[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book I)]
[June 19, 2002]
[Pages 1023-1028]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the President's Dinner
June 19, 2002

    Thank you all for that warm welcome, and thank you for coming 
tonight. We're here for the same reason. We want Denny Hastert to remain the Speaker of the House and Trent 
Lott to become the majority leader of the Senate. 
And I want to thank you for helping us achieve those two important 
goals. And I say they're important because I believe that when we 
achieve those goals, we can do a lot for the American people.
    I want to thank John Boehner for taking 
the lead role on this successful dinner. I want to thank George 
Allen from Virginia, the Senator from Virginia, 
for participating and helping. I want to thank Bill Frist and Tom Davis--Bill Frist of the 
Senate and Tom Davis of the House--for leading their respective 
committees to get these Members elected. I want to thank Richard 
Burr of North Carolina for his help and 
leadership. Mr. Bob Ingram, thank you for 
your help. All the folks here, I appreciate your willingness to work 
hard to make this dinner a successful event. I appreciate Steve 
Wariner for his beautiful rendition of the 
National Anthem. And I want to thank my friends Amy Grant and Vince Gill for being here as 
well. Thank you all for coming.
    Most of all, I'm pleased that the First Lady 
came. She's done a heck of a job as First Lady for the United States of 
America. She has kept me in line. [Laughter] I appreciate her passion 
for the children of this country, her desire to help everybody learn to 
read, her calm, her steady hand, and her unabiding love. Thank you for 
coming.
    I promised the American people that I'd do my best to change the 
tone in Washington, DC, to elevate the discourse, to bring people 
together to achieve big goals

[[Page 1024]]

for our country. And I believe, thanks to many Members of the United 
States Senate who are here and many Members of the United States House 
of Representatives who are here, we're making great progress toward that 
goal.
    My deep desire for the American people is to provide security for 
our Americans. It starts, of course, with homeland security and the 
defense of our country. But before I talk about that, I want to talk 
about the security of a good America as well. That means job security.
    I know, here in this town, people like to look at numbers all the 
time, and they analyze the status of America based upon this statistic 
or that statistic. My attitude is this: If somebody is looking for work 
and they can't find work, we've got a problem. I believe, if there's 
somebody who's willing to find a job and there's not a job, all of us in 
Washington, DC, must do everything in our power to increase the job base 
in America. And thanks to members in this audience, we started by 
cutting the taxes on the American people.
    There was an interesting vote the other day on the floor of the 
Senate. You see, earlier this year, both Houses sent a tax relief bill 
to my desk that not only reduced the rates on the working people and did 
something about the marriage penalty, it repealed the death tax, 
because, you see, we think the death tax is unfair to American 
entrepreneurs. It's unfair to American farmers and American ranchers. 
And because of a quirk in the law, this death tax repeal doesn't stay 
repealed. It's kind of hard to explain that to the fellows in Crawford, 
Texas, who own their farms. But nevertheless, it doesn't stay repealed. 
And yet the Senate, thanks to the leadership of Trent Lott, brought a vote up. Our side was firmly--firmly--I mean 
firmly, for the permanent repeal of the death tax. Their side wasn't. 
The question is, who stands on the side of the people? We do.
    Part of economic security is to make sure everybody gets a good 
education in America. I appreciate Senator--Congressman John 
Boehner's leadership as chairman of the 
Education Committee and want you to know that by working together, we 
passed an education bill that sets high standards for every child in 
America. You see, we believe that if you lower the bar, you get low 
standards and bad results. We believe every child can learn. But we, for 
the first time, said that if you receive Federal money, if you take 
taxpayers' money, you must show us whether or not children are learning 
to read and write and add and subtract. And if they are, we will praise 
you, but if not, you better change on behalf of the American people.
    We've done some good in one House. We're stalled in another House on 
some important legislation to enhance the economic security of the 
American people. We need a--actually, I take that back. Both Houses 
acted to pass terrorism insurance. Mr. Leader Lott, I want to thank you for your leadership on that issue. 
It's important that we encourage construction around America, to 
encourage the creation of more jobs through construction by having 
terrorism insurance--by the way, a bill that does not encourage 
frivolous and junk lawsuits that impede economic progress and hurt jobs 
in America.
    I appreciate so very much the work on an energy bill. Listen, this 
country needs an energy bill. We need to do a better job of conserving, 
no question about it. We need to enhance renewables. But we need to 
reduce supply from countries that don't like us. It is not in our 
national security to be importing oil from countries around the world.
    Part of making sure that we've got economic security in America is 
to make sure that when we reauthorize the welfare reform package, that 
we encourage people to work. You see, if you have low expectations, you 
say it's okay not to work. We're the people who have high expectations 
for every American, regardless of where they're from in America. And we 
understand that

