[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: GEORGE W. BUSH (2001, Book I)]
[April 25, 2001]
[Pages 450-455]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks in New Orleans, Louisiana
April 25, 2001
The President. Thank you all very much. Thank you all. It's an honor
to be here. This ballpark kind of reminds me of home. And seeing my
friend Will Clark, who used to play for the
mighty Texas Rangers, it really reminded me of home. I want to thank you
for being here, Will.
I also want to thank my friend David Vitter, the great Congressman from this district, for his
introduction. I'm pleased to have been traveling today, as well, with
the Congressman from northern Louisiana, John Cooksey. I appreciate John being here. And you should appreciate
them, as well, because when it came to trying to figure out what to do
with the people's money, they stood strong for tax relief.
At the airport when I arrived, it was good to see my old friend and
fellow Governor, the Governor of Louisiana, Michael Foster. And with Mike was a friend of mine, the elections
commissioner of the State of Louisiana, Suzie Haik Terrell. It's good to see Suzie, as well. Just to make it
clear that tax relief is not necessarily a Republican idea or a Democrat
idea, today I'm proud that Karen Carter and
Lambert Boissiere, both good elected
Democrats here in the State of Louisiana, stand in this crowd in solid
support of tax relief on behalf of the working people.
And finally, before I get going, there are two folks here who I'm
glad they're here--I wish I would have been here to hear them sing--Mr.
Percy Sledge and Aaron Neville.
After this, I'm going to Arkansas, and then I'm going to spend a
couple of days in my State of Texas. I'll be spending some quality time
with the First Lady, and she's going to be
envious to know that I got to shake Percy Sledge and Aaron Neville's hand.
By the way, I'm proud of the job that Laura
is doing. One of the things she is doing is traveling our country,
reminding people of how important it is to be a teacher, telling the
teachers of this good land how much we appreciate them, but also telling
those young and old alike that if
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you're looking for something to do, if you want to make a contribution
to our Nation, become a teacher. Teaching is a noble profession. And
there is something very fundamental about making a contribution to our
Nation.
The truth of the matter is, if you want to start making a great
contribution to our Nation, if you happen to be a mom or a dad, remember
this: The most important job you'll ever have is to be a good mom and
dad. If you have the honor of being a mother or a father, the most
important contribution you can make to this land is to every day tell
your child you love them with all your heart and all your soul.
I wish I knew the law that I could sign that would say we would love
each other like we'd like to be loved ourself. There's no such law. But
there are some laws we can pass to help people with their lives. And
that's exactly the kind of budget I submitted to the United States
Congress. It's a Congress that's focused and principled. It's a budget
that says we could spend more money on the public's education system
around America. It's a budget that prioritizes education.
The biggest increase of any budget--of any Department in my budget
goes to the Department of Education. It signals a priority. But I
haven't forgotten where I come from, either. I know that Washington
doesn't have all the knowledge necessary to run the schools. As a matter
of fact, I'm against mandates. I'm for freedom at the local level. I
believe in local control of our schools.
We're making progress. We're making progress, and I appreciate so
very much the cooperative efforts of both Republicans and Democrats in
Washington to craft a bill that embodies these principles. First, we've
got to set high standards when it comes to educating our children.
Everybody understands that if you set low standards, you get low
results. When you raise the bar, when you expect the best is when you
start getting the kind of results we want in America.
Secondly, embodied in the principle involved in the bill that I
submitted and we're working on, it says we've got to trust the local
people to run the schools in America. It says we've got to trust the
local people to make the decisions for children. The people who care
more about the children in Louisiana are the citizens of Louisiana, and
we must empower the citizens to make that choice.
But also a principle in the bill that's working its way through the
Senate says that we want to know results in America. We've got to know.
We don't want the Federal Government setting up a test, but we want
local people to devise accountability systems that let us know whether
or not our children are learning to read and write and add and subtract.
It is so important that we measure. It is important to use measurement
not as a way to punish but as a way to solve problems early, before it's
too late.
