    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2001, Book II)]
    [August 21, 2001]
    [Pages 998-1005]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at Truman High School in Independence, Missouri
    August 21, 2001

        Thank you all. Good morning. Thanks for that warm welcome. Mary
    Alice, thank you very much for your great
    introduction. And I want to thank the residents of the John Knox Senior
    Village for inviting me to come to Independence, Missouri. I'm glad I
    accepted.
        It is exciting to be here. It's good to get out of the seat of
    power, Crawford, Texas--[laughter]--and come to Missouri. Speaking about
    Missouri, I want--it's important for all Presidents to remember what
    Harry Truman said. He said, ``I try never to forget who I was and where
    I've come from and where I was going back to.'' That's one thing that
    Crawford, Texas, reminds me. [Laughter] It reminds me of where I came
    from and, after my service for this great country, where I'm going back
    to.
        I want to thank you for giving me the chance to come and talk about
    a couple of subjects dear to my heart. I want to thank my friend the
    Senator from the State of Missouri, Kit Bond, for the invitation and for his great service to Missouri
    and the United States. I want to thank United States Congressman Sam
    Graves for being here. Thank you for coming, Sam.
    I want to thank the United States Congresswoman from this district,
    Karen McCarthy. Thank you, Karen, for being
    here. I appreciate your time. Also here is the former Congressman from
    Missouri; Jim Talent is with us today, as
    well.
        I wish my wife were with me. [Laughter] Like
    Harry Truman, I married well. [Laughter] She would love to be here at
    this school. I want to thank the school administrators, the principals.
    I want to thank the students who are fixing to start school tomorrow for
    giving us a chance to come to your beautiful campus.
        To the students, let me say as plainly as I can: Your Government's
    important. You've got to pay attention to your Government. I don't care
    whether you're Republican or Democrat; you need to be involved in
    democracy in America. You need to take your vote seriously.
        And having been in public service for a while, I can tell you, it's
    a noble profession. It's an important way to serve your country and your
    community. And you can do so without being the President, by the way.
    You can be a Congressperson; you can serve in the statehouse; you can
    work hard to get people elected; or you can serve your community by
    loving a neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself. And that's one
    of the most important initiatives that we're working on.
        And that's one of the most important initiatives we're working on in
    Washington,

    [[Page 999]]

    DC. It's called a Faith-Based and Community Initiative. It passed the
    House of Representatives, for which I'm grateful. We're now trying to
    get it out of the United States Senate. It's part of the unfinished
    business for this year.
        Let me explain to you briefly what we're trying to do. We're trying
    to make sure that welfare is extended in a positive and compassionate
    way. We recognize in America there are some who hurt, some who have
    needs beyond the reach of Government, some who simply need love and
    compassion from a fellow American. There are children in our country who
    wonder whether or not the American Dream is meant for them, children
    whose mom or dad may be in prison. What this Nation needs is a
    Government that stands squarely on the side of the soldiers of the
    armies of compassion, those wonderful citizens who put their arm around
    a neighbor in need and say, ``I love you, brother,'' or ``I love you,
    sister. What can I do to help make your life better?'' Government should
    not fear faith in America. We ought to welcome faith-based programs.
        And we're making big progress on important issues, like health. For
    the last couple of legislative sessions in Washington, the Patients'
    Bill of Rights got stalled over in a partisan wrangling. I'm pleased to
    report that a bill passed out of the House of Representatives that I can
    live with. It's a bill that encourages, fosters, nourishes the
    relationship between patient and doctor.
        But it's also a piece of legislation that will not encourage or
    enhance frivolous lawsuits that will drive people out of medical care.
    We want more people with health insurance, not less. We want fewer
    lawsuits threatening our providers, rather than more, and we want to
    make sure our patients have got direct access to important health care.
    There's a good Patients' Bill of Rights that, if Congress comes
    together, they can get on my desk, that I look forward to signing this
    fall, after Congress comes home.
        We're also making progress in changing the tone in Washington. One
    of my promises is, I said I'd go up to Washington and try to focus more
    on the people and less on partisanship. We need to focus more on the
    lives of our citizens and remember who sent us up there in the first
    place.
        During the course of the campaign, I told the American people, if
    you gave me the great honor of serving as your President, I would set
    priorities for our budget. And if we had money left over after the
    priorities, we would remember who sent it to Washington in the first
    place. The money up in Washington is not the Government's money; it's
    the people's money.
        And so we came together--with that philosophy in mind, we came
    together and passed the first tax relief in a generation. It's real; it
    is meaningful; it is important tax relief. It wasn't one of these old
    Washington-style tax relief programs, where the Congress or the
    President got to pick and choose who got tax relief and who didn't. This
    was fair tax relief. It said, ``If you pay taxes, you get relief.'' It
    wasn't targeted tax relief; it was broad tax relief.
        And the Congress wisely agreed to start sending money back this
    summer. Driving in to the high school here, I saw a sign that said,
    ``Thanks for the $600 rebate check.'' But what I meant--what I should
    have done was stop and said, ``You don't need to thank me. It's your
    money to begin with.''
        Some of them in our Nation's Capital say, $600 doesn't matter to a
    family. Well, what they ought to do is get out of the Capital--I presume
    they are--and come out and talk to the working people of America and
    find out what $600 means. I was in the Harley-Davidson plant yesterday
    in Milwaukee. A lot of the workers came up and said, ``Thanks for my
    $600.'' One fellow said, ``I built a deck. You need to come over and
    have a beer with me.'' [Laughter] I said, ``I quit drinking.''
    [Laughter] He said, ``How about root beer?'' [Laughter]

