[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
[September 27, 2002]
[Pages 1683-1689]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Rally for Congressional Candidate Rick Renzi in Flagstaff, Arizona
September 27, 2002

    The President. Thank you all for coming. It's such an honor to be 
here. Well, we're working on the drought. [Laughter] I love the rain. 
Thanks for standing out here. It's such an honor to be here. I 
appreciate you all enduring the weather.
    It is my honor to be here for the next Congressman from this 
district, Rick Renzi. He's a good fellow. He's a good man. He believes 
in family values. After all, he's got 12 kids. I want to thank 
Roberta for standing by him as he takes his 
message to the people, that he works hard to let the people know what's 
in his heart. And he's a good-hearted man. He cares deeply about the 
people of this district. I'm here to endorse his candidacy because I 
think he'll be the

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right thing for Arizona, and I know he'll do the right thing for 
America.
    I appreciate very much also being here with the next Governor of the 
State of Arizona, Matt Salmon. Matt is a 
commonsense fellow. One thing he understands, that when it comes to 
spending money at the State level, he's not spending the Government's 
money, see; he's spending the people's money. He's from the people. And 
I look forward to working with Matt when he becomes the Governor of this 
great State.
    I'm also honored to be traveling with Senator Jon Kyl. He's a stand-up kind of guy. He is rock-solid. He's 
strong on the defense of our country. And I look forward to continuing 
to work with him to make sure the judicial nominees I send up to the 
United States Senate get a fair hearing.
    I named the other day a great lady from Texas to the bench, named 
Priscilla Owen. But they played politics with 
her nomination. She got the highest ranking of the ABA. She was one of 
the top in her law school classes. But they didn't give her a fair 
hearing. They distorted her record. See, they want judges that use the 
bench from which to legislate. We want judges to strictly interpret the 
Constitution of the United States.
    I appreciate so very much working with Senator John McCain from the State of Arizona. John's a true patriot, a true 
patriot who's standing strong as we try to keep the peace here in the 
world. I appreciate very much being with my friend Jane Dee Hull. I used to be a Governor, and I got to know her as a 
Governor of Texas. I'm proud to call her friend. I'm proud of the job 
she's done for the State of Arizona. Thank you, Jane Dee, for being 
here.
    I want to thank all of you all who care about your community and all 
of you all who are in what we call grassroots politics: the people who 
turn out the vote, the people who make the phone calls, the people who 
go to the coffee shops and tell people the truth about the candidates 
running for office. I want to thank you for your supporting this good 
ticket. And I want to thank you for loving your country.
    Audience members. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
    The President. I look forward to working with Rick on some important 
issues that matter. One important issue that matters-- we've got to make 
sure we keep our people working. As we work hard to secure the homeland, 
we've also got to remember, a secure America is an America where people 
can find work. So long as somebody who is looking for a job can't find a 
job, I think we have a problem. And so we've always got to keep working 
to expand the job base. We want people being able to put food on the 
table here in America. We want people being able to make a living. And 
that starts with fighting off this slowdown with letting people keep 
more of their own money.
    See, here's the debate that takes place in Washington. The debate 
is, is that either you let people have more of their own money, or you 
don't. If the economy is slow and you let a person keep more of their 
own money, they're likely to spend it. And when they spend it, it means 
they're demanding something. They're demanding a good or a service. And 
when that demand is there, somebody is likely to produce the good or a 
service. And when somebody produces a good or service, guess what's more 
likely to happen. Somebody is going to be able to find a job. The tax 
cuts were important for the American economy. They're important for 
small business. They're important for the entrepreneurs. They're 
important for job creation. We need to make the tax cuts permanent.
    You've got to remember that money we're spending up there in 
Washington isn't the Government's money; like I said, it's the people's 
money. It's your money. We need to make sure we don't overspend. Listen, 
they don't have a budget in the United States Senate--no fault of 
Senator Kyl. They don't have a budget. If you don't

