[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: GEORGE W. BUSH (2001, Book I)]
[February 28, 2001]
[Pages 155-158]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



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Remarks in Omaha, Nebraska
February 28, 2001

    The President. Thank you very much. I'm glad I came. I'm not saying 
I don't like my new address; I do. But it's good to get out in the 
countryside, too. It's good to get out so I can shake hands with the 
folks that make America work. It's good to get to the heartland, where 
people proudly stand on values of faith and family. I'm honored you'd 
invite me. I'm glad I came.
    Mr. Mayor, thank you for your friendship. 
It's great to be here with the Governor and 
first lady of the State of Nebraska, two 
fine people and two good friends of Laura and mine. It's also a thrill 
to travel from Washington with two fine United States Senators, Senator 
Hagel and Senator Nelson. 
The good thing about these two Senators is this: I know I'm going to be 
able to count on them in the pinch. I know when it comes to doing the 
right thing, they'll listen to the people of Nebraska. I'm also honored 
to be traveling with the Congressman, Lee Terry. 
He's a good, solid man. I'm proud to be on the stage with three Iowa 
Congressmen. And I appreciate you relaxing your border standards to let 
them in. [Laughter] The Lieutenant Governor is 
here.
    My fellow citizens, it is an honor to be your President. I'm proud 
to call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home, and so is the First Lady. And I was proud to stand up in front of the United 
States Congress last night to bring a message of the American people, a 
commonsense message, a message of budgets and priorities. I truly felt 
like I was representing you when I talked about fiscal sanity and talked 
about the need for our Government to set clear priorities.
    One of our priorities in the budget and one of our national 
priorities must be to make sure that every child--I mean every child--
gets educated in the great land called America. Even though I have a 
Washington, DC, temporary address, I want you to know I strongly believe 
in local control of schools. I believe the people who care more about 
the children of Nebraska are the citizens of Nebraska. And we must work 
together, the Congress and the executive branch must work together to 
pass power out of Washington to provide flexibility at the local level. 
One size does not fit all when it comes to educating the children of our 
country.
    I want to insist that we spend more money on programs like reading 
initiatives--an initiative that will help all children learn to read, an 
initiative that will be based upon the fact that reading is a science 
and we must use curriculum that will work. Phonics needs to be an 
integral part of the curriculum.
    We're going to raise the standards. You see, what we believe is that 
every child in America can learn. We're going to reject the thought that 
``certain children can't learn, so we'll just move them through the 
system.'' That's got to end--it's got to end. And what we stand for, 
what the people know makes sense is that in order to determine whether 
or not all children are learning, it's essential that we measure. It's 
essential that local folks develop strong accountability systems.
    So we ask the question, do you know how to read? And if you do, 
we'll praise the teachers. And we always have got to praise the 
teachers. But if our accountability system shows that children are not 
learning to read, instead of sitting by and saying, ``Oh, maybe 
something positive will happen,'' it will serve as a go-by; it will 
serve as an opportunity for us to say, ``Let's solve the problems early 
before it's too late.'' There are no second-rate children in America, 
and there are no second-rate dreams. So our budget prioritizes education