    [[Page 1000]]

        The other thing we did in the Tax Code, which I appreciate a lot--
    and this is good for farmers and ranchers in Missouri and Kansas, all
    across the country. It's good for people who worry about urban sprawl.
    It's good for entrepreneurs. It's good for those folks who had a dream
    to build their business, make it work, and pass it on to their children.
    We're getting rid of the death tax. That's an important reform for our
    code. The Tax Code will be more reasonable. It will encourage
    entrepreneurship. It will get people more of their own money, and it was
    needed. And I'll talk about that a little later on.
        A second area where we're making great progress is in public
    education. There is a good, strong reform bill that passed our House of
    Representatives and a good strong reform bill that passed the United
    States Senate. And when we come back, after the so-called vacation--
    [laughter]--people need to get the education bill to my desk.
        And let me talk to you about it right quick. First of all, lest you
    think I forgot where I came from, one of the key components in the
    education bill is to trust the local folks when it comes to running
    public education. I strongly believe in local control of our schools. I
    don't believe Washington has got all the answers on how to run the
    schools. I do believe we need to pass power out of Washington, to give
    school districts more flexibility, more authority. And both these bills
    do that, and that's an important component of the bill.
        But secondly, these bills challenge what I call the soft bigotry of
    low expectations. It recognizes that too often in our public education
    system, we lower the bar for students. Some folks believe, I guess, some
    kids can't learn. That's the opposite of what I think. I think every
    child can learn. I think we ought to have the high expectations. We
    expect high standards, and we expect people to deliver on those
    standards. And therefore, one of the key components of reform is to say
    to school districts, States all across our country, that if you receive
    Federal money, you must measure. You must devise an accountability
    system to let us know whether our children are learning to read and
    write and add and subtract.
        I've heard all the arguments. As the Governor of Texas, I heard the
    arguments against accountability, and of course I've heard them as the
    President. On the one hand, you'll have people say, ``That's too much
    Government.'' Folks, my attitude is, if we spend money, it is reasonable
    to ask, ``What are the results?''--particularly when it comes to our
    children.
        I want to know whether a little child in the third grade can read,
    and I want to know early rather than late, and so should you. Because if
    we don't find out whether a child can read, oftentimes what happens is,
    they just get shuffled through the system. That's not fair; that's not
    right. Phyllis Hunter, my friend in the Houston Independent School
    District, stood up one time and said, ``Reading is the new civil
    right.'' How can you realize the American Dream if you can't read? And
    if you can't read, you can't learn. We've got to know. We've got to know
    whether or not the school systems and the curriculum are working, to
    make sure that no child in America gets left behind. It makes sense to
    ask the question, what are the results all across America? Your motto in
    Missouri is ``Show Me.'' It's not ``Pass them through''; it's ``Show me
    whether or not the children can read.''
        And then you'll hear people say it's racist to test. Folks, it's
    racist not to test, because guess who gets shuffled through the system,
    oftentimes: children whose parents don't speak English as a first
    language, inner-city kids. It's so much easier to quit on somebody than
    to remediate. And so we've got reform at the heart of this bill, and the
    reform is, every child can learn. No child should be left behind, and
    we're going to find out whether or not children are learning or not. And
    when they are, we need to praise the teachers. And by

