[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
[August 3, 2002]
[Pages 1337-1342]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1337]]


Remarks at a Reception for Senator Susan Collins in Prout's Neck, Maine
August 3, 2002

    Thank you all very much. Please be seated. Well, thank you all very 
much for that wonderful welcome. This probably is the first political 
event I've ever traveled to by boat. [Laughter] And I want to thank the 
boat's captain, ``Number 41.'' You're never 
supposed to drive a boat wearing a tie. [Laughter] That's why he doesn't 
have one on. [Laughter]
    But as you can see, we--the best of our family isn't with us. My 
mother is back there in Kennebunkport, and the 
great First Lady of the United States is in 
Texas. But if they were here, I can assure you, they would say what I'm 
about to say, that Susan Collins is a great United States Senator, and 
Maine needs to send her back to the Senate.
    Both of us are really proud to be here to campaign on her behalf. We 
want to thank you all very much for helping her. We--I urge you to make 
sure that you continue working for her. For those of you who lick the 
envelopes and make the phone calls and put out the signs and turn out 
the vote, get your uniforms on, because you win in all States, but 
particularly in Maine, through grassroots politics. You win because you 
energize the voters. You win because you remind the people of what a 
fine person you have as a United States Senator. So thank you for what 
you have done on behalf of Susan Collins, and as importantly, thank you 
for what you're going to do to make sure this fine lady returns back to 
the United States Senate.
    And I appreciate her mother and 
dad driving all this way. It is a long way. 
[Laughter] That's a 5\1/2\ hour drive. But it's wonderful to meet the 
Collins family, all of them. And it says something to me that, you know, 
Mom and Dad and brothers are willing to stand by their sister and/or 
child to do whatever it takes to help out. To me, that's what family is 
all about, and I appreciate so very much the Collins family for being 
here today, and thank you for supporting your little girl.
    Maine's got two fantastic United States Senators. Olympia 
Snowe is a capable lady. Olympia and Susan 
make a formidable team on behalf of the citizens of Maine, and it would 
be wise for Maine not to break that team up. It would be wise for the 
people of this State to make sure that they send somebody back to 
Washington who understands that, to get things done, you've got to work 
with people of both parties and who solidly rejects, like I reject, the 
same old, tired politics of tearing somebody down to get ahead.
    Susan Collins, she's a breath of fresh air in Washington, DC. She's 
kind of an independent thinker, I might add. [Laughter] I don't do 
everything she says. [Laughter] She doesn't do everything I say. 
[Laughter] But she's an ally, and I'm proud to call her friend.
    I want to thank very much Steven Joyce and 
Kevin Raye for tossing their hats in the ring. 
Steven is running for the Congress, Maine 1; and Kevin is running for 
Congress, Maine 2. Thank you all for coming. We hope you win. We look 
forward to seeing you in Washington--appreciate it.
    It's nice to be here with the next Governor of the State of Maine, 
Peter Cianchette. I want to thank the party 
officials who are here. I want to thank Kathy Watson, who's the chairwoman of the Republican Party of Maine--
Kathy, thank you for your hard work--and Jan Martens Staples, who's the national committeewoman.
    I want you to know that in Washington, they've got a lot of pretty 
good talkers, you know, people who can give a fine speech. But somehow, 
behind all the rhetoric, they don't get much done. That's not the way 
Susan Collins is. She gets a lot done. Let me talk to you about a couple