I refuse to accept a system that will not hold people accountable, a
system that will just shuffle through children through the system
without regard to their knowledge base. Now, we can do better in
America. We can do better by asking the question to our children: ``What
do you know?'' And if you don't know what you're supposed to know, we
will make sure you do early, before it's too late. No child should be
left behind in the great land called America.
In the budget I submitted to the United States Congress, I sent this
priority: We better make sure we pay the people who wear the uniform of
the United States a decent wage. I have the awesome responsibility of
being the Commander in Chief of the United States, and that means making
sure that morale is high amongst our troops. That means good pay; that
means good housing; that means good training. And that means having a
Commander in Chief who respects the men and women
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who wear the uniform and who, in turn, earns the respect of the men and
women who wear the uniform. [Applause]
Behave yourself. [Laughter]
There's always a lot of talk when it comes to the budget, that if we
try to share the people's money with them, that somebody is not going to
get their Social Security check. Hopefully, these days of that kind of
rhetoric are gone from the political discourse. Hopefully, the days of
trying to scare people, days of trying to frighten people are behind us.
That kind of politics is divisive and unnecessary.
The reality is, the budget I submitted and the budget most people
agree with--this part of the budget most people agree with--says that we
will spend payroll taxes, those taxes aimed for Social Security, on one
thing and one thing only, and that is Social Security.
We have made a commitment to our elderly in America. It is a
commitment this administration will keep. But if you're young in
America, you better be wondering what the Social Security system is
going to look like tomorrow. There's not going to be enough people
paying in by the time you get to need Social Security. We've got to
think differently. On the one hand, we're going to protect our seniors.
But on the other hand, we better let younger workers, at their
discretion, manage some of your own money in the private market so you
get a better rate of return on investment.
There's a lot of concern about the health of our seniors, as there
should be. The budget I submitted doubles the Medicare budget over the
next 10 years. It doubles the amount of folks who will be served at
community health centers over the next 5 years. It provides tax credits
for the working uninsured. This is a good budget. It is a sound budget.
And it meets the Nation's priorities.
It increases discretionary spending by 4 percent. That ought to seem
like a lot for people whose pay raise hasn't gone up by 4 percent over
the last couple of years. Four percent is greater than the rate of
inflation; 4 percent is a hefty increase. But for some in Washington, 4
percent is not enough.
Audience members. Boo-o-o!
The President. For some in our Nation's Capital, they don't think 4
percent can meet the Nation's needs. And that's where we're having a
major disagreement. The truth of the matter is, the budget last year
grew at--the discretionary budget last year grew at 8 percent. The bill
that came out of the Senate, again, grows the discretionary spending by
8 percent. And if that were to continue, the discretionary budget of the
United States of America would double in 9 years.
Audience members. Boo-o-o!
The President. There's a fundamental argument going on in
Washington, DC, and it's, what do we do with the people's money? That's
what the argument is about. And my point I make to Washington is, after
we meet priorities and grow the budget at 4 percent, we ought to be
understanding where that money comes from. The surplus isn't the
Government's money. The surplus is the people's money. Let me make the
case a little further.
We increase discretionary spending by 4 percent. As well, in the
budget I submitted to the Congress, we pay down debt by $2 trillion over
10 years. We've also got another trillion set aside for contingencies.
Oh, there are contingencies all the time when it comes to the Federal
level. There are emergencies. Sometimes our farmers need a little extra
help because of emergencies. And we're going to meet those obligations.
This is a sound budget. It leaves money unspent. That's always dangerous
when it comes to Washington, DC, leaving money unspent. [Laughter]
I was campaigning on this very issue in Iowa, and a lady got up and
she said, ``You know, the budget debate in Washington reminds me of what
it was like when I had my grandchildren in the house.'' And I said,
``Well, why was that?'' And she said, ``Well,
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because I always made cookies. And when I left the cookies on the
kitchen table and the grandchildren came through, they always got
eaten.'' [Laughter] ``They were never left.''
