there are practical ways to do that. One practical way is to
help people with a down payment. There are low-income citizens in our
country who simply cannot afford a down payment. They may be able to
afford the mortgage over time, but they -- one of the hurdles for
homeownership is, I can't -- I don't want to put the money up. I just
don't have that kind of cash to make the down payment, people will
say.
I'm sure some home builders and real estate agents know what I'm
talking. They say, I think this is what -- this is what I want to live
out my dream, but I can't put up the money. So the government has a
chance to help, in my judgment. I want to thank very much the Congress
working on the -- providing money to help people with their down
payment on their home, the practical way to encourage more people to
own a home, to give them a chance. There will be $900,000 coming in
May to help families in this state afford a down payment.
A practical way -- another practical way to help people, first-time
home buyers is to make zero down payment loans possible for those whose
mortgages are insured by the Federal Housing Administration. In other
words, you go to your FHA administration, get your -- get your loan
insured, then you don't have to pay a down payment. Right now they
have to pay a 3 percent down payment. It doesn't sound like a lot to
some. It's a lot to people who are struggling to make ends meet, and
who yet still want to realize their dream.
Those are two practical ways to help people cross the hurdle -- the
initial hurdle of buying a home. By the way, if we can get the FHA
plan in place, it will help 150,000 families buy homes in the first
year alone. It's a practical way, again, of encouraging
homeownership.
I don't know if you saw Lori. She had a tear in her eye when I
introduced her because of the thrill of owning her own home. We want
Loris all over the country to feel the same way, to have that great
sense of enthusiasm and joy about saying, this is my home. Welcome to
my home.
The second way we can help is to make sure that Americans
understand what it means to buy a home. You know, I don't know if
you've looked at those forms, but there's a lot of fine print.
(Laughter.) And if you're nervous about fine print, like a lot of good
citizens are, then that may become a stumbling block to buy a home.
I'm not going to sign anything that's got all that fine print, people
might say.
And there's a practical way to help people and that is through
counseling services. You've got good counseling services right here in
New Mexico. Home New Mexico is such a counseling service. Tierra
decision Sol, in Las Cruces, is a counseling service.
Lori told me she got counseling services. I don't know if there's
any counselors here, but there are people all across the country who
get help through HUD, that sit down with people like Lori and explain
what it means to buy a home, own a home, and the responsibilities with
owning a home. They explain the credit policies. They explain what it
means to make a monthly payment. They explain what the monthly
payments will be. It's a way of compassionate people to help somebody
who wants to realize their dream.
As well, under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, people
will have access to their credit report. And that's important. A lot
of people have never seen their credit report before. Now you got
access to it.
See, what happens is, people go start to try to buy a home and up
pops the credit report, and they say, sorry, brother, your credit isn't
any good. You can't buy a home. People need to be able to look at all
the hurdles and impediments to buying a home as they go through the
process. We don't want people to have their dreams crushed. We want
people to realize dreams.
And so I want to thank the counselors who are here for working with
the Lori Benavidezes of the world, to explain to them what it means to
be a homeowner. As well, we've got to make sure affordable housing is
available to more and more citizens. In other words, we've got to
provide incentive for homebuilders to build low-income houses, and so
I've proposed a single-family affordable housing tax credit. It's a
good plan. It's a plan that will make more homes available in parts of
America that -- where a lot of homes haven't been built or
rehabilitated. It's a good way to encourage people to build homes in
barrios, or inner cities. It's a good way to make sure affordable
housing is available to citizens from all walks of life.
I also have called upon real estate and mortgage -- the mortgage
finance industry to join in our efforts in closing the minority home
ownership gap to help low-income people buy a home. And more than two
dozen major companies and organizations have stepped up. The Suburban
Mortgage outfit here in New Mexico, as well as the Bank of Albuquerque,
have committed to extending more loans to low-income families and to
financing the construction of more affordable homes.
And I want to thank these corporate citizens for stepping up to the
plate and helping the country become a better country by encouraging
more people to own their own piece of property. (Applause.)
Homeownership is strong. We need to keep it that way. I want
these builders back here employing people. I want people showing up
for work. By the way, when it comes to work, we ought to have
reasonable immigration policy.
I bet you'd get a fair appraisal from some of the business owners
back here. They'll tell you that the immigration policy of this
country isn't conducive for good economy, let me put it to you that
way. I mean, you don't know if you're hiring somebody who's here
legally or not legally.