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of issues that's dear to her heart and dear to mine.
    First of all, we passed a really good education bill this year. It 
was called No Child Left Behind. And the reason why it was called that 
is because Susan and I believe that when we get it right, that we can 
make sure no child gets left behind in America. It means we've got to 
set high standards and high expectations for every child who lives in 
America. It means we've got to trust the local people to run the 
schools, that we understand that you're not going to have quality 
education if you try to run the public schools out of Washington, DC. 
And it means you've got to hold people to account by insisting upon 
measuring.
    See, we want to know. We want to know whether every child is 
learning how to read and write and add and subtract. And if not, we're 
going to blow the whistle on failure. If not, we're going to insist that 
people change. This business about shuffling children through the 
schools has got to end in America, to make sure no child is left behind. 
And Susan Collins understands that.
    An integral part of the education bill was what we call Reading 
First. It's a national focus on making sure that every child--not a few 
but every child--learns how to read. And Susan Collins put her stamp on 
one of the most important education bills in our Nation's history by 
leading the charge for the Reading First Initiative. The people of Maine 
owe her a debt of gratitude, and so do the people of America, for this 
piece of legislation. I want to thank you, Susan.
    And I appreciate her work on making sure our seniors are well 
treated. Susan insists, like I insist, that the Medicare program be 
modernized. We recognize the Medicare program has fulfilled a mission, 
but it's old, and it's stale, and it's tired, and it's not doing its job 
for our seniors. Medicine has changed, but Medicare hasn't. And we need 
to make sure that we've got prescription drug coverage as a part of 
Medicare for every senior in America, and Susan Collins is leading the 
charge.
    We just passed a good piece of legislation that says to corporate 
America, if you cheat, if you fudge the books, if you don't tell the 
truth, we're going to hold you accountable. And Susan Collins was a part 
of that legislation. And you need to know we're going to investigate 
them, and we're going to arrest them, and we're going to prosecute those 
who have broken their trust with shareholders, employees, and the 
American public. And I want to appreciate your work on that bill, Susan.
    And I appreciate your understanding that Government doesn't create 
wealth. That's not the role of Government. The role of Government is to 
create an environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish, in which 
small businesses can grow to be big businesses. Our role is to make sure 
the climate for economic growth is strong, and it is. Interest rates are 
low. We've got good monetary policy. I can assure you, I will use the 
veto, if necessary, to make sure we don't overspend in Washington, DC.
    We just passed a trade bill for the first time in a long time. I 
want to thank Susan for her support on that trade bill. Opening up 
markets for American goods, for products produced in Maine, for 
agricultural products produced in this State, is good for workers. It's 
so important that we not wall ourselves off from the rest of the world. 
It's important that we be confident. And when you're good at something, 
you ought to promote it. And we're good at a lot of things in America, 
and we need to be selling our goods and services all across the world. I 
want to thank the Senate and the House for giving me trade promotion 
authority. I'm going to sign the bill on Tuesday, and this bill will be 
good for American workers.
    There's some other things we can do when the Senate and the House 
gets back. We need to pass a terrorism insurance bill to make sure that 
large construction

[[Page 1339]]

projects can go forward. We want our hardhats working in America. We 
want our working people out there. We want there to be jobs. And the 
Senate and the House needs to act. They need to think about workers, not 
about trial lawyers, when it comes to passing good pieces of legislation 
like the terrorism insurance bill.
    And you know something, it turns out Vice President Cheney was right. He said, when we first got here, it looked 
like we might be in a recession. Of course, some people didn't 
appreciate him saying that. And then all of a sudden, the statistics 
came out recently, which showed that the first three quarters of my 
administration were negative growth. We did, in fact, inherit an 
economic slowdown.
    And thank goodness, thank goodness I convinced the Congress to let 
the people keep more of their own money. Thank goodness we had a tax 
cut. There are some people in Washington that read a different textbook 
than Susan and I do. They think if you raise people's taxes, it's going 
to be good for the economy. What we believe is that when you let 
somebody have their own money, keep their own money, it means they're 
going to demand a good and a service. And when somebody demands a good 
or a service, somebody is going to produce the good or service. And if 
somebody produces a good or a service, it means somebody is going to be 
able to find work. That's what that means. For the good of the American 
economy, we need to make the tax cuts permanent.
    One of the worst taxes we have in America is the death tax. The 
death tax taxes a person's assets more than once. You know, some of us 
are worried about people being forced to sell their farms or their 
ranches because of the death tax. And so the Senate did a smart thing, 
and the House did a smart thing. It repealed the death tax. But because 
of a quirk in the law, because of the Senate rules, the death tax comes 
back to life after 10 years. It is important to get rid of this tax once 
and for all. It's important for the small-business owners in America; 
it's important to ranchers and farmers to permanently repeal the death 
tax.
    The economic security of our people is a vital issue, and I will 
continue to work with Congress to make sure we pass needed legislation 
to keep our economy growing. Listen, anytime anybody who wants to work 
can't find work, we've got a problem, as far as I'm concerned. So when 
Congress gets back, we'll continue to talk about ways to make sure that 
the environment for economic growth is strong and viable.
    We've also got a significant issue, obviously. The biggest issue 
that I confront is to make sure the homeland is secure. The biggest 
issue, the biggest challenge that we face, the President and the 
Congress, is to prevent the killers from taking American life again. 
That's the biggest challenge.
    And you need to know--you need to know there's some fine people in 
your Government doing everything they can to run down any hint or any 
lead, any evidence whatsoever, to make sure that they don't hit us 
again. It's a big chore. But there are a lot of fine Americans working 
hard to enable me to say that we're doing everything we can to protect 
you.
    But there's something else we need to do. We need to reorganize our 
Government to make sure that the homeland security function is the 
number one priority of many of our Federal agencies. You see, right now 
in Washington, there's over 100 agencies involved with the defense of 
our homeland. They're scattered everywhere. It makes it awfully 
difficult to hold anybody accountable.
    And so for the sake of changing the culture of many agencies, for 
the sake of insisting that the homeland security is the number one 
priority, I've asked Congress to reorganize much of our Government under 
one Cabinet agency called the office for homeland security. It is vital 
Congress gets it right. The House passed a good bill. I have listened to 
some of the Senate

