    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
    [November 1, 2002]
    [Pages 1950-1956]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
    November 1, 2002

        Thank you, all. Thanks a lot. I'm glad I came. [Laughter] Thank you.
    Thank you for such a warm welcome. Thanks for getting up early, too.
        The American spirit is obviously alive and well here in
    Pennsylvania. It's alive in our country, all across our country. It's a
    spirit that says we love freedom. It's a spirit that says that we're
    willing to serve something greater than ourself in life. It's a spirit
    that says, when you live in America, you have a responsibility, and one
    of the main responsibilities is to participate in the political process.
    You have an obligation in democracy to vote.
        So I'm here to urge the good folks of Pennsylvania to do your duty.
    It doesn't matter whether you're Republican or Democrat or could care
    less about political parties. You have an obligation as part of the
    citizenry of America to go to the polls and vote. And when you do, I've
    got a suggestion for you for Congress: George W. Gekas. How about putting it this way: Let's win one for George
    W. [Laughter] I'm talking about both George
    W's on the stage.
        Both George W's married well, by the
    way. [Laughter] I appreciate Vangie Gekas for coming today. I'm proud that she's working
    hard to see to it that the Congressman George W. goes back to the United
    States Congress. And Laura W. sends her best to George W. and Vangie--
    Laura W. being the great First Lady of America.
        I'm proud that your Governor is here with
    us today. Mark Schweiker has done a fine job on behalf of the citizens
    of Pennsylvania. As you may remember, he went from being the Lieutenant
    Governor to Governor when I asked somebody you trained really well to
    join me in Washington, DC, and that's of course, your

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    former Governor, and now my close adviser, my friend, a man who's doing
    a great job for the American people, Tom Ridge.
        Ridge came in a long line of fine Republican
    Governors, and you have a chance to make sure that lineage is continued.
    You have a chance this Tuesday to make sure you put the right man in the
    Governor's office. And, of course, that man is your current State
    attorney general, Mike Fisher.
        He'll do a fine job on behalf of all the
    citizens of Pennsylvania. He'll represent not just one section of the
    State but the entire State. He's got a good record. He's got a good
    record in office, and he's got a good record on the trail. I learned
    firsthand. After all, in the year 2000, he ran ahead of me by about half
    a million votes is all. [Laughter] This man can appeal to people from
    all walks of life. And so can the next Lieutenant Governor of the State
    of Pennsylvania, State Senator Jane Earll.
        I want to thank Senator Arlen Specter for
    being here. I want to thank him for his service to Pennsylvania. I want
    to thank him for working with me on a lot of big issues--no bigger issue
    than to make sure the Federal judiciary is staffed and full of fine,
    fine people. The record of this Senate is a lousy record when it comes
    to the approval of judges that I name. We have a vacancy problem in
    America. We can't get our judges through the United States Senate
    because there's too much politics in Washington, DC.
        The current Senate distorts the record of good people I put up. I'm
    going to continue to name judges that are honorable and decent and
    honest, judges who recognize their job is to interpret the Constitution,
    not to try to write new law. And I want to thank Senator
    Specter for being one of the leaders in the
    Senate to work with the administration to make sure our good judges get
    approved on a timely basis. One way to make sure our judges get approved
    on a timely basis is to change the leadership in the United States
    Senate.
        You've got some fine United States Congressmen from Pennsylvania in
    Washington, all of whom I call friends and all of whom I work closely
    with on behalf of the American people. And I want to thank them for
    joining us today: Jim Greenwood, Bill
    Shuster, Don Sherwood,
    and Todd Platts. I appreciate they're
    here to support their friend. They know both candidates in this race,
    and there's no question in their mind--like there's no question in my
    mind--that the right man for this congressional district and the right
    man for America is George W. Gekas.