See, we got a policy that has encouraged forged documents and
smugglers. My attitude is if you -- a builder back here can't find an
American willing to do the job, they ought to have the ability to put
somebody on the job who can do the job. My attitude is, is that we
ought to have a temporary worker's card for people who are willing to
work. This is not an amnesty program. I don't think it makes sense to
have amnesty right now in the country. Amnesty would encourage further
illegal immigration. And amnesty would say to those who have stood in
line for a long period of time who want to be a legal citizen, standing
in line legally wasn't worth it. We're going to let somebody cut in
line.
What I'm talking about is a worker plan, a plan that understands
people coming up from Mexico want to put food on their table for their
sons and daughters and that people right here behind me are looking for
somebody to put roof -- lay roof or lay tiles. And they can't find
workers here. In order to make sure the economy runs well, in order to
make sure we treat people humanely, we need a temporary worker plan.
It makes sense to do that. I look forward to working with Congress to
get something reasonable out. (Applause.)
A couple of other things I've got on my mind I'd like to share with
you about how to make sure America remains a good place to do
business. You hear a lot of talk about jobs going overseas. Some are
going overseas, and some from overseas are coming here. But the best
way to make sure people can find work in America is to make sure the
business environment, the entrepreneurial environment is strong and
solid, that it's a good place to do business, let me put it to you that
way. If you want people hiring people in America, we've got to make
sure America's a good place to do business, a good place for our
employers, and there's some things we need to do. (Applause.)
We need tort reform in America. (Applause.) Too many lawsuits.
Ask these employers what it's like when you're threatened by a lawsuit
or you see your neighbor threatened by a lawsuit. There's too many
lawsuits in the country, there just is. There's reasonable tort
reform. Congress passed -- the House passed some class-action reform,
and some asbestos reform, and medical liability reform. It's stuck in
the Senate. As people tell you, the trial lawyers are a strong lobby
up there in Washington, D.C. But I'm going to keep pushing for tort
reform because it's right and it's the way to make sure America stays a
competitive place to do business.
Speaking about medical liability reform, another issue that plagues
small business owners and employers is the cost of health care. It's
going up and we need to address the cost of health care without letting
the federal government run the program. (Applause.)
And there are some practical ways to do that. One, I told you
about medical liability reform that's got stuck in the Senate. But one
of the reasons health care costs are going up is because of the
frivolous and junk lawsuits that are threatening our docs in
hospitals. And so therefore, docs and hospitals practice what's called
"defensive medicine" in order to protect themselves in a court of law.
Listen, there's reasonable reform. But what's not reasonable is a
system today when you've got trial lawyers who view the legal system as
a lottery where they can get the jackpot, where they can get a big
salary. All that's going to do is make your health care costs too
high. (Applause.)
We need association health plans for small businesses so they can
pool risk. If you're a small builder here in Albuquerque, it's hard to
go into the marketplace and find affordable insurance for your hands.
But if you're able to team up with other builders, not only in New
Mexico but around the country, and pool risks just like big
corporations do, you're going to be able to find more affordable health
care for your employees.
We also need to expand health savings accounts. This is a great
idea, by the way, for small businesses and employees to be able to put
money in tax-free, keep it in your plan tax-free, and take it out
tax-free. You cover incidentals, and then you can have major medical
to make sure you cover your big expenses. And believe me, this is a
way for small businesses to be able to better afford health care.
You know what else we need to do? We need an energy plan. Pete
Domenici is in the lead on having an energy plan in the United States
Senate. (Applause.)
It's stuck in the Senate right now, and Pete's going to get it
unstuck. He's going to need some help. You might want to write some
other people up in Washington, D.C. who aren't with us here today.
This bill needs to get moving. We need to be -- we need to encourage
conservation, we need to encourage alternative sources of energy. We
need to modernize the electricity grid. But for the sake of keeping
jobs here at home and for the sake of expanding the economy, we need to
be less dependent on foreign sources of energy. (Applause.)
I'll tell you what else we need to do. Ask these builders what
it's like to put up with federal, state and local regulations. I told
Alphonso we've got to do something about it at the federal level and he
says we are. So we'll watch him. (Laughter.) He's got a -- you don't
need to fill out the same form to meet the same requirement at all
three levels of government. Regulations cost small businesses a lot of
money. It means you have less money in your pocket to expand your
business and hire people, that's what that means. If you want to keep
jobs here in America, we'll need to be -- we need less paperwork.
