[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[May 21, 1992]
[Pages 814-817]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Bush-Quayle Fundraising Picnic in Westchester, New York

May 21, 1992
    Thank you all very much. It is a pleasure to be here, and I'm 
delighted. Lou, thank you, sir, for that introduction. Please be seated 
out there. And be seated up here. [Laughter] Sorry about that. No, but 
I'm delighted to be here. I'm sorry that Barbara Bush is not here. She 
was here just a couple of weeks ago at another event.
    But it's a thrill to be back in my hometown, near it, one of my many 
hometowns. I just had a chance to drive up across the line into 
Greenwich to see my almost-91-year-old mother. So in a way, it is a 
homecoming. And it really is when you look out here and see so many 
friends, so many people that worked way back in the political wars and 
have given me this extraordinary opportunity to be President of the 
United States in these wonderfully exciting, challenging, yes, but 
wonderfully exciting times for our country.
    And I am pleased--I want to thank Lou, I

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want to thank Ginny, his wife; both of them so nervous they can hardly 
speak about the future grandchild that's appearing any minute now. I 
want to thank the Young Artists' Philharmonic for bringing us a little 
class into this hangar. Real good. Thank you all very, very much. And 
salute several old friends: John Rowland, who we miss in the Congress, 
and I expect you miss him as Governor of this State, but nevertheless--
and Bobby Holt and my old friend Brian Gaffney and Betsy and Spike 
Heminway and Dick Foley and Bob Macauley and Leon Hirsh, Jack Neafsey, 
and fellow Republicans, including our very special Secretary of HUD, 
Jack Kemp, who is doing a superb job, trying to get this Congress to 
move.
    And a special thanks to my old friends. They were with us in the 
convention and 4 years ago. I am a fan of theirs. They came down from 
Bangor, Maine, to be here, heading right on down to Atlantic City. But 
let's hear it once more for the Oak Ridge Boys. They say an awful lot 
about this great country of ours.
    Now, not for a long one. Billy Graham tells this marvelous story 
about the speaker that went on and on and on. Somebody sitting over 
about where Jack was picked up the gavel, heaved it at him, missed the 
speaker, and hit a lady in the front row. And she said, ``Hit me again. 
I can still hear him.'' [Laughter] I want to keep this one brief because 
it is a lovely and an informal evening. But let me just make a few 
comments.
    In the first place, I do think we've got a lot to be grateful for in 
this country. I think we have many, many blessings. And I see these kids 
here, and I am very proud that our administration has had some hand in 
seeing that these kids don't go to sleep every night worried about 
nuclear war. We have changed the world, and we've changed it for the 
better.
    I just came from a very emotional meeting--Freedom Day, it is, out 
in Cleveland, Ohio--came from a very emotional meeting with what used to 
be called the captive nations people: Ukrainians and Hungarians and so 
many others, Poles, Eastern Europeans of all kinds, and then those now 
republics, represented by the republics of the Soviet Union, former 
Soviet Union. And again we ought to keep that in sight as we count our 
blessings. The United States, because we stayed strong--and I salute my 
predecessor Ronald Reagan for this one--because we stayed strong and 
determined, those nations are no longer captive nations. They are free 
nations. And democracy is on the move all across the world.
    So just as we have brought these changes, with a lot of help I will 
concede, but we brought these changes to the world, we've got to change 
things at home. And that is exactly what we have been trying to do for 
the last 3 years. Some successes, not enough. We've got to change the 
world. And let me just tell you, as Jack and I went out to Los Angeles 
and looked at it, what we feel needs to be done in the way of change. 
And it's not just to take care of that city that went through the 
horrible times. It's not just that, because the ideas I'll mention to 
you real quick are ideas that would resonate for other cities, other 
communities across this country. And all of them are built on the 
principles: personal responsibility, opportunity, ownership, 
independence, dignity, empowerment, the family. And it all adds up to 
the American dream.
    And here's what we're talking about: We have a great program that 
we're trying to get the Congress to help us with now called ``Weed and 
Seed.'' It backs our wonderful law enforcement people. It weeds out the 
criminals and goes after the drug dealers. And then it seeds the 
neighborhoods with hope and opportunity. We need to get that through the 
United States Congress, and I believe we can.
    The next one is enterprise zones, something that we've been 
championing for 3 years, Jack on the cutting edge, and effectively so, I 
might add. And what that says is, better than some make-work program, 
let's change the tax structure so you can draw like a magnet into the 
inner cities some businesses who are going to take a chance, who are 
going to take a gamble. And it's going to make it worth their while 
through the tax changes so they will then offer jobs with dignity in the 
private sector to those that have been bypassed as far as the American 
dream goes. We need enterprise zones