        Not only am I here to urge you to vote, I'm here to urge you to get
    out the vote. See, there's a lot of grassroots activists here who have
    made a tremendous difference in campaigns past, and I want to thank you
    for what you have done. But I'm here to thank you for what you're going
    to do today and Saturday and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday. And that is
    to turn out the vote, to get your friends to vote, to go to your houses
    of worship, your community centers, the coffee shops and tell people
    they have an obligation to vote, and they have the obligation to support
    somebody who's honest and decent, somebody who's represented this
    district since 1982, somebody who stands squarely with the President on
    key issues, and that somebody is George W. Gekas.
        I also want to thank the Middletown High band for coming today. It
    looks like I provided you a convenient excuse to miss class. [Laughter]
    I'll try to keep my remarks short so you can get back to the library.
    [Laughter]
        George and I believe in the value of
    hard work and personal responsibility. We believe in--service to our
    community is incredibly important. We share a passion for education. I
    want to thank George and the other Members of Congress up here for
    working hard on the education reform package we passed out of
    Washington, DC.

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        First, this bill says that we're going to challenge the soft bigotry
    of low expectations, because we believe every child can learn. And we
    must set high, high standards for every child in America.
        The bill says that we trust the people of Pennsylvania to chart the
    path to excellence in the public schools of Pennsylvania. People care
    more about the children who live in Pennsylvania than the bureaucrats in
    Washington, DC. So we strongly believe in local control of schools.
        Thanks to George's hard work, we're
    passing back $1.7 billion of Federal money to Pennsylvania schools to
    help every child learn. But for the first time, we're now asking for
    accountability for those dollars. We want to know whether or not our
    children are learning to read and write and add and subtract. I see some
    of the seniors here, glazing over, saying, ``Oh, no. I hate tests.''
    Well, too bad. [Laughter] We want to know whether or not the dollars are
    well spent. In order to make sure no child gets left behind in
    Pennsylvania, we must have strong accountability measures.
        I appreciate so very much the fact that George shares with me our concern about our economy. Today, it
    looks like some more Americans are looking for work, and that's a
    problem. Anytime somebody is looking for work and can't find work means
    we've got a problem in America. We want our people to be able to put
    food on the table, to support their families.
        The foundation for growth is strong. Interest rates are down.
    Inflation is low. Productivity is up. We've got the best workers in the
    world. We've got the best entrepreneurs in the world. We've got the best
    farmers and ranchers in the world. But we've got a problem when people
    can't find a job. We're kind of bumping along, and that's not good
    enough.
        I need people in Congress who understand the role of Government. And
    that's to create an environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish,
    in which the small business can grow to be a big business, in which the
    engine for job growth, which is our small businesses, have a chance to
    survive and thrive in slow economic times. The best way to do so is to
    let people keep more of your own money.
        George and I know that if somebody has
    more money in their own pocket, they're likely to demand a good or a
    service. And when they demand a good or a service in our marketplace,
    somebody is likely to produce the good or a service. And somebody
    produces a good or service, it means somebody is more likely to find
    work.
        Be wary of those who say, ``We must revisit the tax relief plan.''
    That's Washington code word for, ``We're fixing to get back in your
    pockets.'' [Laughter] During slow economic times, during times when
    we're worried about somebody finding work, the best economic stimulus is
    to let people keep more of their own money on a permanent basis.
        And George understands that. He also
    knows we need to get a terrorism insurance package out of Washington,
    DC, so the hardhats can go back to work. We've got too many construction
    programs on hold because they can't find insurance, because of what the
    terrorists did to us. It's a proper role for the Federal Government to
    underwrite the terrorism insurance. But this bill needs to keep the
    hardhats in mind. We need to make sure our hardhats get back to work and
    not reward the trial lawyers all around America.
        No, we've been through some tough times here in America. We had a
    recession for a while. And then the enemy hit us, and that hurt our
    economy. Then something else came up. There was a lack of confidence in
    the system, because there were some of our fellow Americans who decided
    they were going to fudge the numbers. And we're going to have the--
    reveal the whole truth in the corporate accounting practices. They
    didn't understand that when you're running a corporation, you have a
    responsibility. You have a responsibility to

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    shareholders. You have a responsibility to employees.
