For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
August 4, 2003
Vice President's Remarks at Reception
The Grand America Hotel
Salt Lake City, Utah
12:31 P.M. MDT
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, very
much. Thank you. Thank you, Lynne.
I'm delighted to be back in Utah, back in Salt Lake this
afternoon, and have an opportunity to spend some time with all of
you. It's always a pleasure when I get to travel with Lynne. She
can't come with me all the time. She's got other
responsibilities, as well, too. But I'm always delighted to have her
come along.
And some of you've heard me tell the story before about the fact
that we have a Republican marriage, that if it hadn't been for the
victory by Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, that our lives would have
turned out very differently, that in 1952, I was a youngster living
in Nebraska with my parents. Dad worked for the Soil Conservation
Service. Dwight Eisenhower got elected. And once elected, he
reorganized the Agriculture Department. Dad got transferred to Casper,
Wyoming. And that's where I met Lynne. And we grew up together, went
to high school together, and we'll celebrate our 39th wedding
anniversary next week. (Applause.)
But I explained that to a group of people the other night and
pointed out that if hadn't been for that great Republican victory in
1952, Lynne would have married somebody else. And she said, right,
and now he'd be Vice President of the United States. (Laughter.) And
there's no doubt in mind.
But it's always fun to come back to Utah. Utah holds a special
place in our hearts, in part because you were so important in terms
of the last election in 2000. Of course, every state was pretty
important in the last election, when we win by one electoral vote.
But Utah stood out. Utah delivered the largest margin for our
ticket, 41 percent, of any state in the nation. And we hope
you'll do even better next time around, 2004. (Applause.)
It's a pleasure to come to Utah with your outstanding
congressional delegation -- men like Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop in
the House. And I have the privilege as Vice President, every
Tuesday, of joining your senators -- Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch -- for
lunch in the Senate.
Many people don't realize that I'm a creature of the Senate, that
my only official job is as the President of the Senate, the presiding
officer of the United States Senate. When they wrote the Constitution
and created the vice presidency, they got down to the end of
the convention and realized they hadn't given the Vice President
anything to do. So they made him the presiding officer of the
Senate and gave him floor privileges, even. At the time he was
allowed to get up on the floor and go down into the well and take
part in the debate of the day. And my predecessor, the very first
Vice President, John Adams, actually did that a few times, and then
they withdrew his floor privileges. (Laughter.)
So I've never gotten to speak in the Senate. But I'm allowed to
sit in the chair and rap the gavel and preside whenever I want. I'm
actually paid by the Senate. So it's -- the senators are great.
They've been very tolerant of me. They allow me to come have
lunch with the Senate Republicans every Tuesday. But from that
position I have the great advantage of watching your senators
work. And no state has finer representation in the United States
Senate today than you have in Senators Bennett and Hatch. They do a
superb job for all of us. (Applause.)
I've gotten to know Mike Leavitt over the years. He's, I
believe, the senior governor in the nation today in terms of
length of service. He's done a great job for Utah. He's a very
close friend of President Bush's from their time together as
governors. And it's always good to come back and spend some time with
Governor Leavitt, as well, too.
I want to thank everybody who helped organize this event today.
I appreciate very much that you're all here, that you've been willing
to sign on early this year for the Bush-Cheney campaign. We're all
here for the same purpose, although I'm sure you probably paid a
little more to get in than I did. But above all, I want to thank you
for your commitment to the reelection of a man that most certainly
deserves our support, and that's our President, George W. Bush.
(Applause.)
Each and every one of you here today is crucial to the 2004
campaign. If you had any doubts about the importance of individual
effort, think back to November and December of the year 2000.
Every dollar we raised was important, just as was every hour that every
person worked. It was a close race. The stakes were extraordinarily
high. And I can't tell you, given the subsequent events, how often
people have come up to me and said, we are so grateful that George W.
Bush is in the White House.
I think some pundits expected that given the closeness of
that election, that the administration, once in office, might trim
its sails, that we would move forward only with a very timid agenda,
that we would cut back on our hopes and aspirations for what we could
accomplish. But from the very beginning, the President made it
abundantly clear that he had gone to Washington in order to get
something done, and that we were going to do absolutely everything
we could to move full speed ahead on all of our priorities. And
that's exactly what he did.
That very first year, we achieved two of our biggest goals:
tax relief and education reform. On the tax front, we lowered
income tax rates, reduced the marriage penalty, and eliminated the
death tax.
The President also moved aggressively and successfully to build
a bipartisan coalition to reform our educational system. That
was a milestone reform, ushering in an era of high standards and
accountability. And it was truly a turning point that we hope will
set American education on the path towards excellence.
And then came that attack on our country, on September 11th --
that's a day none of us will ever forget. Suddenly, we understood how
vulnerable we were as a nation, how it was possible for terrorists to
take advantage of our open borders and our open society and to use
them against us. On that dreadful day we saw that it was
relatively easy for a handful of terrorists to launch an attack upon
us and kill some 3,000 of our fellow Americans in a matter of hours
in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania.
We also began to understand, particularly after we went through
the caves and the tunnels and the training camps in Afghanistan,
that our enemies are determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction
-- chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. And we have every
reason to believe that if they succeed, they will use them against
us, launching an attack far more deadly than anything we've ever
experienced.
We began to work very aggressively here at home to strengthen
our defenses. We created the Department of Homeland Security, the most
massive reorganization of the federal government since the
1940s, when the Department of Defense was created. We focused our
intelligence efforts on terrorism and established a worldwide coalition
of countries to help in the fight. We've gone after the financial
networks and the logistical support of the terrorists, and we've gone
after the terrorists themselves, as well as those who sponsor
terrorists and who provide sanctuary and safe harbor for terrorists.
