    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1991, Book I)]
    [June 17, 1991]
    [Pages 684-687]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Fundraising Dinner for Senatorial Candidate Bob Kasten in
    Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    June 17, 1991

        Thank you, Bob Kasten and Eva, great to be with you. I am so pleased
    to see an early supporter and great friend of mine who has certainly
    done a wonderful job in this State, and that is your outstanding
    Governor Tommy Thompson and his wife, Sue Ann. What a wonderful couple
    you have running this State.
        And your Lieutenant Governor is with us, Scott McCallum; your State
    treasurer Kate Zeuske. And, of course, I want to introduce somebody
    special with whom I've been traveling a great deal, a former Governor
    who is now leading our country towards what we call America 2000, a
    renaissance, a true renaissance, in education. And I mean Governor Lamar
    Alexander, who's standing right here. Lamar, please stand up.
        And as he and I contemplate the national problems, I can guarantee
    you that we can learn an awful lot not only from Bob Kasten in the
    Senate in his commitment to education but from the programs that Tommy
    Thompson has already put into effect to encourage excellence in
    education in this State.
        I'd be remiss if I didn't single out my old friend, John MacIver,
    who worked me to death back years ago and then stayed at my side when I
    was down and dusted me off. And he and a handful of others have been my
    most stalwart political supporters in this country. And he's actively
    involved in Bob Kasten's race, as I knew he would be--and thank God he
    is. To Mike Grebe, who is the Kasten chairman, as well as our national
    committeeman: always stepping up to the plate, always in a role of
    leadership, I salute him. And I am delighted to see others--Helen Bie,
    our national committeewoman is here. David Opitz, the chairman, our
    State chairman. And party's going to be important now as we move into
    1992. And Wayne Oldenberg, who is doing such an outstanding job as Bob
    Kasten's finance chairman.
        All of these people are making it happen. Bob tells me this is one
    of the largest fundraising events that he's ever had. And I think it's a
    tribute to him, of course, but

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    also to the leadership that's gone into this event.
        I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting a little bit. I'm sorry if
    this has caused any unfounded excitement. One man heard that Bush was
    coming to town; he started a rumor that a major brewery was on its way
    back here, leaving St. Louis. [Laughter]
        But Bob supports me when I need it, and that's one of the reasons I
    accepted with alacrity his invitation. You've heard some about his
    accomplishments tonight--moved quickly into the ranks of senior Senate
    leadership, part of our leadership team in the United States Senate. He
    stood solidly by my side at times that weren't so easy leading up to
    Operation Desert Storm. He was there. He never wavered. He saw what we
    had to do to kick aggression back. And he was steadfast in his support,
    and I'll always be grateful to him for that.
        We had a little receiving line earlier, and I met two or three
    people that had been in Desert Storm--one, a member of the police
    department here; another who was at the dinner tonight. And I couldn't
    help but remember that Bob went to Egypt to visit Wisconsin's own 128th
    and 440th--reached out and told them that they had his support.
        You know, he's carved out a niche as a top spokesman for economic
    growth, for environmental stewardship, for educational excellence that I
    mentioned, and for American international leadership, and, of course,
    for cheese. [Laughter]
        A few months back, we held a meeting to discuss Soviet affairs in
    the Middle East. And we talked then about many of the issues that occupy
    the headlines these days: how to promote economic reform in the Soviet
    Union. And I must tell you I'm looking forward, if we can iron out these
    difficulties that remain on START--the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks--
    to meet with Mr. Gorbachev to talk further about reform in the Soviet
    Union. And this week we'll be receiving the newly-elected, first elected
    head of the Russian Republic, Boris Yeltsin, in Washington, DC. And I'm
    looking forward to that.
        But as Bob and I wrestled with these weighty problems of
    international affairs--where we should go next in the Middle East peace
    talks, how to verify the arms control agreements with the Soviets--it
    was a productive meeting, and I learned a lot. But every few minutes or
    so, Bob, who knew more about the subjects at hand than many of those
    that were around that table, would weave in a mention of dairy price
    supports for Wisconsin farmers. What I'm saying is, he knows who sent
    him there to Washington, and he's never forgotten it. And that's why I
    think he's going to be reelected, and reelected big. He gives a new
    meaning to the term ``sacred cow,'' I might add. [Laughter]
        We've reached an interesting point in this administration. And I
    think as you look back in this nation's history, our performance in the
    Gulf--and I say ours: I'm talking about the young men and women who were
    over there, their performance in Desert Storm. I'm talking about the
    superb job done by the military commanders there and in the Pentagon and
    by the leadership given by our Secretary, Dick Cheney. Our performance
    demonstrated that America will do the right thing when duty calls. And
    they will help a country halfway around the world that's been overrun by
    a brutal dictator. And they will work with other nations to build an
    unbeatable consensus in an unconquerable military force. And they will
    risk their finest sons and daughters, all in defense of liberty.
        We haven't lost it. We found something special out of Desert Storm.
    Go with us, go with Barbara and me around this country. It's not
    politics. You go to places we couldn't get one vote if we tried. And the
    American people are out there with their flags and their enthusiasm and
    the rediscovery of who we are: a country that will stand up against
    aggression and win--and win promptly and win confidently.
        And there was another lesson; there was another lesson out of this.
    We learned that the Presidency as an institution is charged to respond
    to such situations. The President has a unique responsibility to build
    the kind of national and international support that is necessary to
    build democracy and to defend liberty in cases that we saw halfway
    around the world.
        But we've also learned that the kind of