        I want to thank George Gekas and
    Arlen and the other Members of Congress for
    joining me to pass a law which I proudly signed, which is the toughest
    corporate reform since Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President. Our
    message to those who believe they can fudge the books is: There is no
    easy money in America, only hard time if you don't do your
    responsibilities.
        You need to send George back to
    Congress. We've got a lot of work to do on behalf of the people of
    Pennsylvania. We've got to make sure our health care system works. We
    want our health care system to be accessible and affordable. One of the
    problems we have is, there's too many lawsuits these days, lawsuits
    which make it hard for people to take their true cases into courts,
    because the courts are clogged, lawsuits which are running up the cost
    of medicine, lawsuits which are driving docs out of business. If you're
    interested in accessible and affordable health care, you will join
    Representative Greenwood, Gekas, and me in demanding that Congress pass
    medical liability reform on behalf of America's patients.
        And you'll send somebody to Congress who understands we need to
    reform Medicare. Medicine has changed. Medicine is modern, and Medicare
    is stuck in the past. Medicare is old and tired, and it's not doing its
    job. A modern Medicare system will include prescription drugs for our
    seniors, and George Gekas understands that.
        No, there's a lot of issues we can work on. There's no more
    important issue, though, is to protect you. That's the most important
    issue, protect America, protect innocent life from the attacks of the
    killers. And they're nothing but a bunch of coldblooded killers. That's
    all they are. They hate freedom. They don't value life like we value
    life in America. You see, we think everybody is precious; everybody
    counts; everybody has got worth.
        That's not what the killers think. See, they hijacked a great
    religion and murder in the name of that religion. And so we've got to do
    everything we can to protect the homeland. We've got a man like George
    Gekas, who's the chairman of the House
    Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Control and Claims. Seems like to
    me it makes sense if your country is under attack to keep him in that
    important position. After all, one of his jobs is to make sure our
    border is secure, that we know who's coming in and who's going out and
    what they're bringing and whether or not what they're bringing could
    hurt the American people.
        No, this issue on homeland defense is incredibly important if you're
    a clear-eyed realist. And I'm a clear-eyed realist. I'm not forgetting
    the threats that we face. And therefore, I went to the Congress and
    said, ``Let's work together to come up with a plan to better secure our
    homeland.'' There's a lot of good people working hard right now, a lot
    of people at the Federal level, the State level, and local level, a lot
    of good police officers and FBI agents, a lot of people running down
    every hint, every lead.
        Listen, if we think we've got something going on, we're going to do
    something about it. We're on alert. We understand the enemy. We
    understand their hatreds. We know they hate freedom. We know we love
    freedom, and we know we're not going to change in our love for freedom.
        I want to thank the Members of the House here who joined me in
    supporting a Department of Homeland Security which will work, which will
    make sense and works, so we can do our jobs, so we can enforce our
    borders, like George Gekas wants us to do.
        It got stuck in the Senate. Arlen Specter
    didn't cause it to get stuck, I want you to know. It got stuck because
    some Senators want me to give up a power that every President since John
    F. Kennedy has had. See, every President since Kennedy

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    has had the capacity to suspend collective bargaining rules in the name
    of national security, to suspend rules that will inhibit us from doing
    our job, prevent us from putting the right people at the right place at
    the right time to protect the American people.
        I'm not going to accept a lousy bill out of the United States
    Senate. I owe it to the people of this country to put in place a
    Department of Homeland Security which will work and which will prevent
    the enemy from doing harm to the American people. I want to thank George
    Gekas for his support on putting forth a
    good homeland security bill.
        But the best way to secure our homeland, the best way to make sure
    you're safe, the best way to make sure one of the first high school
    graduating classes ever to have the battleground here at home--to make
    sure that battleground is safe is to hunt these killers down, one person
    at a time, and bring them to justice. That's what we have to do. See,
    therapy isn't going to work. [Laughter] That's not going to convince
    them. The only way to convince them is to keep that large coalition of
    freedom country--freedom-loving countries intact. And by the way, the
    doctrine still stands: Either you're with us, or you're with the enemy.