[[Page 1025]]

with a job, you get dignity. We must make sure we insist upon work as 
the cornerstone for any welfare reform package.
    No, there's a lot to do. And there's going to be a lot to do next 
year as well. And one of the reasons we need to make sure Leader 
Lott heads the United States Senate is so that 
the nominees--the good nominees, the qualified nominees I send up for 
the judiciary all across America gets a fair hearing, a vote, and 
confirmation.
    And finally, to make sure we've got good economic security for 
everybody in America, we've got to make sure Congress holds the line on 
spending. I know there's going to be some tough choices on these 
appropriations bills, but I want to make sure that everybody understands 
with clarity that the budget the House passed is the limit on spending 
for the United States Congress.
    I appreciate the Members being here to work on the security of our 
Nation by enhancing job security, by doing everything we can to grow the 
job base. You see, we understand the role of Government isn't to create 
wealth. That's what we understand. We understand the role of Government 
is to create an environment in which the small business can flourish, in 
which the entrepreneur can do well, in which people who want to work for 
the American Dream can realize that dream. And thanks to the Members 
here, Members in this audience, we've done a pretty darn good job of 
enhancing the environment for economic vitality all across America.
    And we've got to do a good job of protecting our homeland. Every 
morning, I go to the Oval Office--that is, after I get Laura her 
coffee--[laughter]--Equal and milk, I want you to know. [Laughter] I 
don't mean to be putting any pressure on you boys out there, but--
[laughter]--it's a good habit to get into. [Laughter] And I go to the 
Oval Office with Spot the dog. Barney doesn't get to go. He's only a 
year and a half, and Laura did design a new rug 
for the Oval Office. [Laughter]
    The first thing I do when I sit at this fantastic desk in this 
beautiful office--and I mean it's beautiful; it's a great shrine to 
democracy--is read a threat assessment. It makes me realize that the 
enemy is still interested in hurting America. My most important job is 
to protect the security of America, to do everything in our power to 
make sure the enemy doesn't hit us again.
    And we're making progress; we're making progress. We've got the FBI 
and the CIA talking like they've never talked before. And that's 
important, and that's important. It's important because we fight a 
shadowy enemy. We fight people who send youngsters to death, and they 
try to hide in a cave and kind of slink around, trying to hurt people 
who love freedom. And so, therefore, it's important for us to do the 
very best job we can to collect intelligence abroad and share it with 
our domestic agencies. The FBI is changing its culture. It's still--by 
the way, you need to know, it's still going to go after crooks and 
criminals and mobsters. But its most important job now is to protect our 
homeland, is to chase down any lead, follow any hint, to do everything 
in our power to make sure we protect innocent lives here in America.
    You're probably wondering why I asked the Congress to make a very 
difficult decision to join me with restructuring the homeland defense. I 
didn't run--remember, I didn't say, ``Elect me. I'm going to do 
everything I can to make Government bigger.'' And so, therefore, the 
idea of creating a new Cabinet department probably sent some puzzling 
signals.
    I also, however, believe in accountability and results. I didn't 
think you sent me up here just to talk. I thought you sent me up here to 
get things done on behalf of the American people. And so, therefore--so 
therefore, I'm asking Congress to reorganize all the agencies involved--
or most of the agencies involved in the defense of our homeland into one 
single agency. There are

[[Page 1026]]

over 100 different agencies that have something to do with the homeland, 
and they're scattered everywhere, which makes it awfully hard to align 
authority and responsibility. It makes it hard to say with certainty 
we're going to get the results the American people expect.
    And I'd like to cite two examples of how the signals can get mixed. 
One, the Coast Guard--the Coast Guard does an incredible job for 
America, by the way--one of their most important functions is to protect 
our borders. If the defense of our homeland is the number one priority, 
then the Coast Guard ought to be a part of that priority, since they can 
do a good job of preventing things from coming into our country that we 
don't want to come in. And yet the Coast Guard is a part of the 
Transportation Department, and the Transportation Department's primary 
function is not the defense of the homeland. Or take the Customs, the 
Customs people--they're important. If we change their priority to 
defending the homeland, which we're going to do, you wonder out loud why 
they're a part of the Treasury. The Treasury's primary function is not 
the protection of the homeland.
    For the good of the security of America, I urge the Members of 
Congress to think what's best for the country, not what's best for their 
particular committee, and allow us to reorganize a singular function, 
all aimed at protecting the American people from attack.
    And I appreciate so very much the cooperation we've received, and we 
look forward to continuing to work with the Members on some of the 
difficult problems that exist to get this job done. But you also need to 
know that the best way to protect the homeland, the best way to secure 
America from further attack, is to hunt the killers down one by one and 
bring them to justice. And that's what we're going to do.
    I sent a significant increase in the defense budget up to the Hill 
for a reason, and I appreciate the Members here, because I know they 
agree with what I'm about to say. First, anytime we commit one of our 
troops into harm's way, that person deserves the best pay, the best 
training, the best possible equipment. And secondly, the size of the 
increase indicates that we're--America is in this fight for the long 
haul. There is--none of us have one of those desk calendars, and pop the 
date, and all of a sudden it says, you've got to quit. That's not what 
it says. As a matter of fact, if there was anything it said on my desk 
calendar, it would say, stay at it, Mr. President. Freedom needs 
America.
    The enemy hopes we quit. They must have thought we were so soft and 
so materialistic and so self-absorbed that after September the 11th, all 
we would do is call our favorite plaintiff's attorney and file a few 
lawsuits. [Laughter] They didn't understand what America is all about. 
They didn't understand, when somebody tries to take away our freedom, we 
respond. They don't understand that we love our values. They can't 
understand that we love freedom of religion. We value the fact that 
people can worship freely in America or speak their mind or write any 
kind of editorial they want. And when it comes to somebody messing with 
America, trying to threaten us and threaten our freedoms, we will 
respond. And we will respond for however long it takes, because we love 
freedom in this country.
    I fully recognize the task is not going to be easy. It's going to 
require a lot of patience and discipline on behalf of the American 
people. The task is difficult now, because we're hunting people down one 
by one. It's difficult when you think about some of the true threats 
that really face our country. Imagine the scenario when a regime which 
hates freedom, a regime which has in the past poisoned her own people, 
and a regime that's attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction, 
teams up with one of these shadowy terrorist networks. Then all of a 
sudden, there's the