Well, that's what happens to U.S. taxpayers' money. If you leave it
sitting around in Washington, it's going to get spent. And it's going to
get spent on bigger Government. What we need to do is set priorities and
always remember whose money we're talking about. And so I submitted a
plan that does just that. And the two Congressmen with me today, they
stood strong on the side of the working people in Louisiana and voted
for that tax relief.
What you hear in Washington is--a lot of times you hear people
saying, ``Well, I'm for tax relief, just so long as only a certain
number of people get it.'' That's right. That's what we call targeted
tax relief. That means somebody in Washington gets to pick the winners,
and somebody gets to pick who doesn't win. That is not our view of fair
tax relief. Everybody who pays taxes ought to get tax relief in America.
So ours says, everybody who pays taxes gets relief. We cut all
rates. We cut the bottom rate from 15 percent to 10 percent. That's
important, because there are people in America struggling on the
outskirts of poverty. There are people working hard that aren't getting
ahead. And not only did we cut the bottom rate, we increased the child
credit from $500 to $1,000 per child.
One of the things that troubles me most about our Tax Code is--the
example I like to use is a single mother, working hard to get ahead. By
the way, she's working the hardest job in America. Raising children by
herself is the toughest job in this country. Under this Tax Code, if
she's barely getting ahead making 22,000 a year, say, raising two
children, for every additional dollar she earns, she pays a higher
marginal rate on that dollar than someone who is a successful Wall
Street stockbroker, for example. And that's just not right, folks.
That's not what this country is about.
The message in the Tax Code ought to be, the harder you work, the
better it is the chance you've got to get ahead in life. And so we
reduced the bottom rate, and we increased the child credit. This code
needs to be more fair.
But there's a lot of them up there saying, ``Well, you can't drop
the top rate. That's not fair.'' Well, first, if you pay taxes, you
ought to get relief.
And secondly, you can help me send this message to Washington: The
small-business owner in the State of Louisiana is likely to be a sole
proprietor; he's likely to be a Subchapter S; generally, he's not going
to pay corporate income taxes. Therefore, he's going to be paying
personal income tax rates. By dropping that top rate from 39.6 to 33
percent, we're sending this message: The role of Government is not to
create wealth, but the role of Government is to create an environment in
which the entrepreneur can flourish, in which the small business can
grow to become a large business. Dropping that top rate sends the clear
message: We want more money in the pockets of the small-business owners
so they can expand and grow their businesses.
The Tax Code we submitted makes the Tax Code more fair. It addresses
inequities. It makes the code more responsive to hard work. But it also
recognizes the role of family in society. The marriage penalty is
unfair, and we've got to do something about taxing marriage in America.
And you know what else is unfair? Taxing a person's assets twice. In
our country, called America, if you're a farmer or a rancher or a small-
business owner and you pass away, your heirs have to pay taxes twice.
They pay taxes when you get profitable, and they pay taxes when you die.
The death tax is unfair, and for the goodness of America, we need to get
rid of it.
Now, that's the plan I submitted. Now, when I was campaigning in
Louisiana during the campaign, I came and talked like this, and a lot of
people heard it and
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cheered. But I must confess, a lot of the punditry kind of had a blank
stare on their face. They thought I was, as they say, whistling into the
wind--[laughter]--that there was no chance we would get any tax relief.
But thanks to the hard work and the phone calls and e-mails of
hundreds of Americans from across the country, we have begun to define
the parameters. Out of the House came a $1.6 trillion plan. And now the
Senate, somewhat reluctant, but nevertheless they passed a $1.2 trillion
plan. Because of you all, because of the voices of America, tax relief
is on the way.
And there's two important reasons why it must happen. The first is,
we have a little slowdown in our economy, and tax relief will help. It's
a part of how we recover the steam necessary to get our economy chugging
again. And I'm confident with tax relief, we'll send a message--one, it
will encourage long-term investment, but the tax relief package I look
forward to working with the Senate and the House on will also have a
retroactive feature to it, will get money in people's pockets quickly.
It'll help recover this economy. And it's necessary. It is necessary.