        And we'll continue to lead these coalitions--this coalition and
    round them up one at a time. See, it's a different kind of war. It's a
    different kind of war we face. In the old days, you could destroy tanks
    or airplanes or boats and know you're making progress. These are the
    kind of people who hide in caves and send youngsters to their suicidal
    deaths. They don't care.
        Look at Bali, Indonesia. See, the world kind of said, ``Well, maybe
    they're not that dangerous.'' And all of a sudden they go to Bali,
    Indonesia, and just over--in a minute's time take innocent life after
    innocent life after innocent life. They don't care, and so we've got to
    get them. And that's exactly what we're doing.
        The other day one old guy popped his head up. He was going to be the
    20th hijacker here in America. Thanks to
    our friends and allies and thanks to a great United States military,
    this guy is no longer a problem for America. And that's the way it is
    going. We've hauled in over a couple of thousand of them; like number
    weren't as lucky. In either case, they're not a problem to the United
    States or our friends or allies. Slowly but surely, we're going hunt
    them down. It doesn't matter how long it takes.
        And that's why I went to the United States Congress--George
    Gekas supported me; the Members of the
    Congress up here supported me--to ask for the largest increase in
    defense spending since Ronald Reagan was the President. There's two
    messages in that bill. One, anytime this country puts our troops into
    harm's way, they deserve the best pay, the best training, and the best
    possible equipment.
        And secondly, it doesn't matter how long it takes to win this war on
    terror and to secure our freedom; we're staying the course. There's not
    a calendar on my desk that says, by such-and-such a time, Mr. President,
    you've got to haul it in. That's just not the way I think. Our friends
    need to understand that we're in this for the long haul. Our foes must
    understand we're in this for the long haul. We owe it to our future; we
    owe it to our children to defend freedom no matter what the cost. And
    that's exactly what we're going to do.
        We also owe it to our future and our children to see the world the
    way it really is, not the way some would hope it to be. You see, the
    world changed on September the 11th, 2001. Not only is the battlefield
    come home, but two oceans no longer protect us from true threats. It
    used to be you could sit back, kind of relax, and say, ``Well, there's a
    problem overseas, and we can decide to deal with it or be involved with
    it if we want to, but we're okay at home because the oceans protect
    us.''

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        I want the youngsters here to understand that change is a profound
    change, and U.S. policy needs to change with it if we're realistic and
    clear-eyed. And that's why I've raised the issue on Iraq. That's why I
    asked the United States Congress to think about this issue. That's why
    I've asked the American people to think about this issue. That's why I
    went to the U.N. to talk about this issue: Because in my judgment and
    the judgment of a lot of people, Saddam Hussein is a serious threat to America; he's a threat to our
    friends; he's a threat to our allies.
        This is a man who has told the world for
    11 years he would not have weapons of mass destruction. This is a man
    who is close to having a nuclear weapon. This is a man who has deceived
    the world. This is a man who not only has weapons of mass destruction;
    he has used weapons of mass destruction. He has used them on his
    neighbors, and incredibly enough, he has used weapons of mass
    destruction on his own citizens. This is a dangerous man who cannot
    stand America because of what we love.
        And so I went to the United Nations to remind this august body that
    they have a responsibility to help us keep the peace. I reminded them,
    for 11 years and 16 resolutions later, Saddam Hussein has defied every decree and every resolution. I went
    because I want the United Nations to be successful, to help us keep the
    peace. The more people involved with peace, the more likely it is we'll
    achieve peace. I went because I want the United Nations to be a strong
    body, not the League of Nations. I went to remind them that if their
    word is not kept, they will become nothing but a debating society,
    unable to keep the peace.
        And so my message and the message of our United States Congress,
    including George Gekas, that spoke with one
    voice to the world is this: The United States will fulfill its
    obligations to peace; Saddam Hussein will
    disarm; if not, for the sake of peace, for the sake of securing the
    homeland, for the sake of protecting our friends and allies, the United
    States will lead a mighty coalition of freedom-loving nations and disarm
    Saddam Hussein.
