[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[June 29, 1992]
[Pages 1039-1043]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Victory '92 Fundraising Dinner in Detroit

June 29, 1992
    Let me thank the Governor for that warm introduction and all of you 
for this welcome and all of you for what you've done to help get out the 
vote, to help the party, to help this President, and to help all the 
Republicans standing for election next fall. This is truly a most 
successful occasion, I'm told. It seems to me I just left here having 
thanked all of you, but I'll do it one more time because I am delighted 
to have this fantastic support for all of us who are standing for 
election in the fall.
    I was delighted to see so many members of the State legislature 
here. And, of course, I want to thank Randy Agley and Mike Timmis and 
Heinz Prechter and so many others--I'm going to get in trouble--
everybody that had a hand in making this so successful. I want to single 
out Councilman Keith Butler and our Lieutenant Governor who I've known 
for a long, long time, Connie Binsfeld, and the Republican leadership 
that helped turn this great State around.
    And I am looking forward to repeating the experience of Cobo Hall. 
Barbara and I when we came in here just about 12 years ago, across the 
street to another hotel, it was there that I was picked to be Vice 
President on the stand on the Republican ticket. And that has propelled 
us now into a fascinating experience. What I want to talk to you tonight 
is I believe that we've got the record to take to the American people 
for 4 more years as President of the United States.
    I like to finish what I start, and a lot of glib talk won't get the 
job done. I'm kind of holding back on going after the opponents until 
after the Republican Convention in the middle of August. But I'll tell 
you something: I am getting a little sick and tired of being on the 
receiving end of criticism day-in and day-out from all those sorry 
Democrats that were running for President, and now some independent. And 
when I am unleashed and when we get out of this mode, this nonpolitical 
mode we're in, I'll tell you, I'll be ready for the fray. I have never 
felt better, nor have I ever felt more eager to take my case to the 
American people.
    Frankly, I don't care about those polls. Fortunately, when I was 
soaring around about 85 percent I said I didn't believe in the polls. 
Smartest thing I ever said. [Laughter] But they changed, and frankly, I 
don't think we're looking too bad. But let me tell you this: This 
election, when people get down to deciding who they want in the White 
House, they're going to say, ``Who has the temperament, who has the 
experience, who has the record to lead this country for 4 years?'' And I 
will be making the

[[Page 1040]]

case, with your help, that we are the party that deserves a shot at 
controlling the United States Congress and, thus, facilitating our 
leadership.
    Let me remind you: 35 years the Democrats have controlled the House 
of Representatives; 29 out of the last 35 years they've controlled the 
United States Senate. People are saying: Well, what about divided 
Government? Why don't you just say that you'll stand with whatever the 
people want, if they elect a Democratic Congress, a Democratic 
President? Let me tell you something. We tried that in the late 
seventies. We had a Democratic President. We had a Democratic House. We 
had a Democratic Senate. And we had the highest ``misery rate'' that 
this country has ever seen. It went right out through the roof. What we 
haven't tried is a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a 
Republican President. And if you want to bring change to this country, 
help me elect a Republican Congress in the fall.
    You know, this year, as I say, has been a little weird, a little 
peculiar. The other day Boris Yeltsin came to town, the President of 
Russia, a democratically elected in a free election, certifiably free 
election, came to Russia. We stood in the Rose Garden, made a deal, 
signed an agreement in the White House to banish from the face of the 
Earth these tremendous intercontinental ballistic missiles known as the 
SS-18. If any one of you has followed this and if you'd have said 4 
years ago or 2 or even a few months ago that we could have worked out a 
deal to eliminate these most destabilizing weapons, people would have 
looked at you and said you're nuts.
    We worked that deal out. Every child in America can sleep more 
securely without the fear of nuclear war that generations that preceded 
it had. And the country is totally focusing on something else. I am 
convinced that when we go to the people in the fall, we will say this: 
We have made the world safer because of our leadership in world affairs. 
And the American people are going to respond.
    Heinz Prechter introduced me to a friend of his tonight who is here 
from East Germany. With tears in his eyes, he said, ``Thank you, Mr. 
President, for being a catalyst in reunification of the Germanys.'' This 
is major.
    Looking to the Middle East, you have ancient enemies talking to each 
other, the one thing the Arabs, the one thing the Israelis wanted--to 
sit down opposite the table. And it was your country that brought this 
about.
    When Saddam Hussein invaded a neighbor, it was the United States 
that took the lead. Now you have a lot of revisionists running around 
Washington, DC, telling us that something was noble--that something was 
wrong. And they are crazy. What we did is set back aggression, put 
together a coalition to lead, and today the United States is the 
undisputed leader of the world. That's something we can take to the 
American people. And the Baltics are free, and South America is moving 
almost entirely democratic. We have a lot to be grateful for.
    Let me say this parenthetically: I am going to keep pushing to a 
successful conclusion of the GATT round, a successful conclusion of the 
North American free trade agreement because that means not only jobs for 
the United States, it means opportunity for other countries. Build their 
economies, and that'll help the world economy. And we're going to be 
free traders, not protectionists. That's the case I'm going to take to 
the American people.
    So, I believe the record for world peace and democracy and freedom 
is clear. Out of focus right now in terms of people's attention, but I 
think in the final analysis people are going to say: To whom do you 
trust the national security of our great country? Who best to enhance 
the peace? Who best to fight for democracy and freedom? And I believe 
that will conclude that I am that person to lead the country for 4 
years.
    Now, people say to me, ``Well, you were successful on Desert Storm; 
why can't you bring that same kind of leadership to the domestic scene? 
Good question. And the answer is, we must make the changes in the United 
States Congress to move our program through because our values are in 
accord with the values of the American people.
    Let me just give you one or two areas

