For Immediate Release
Office of the First Lady
September 24, 2004
Remarks by First Lady Laura Bush at Victory '04 Rally in Eldridge, Iowa
Eldridge Library Eldridge, Iowa
9:37 A.M. CDT
MRS. BUSH: Charlotte, thanks very much. Charlotte is getting
around really great after just having -- a week after having surgery.
Thank you so much, Charlotte. Thank you very much for your hard work.
Be seated, everyone.
Thank you very much for your hard work for this library. And
thanks also for your hard work for the Bush-Cheney Campaign. I really
appreciate that as well.
And I also want to thank all the state representatives and senators
who are sitting here behind me. Thank you all very much. And thanks
so much to Christine for leading the Pledge of Allegiance.
Thanks to everybody for being here today. I can't think of a
better venue for me than to be in a library. Some of my fondest
childhood memories are the times I spent reading with my mother. And
before I could even see the top of the card catalog, my mother would
take me to the Midland County Library in Midland, Texas. And when we
would go home, we'd read together all those treasures we found on the
library shelves. In one afternoon, we could travel from Texas to
Minnesota, reading about Laura Ingalls and her adventures in the Little
House in the Big Woods and the Little House on the Prairie.
And, as all of you know, America was really blessed because Andrew
Carnegie believed that libraries should foster the mind, the body, and
the spirit. And many American libraries started out as Carnegie
libraries all across the United States.
This library, like thousands across America, stands as a beacon for
freedom and for education. And I want to thank the librarians who are
here today. Your job is a really important one. Librarians inform the
public and, by doing so, they strengthen our great democracy.
And since Charlotte mentioned it, I also want to mention that the
fourth National Book Festival, the Fourth Annual National Book Festival
will be on the National Mall on October 9th. And more than 70 authors
are invited. And I hope we have at least as many people as we had last
year. And I want to invite any of you that want to come to Washington
to come on that weekend of October 9th to the National Book Festival.
Besides visiting your beautiful library, the other reason I'm here
today is to talk about why it's so important to reelect our great
President, George W. Bush. (Applause.) I know that you all see what I
see, and that is my husband has the strength of character and
conviction to lead our country during these really historic times that
we are living in.
We've been through a lot together in the last four years. But
today our economy is growing, we're closing the achievement gap in our
schools, and America is safer and stronger thanks to President Bush's
decisive leadership. (Applause.)
A couple of weeks ago, I visited with a woman entrepreneur in Ohio
and she summed up our success this way. She said, "President Bush was
born for such a time as this. He never waivers when it comes to doing
the right thing. It makes me feel so secure to know that our leader
has such a love for our country."
These are times of change. They're historic times but they're also
times of change that require new ideas to move America forward. Just
think about the differences between our lives today and the lives of
our parents or grandparents. Today, in most families, both parents are
working outside the home, including two-thirds of all mothers. And
more single parents are doing double duty alone.
More entrepreneurs are starting their own businesses and workers
are changing jobs often during their lifetime rather than going to work
for one company and staying with that company for their whole career.
And more people are going back to school to keep up with our changing
economy.
At our convention in New York, President Bush outlined his agenda
for a new term. And helping families face the challenges of this
changing world is at the heart of the President's plan.
We all know, every one of us in this room, that all opportunity
starts with education. Thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act, our
schools are improving with higher standards, with accountability, and
with the most funding ever for elementary and secondary education.
More children are reading at grade level and scores in math are
improving. We owe much of this success to America's incredible
teachers. (Applause.)
In the next four years, my husband wants teachers to be rewarded,
teachers who choose to teach in low-income, rural or inner-city
schools, and all those teachers who are working hard to close the
achievement gap. And he wants our students in high schools to be well
prepared for college or the work force with strong skills in math and
science.
We know that learning doesn't end with graduation. For workers who
want to go back to school to learn the new skills for the jobs of the
21st century, the President will work with community colleges to make
sure career training is available and accessible for all Americans.
And because higher education is a dream for so many people, he wants
more Pell grants to be available, so that many more Americans can earn
a college diploma.
And when these graduates enter the work force, I'm proud to say
that a lot of them will go to work for a woman boss. (Applause.) Ten
million American women own their own business and this sisterhood just
keeps growing.
One of the reasons for this growth is that the President worked to
pass the largest tax relief in a generation. (Applause.) I'm so
pleased that yesterday the United States Congress voted to extend this
tax relief. This gives families and small businesses added certainty
to keep on the path to greater prosperity.
Just in case you don't know, a lot of small businesses are either
sole proprietorships or sub-S corporations, which means they're taxed
with regular income tax. So when you talk about tax relief, you're
also talking about the tax cuts that small business owners have gotten,
which helps them expand their businesses and to hire more people.