And by the way, I don't know, Alphonso may not agree with this, but
I bet a lot of the paperwork that's filed up in the federal government
is never read. (Laughter.) And if that's the case, it's another
reason to make sure we don't have too much paperwork.
The other thing we need to do here in this country is to make the
tax cuts we passed permanent. (Applause.) The way it works up there
is they passed the tax cuts so people have more money in their pocket
and they're set to expire. The child credit is going to go down next
year unless the Senate and the House make the tax cuts permanent.
The marriage penalty's going to go up next year. The 10 percent
bracket expansion is going to shrink. In other words, it's a tax
increase. We're fixing to get taxed if the Congress doesn't act.
These three members are strong supporters of making those aspects of
the tax cuts permanent. It makes sense not to be taking money out of
people's pockets just as this economy is beginning to recover. We want
to keep demand strong. We want people being able to have their own
money. (Applause.)
I like to tell people, the people of the country spent their own
money better than the federal government could have. And that's why
the economy is getting stronger. So they need to make the tax cuts
permanent. If you're a businessperson, you need to be able to plan.
You don't want to think your taxes are going to be here today and gone
tomorrow.
You need certainty in the tax code. Ask any businessperson what
it's like to run a business and the more certain the environment is in
the future, the more likely it is they will be successful. And when
they're successful, somebody will be able to find a job.
I also want to talk about trade. Presidents before me in both
political parties made decisions to make sure America's markets were
open for goods produced overseas. It made sense in many ways. It
helped keep consumer prices down. It helps the consumer when there's
competition.
My attitude is, if our markets are open, I want the other people's
markets to be open. My attitude is -- (applause) -- my attitude is
instead of walling each other off, like the economic isolationists want
us to do, let's be confident. Let's trust in our entrepreneurs. Let's
understand our farmers and ranchers are the best at the world. Let's
say, if you trade with us in an open way, you got to open up your
market. That's the Bush policy -- you open up your market so we can
compete. (Applause.)
Economic isolationism will lead to economic stagnation. We can't
have that. If we want people working, we've got to be confident in our
ability to compete. A lot of people make a living here in America
because their products they make are sold overseas. We're good at
things in this country. When you see that label "Made in the U.S.A.,"
you know you got yourself a quality product. I want "Made in the
U.S.A." sold all over the world. (Applause.)
What I'm telling you is in order to be -- make sure people can find
work and retain a job, we got to make sure this economy grows. These
are what we call pro-growth policies. They say we understand that the
vibrancy of the country is in the small business sector. We're vibrant
when we make sure the entrepreneurial spirit is strong.
I want to talk about one other thing we've got to do to make sure
this is a good place for people to realize their dreams and start a
business and get well educated, is we've got to make sure this country
is on the leading end of broadband technology. You see, new ideas and
new businesses and new ways to educate people in Farmington, New Mexico
are going to occur when we're able to get information flowing across
cables and telephone lines in a fast way. That's what broadband
technology is. It means we'll open the highways of knowledge -- new
highways of knowledge.
This country needs a national goal for broadband technology, for
the spread of broadband technology. We ought to have a universal,
affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007, and then
we ought to make sure as soon as possible thereafter, consumers have
got plenty of choices when it comes to purchasing the broadband
carrier. See, the more choices
there are, the more the price will go down. And the more the price
goes down, the more users there will be. And the more users there will
be, the more likely it is America will stay on the competitive edge of
world trade.
The more users there are, the more likely it is people will be able
to have interesting new ways to receive doctors' advices in the home.
The more affordable broadband technology is, the more innovative we can
be with education. It's important that we stay on the cutting edge of
technological change, and one way to do so is to have a bold plan for
broadband.
Let me say one thing about broadband -- we don't need to tax access
to broadband. The Congress must not tax access to broadband technology
if we want to spread it around. (Applause.)
The role of government is to create an environment in which the
entrepreneurial spirit is strong, and in which people are able to
realize their dreams. And that's what we're here talking about, when
you think about it. We're talking about making sure America is the
place where dreams can be realized and people can own something.
People can own their own business. People can own their own home.
People have a chance to say, this is mine, this is my property. And
we're making good progress here, doing just that.
Remember where I started? I talked about the hurdles we've
overcome -- we really have. The country is a strong country. It's
overcome a lot. And there's more hurdles to overcome in the future.
I'm confident of that. But you know what else I'm confident of? We'll
overcome them. This is such a great country, full of decent and
honorable people. (Applause.)
Thank you for coming. May God bless. Thank you all.