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with the understanding, however, that the schools will be run at the 
local level.
    I set another priority, and that's to pay the men and women who wear 
our uniform better wages. I am proud to be the Commander in Chief. The 
mission of the United States military will be to train our troops to be 
prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening 
in the first place.
    A priority in the budget is to make sure that people who don't have 
health care insurance who work have health care insurance. A priority in 
the budget is to fulfill our promise to the seniors by funding Medicare. 
I want you to know you can hear all the rhetoric about the apologists 
for bigger Government in Washington, but with the right priorities and 
the right focus, we will double the Medicare budget over the next 10 
years to make sure our seniors have got a Medicare system that we can be 
proud of, one that, by the way, includes prescription drugs.
    Oh, I know you'll hear a lot of talk about Social Security, and we 
should talk about Social Security. But under our vision of what we ought 
to do with the budget, we set aside all $2.6 trillion of the payroll 
taxes that are heading into Social Security and spend them only on 
Social Security.
    Now, some of the people in Washington aren't going to like my budget 
because we don't grow the budget quite as fast as they would like. The 
budget increased last year by 8 percent. That's significantly higher 
than the rate of inflation. That was higher than real income grew. I 
mean, they were growing that budget--it was like a bidding contest to 
see who could spend the most money got out of town first. Those days 
must end. The budget I submitted to the Congress is one that said we 
could meet our needs and grow our discretionary spending at a realistic 
and reasonable 4 percent.
    There's a lot of talk in Washington about debt, and like you, I'm 
concerned about debt. I want to remind you there's two types of debt: 
One is at the Government level, and one is at the individual level. 
First let me talk about Government debt. With the right kind of 
leadership and the right kind of focus and working with members of both 
parties, we can pay down $2 trillion of national debt over the next 
decade.
    Somebody said, ``Well, why don't you pay down more than that?'' 
Well, first of all, a lot of the bonds don't retire, aren't to be 
retired--they don't expire during the 10-year period. It makes 
absolutely no sense to prepay debt which will cost the taxpayers more 
money. That doesn't make any sense. We ought to pay debt as it comes 
due. And the only debt that comes due is $2 trillion over the next 10 
years, and that's the debt we'll repay.
    We paid down debt; we've met our priorities; there's still money 
left over. And like any wise person who cares about budgets, we ought to 
set some aside for contingencies. So we set aside a trillion dollars 
over the next 10 years for contingencies. And what might some of those 
contingencies be?
    Well, making sure we take care of the seniors. As you know, one of 
the things I'm going to do is have a full review of our military's 
capabilities and how we ought to restructure our forces to meet the 
future. And perhaps we'll need more money to fund those priorities.
    I can assure you, we're going to worry about the agricultural sector 
here in the United States. And perhaps--and perhaps we'll need to spend 
some of that contingency money on the ag sector as we transform our 
agricultural sector to one that is going to be able to trade freely 
around the world.
    Let me say as an aside, I strongly support ethanol. Let me say as an 
aside, we should not use food as a diplomatic weapon from this point 
forward. We shouldn't view agriculture as a stepchild when it comes to 
international trade negotiations.

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    So we've set priorities. We've paid down $2 trillion of debt. We've 
got a trillion dollars of contingency set aside over the next 10 years, 
and there's still money left over--there's still money left over--and 
there's a fundamental choice: Do we spend it?
    Audience members. No-o-o!
    The President. Or do we remember whose money it is in the first 
place?
    The surplus is not the Government's money. The surplus is the 
people's money, and I'm here to ask you to join me in making that case 
to any Federal official you can find. I think we're in pretty good shape 
with the Nebraska delegation. I certainly hope so. I certainly hope so.
    But this is a plan that hears the voices of thousands of working 
Americans, people who are struggling to get ahead. I'm keenly aware the 
energy bills are going up all across the country. We need an energy 
policy. We also must have a tax relief policy that understands working 
Americans are paying higher energy costs than ever before.
    I'm keenly aware that many of our citizens have got a lot of 
consumer debt. There's a lot of talk about debt at the national level, 
and I'm worried about it. I'm also worried about consumer debt on 
individual families. I'm aware that this economy is beginning to sputter 
a little bit, and it makes sense to combine good monetary policy with 
good fiscal policy. I believe by giving people some of your own money 
back it will help kick-start this economy so people will be able to find 
work who's looking for a job.
    In case anybody asks you, here's the plan. We're going to drop the 
bottom rate from 15 percent to 10 percent. We increase the child credit 
from $500 to $1,000. We drop all rates and simplify the code. We drop 
the top rate from 39.6 to 33 percent, and there's two primary reasons, 
two reasons I want to share with you. One is there ought to be some 
principle involved in the Tax Code, and one of the principles is, the 
Federal Government should take no more than a third of anybody's check.
    But there is a second principle. We must understand that there are 
thousands of unincorporated small businesses in America and thousands of 
Sub S corporations that pay the highest income tax rate. And in order to 
stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit of America, in order to encourage 
capital formation in small businesses, it makes sense to drop the top 
rate from 39.6 to 33 percent.
    I know the advocates--I can already hear some of the voices of the 
advocates for big Government, the folks that want to keep your money in 
Washington to expand the size of the Government. They're going to say, 
``Oh, this is only for the rich.'' Well, first of all, we're going to 
reject class warfare. Secondly, we don't believe in targeting some 
people in or some people out. We believe everybody who pays taxes ought 
to get tax relief. Thirdly, ours is a philosophy that says we know 
Government's role is not to create wealth but to create an environment 
in which entrepreneurs and small businesses can realize their dreams in 
America. Fifthly, we understand the marriage penalty is unfair, and we'd 
better do something about it. And those of us who have spent some time 
in the agricultural sector and in the heartland understand how unfair 
the death penalty is--the death tax is, and we need to get rid of it. I 
don't want to get rid of the death penalty--[laughter]--just the death 
tax.
    There is a lot of talk about how this plan, it really isn't going to 
affect people. Today the Ojedas are with us, Tony 
and Cynthia, and I want to thank you all for 
coming. And I appreciate the patience of your children. [Laughter] As 
you can see, they are proud parents of three children. Right now, last 
year, they paid $3,170 in Federal income taxes. Under our plan--a plan 
that benefits everybody who pays taxes, a plan where the greatest 
percentage of tax relief goes to the people at the bottom end of the 
economic ladder, a plan