    [[Page 1001]]

    the way, for the teachers who are here, thanks for teaching. It's a
    noble profession.
        That's one thing Laura's going to spend a lot
    of time on. She's not only going to spend a lot of time heralding
    reading programs at work or working on libraries--expanding libraries
    around America, but she's going to do her job--the best job she can at
    recruiting folks to become teachers--the young, those, for example, who
    have served in our military. We've got a troops-for-teachers program
    that will encourage those who have served in the military to get back in
    the classroom. We've got to do a better job of recruiting good Americans
    into the classrooms.
        The education bill is a good bill. I look forward to signing it. It
    is a sign that we're making progress on getting things done.
        Washington needs to be a results-oriented world. And one area where
    we need better results is with our military. When I campaigned for the
    Presidency, Dick Cheney--and by the way, he's
    doing great. He's a wonderful man and a great Vice President. I'm really
    glad he's decided to leave the private sector to come and join the
    administration. But we both said that we need to strengthen the military
    in order to keep the peace.
        And we made great progress. The Congress has done great work. We
    passed pay raises. I had the honor of signing an additional pay raise in
    Kosovo when I went overseas, $2 billion additional money to pay our
    troops more, house them better, better health care for the men and women
    who wear the uniform. Listen, high morale begins with treating the men
    and women who wear the uniform--treating them well and paying them
    better. And that's what we're doing.
        We've also got a vision for a stronger military reflected in the
    budget. The budget I sent up for 2002, with amendments, was the largest
    increase in military spending since the time of Ronald Reagan. It's
    important not only to spend more, but we need to spend more wisely. And
    that's why Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a
    total review of our military force today, as well as a strategic review
    of what our forces ought to look like tomorrow. We're going to spend
    money on research and development to make sure that not only can we keep
    the peace today but that our military is properly equipped, properly
    trained to make the world more peaceful in the out years.
        And one area that is so important, and I know there's been a lot of
    discussion about it, is to make sure America's prepared to address the
    true threats of the 21st century. I met with President Putin, as you know, twice. I had the privilege to represent
    our Nation with our former adversary and to look him in the eye and say,
    ``Mr. President, America is not your enemy. The cold war is over. We
    need to discard all the relics of the cold war, a treaty, for example,
    that has codified hatred and distrust, called the ABM Treaty.''
        I said, ``Mr. President, the threats that
    face Russia and America and other freedom-loving nations are the threats
    of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rogue nations or
    cyberterrorists. It's terrorist threats that face us, and we must
    develop necessary defenses to protect ourselves and protect freedom-
    loving people. We need to get rid of the ABM Treaty, so we can research
    and development--develop weapons systems that will meet the true threat
    facing America. The cold war is over. The hatred is gone. Let's come
    together, for the good of freedom-loving people, to protect us all.''
    Let's protect Israel and our allies and America.
        We're making good progress about bringing morale back to the
    military. We will be strong militarily, because this is a peaceful
    nation, a nation--rests upon freedom, democracy. It's such a wonderful
    land. We cannot retreat within our borders. We've got to be an active
    nation to promote the peace, and we will.
        And finally, we're making good progress about reforming Medicare.
    Medicare is--