We've added 1.7 million jobs since last August '03, and that's more
jobs than Germany, Japan, England, Canada and France added, combined.
(Applause.)
In August, here in your state, I met Carmela Chiafos who is the
only woman -- we think the only woman in Iowa to own a towing company.
(Laughter.) Carmela spent nearly two decades with her father building
their company from a part-time hobby with one truck to a full-time
business with two dozen trucks.
With the capital gains tax passed last year, Carmela was able to
buy the business from her father. Some day, she hopes to pass this
business on to her own two children. Carmela told me -- and I love
this quote and I think this is a quote that could come from any
American, but especially from somebody that lives in this state -- she
said, "If you're determined and you want to work hard, you can do
anything you want to. That's the beautiful thing about America."
(Applause.)
For small business owners like Carmela and for working families,
President Bush will make sure taxes are kept low. And because so many
people change jobs now several times over the length of their careers,
workers and their families need access to affordable health care. For
years, leaders in both parties said we should provide prescription drug
coverage in Medicare. President Bush brought Republicans and Democrats
together to give seniors real savings on their prescription drugs.
And he's making health care insurance more affordable with health
savings accounts. These plans allow you to save, tax free, for routine
health care expenses in accounts that you own, that you control and
that you can take with you from job to job, or that you will still have
if you quit work and go home to raise a family. This allows people to
buy catastrophic health insurance with a large deductible, they can
save for their deductible, have it in their health savings account, and
it allows them to buy insurance at a much lower rate.
And probably most of you know this, but the majority of uninsured
American workers work for small businesses. In the next four years,
the President wants to enable small businesses to pool their risk so
that they can buy health insurance for their employees at the same
discounts that big businesses get. (Applause.)
And my husband will make sure that patients and doctors are in
charge of health care, not bureaucrats in Washington. (Applause.)
George believes that government should help people improve their lives,
not try to run them. (Applause.)
All of these issues are important to our country. But as we grieve
for the families of Russia, and as we mark the third anniversary of
September 11th, I believe what's most important is my husband's work to
protect our country and to defeat terror around the world. (Applause.)
President Bush and I want our men and women in uniform and their
families to know how much every American appreciates their service and
their sacrifice. We appreciate courageous Americans like retired Army
Sergeant Christina Wall of the 529th Ordinance Company who led the
Pledge today. (Applause.) Not only did Christina serve in our
military, but her husband does as well, and so does one of her sons.
As we do the hard work of confronting terror, we can be proud that
today 50 million more men, women and children have the chance to live
in freedom, thanks to the United States of America and our allies.
(Applause.) After years of being treated as virtual prisoners in their
own homes by the Taliban, the women of Afghanistan are now able to walk
outside of their homes without a male escort. And the little girls of
Afghanistan, who were forbidden to be educated, are now back in
school. (Applause.)
Because we acted, the people of Iraq are free from the tyranny of
Saddam Hussein. Yesterday, President Bush met with Prime Minister
Allawi at the White House. Imagine, a President of the United States
and a Prime Minister of Iraq meeting together at the White House.
Prime Minister Allawi said that the Iraqi people are determined to
exercise their right to vote this January, even as they face mounting
violence from those who oppose democracy. These acts are grim
reminders of why our work to defeat terror and to support free
societies in the Middle East is so important.
We still have a lot of hard work to do. But we know that we can do
it. We know that Americans can do the hard work. And we'll stand with
the people of Iraq and Afghanistan while their hopes for freedom are
being fulfilled.
Building a democracy takes time. Think of how long it took us in
our country, even though we were given the perfect document by our
founders. It took almost 100 years after our founders declared that
all men are created equal to abolish slavery in America. And not until
84 years ago did American women get the right to vote.
Our nation hasn't always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals
have never ceased to guide us. We're the beneficiaries of the work of
the generations before us and now it's our responsibility to continue
that work.
For the next few weeks -- five weeks or 39 days as Charlotte
reminded us, I want you to talk to your friends and your neighbors
about the President's accomplishments and about his plans for a new
term. Reach out to Democrats and independents who appreciate strong
and optimistic leadership. Make sure your friends are registered to
vote and turn them out at the polls. Everything you do to help will be
a huge help for the President's campaign.
These are times of change for our nation, but they're also years of
promise. George and I grew up in West Texas where the sky seems
endless and so do the possibilities. My husband brings that optimism,
that sense of purpose, that certainty that a better day is before us
every day to his job. And, with your help, he'll do it for four more
years. (Applause.)
Thank you all so much. Thank you all very, very much. (Applause.)
END 9:53 A.M. CDT
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