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that is eminently fair, a plan that doesn't affect the size of the 
Federal Government in a negative way, a plan that helps meet 
priorities--these folks will save $2,120.
    Oh, I know that doesn't sound like a lot of money to folks that are 
rolling in dough. But $2,120 means a lot to the Ojeda family. It means a 
lot when you're paying high energy bills. It means a lot when you are 
worried about the education of your three children. It means a lot when 
you want to save. It means a lot when you want to do your duty as a mom 
and a dad to prepare for your children's future. No, $2,120 is a 
significant amount of money. It's the right thing to do for America.
    Now, we've submitted the people's budget to Congress. It's a budget 
that sets priorities, a budget that pays down debt, a budget that 
worries about the future, but a budget that keeps in mind the fact that 
our people are overtaxed. And I am here asking Congress to give you a 
refund.
    Audience members. Refund! Refund!
    The President. I want to thank you all for coming out. It is so 
refreshing to travel the--to travel your streets and to see people come 
out. I know there is an overflow room here of a thousand people, and I 
want to thank you all for coming.
    I want to tell you there is something bigger, though, than just a 
legislative agenda at hand. It is truly the greatness of the country. My 
job is to remind all of us that responsibility begins at home, that the 
biggest job, if you happen to be fortunate enough to be a mom or a dad, 
your biggest job is not your day job; your biggest job is your 24-hour 
job of loving your children with all your heart and all your soul. 
That's the best thing all of us can do.
    The best thing all of us can do in this Nation, whether our job is 
President or Boy Scout leader or Sunday school teacher or teacher, is to 
teach our youngsters the difference between right and wrong, is to 
encourage them to be responsible for the decisions they make in life, is 
to make sure that every child, regardless of how he or she are born, 
knows somebody cares for them, somebody loves them.
    No, the great strength of this country, the great strength of this 
country can be found in the heartland of America, where neighbor turns 
to neighbor and says, ``What can I do to help you, neighbor,'' if you've 
got a problem, where there are thousands of people saying, ``I want to 
help somebody in need,'' coming out of our churches and synagogues and 
mosques.
    My job--my job is not only to argue and work to get a legislative 
agenda passed that will help Americans help themselves. My job is also 
to remind America how great we are, that we're a blessed nation, a 
nation indivisible under God, the greatest nation on the face of the 
Earth.
    Together--together we can help this Nation fulfill its greatest 
promise, where every child realizes the American experience is meant for 
them, where every child can learn to read, where moms and dads 
understand the top priority is to love their children.
    No, the greatness of this country is ahead of us. We've been great 
in the past, but the future has never been brighter. And the future has 
never been brighter--the future has never been brighter because the 
people of this country have never been greater. It is my honor to be 
your President.
    Thank you for coming, and God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 1:46 p.m. in Mancuso Hall at the Omaha 
Civic Center. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Hal J. Daub of Omaha; 
Gov. Mike Johanns and Lt. Gov. Dave Maurstad of Nebraska; and Governor 
Johanns' wife, Stephanie.