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where I think we have a fantastic case to take to the American people. I 
have just come from a law enforcement meeting where we had sheriffs and 
police chiefs from all across the State. And I told them: Look, what we 
need is a strong anticrime legislation. We need to vary the exclusionary 
rule so that we don't have cases frivolously thrown out. We need to 
change habeas corpus so that we don't have appeal after appeal that deny 
the swiftness of the law. We need to be tougher on those who commit 
crimes against other people in terms of taking their life. And that 
means tightening up on the death penalty laws. We have had strong 
anticrime legislation before the United States Congress. The Democrats 
talk a good game, and they haven't even given us a vote on our crime 
package. The American people want to back our law enforcement 
communities because they know that strengthens neighborhoods and 
strengthens families. And I think we have a good case to take on that.
    On the economy, though I believe the economy is moving, I still feel 
that what we ought to do is put incentives into the tax system. And that 
means a capital gains cut; that means an investment tax allowance; that 
means changing the IRA's; that means a first-time credit for homebuyers 
so the young American family has a shot at the American dream. And that 
is stymied, all of it, by the Democratic Congress.
    We had a fight the other day on the balanced budget amendment. 
That's not going to solve all the problems. It's going to discipline the 
executive branch. It'll darn sure discipline the spend-and-spend 
Congress. We got almost two-thirds of the vote. Twelve Democrats who 
sponsored the resolution, sponsored the amendment, were taken to the 
woodshed by that liberal leadership of the House of Representatives, 
beaten over the head until they were a pulp, and they voted against 
their own amendment, and the amendment went down. We need to change the 
leadership in the United States Congress and give the Republicans a 
chance.
    The Government is too big, and it spends too much. And we're trying 
to do something about it. I'd like to ask the American people this fall: 
Give me what 43 Governors have, give me that line-item veto, and give me 
a shot at cutting down on this Federal spending. You hear a lot now 
about these. Every candidate is supposed to get the budget in balance 
and get the deficit down. We have a concrete proposal before the United 
States Congress right now that makes some tough decisions. It controls 
the growth of mandatory spending programs. You can't do it just through 
the discretionary program. And it's languishing there as the Congress 
sends down bill after bill to me to raise people's taxes and to increase 
spending. We've got a good case to take to the American people, and 
says: Give me more Congressmen that will vote to control those mandatory 
programs, and then we can get this deficit down.
    Speaking of Government reform, I think the time has come to limit 
the terms for the Members of Congress. The President's terms is limited; 
let's try to limit the terms of the Members of Congress and see if we 
can't keep them closer to the American people.
    A major area where we've got outstanding proposals and a pretty 
darned good record is on education. We have a program called America 
2000. It crosses party lines. The first thing I did as President was to 
get the Governors together, Democrat and Republican alike, to set the 
national education goals. Party was laid aside. The goals were set. And 
now we have a program to implement those goals called America 2000 that 
literally revolutionizes American education and brings to K through 12 
the same kind of quality education that we're known for at the college 
and university level. And it is languishing. Parts of it are languishing 
in the House of Representatives because it has to go to some old 
subcommittee chairman that's been there for a thousand years and hasn't 
had a new thought since the day he arrived. We've got to change the 
United States Congress.
    And while we're at it, I think we ought to have choice in education 
at K through 12. I was a beneficiary of the GI bill when I got out of 
the Navy in 1945. And they didn't say to me: Hey, you can't go to Holy 
Cross or you can't go to a private school. You went to wherever you 
wanted to go to; the