    [[Page 1002]]

    they usually call it, in the political lexicon, ``Mediscare.'' See, when
    you talk about Medicare, then somebody takes your words and tries to
    twist it and frighten people who rely upon Medicare. That's an old
    tactic, an old political tactic. That doesn't deter me, however, from
    talking about making sure the system works. Medicare is an incredibly
    important program. It's a promise the Nation made to our seniors, and
    we've got to make sure it works.
        And one of the things that Medicare doesn't do, it doesn't provide
    prescription drugs for our seniors. And that doesn't make sense in a
    world--a health world that has changed dramatically since Medicare was
    first signed. Now, I've asked Congress to--both Republicans and
    Democrats to think about how to do the following things: Make sure
    prescription drugs is available for seniors; make sure seniors who like
    their current Medicare system can stay in it, the way it is; but make
    sure seniors have got a variety of options from which to choose.
        I said, ``Why don't you all look at your own health care plan?''
    It's not a bad place to start. If the Senators and Congressmen have got
    a variety of options from which to choose, if their own health care plan
    trusts them to design a program that meets their needs, why shouldn't we
    do the same thing for our seniors? Why shouldn't we say, ``Let's give
    seniors choices''?
        And then, of course, there's the Social Security issue, a longtime
    political issue as well. Now, it should be becoming clearer to people
    that if you're on Social Security today or near retirement, the promises
    our Government made to you will absolutely be kept. Those days of
    demagoging the issue should be gone out of the political--out of
    politics.
        But one of the things I learned and one of the things I know, as a
    result of my travels and studying Social Security, there's a lot of
    young folks who recognize the truth. And that is, there are not going to
    be enough people paying into the system to make sure that they have got
    a Social Security system available for them. There's a lot of young
    workers who heard the message that I delivered. And I believe one of the
    reasons I'm standing here is because I had the courage to deliver this
    message. In order to make sure there's a Social Security system around
    tomorrow, to make sure there's one in the future, we must give younger
    workers the option to manage their own money in the private markets, if
    that's what they choose to do.
        You notice I said, ``if that's what they choose to do.'' Government
    ought to trust American people to make decisions in their own life. They
    ought to trust the seniors to make the right choices when it comes to
    their health care, and they ought to trust younger workers with the
    choice on how to manage their own money. Remember the payroll tax--
    again, it's not the Government's money; it's the workers' money. And in
    order to have a Social Security System around tomorrow, we've got to
    have a better rate of return on the people's money in order to offset
    the fact there are fewer people paying into the system.
        My point is that we're beginning to address these difficult issues.
    Our charge in Washington, DC, at least the way I view it, is to not have
    endless partisan squabbling but to talk about the issues that are
    important for America, to be willing to address the tough issues, to
    make sure our country fulfills its promise, not only today but in the
    years to come.
        Now, one of the interesting battles, and I hope it's not a battle--
    let me just say, one of the interesting opportunities to show America
    that we can work together, to be the positive guy--[laughter]--is the
    budget. We'll be talking about the budget. This is when we actually
    spend the money.
        See, the first discussion we had was, we set the budget, the
    parameters, about the limits of spending. And now the Members of
    Congress are coming back, and they're going to actually commit
    taxpayer's money.

    [[Page 1003]]