[[Page 1027]]

possibility of blackmail, international blackmail, holding freedom-
loving nations hostage. For the good of our country, for the sake of our 
future, we cannot allow the world's worst regimes to develop and hold us 
hostage with the world's worst weapons.
    And we're making progress. We routed this Taliban, which should 
allow you to say to your children, ``America--we don't go into countries 
to conquer. We go in to liberate.'' It's a proud moment for the history 
of our country when we liberated the country of Afghanistan and allowed 
young girls to go to school for the first time in their lives.
    We've assembled this vast coalition to cut off their money. We've 
arrested, detained, hauled in, however you want to put it, over 2,400 of 
these killers. We're making progress. We're making progress. But there's 
a lot more. And they just need to know, loud and clear from the 
President of the United States, we got you on the run, and we're going 
to keep you on the run until we get you and bring you in.
    I believe--I believe that out of the evil done to America can come 
incredible good. I truly believe that. I believe that if we remain 
steadfast and strong and resolute, we can achieve peace in the world.
    I know sometimes my rhetoric gets a little west Texan. Laura reminds me, I've got to tone her down at times. 
[Laughter] But you need to know my drive is for peace. I love peace. I 
want our children and your grandchildren to grow up not only in a 
peaceful America but peace all around the world, peace in the Middle 
East and peace in South Asia. And I believe this great country, if we're 
steadfast and strong, if we stand to our principles and stick to our 
guns, that we can help achieve peace.
    And I believe at home--I believe at home America can not only be 
safer, but it can be a better place. I say that with confidence because 
I've got a good feel about the American people. I understand the great 
heart and compassion of the American people. You see, in our land of 
plenty, there are pockets of despair and hopelessness. There are people 
in this great country addicted to drugs and alcohol. There are young 
children who can't read, people wondering what this American Dream 
business is all about. And so long as there's pockets of hopelessness 
and despair, all of us have an obligation to do something about it.
    And I believe out of the evil can come incredible good, because I 
have seen a spirit arise in this country, where people now understand 
that they've got to serve something greater than yourself. And that 
means loving a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself.
    It's my honor to travel this country and see hundreds and thousands 
of our fellow citizens and see them respond when I remind them if 
they're interested in fighting evil, if you want to fight evil in 
America, you can do so by doing some good. You can do so by simple acts 
of kindness and decency. You can do so by mentoring a child or helping a 
shut-in. You can do so by going to your church or mosque or synagogue 
and organizing a group of people to take care of the homeless.
    It's this millions of acts of kindness all across our country that 
take place on a daily basis that truly define the great character and 
strength of America and the American people. No, I believe--I believe 
out of the evil done to America on September the 11th will come not only 
a peaceful world, but I believe that this great Nation can work miracles 
through love and compassion in places where there is despair and 
hopelessness. And I want you all to join in that. I really do. I'd like 
you to go home to your communities and redouble your efforts to help 
somebody in need, to redouble your efforts to make a gesture of kindness 
and compassion. Tell your children you love them on a daily basis.
    See, what's happening in America is, the culture is slowly but 
surely beginning to shift away from ``If it feels good, do it,''

[[Page 1028]]

and ``If you've got a problem, blame somebody else,'' to a culture in 
which we all understand we're responsible for the decisions we make. If 
you're a mom or a dad, you're responsible for loving your children. If 
you're a proud American, you're responsible for helping a neighbor in 
need. If you run a corporation in America, you're responsible for being 
honest on your balance sheet with all your assets and liabilities.
    But most of all, in order to be a patriot in this country, it is 
important to serve something greater than yourself. And it's happening. 
And it's happening because I'm fortunate enough to be the President of 
the greatest nation--I mean the greatest nation--on the face of the 
Earth.
    Thank you for coming. May God bless you all, and may God bless 
America.

Note: The President spoke at 7:16 p.m. at the Washington Convention 
Center. In his remarks, he referred to Senator Bill Frist, chairman, 
National Republican Senatorial Committee; Representative Tom Davis, 
chairman, National Republican Congressional Committee; Robert A. Ingram, 
chief operating officer and president of pharmaceutical operations, 
GlaxoSmithKline; and country music artists Steve Wariner, Amy Grant, and 
Vince Gill.