They're every bit as guilty as the terrorists for the acts that are
committed.
I'll never forget that Friday after the attack, when the
President went to Ground Zero in New York. He stood up on a pile of
rubble, with a bullhorn in his hand. And when the men in the hard
hats who were working there said they couldn't hear him, he
responded, "Well, I can hear you. And the rest of the world hears
you. And soon the people who knocked down these buildings will soon
hear from all of us."
And he's been a man of his word. This is a new posture for
our nation, one that recognizes that defense is not enough. The
problem with terrorist organizations is that even if you build
defenses that are 99 percent successful, that one 1 percent that gets
through can kill you. And the kind of strategy that we used against
the Soviet Union during the Cold War, where we put at risk the
things they valued in order to deter them from ever launching an
attack against the United States, simply does not work where terrorists
are concerned. They have nothing that they put value on of
sufficient strength that we can put at risk to keep them from
launching an attack against the United States. So no treaty or
arms control agreement or strategy of deterrence will end this
conflict. We need to have a strategy that takes us on offense,
that lets us go after those who pose threats to the United
States, to our friends, and our allies.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban regime brutalized an entire
population. They harbored al Qaeda. And that regime is no more. And
in Iraq, where a brutal dictator threatened the peace and gave
support to terrorists, the United States launched one of the most
extraordinary military campaigns ever conducted. And that regime is no
more.
In the battles of Iraq and of Afghanistan, and in other fronts in
the war on terror, we've depended on the skill and the courage of our
men and women in uniform. They've faced enemies who have no regard
for the rules of warfare or morality. They've carried out urgent and
difficult missions in some of the most remote and hostile areas of
the world. And they've done all of this with the bravery and the
honor we expect of them. As a former Secretary of Defense -- and I
know you join me in this sentiment -- I have never been more proud
of our men and women in uniform than I am today. (Applause.)
The war on terrorism continues. And it will continue, perhaps
as long as we're in office, possibly even longer. We will stay in
Afghanistan and in Iraq to make absolutely certain the job is done
before we move on. We will stay until we've wrapped up all of the
weapons of mass destruction and eliminated all of those who are
enemies of the United States. And around the world, the war on
terrorism will go on until those who plot against the American people
are confronted and defeated.
But that is only part of our responsibility toward other
nations. There is great work in this world that only Americans
can do. In the Middle East, we are encouraging free markets,
democracy, and tolerance -- because these are ideas and aspirations
that overcome violence and turn societies to the pursuit of peace.
In Africa, the President's AIDS initiative will bring the
healing power of medicine to millions of men, women, and children who
now live in desperate need. Under President Bush, America acts in the
world according to both our fundamental interests and our founding
ideals. We believe in the dignity of life and in the right of all
people to live in freedom. And all who strive and sacrifice for the
cause of freedom will have a friend in the United States of America.
Here at home, we'll continue with an active and aggressive
domestic schedule and agenda. After many years of inaction, we are
making progress on bringing Medicare into the 21st century. Last
January, President Bush submitted a framework for Medicare reform to
the Congress that would give seniors access to prescription drug
coverage and offer them better choices under Medicare. Both houses
have taken historic action. And now Congress must complete its
work and send a bill to the President that provides seniors with
better health coverage and relief from rising costs for
prescription drugs.
We've now also had action both in the House and Senate on an
energy bill. And that's in conference. And we hope soon to get an
energy bill to the President's desk, that, for the first time in many
years, will make it possible for us to make progress in reducing
America's dependence on foreign sources of energy.
And we need to get more judges confirmed. We have far too
many vacancies that are held up in the federal bench -- in spite of
the great leadership of Orrin Hatch and the men on the Judiciary
Committee -- with the threat of filibuster, as our friends on the
other side of the aisle refuse to allow nominees of great merit to have
even a vote on the floor of the Senate because they disagree with their
philosophy, not because there's any flaw or any problem with any of
these nominees. It's time that each and every nominee by the President
were given a fair up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate if they're
going to serve on the bench. (Applause.)
We've made major progress on the economy. When we took
office America was sliding into recession. Too many people who
wanted to work couldn't find a job. To help create jobs and to get
the economy moving again, we've cut taxes each of the last three
years that we've been in office. We've delivered the largest tax
relief since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
We've achieved a great deal in these two-and-a-half years,
but there's much left to do in Washington, and around the world,
where this nation has so many serious responsibilities and
challenges. The campaign season will come in due course. And when it
does, we'll run hard and take nothing for granted. President Bush and
I know that the key to victory is to do the work that we've been
given and do it well. We intend to make good use of every day
that we have the honor of serving the American people.
Long before I took this job, I had the good fortune to work
with other Presidents that I greatly admire. As a White House
staffer in the aftermath of Watergate, I watched Gerald Ford
restore confidence in government by the sheer decency and force
of his character. As a congressman during the decisive years of the
Cold War, I saw the conviction and the moral courage of Ronald Reagan.
And as a member of the Cabinet and Secretary of Defense, under
former President Bush, I saw the ideal of public service in its
purest form and came to know a leader of true honor and integrity.
Along the way I learned a few things about the presidency and
the kind of person it takes to do that job well. It takes the finest
qualities of character: conviction, personal integrity, good
judgment, compassion, courage in times of testing for the
nation. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly the kind of
man we have in the White House today. (Applause.)
I'm honored to work with our President, George W. Bush. And he and
I are both honored by your confidence in us and by your commitment
to this great and good country of ours, the United States of
America. Thank you very much.
END 12:48 P.M. MDT
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