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    consensus is more difficult to build when it comes to doing business at
    home. Do you remember right after Desert Storm ended, people were saying
    now if the President would take this newfound credibility that we all
    earned in the Gulf--that everybody did--and use it for domestic
    problems, that would be great. That would be wonderful.
        Well, the American people want to take on economic problems,
    educational problems, environmental problems. And they want to fight
    crime. They want to improve race relations and fight against
    discrimination in the workplace and reshape, as Bob mentioned, the
    national defense and join the exciting economic cooperation and
    competition beyond our borders.
        But if we really want to mount an all-out assault on these problems,
    we need more good people in the United States Senate, more dedicated
    people, more imaginative people, and we must return those that are doing
    the job for this country. And I'm talking about Bob Kasten, for one.
        Some of the Democrats' ideas to how we do this domestic Desert Storm
    is to do it their way. I wasn't elected to do it their way. I was
    elected to do it our way, the sensible way.
        Working with this Senator, we proposed a comprehensive economic
    growth package. It holds the line on Federal spending. And a lot came
    out of that budget agreement, controversial though it was. It holds the
    line on taxes. It cuts the capital gains rate. It facilitates savings,
    and everybody involved in business knows that our country has terribly
    low savings rates. It makes it easier for poor and middle class
    Americans to become successful entrepreneurs, to take a risk to start
    something. Small business is the backbone of this country--employment
    and everything else, productivity and employment. And so, we need more
    of it.
        And I believe if we could get more Republicans, we'd do much better
    on the economic front. As it is now, I'm playing defense in the House;
    I'm playing defense in the Senate. Thank God we had 21 vetoes, and every
    single one of them was sustained. We've got to keep bad things from
    happening and then get more people so we can make good things happen in
    the Senate.
        We're embarked, as I said, with credit to Lamar Alexander, on a
    nonpartisan or a bipartisan educational revolution that would put power
    in the hands of people. It would let parents, not the bureaucrats, make
    the crucial choice of which schools their children should attend. And
    you in Wisconsin, and especially right here in Milwaukee, understand
    what I'm talking about because you led the way in terms of choice for
    this country.
        I'm still very worried about our neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods
    that can afford it the least are most afflicted by crime. And we've
    tried for more than 2 years to persuade Congress to pass a comprehensive
    anticrime package--one that protects police, protects citizens, helps
    the victims, and puts the dangerous criminals behind bars. And we've
    asked the Congress to adopt a modest transportation package to make it
    easier for commuters to travel from home to work and back without having
    to sit for hours in traffic.
        We've created a strong civil rights package to strengthen our laws
    against those who discriminate. And specifically, our package seeks to
    eliminate discrimination in the workplace, and it encourages all
    Americans to view civil rights as a shared commitment and goal rather
    than an invitation to litigation. And we need more good people in the
    Senate and the House to get these three initiatives moving and moving
    fast.
        And we have done something that I think all Americans, regardless of
    party, wanted. They wanted to get this defense spending under control.
    And yes, we've proposed restructuring our Armed Forces in a way that
    pares down our military, pares it down certainly in terms of spending as
    a percentage of our GNP and just real reductions, as well, in spending.
        And we do this without reducing the readiness.
    But I need people to support that concept and not just come into the
    Congress with some meat ax without regard to whatever might come up in
    the future. Perhaps there would be another Desert Storm, and I want our
    forces to be able to respond, respond rapidly, go in, get the job done,
    and come out. And that's only going to be done if we have a program for
    defense that has reductions but also keeps in mind the