    And it's going to be an interesting discussion. Now, tomorrow my Office
    of Management and Budget will issue what's called a mid-session budget
    review and will show in plain terms that we have fully funded and will
    be able to fully fund our Nation's priorities, that we've got enough
    money to preserve and protect Social Security, that we'll pay down over
    $100 billion of public debt, that Medicare, all Medicare, every dime
    that comes into Medicare, will be spent on Medicare, and we can meet our
    priorities when it comes to our military and to education.
        Our budget is in strong financial shape, despite an economic
    slowdown that began last year. The slowdown is serious, folks. Make no
    mistake about it. It's real. Since last summer, the economy has grown by
    a little over one percent. That's a slowdown. Inevitably, the slowing
    economy has resulted in slowing tax revenues, lower corporate profits,
    and in some cases, layoffs.
        Yet despite the year-long trend, despite the fact that this has been
    on for a year, the Federal budget will have the second largest surplus
    in history, in part because this administration took immediate action to
    address the downturn. We took exactly the right action, at the right
    time, by pushing the largest tax cut in a generation. You will hear
    people say that tax relief is going to make it hard to meet the budget.
    But reality is, tax relief is important to make sure our economy grows.
    I believe there are some who resent tax relief because they wanted more
    of your money in Washington, DC. It's a fundamental, philosophical
    difference.
        And the fundamental question is, who do you trust? I trust the
    people with their own money. I'd rather you spend your own money, than
    the Federal Government spend your money. I think you can do it more
    wisely than we can in Washington, DC.
        No, this tax relief has laid the foundation for expanding economic
    growth. And now we must resist the temptation of a bigger threat to
    growth, and that's excessive Federal spending. The biggest threat to our
    recovery is for the Congress to overspend. We have the funds to meet our
    obligations, so long as they resist the temptation to spend.
        You know, every new way to spend money can be made to sound urgent,
    important, but we've agreed to budget limits. That's what a budget is.
    You set budgets at your house; the Congress set a budget that we all
    agreed upon. And I expect the Congress to live within the limits of the
    budget that we all agreed on. I am optimistic that we can avoid the--
    this business about shutting down things and not getting things done. I
    am optimistic, because we've made good progress so far, and both
    political parties deserve credit.
        Congressman Young of the House and
    Senator Byrd of the Senate have done a good
    job on the appropriations process thus far. We passed two supplemental
    spending bills. One focused on agriculture; one focused on defense.
    These supplementals in the past were usually nice platforms for people
    to load up the spending with additional programs, things that might
    sound good but all of a sudden end up busting the budget. And both
    bodies of the Congress stuck to the limits that we agreed to. It's a
    good sign. It's a sign that fiscal responsibility is now an important
    part of the psyche in Washington, DC.
        However, even though I'm optimistic, there are some temptations that
    will face the Congress when they come back. I'd like to share some of
    the with you. The first temptation, when it comes to budgeting, is what
    we call the temptation of the false emergency. Now, our budget system
    provides for special consideration for emergency, as it should. We've
    had natural disasters, and we need to have money set aside. That's an
    emergency, and we need to get money quickly into the communities when
    there's a natural disaster. An economic recession is an emergency. A
    declaration of war is an emergency. But far

    [[Page 1004]]

    too often in the past, the normal has been declared an emergency in
    order to increase the budget. Far too long in the past, well-meaning
    Members have declared that such-and-such pet project in their district
    is an emergency, and therefore we need to spend that money under the
    emergency provisions. That's going to end.
        A second temptation is to complain that the budget has been cut
    when, in fact, it is increased. One of the amazing things about
    Washington accounting is that when a budget increase is less than
    expected or less than anticipated or less than someone hopes for, that's
    called a cut. [Laughter] So if budget X goes from point A to point B and
    it's a 6-percent growth and reasonable folks come together and say it
    ought to only grow at 4 percent, that's a cut. And we're not going to
    let the so-called Washington cuts cause the budget to get out of
    balance. We're going to blow the whistle.
        Then there's what they call the last minute budget raid. That's when
    the bills are coming, winding down the process, and in order to get
    votes, Members start demanding this or that. There were 6,000 last
    minute additions to the budget last year, some of them small, some of
    them large, but all of them adding up to one thing, a budget that could
    be out of balance. And so as the watchdog of the Treasury, as the person
    who's got the opportunity to bring fiscal sanity to Washington, I'm
    going to be watching carefully for the last minute budget additions.
        Seven out of the last eight budgets submitted by the Executive and
    passed by the Congress have raided the Social Security or used part of
    the Social Security to fund the budgets. One of the temptations is to
    use Social Security money for something other than Social Security. Now
    the good news is, is that both political parties and both parties of
    Congress have declared that we're not going to do that. But I'm going to
    watch carefully, to make sure that the old temptations of the past don't
    come back to haunt us when it comes to budgeting your money in the year
    2001.
        And finally, there is a--not finally, next to finally. [Laughter] I
    was afraid some of you were going to fall out. [Laughter] There is a
    temptation not to listen to the budget in the first place. During the
    last session, the appropriations process created $35 billion more
    dollars than the budget called for. A budget's a budget, folks. We spent
    a lot of time working on the budget. People came together. Both parties
    said, ``Here's the budget.'' And I know the American taxpayers, and I
    know the President in this case, expects for Congress to live within the
    budget we passed. We don't want the budget to be a hollow noise. We want
    the budget to be real, and that's why I've been given the power of the
    veto, to make sure that the budget--make sure the appropriations are
    within the guidelines of the budget.
        And finally--[laughter]--and finally, one of the temptations, and
    perhaps the greatest temptation of all, is what we call appropriations
    gamesmanship. And here's the way it works. We've got a budget of X
    amount, and you add up all the potential appropriations bills. The
    budget amount is X. And so they'll pass one bill of the 13, and they may
    add a little bit here. Then they'll pass another bill, all still within
    the budget. And they finally get to the last appropriations bills, and
    all of a sudden, if the budget amount becomes the appropriated amount,
    we busted the budget, because of all the previous bills have added a
    little here or there. And guess what generally is the last ones out?
    Defense--the defense bill. In other words, they'll put it on the
    President's desk and say, ``You either get to bust the budget, Mr.
    President, or you have to choose between defense or perhaps education.''
    That's gamesmanship. And that's not necessary, folks. That's not good to
    play with our national security or our national interests in educating
    every child.