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debate. They seem to think that political turf is more important than 
the security of the homeland. I will not accept a bill that doesn't 
allow me to adequately manage people and resources to better protect the 
homeland. The Senate must not protect their own turf. They must work to 
protect the American people.
    But the best way to protect the homeland is to hunt the killers down 
one by one and bring them to justice. And that's what we're going to do. 
And they're out there, and they're tough, but not as tough as the United 
States of America. You've got to understand the nature of the enemy. 
They hate freedom. They hate the fact that we worship freely in America. 
They can't stand the thought that we have open debate, that we have a 
free press. They hate everything we stand for, and therefore, they're 
relentless. But so are we--so are we.
    You know, this is a different kind of war. I'm standing up here with 
a great World War II veteran. In those days, they would occupy 
battlegrounds, and they would move tanks across fields and formation of 
aircraft. This is a different kind of war. This is the first war of the 
21st century. This is a war where the so-called leaders of the enemy 
send youngsters to their death, and they, themselves, hide in caves. Oh, 
sometimes they group up, and when they do, they pay a significant price.
     But this is a war that's going to require a different way of 
thinking. It means we've got to have the best intelligence in the world. 
It means we've got to--and we will--maintain a vast coalition of 
freedom-loving countries and make sure the doctrine, ``Either you're 
with us, or you're with the enemy,'' sticks. This is the kind of war 
where sometimes you'll see our victories, and sometimes you won't. It's 
an international manhunt, is what it is. And we've got them on the run, 
and we're going to keep them on the run. And so, as long as I'm the 
President of the United States, we're going to run them down one by one, 
in order for America to be free.
    And we're making progress. We're making progress. We've captured--
and I say ``we;'' it's not just America. I can point to country after 
country that has responded to our call. We've captured over a couple 
thousand of their leaders, of their combatants, and just about as many 
weren't quite as lucky. Our strategy is clear. I say this as often as I 
can: If you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorist. 
And the Taliban know exactly what I'm talking about now.
    And I want the youngsters here to understand that your great Nation 
did not go into Afghanistan to conquer anybody. We went into Afghanistan 
to liberate--to liberate a people from the clutches of the most barbaric 
regime in history, in modern history. And we did.
    But we've got a lot of work to do, and we're going to do it. I asked 
the Congress for the largest increase in defense spending since Ronald 
Reagan was the President. And thanks to leaders such as Susan Collins, 
the Senate voted, and the House voted, significant increases. And now, 
when they get back, for the good of the war and for the good of the 
country, they need to reconcile their differences and get a defense 
appropriations bill on my desk as soon as possible.
    But Susan understands what I understand. She supported this increase 
in defense spending because anytime we commit an American service man or 
woman into harm's way, they deserve the best pay, the best training, the 
best equipment possible.
    And secondly, it's a signal to our friends and it's a signal to the 
enemy that we're not quitting. There's not a calendar on my desk that 
says, oh, by such-and-such a day, you've got to quit, Mr. President. 
When it comes to our freedom, America doesn't quit. When it comes to 
upholding our obligation to future citizens of our country, we don't 
quit. When it comes to chasing down people who would harm Americans, we