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    priorities that we must have established as we go through the last part
    of the nineties.
        I cite this because I think it's reasonable. I think we've got a
    good domestic program. I get sick and tired from hearing the Democrats
    out there crying that there's no domestic agenda. The problem is, they
    want their domestic agenda, the same old tired answers of the past--try
    to bring them into the future. And it's not going to work.
        How many of these important bills do you think Congress has passed?
    You guessed it: zero, none. We are going to keep fighting for our
    domestic Desert Storm, for our domestic agenda. But we can't do it if
    we're fighting against these tired old characters out of the past who
    want to go back and say, let the Federal Government solve all our
    problems. It's not going to work. It's failed in the past. We need new
    people in the Senate. And we need new people in the House. They're going
    to look at it just exactly that way.
        And let me say this: You can't blame Bob for the failures up there.
    He has fought for economic growth. He drafted the reforms that ought to
    save us $6 billion just in regulatory paperwork alone next year. And
    he's going to continue--that would continue to produce savings for years
    to come. He pushed for that capital gains reduction in spite of the
    demagogs saying this is a tax break for the rich. He pushed for it
    because he knew it would create more jobs. And he's pushed for progrowth
    tax changes. And he stood with us in promoting a new progressivity in
    education. And he's helping us very much, as I said, in our 2000--the
    America 2000 strategy.
        He supported our crime legislation. Compare his record with others,
    not just from Wisconsin, but others on the national scene like he is. He
    supported this. He supported better transportation for this State and
    for all of America. And he stood at our side on civil rights, trying to
    offer the extended hand of brotherhood and hope rather than divisive
    politics based on clashing claims, lawsuits, and quotas. Quotas is not
    the American way. We don't need that. We need fair play.
        So, I ask you to look at the facts. Cut through the rhetoric, look
    at the facts, and see what our bill does and see what the other bill
    does.
        I'm a little sick and tired of people saying we don't have a decent
    civil rights program. We do. We've got a good record. And I'll be darned
    if I'm going to knuckle into a handful of people inside the beltway who
    say jump and then the Democrat Senators say how high. It's too late.
        I don't have to remind you that after the Gulf war we asked Congress
    to pass just two bills out of all these I've mentioned in a 100 days,
    crime and transportation, and it didn't pass either. And I mentioned out
    there at the White House, if 100 isn't enough, let's give them another
    100. But let's get something done for America, and do it right.
        So, economic growth, education, crime, transportation, civil rights,
    defense--Bob Kasten is fighting for all these things. And I need more
    like him.
        So, the message is simply this--you know it: With your support and
    the support of others like you around the country, this administration
    won't have to rely on the veto as its weapon for improving legislation.
    It'll be able to look to a Congress ready, willing, and eager to serve
    the people. And Bob, let me just say you have my strong support. Let's
    do what it takes to win in 1992.
        Thank you all very much. Godspeed to all of you, and may God bless
    the United States of America. Thank you very, very much.

                        Note: The President spoke at 6:30 p.m. in the
                            Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center. In
                            his remarks, he referred to Mr. Kasten's wife,
                            Eva; Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin and his
                            wife, Sue Ann; Scott McCallum and Kate Zeuske,
                            Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor and treasurer;
                            Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, former
                            Governor of Tennessee; John MacIver, attorney
                            with Michael, Best, and Friderich in Milwaukee,
                            WI; Mike Grebe and Helen Bie, Republican
                            National Committee delegates; David Opitz, State
                            Republican Party chairman; Wayne Oldenberg,
                            Kasten campaign finance chairman; President
                            Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union; Boris
                            Yeltsin, President of the Republic of Russia;
                            Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney; and President
                            Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Following his remarks,
                            the President returned to Washington, DC.