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now, and I'd like to have your support with the Congress.
    Another one is, we must reform the welfare system. And people say, 
``Oh well, wait a minute, is that some kind of code word.'' It is not. 
What we're doing is offering waivers to these States so they can try. 
Wisconsin came in, they've got a program called Learnfare to take 
welfare dependency people and give them an opportunity to learn; 
similarly, Workfare programs. We have got to innovate in this country. 
And then there's a much more compassionate side of welfare reform. A kid 
saved the other day a little over $1,000. And the welfare people came to 
get the family and said, ``Your daughter here has saved a little over 
$1,000. You can't do that on welfare; that violates the rules.'' We're 
trying to change that so families can save a little money and work their 
way out or get themselves an education. So we've got to reform the 
welfare system. And the time has come. And the people that will benefit 
the most are those who have been on welfare hopelessly without any 
chance at the American dream. Help us change it.
    We've got a wonderful job training program, Job Training 2000. We're 
going to coordinate the services to the people that need it the most. 
And again, we're going to push through, our able Secretary of Labor Lynn 
Martin and others, to get this Job Training 2000 enacted.
    A fifth one is homeownership. You see, we believe that if a person 
owns the home, it is far better. They take a pride in it. A dignity 
comes back. It strengthens the family, and it is a far better approach 
than these failed housing projects that strip families of their dignity. 
And so we're pushing hard for homeownership. And again, we're going to 
try to get the Congress to help us in every way possible. Give that 
opportunity to American families.
    And the last one--and it is vitally important and it doesn't have 
quite the short-term implications--we must reform our education system. 
And we are talking about a new program. David Kearns, that's so well-
known in this part to many people, was very instrumental in it and so is 
Lamar Alexander, our Secretary. We're literally talking about 
revolutionizing American education, brandnew schools in each State, not 
new necessarily in bricks and mortar but new concepts. Trying that and 
saying, ``The old system hasn't worked; let's change it.'' For example, 
let's give parents a choice of where they want to send their schools, 
religious or private, whatever it is. Give them a choice and watch our 
educational system improve.
    So these are some of the initiatives we're pushing. And then 
overlying that, we have some other fundamental ones. Every time I see 
young people I'm saying to myself, we've got to do something to keep 
from mortgaging their future. And we've proposed capping the growth of 
these mandatory programs. We are now fighting for a balanced budget 
amendment. And we need your help to get that one through the Congress. 
It will discipline our branch of Government, and it'll discipline the 
United States Congress. And the balanced budget amendment will be phased 
in, and it'll save the future generations if we can get it passed.
    Two other points you'll be hearing more about as we engage in the 
fall--and I will be encouraging people to send more Republican 
Congressmen down there to Washington, both in the Senate and the House. 
One of them is the line-item veto. You give me that line-item veto that 
these 43 Governors have, and watch us get that spending under control. 
And the last one, we've got to reform our legal system. We've got to sue 
each other less and help each other more. And we have proposals to do 
just exactly that. That's the tip of the iceberg.
    There's a domestic agenda for you. And we're going to take the case 
to the American people. And Lou is right: The American economy has begun 
to move. A recent poll that I saw and analyzed here just a few days ago, 
70 percent of the American people think the economy is getting worse. 
They are wrong. It is beginning to turn. And when it does, the fortunes 
of the Republican Party and those people that share the values I've 
spelled out here are going to rise, and they're going to rise 
precipitously. We are going to win the election in the fall. We are 
going to get more people in the United States Congress that believe and

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think as you and I do. And thank you for your help in making that 
possible.
    Thank you all, and may God bless you.

                    Note: The President spoke at 6:07 p.m. in Hangar 26 
                        at the Westchester County Regional Airport. In 
                        his remarks, he referred to Louis Bantle, Bush-
                        Quayle Connecticut finance chairman; Bobby Holt, 
                        Bush-Quayle national finance chairman; Brian 
                        Gaffney, Bush-Quayle Connecticut cochairman; 
                        Betsy Heminway, Bush-Quayle Connecticut 
                        cochairman, and her husband, Spike; Dick Foley, 
                        chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party; 
                        and Bob Macauley, Leon Hirsh, and Jack Neafsey, 
                        event cochairmen.