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don't quit, much to the chagrin of the enemy.
    Our task and our responsibility to history is more than just an Al 
Qaida network. We owe it to the future of civilization not to allow the 
world's worst leaders to develop and deploy and therefore blackmail 
free, loving countries with the world's worst weapons. I'm a patient 
man. I'm a patient man. I've got a lot of tools at my disposal. But I 
can assure you, I understand history has called us into action, and this 
country will defend freedom no matter what the cost.
    I believe strongly that out of the evil done to America will come 
incredible good. I believe that as this Nation leads the world, that we 
can achieve peace. I know that as we remain strong and united and 
focused on fighting terror, on spreading democracy, on embracing the 
values we love, that we can achieve peace. We can achieve peace in parts 
of the world where peace may be an afterthought to so many. See, I 
believe by leading the coalition for freedom, we can achieve peace in 
the Middle East or in South Asia. We can achieve peace not only for our 
homeland but for our friends and allies.
    No, out of the evil done to America can come some great good, not 
only abroad but here at home as well. It's so important for all of us to 
remember that, in the midst of our prosperity, there are pockets of 
despair and hopelessness. There are pockets of addiction. People say, 
``American Dream,'' and we've got people in America saying, ``What does 
that mean? It certainly doesn't mean anything to me.''
    No, out of the evil done to America can come some great good, 
because Americans are beginning to understand that serving something 
greater than yourself in life is an important part of being an American. 
People ask me, ``What can I do to help on the war against terror?'' I 
tell them, ``Love your neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself.'' 
If you want to fight evil, mentor a child. If you want to do some good, 
go into a shut-in's home and say, ``I love you.'' If you want to be a 
responsible American, go into your church or your synagogue or your 
mosque and say, ``How can I help somebody in need?'' You see, out of the 
evil done to America is going to come some great good, because we can 
change America one heart, one conscience, one soul at a time. And that's 
what's happening in this country.
    I ran for Governor of Texas for a lot of reasons, but one main 
reason was, I was worried about a culture which had clearly said to 
Americans from all walks of life, ``If it feels good, just go ahead and 
do it,'' and ``If you've got a problem, blame somebody else.'' I wanted 
to be part of a culture shift that says, each of us are responsible for 
the decisions we make in life; that if you're a mom or a dad, you are 
responsible for loving your child with all your heart and all your soul; 
if you're a responsible citizen, you're responsible for making sure the 
community in which you live is a place of bright lights and hope and 
optimism; that you have a responsibility to help a neighbor in need. And 
that's happening. Out of the evil done to America is good, because 
people are now beginning to understand that shallow materialism is not 
what life is about, that helping somebody and helping our great Nation 
realize its full potential is the culture of America.
    You know, it brought home to me most vividly when Flight 93 was 
driven into the ground. We had people on an airplane who told their 
loved ones goodbye. I want it noted, they said a prayer. One guy said, 
``Let's roll.'' They served something greater than themselves in life. I 
think this is going to be a defining moment in America's cultural 
history, because we vividly got to see what it means to be a true and 
patriotic American.
    No, out of the evil done to America--out of the evil done to this 
country will come incredible good, because this is the finest nation, 
full of the finest people on the face of the Earth.

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    Thank you for helping Susan. God bless. God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 4:20 p.m. in the Ocean Overlook at the 
Black Point Inn. In his remarks, he referred to Don and Patricia 
Collins, parents of Senator Collins.