    [[Page 1005]]

        And so what I expect and hope is that Congress will, at the very
    minimum, agree on the funding levels for defense and education early in
    the process, not late. This will be an interesting test of the
    priorities of the leaders of Congress. It will be an interesting test to
    see whether or not they agree with the administration that our true
    priorities begin with educating our children, and a true priority is the
    defense of our Nation. I'm confident we can work together, but it's
    going to require the people to help us watch the process. The people
    need to pay attention. And if you see the appropriations process
    dragging on and it looks like the old games of the past, we all need to
    blow the whistle. We all need to expect better out of Washington, DC.
        And I believe we can do better. I know this: We're not going to
    raise the taxes on the people. I know this: that we're going to make
    sure additional spending doesn't cut into essential programs, like
    Social Security or Medicare. I know this: We won't short-change the
    military, because it's important to rebuild our military. And I know
    this: We're making progress in changing the tone in Washington, and the
    budget process is the way to show the American people that we can work
    together for what's right.
        Harry Truman brought a lot of wisdom to Washington, in what he said.
    He said some things, and I think he called--he was a plain-spoken
    fellow. Nothing wrong with that. [Laughter] Nothing wrong with telling
    people exactly what you believe. Washington can use a lot of that. He
    said, ``Washington is a very easy place to forget where you came from
    and why you got there in the first place.'' Pretty wise.
        I think one of the reasons I got there in the first place is to show
    the American people that it's possible to work together. I think one of
    the reasons I got there in the first place is to do in office what I
    said I would do, to try to bring some faith back into the political
    process. I know one of the reasons I got there in the first place; one
    of the reasons I got there in the first place was to watch the budget
    and to trust the American people.
        But there's a large call, as well, and that's to work with the
    American folks to help change our culture from one that will be more
    respectful and more compassionate, from one that used to say, ``If it
    feels good, do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else,''
    to one in which all of us are responsible for the decisions we make in
    life.
        A responsible culture, a culture of personal responsibility means
    that if you're fortunate enough to be a mom or a dad, that you
    understand your responsibility is to love your children with all your
    heart and all of your soul. A culture of responsibility understands that
    if you live in a community and see a neighbor in need, that instead of
    relying upon Government, that you ought to walk across the street and
    help that neighbor in need. A culture of responsibility says that if
    you're a part of corporate America, you have a responsibility to the
    workers that work for you. A culture of responsibility says that if
    you're fortunate enough to hold high office, that you have a
    responsibility to set the highest of high standards and to live by those
    standards.
        I am honored to be in such a position. I'm honored to be in a
    position to help work with decent Americans all across our country to
    usher in this period. And I know it can happen, because we're all
    inhabitants of the greatest land on the face of the Earth.
        Thanks for coming today. May God bless, and may God bless America.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:58 a.m. in the gymnasium. In his remarks,
    he referred to Mary Alice Gensor, president, Democratic Club, John Knox
    Village retirement community; Phyllis Hunter, consultant, Texas Reading
    Initiative; and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.