[[Page 1042]]

family made that choice. In this instance, the sailor made that choice, 
the Navy man made the choice. And it's helped our colleges.
    And the same thing can happen if they can pass our ``GI bill'' for 
children that we came up with the other day. It gives the families a 
little shot in the arm, gives them a little voucher so they can then 
choose where their children go to school. And it will help those schools 
that are bypassed because to stay alive they're going to have to 
compete. And it's not going to diminish the public education system. If 
you don't believe me, go up to Milwaukee and talk where it's been tried. 
Or go to Minnesota where they've been in the lead on choice in 
education. Choice in education is what we want. Choice in child care is 
what we now have because of Republican principles. And I want to take 
this case to the American people in the fall.
    I want to thank some Members of Congress. I don't want to be down on 
all of them because one of the only tools the President has, when he is 
outnumbered in the Congress and when he is asked to pass things that the 
people who elected him oppose, is the veto. And the veto score: Bush 30, 
Congress 0. And I am going to keep on vetoing this tax-and-spend 
legislation as it comes to the White House until we can get enough 
people to pass sensible legislation.
    Now, we've got a good record to take to the American people. The 
ideas and the values that I believe we all stand for are intact. What we 
need is to get it in focus now for the American people. I might say, 
parenthetically, when we talk about family values, this is not some 
demagogic exercise. When the mayors of some of the largest cities and 
some small ones too, the National League of Cities, came to see me--and 
I mentioned this to the law enforcement people this afternoon--they said 
that the biggest concern they had, the biggest single focus on the 
problem, the cause of the problems in urban America was the decline in 
the American family. And they are absolutely correct. I am convinced 
that we must find ways to strengthen the family. When I talk about 
reform of the welfare system, I have in mind a little girl who saved 
over $1,000. And the welfare people came to her, her mother on welfare, 
and said your mother's going off of welfare if you save money like this 
because you're not allowed to accumulate over $1,000. Change the welfare 
reform, reform the welfare system so that you can eliminate this kind of 
stupidity, and in the process, strengthen the family. And that's what 
we're going to try to do.
    I heard one of the candidates for President ridiculing the fact that 
I have a session each year reading to children. Symbolic, yes. But what 
is the symbol? It is the idea that adults ought to read to their kids or 
that parents ought to read to their kids. And let the cynics who think 
everything can be legislated miss the point. The point is that when 
Barbara Bush holds an AIDS baby in her arms, she's demonstrating 
compassion. And when she or I read to kids, we're saying parents ought 
to do this. They ought to hold their families together and love them. 
And every kid ought to have that kind of opportunity. And that isn't 
cynical politics, that's what this country wants.
    I'm just getting warmed up on you guys, I'll tell you, because I've 
only mentioned about four issues here where I think we are just exactly 
where the heartbeat of America is. But you couldn't tell it because of 
all the noise and the fury out there of Politics '92: endless polls, 
weird talk shows, crazy groups every Sunday telling you what you think, 
ninety-two percent of the news on the economy being negative when the 
economy grew, admittedly slowly, but grew at 2.7 in the first quarter. 
Ninety-two percent negative. What kind of reporting is that?
    But the American people are smart. They're going to sort it out. 
They're going to separate fiction from fact. They're going to know 
reality when they see it. And I'm going to say this to them: I have 
worked my heart out as President of the United States. Barb and I have 
tried to uphold the dignity and the decency and honor that belongs in 
the White House. I need 4 more years, with a Republican Congress this 
time, to finish the job for the American people. And I ask you for your 
support. I promise you I'll work my heart out to that end.
    Thank you, and may God bless you all. Thank you.

[[Page 1043]]

                    Note: The President spoke at 7:15 p.m. in the 
                        Mackinac Ballroom at the Westin Hotel. In his 
                        remarks, he referred to Randolph J. Agley, 
                        chairman, Michigan Republican Finance Committee; 
                        and Michael T. Timmis and Heinz Prechter, dinner 
                        cochairmen.