For Immediate Release
October 8, 2002
President to Congress: Pass Terrorism Insurance and Homeland Security Bills
Excerpt from October 8, 2002 Remarks in Alcoa, Tennessee
Click here to read full remarks.
And before they go home, there's something else they can do. They can
pass a terrorism insurance bill. See, there's $15 billion worth of
construction projects which are on hold around America because people
can't get insurance for the project. The enemy hit us, and it made it
very difficult for people to be able to insure those projects. And so,
therefore, I think it's a useful role for the Congress to serve as a
backstop against a potential terrorist attack.
This is a jobs program. This is a way to get our people back to work
the right way, to encourage private sector jobs. There's over 300,000
jobs, good hard-hat jobs that have been delayed because we can't get a
terrorism insurance package out of the United States Congress. There's
a lot of voices up there talking about the economy, and I'm glad
they're talking about it. But they ought to stop talking and they
ought to start doing, by getting a terrorism insurance bill to my desk
so we can get people back to work. (Applause.)
And that terrorism insurance bill must remember who we're trying to
help. We're not trying to help the trial lawyers; we're trying to help
the hard-hats of America. (Applause.) Now, I -- the economy is on my
mind because I want our fellow countrymen working, I want them to be
able to put bread on the table. The safety of the country is on my
mind, too. See, there's still an enemy which hates America lurking
around. And so long as that's the case, my most important job is to
protect you. My most important job is to rally the assets of
government at all levels to do everything we can to deny the enemy, to
prevent them from hitting America.
People say, well, why -- and I know a lot of kids are probably asking,
well, why America? And you've just got to understand that the enemy
hates us because of what we love. We love freedom. We love the idea of
people -- (applause). We love the fact that, in this great country,
people can worship an almighty God any way they see fit. That's what
we love. (Applause.) We love free political -- we love the debates, we
love free -- we love the discourse of free people. We love a free
press. We love everything about our freedom, and we're not going to
change. We're going to stand tall and stand strong. (Applause.)
We also value life in America. Everybody counts, everybody has worth,
everybody is a precious soul. And the enemy we -- the enemy doesn't
regard life the way we do. You see, they hijack a great religion and
kill innocent people. They don't care, but we do. And so long as we
hold those values dear, which we will, the enemy will try to strike
us.
And so we've got a lot of good people, you just need to know, working
hard to protect you. A lot of good folks. We're sharing information. I
mean, we're running down every hint, every idea. Every piece of
evidence we get, we're chasing it down so that we can say to the
American people, we're doing everything we can do.
That's why I went to Congress and asked them to put together a
department of homeland security, to join me in creating a new
department, so we could better coordinate the over 100 agencies that
are involved with protecting you. And we got a good bill out of the
House, and it's stuck in the Senate.
And the reason it's stuck in the Senate is because there is a
disagreement over how best to manage the agency. On the one hand, they
want us to have a thick book of rules to micromanage the
decision-making process. I'll give you one example. The Customs agents
should be wearing radio detection devices -- radiological detection
devices on their belt so that, if when they're looking for weapons of
mass destruction and they come close to one, it -- this device will
send a signal. It ought to be -- it ought to be a part of their job.
But the thick book of rules says, well, that's up for collective
bargaining before you can make a person do that. See, we've got --
that violates a rule and, therefore, we got to negotiate that out.
Folks, we don't have time to negotiate a lot of these issues.
(Applause.) We've got time to negotiate some issues. We've got time to
negotiate some issues, of course. But we don't have time to sit around
and negotiate the work rules necessary to protect you. The enemy
doesn't sit around worrying about a thick book of regulations. And so,
for the sake of our national security interests, the Congress, the
Senate ought to give this President and future Presidents the ability
to put the right people at the right place with the right equipment at
the right time to protect America. (Applause.)
Click here to read full remarks.
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