But there is another reason. It has to do with the people. You know,
sometimes with public policy we like to talk about ideology and numbers
and charts. But behind every good public policy is the question, how do
we help people?
Today, in the crowd, we've got the Rogelstads, somewhere behind--
there they go, right there. And I've asked them to come--it's
Katie and Dustin. Katie is a receptionist; Dustin is a sales rep. More
importantly, they're a mom and dad of Lawson and Karli. They've come
for a reason, because I want to share with you what happens to this one
Louisiana family when we have tax relief--the Congress passes the plan
that the House passed. And when it's fully implemented, these good folks
who now pay 3,390 in Federal income taxes will save $1,850 a year. You
know, some will say, well, you know, that's 1,850--that may not be a lot
for--but that's a lot for them. It's a lot for them, given the fact that
we've had no energy policy in America and therefore energy prices are
going up on the American people. It's a lot for people who struggle with
credit card debt.
Now, this tax relief package, we're talking about live Americans who
will benefit in a real way. You see, and the question is--and this is
the fundamental question facing Washington, DC--once we meet fundamental
obligations and pay down debt, once we increase discretionary spending
by 4 percent, what do we do with the money left over?
The other way to look at it is, who do you trust? Do you want the
Congress spending this $1,850, or do you want these people spending the
18? And we stand on the side of the families in Louisiana. It's who do
you trust: Do you trust the Government, or do you trust the people? And
you've got an administration that stands squarely on the side of the
people of America.
And not only do I trust you when it comes to your own money; I trust
you when it comes to asking for your help and maybe convincing some of
the members of the Louisiana delegation who don't see it our way, to see
it our way. You're one e-mail away from letting somebody know how you
feel. You're one stamp away from saying, ``Meet priorities, but trust us
with our own money. Meet priorities, but remember whose money it is
you're spending up there.''
You see, we can not only afford tax relief, but my point to the
Congress is, we can't afford not to have tax relief. It is so important
to trust the people of America, because that's why our Nation is so
different and strong, because of our people.
This is a fabulous country, and I'm so honored--I'm so honored to be
your President. I'm able to stand up--I'm the President of the greatest
people on the face of the Earth, hard-working, God-fearing people,
people who walk outside their
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house on a regular basis and say to a neighbor in need, ``What can I do
to help?'' They don't need the Federal Government telling them how to
love a neighbor; they do it out of the goodness of their heart. No, this
is a land that is so strong because every single day there are countless
acts of kindness where neighbor helps neighbor, or church member says to
a child who wonders whether or not there's a future for him or her,
``Somebody loves you.''
My call to America and to the Congress is, let's free the good
hearts of the American people. Let's not stand in the way of faith-based
and community-based programs that are trying to help people in need.
Let's unleash--let us unleash not only the creative passions of America
through tax relief; let's unleash the compassion of America through a
Faith-Based Initiative that recognizes the great strength of our country
lies in the hearts and souls of our loving citizens.
We're making a difference in Washington--I say ``we'' because I
stand up there with you all--that there's a new attitude in our Nation's
Capital. We've still got a lot of work to do. But it's an attitude of
respect. We need to have debates with the people in mind, not debates
trying to say, ``My party is better than your party,'' or debates that
say, ``Well, I'm going to tear this person down so I can do better.''
That's not what America should be about.
Slowly but surely, we're ushering in a culture of respect in the
Nation's Capital. It's important to do so. And as importantly, all of us
must work together to usher in a culture of personal responsibility into
America, a culture that says each of us are responsible for the
decisions we make in life, responsible for loving our children,
responsible for helping a neighbor in need. And I understand my
responsibilities, which is to uphold the high honor of the great office
of President of the United States.
So I want to thank you all for coming out. I am honored to have you
by my side. Let's work hard, and we're going to bring tax relief where
it belongs, to the people of America.
God bless, and God bless America. Thank you all.
Note: The President spoke at 3:45 p.m. at Zephyr Field. In his remarks,
he referred to former Major League Baseball player Will Clark.