        See, I can't imagine what was going through the mind of this enemy
    when they hit us. They probably thought the national religion was
    materialism, that we were so selfish and so self-absorbed that after 9/
    11/2001 this mighty nation would take a couple of steps back and file a
    lawsuit. [Laughter] They don't understand America. They don't understand
    the spirit of America.
        They don't understand that when it comes to the defense of our
    freedoms, it doesn't matter how long it takes; it doesn't matter the
    cost. We will fulfill our obligations. This generation of Americans will
    do our duty to future generations of Americans by making the world a
    more peaceful place.
        Out of the evil done to America is going to come some great good. If
    we stay the course, if we remain plenty tough when we need to be tough,
    if we remember we go into countries never to conquer but only to
    liberate, like we did in Afghanistan--and you've got to remember, many
    young girls go to school for the first time in their lives thanks to the
    United States of America. As we keep in mind the values that are so
    important, that freedom is not an American gift, freedom is God-given
    for everybody in the world--no, if we keep those principles close and
    steadfast in our purpose, we can achieve peace. I believe it.
        And not only can we achieve peace around the world; we can achieve a
    better America here at home. Government can help. I talked about laws
    that we can pass, Medicare reform and education. But you've got to
    remember there are pockets of hopelessness and despair in this country.
    There are people who hurt. They hurt on a daily basis. Many of their
    problems can only be helped when a fellow American puts their arm around
    them and says, ``I love you.

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    What can I do to help? How can I make your day a better day?''
        So my call to America, if you want to join in the fight against
    evil, is to do some good, is to love your neighbor just like you'd like
    to be loved yourself. We've got to remember that Government can help,
    and Government can hand out money, but it can't put love in people's
    hearts. It can't put a sense of purpose in people's lives. That's done
    when neighbor loves neighbor and neighbor helps neighbor. My call to the
    high school students here is, help somebody in need. You see, the
    American spirit is more than just being a patriot. It's more than just
    being strong when it comes to the defense of our country. The American
    spirit means serving something greater than yourself in life, is helping
    people in need, is working to save America one heart, one soul, one
    conscience at a time.
        I met Nancy Fierer today. See, all of us
    can do something and be part of this great fabric and mosaic of
    compassion. Nancy Fierer came out to the airport today. She started the
    Susquehanna Service Dogs Program that provides service dogs and hearing
    dogs to children and adults who have physical disabilities. See, she
    decided upon herself to make a difference. It's the Nancy Fierers, and
    I'm confident many of you here, who are changing America for the better.
        I want you to remember the story of Flight 93. I particularly want
    the youngsters to remember that story. It's the most profound story of
    recent history about people who served something greater than
    themselves, who captured that American experience--American spirit that
    I'm defining for you today.
        These guys were flying across the airplane, guys and girls flying
    across the airplane--the country in an airplane. They heard the plane
    was going to be used as a weapon. Imagine. They were told on their cell
    phones by their loved ones. They made their determination that they must
    do something about it. They said goodbye, said, ``I love you.'' They
    said a prayer. One guy said, ``Let's roll.'' And they took the airplane
    into the ground to serve something greater than themselves. They
    embodied the greatness of the American spirit, people willing to serve
    something greater than themselves so that lives would be better.
        There's no question in my mind, and I will boldly predict that out
    of the evil done to America will come incredible good, because this is
    the finest nation, full of the most decent, compassionate people on the
    face of the Earth.
        Thank you for coming today. May God bless you, and may God bless
    America.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:21 a.m. at Harrisburg International
    Airport. In his remarks, he referred to Evangeline ``Vangie'' Gekas,
    wife of Representative George W. Gekas; Gov. Mark Schweiker of
    Pennsylvania; gubernatorial candidate Mike Fisher of Pennsylvania; Ramzi
    bin al-Shibh, an Al Qaida operative suspected of helping to plan the
    September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, who was captured in Karachi,
    Pakistan; and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.