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have a budget, guess what's likely to happen. Every idea sounds like a 
good idea up there. [Laughter] Those ideas run into the billions. If you 
don't have a budget, it's hard to hold people to account. We need 
fiscally responsible people in Washington, like Rick. We need people who 
will set priorities and make sure we don't overspend your money. A 
deficit will hurt economic vitality. I submitted a budget that shows how 
we can reduce the deficit, how we can get to surplus, but it's going to 
require fiscal sanity in Washington, DC.
    We need a commonsense policy in Washington. And the forest policy of 
the United States is not commonsensical. It doesn't make any sense to 
allow--to not thin our forests. It doesn't make any sense to fight off 
the beetles. It doesn't make any sense not to thin them out. It doesn't 
make any sense to allow kindling to pile up underneath good wood. It 
doesn't make any sense. For the sake of a commonsense environmental 
policy, for the sake of making sure our forests remain healthy in the 
long term, let's get some people like Rick in Washington, DC, with whom 
I can work, to get good forest policy in America.
    I also appreciate being here on behalf of Matt Salmon. Matt's a good, solid man. He's a guy who keeps his word. 
See, he's one of these fellows that said, ``I'm going to run for 
Congress. I'm only going to serve three terms.'' And then when his term 
came up, he said, ``I'm going home.'' That doesn't happen a lot in 
politics. It should happen more, by the way, where people do what they 
say they're going to do, that when they look at the people, they're 
going to do what they say. That's why you can trust him as your 
Governor. When he says he's not going to raise your taxes, he means he's 
not going to raise your taxes.
    I also look forward to working with Matt to make sure that we help 
people who need help. We've got people on welfare in the State of 
Arizona who need help to learn how to work. See, we're getting ready to 
reauthorize the welfare law. And I urge Congress to make sure that as we 
do so, that we keep work as the cornerstone of good welfare policy. 
Helping a man learn to work, helping a lady find a job, helping people 
have the skills necessary to be able to provide for their family is a 
part of making sure somebody has got dignity in their life. And I look 
forward to working with Governor Matt Salmon to 
make sure that the welfare policy of Arizona is a compassionate yet 
conservative welfare policy.
    I want you to know that I am constantly thinking about our economy 
and trying to work with Congress to improve the job base. But my most 
important job is to protect America from another attack. That's my most 
important job, because there's still an enemy out there which hates 
America. And they hate us because of what we love. We love freedom. We 
love the idea that people can worship an almighty God any way they 
choose in America. We good--we value the idea that people are free to 
express their opinions, that we have a free press. We love freedom in 
America. And so long as we love our freedoms, the enemy will hate us.
    But guess what: We're never going to forget our freedoms. We're 
always going to hold those freedoms dear. And so long as we do, the 
enemy will be there. And so we've got to hunt them down, and we've got 
to protect the homeland. There's a lot of good people, a lot of good 
people working hard on your behalf to protect the homeland. Anytime 
we're getting a hint, anytime we get an idea, anytime we get a scintilla 
of evidence that somebody might be thinking about doing something to 
America we're moving on it. And I say, ``We're moving on it''--it's at 
the Federal level and the State level and the local level. Our biggest 
responsibility is to prevent the killers from coming to hurt America 
again.
    And that's why I went to Congress and asked them to join me in 
setting up what they call the Department of Homeland Security. Listen, 
there's over 100 agencies in Washington, DC, that have got something

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to do with protecting the homeland. That's 100 agencies full of good, 
hard-working people. But they're scattered everywhere. It seemed to make 
sense to me to put them under one umbrella, so that the--we could set 
priorities, so that we could change cultures, if necessary, within the 
agencies, to make the number one priority your protection.
    And we're making progress up there. The House of Representatives 
voted a good bill out, but it seems to be stuck in the Senate, because 
the Senate wants to micromanage the executive branch of Government. The 
Senate wants a thick book of rules on how to defend the homeland.
    And let me just give you some examples. The Customs Service, for 
example, wanted to require its inspectors at our Nation's 301 ports of 
entry to wear radiation detecting devices. See, that made sense. You 
wear a radiation detection device to make sure nobody is trying to bring 
a weapons of mass destruction into America. Yet, the union that 
represents the Customs workers objected. They sought to invoke 
collective bargaining, which would have taken at least a year to solve. 
See, we don't need those kind of rules that bind the executive branch 
from doing what you want us to do, which is to protect the homeland.
    Let me give you another example. Let me give you another example of 
what we're trying to cut out of the new Department--this kind of stuff 
that doesn't make any sense. I know it doesn't make any sense to the 
people of Flagstaff. I can assure you it doesn't make any sense to the 
people of Crawford, Texas, either. [Laughter] In order to locate 
employees in cases of emergency, the Customs Service sought to have 
employees provide their home addresses and telephone numbers to the 
Customs Service. In other words, if we had an emergency, we want to know 
where to call. The union objected and said such a request would violate 
the privacy rights of the workers. Now, that doesn't make any sense.
    Listen, I strongly believe workers ought to be able to join a union 
if that's what they want to do. They ought to be able to have collective 
bargaining rights, if that's what they choose. But for the sake of our 
national security, this President and future Presidents needs the 
flexibility necessary to put the right people at the right place at the 
right time, to protect the American people.
    But the best way to defend the homeland is to hunt the killers down, 
one at a time, and bring them to justice. That's the best way to defend 
this homeland. It's a different kind of war we fight. It's important you 
know that it still goes on, though. It's a different kind of war. In the 
past, people would say, ``Well, we're making progress. We destroyed the 
enemy's tanks,'' or, ``We're making progress if he no longer has any 
ships.'' These people don't have tanks. They don't have ships. They've 
got hate. These leaders are the ones that hide in caves or the dark 
recesses of some cities, and they send youngsters to their suicidal 
death. These are the folks who hijacked a great religion and take 
innocent life without any hesitation. See, they don't value life like we 
do. In America, everybody counts. Every life has worth. Every life is 
precious. That's not the way the enemy thinks. The enemy doesn't care. 
They've got these designs on America, because we love freedom.
    And so we're going to look at every cave we can find. It don't 
matter how long it takes, my fellow Americans. It doesn't matter how 
long it takes; we're going to hunt them down, one by one. We owe it to 
our children, and we owe it to our children's children.
    And we're making progress. The doctrine that says, ``Either you're 
with us, or you're with the enemy,'' still stands. And there's a lot of 
good folks around the world who are working with us, working with us to 
hunt these killers down before they hit us again. We've hauled in over a 
couple thousand of them. As a matter of fact, one

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of them the other day who wanted to have been the 20th hijacker popped 
his head up, and he's no longer a threat to the United States of America 
or our friends and allies.
    There's a lot of good folks in a lot of nations around the world 
working with us to find these and to bring them to justice. We don't 
seek revenge. We seek justice. About like number hadn't been quite as 
lucky as the ones who have been detained or arrested. So we're making 
progress, slowly but surely--slowly, surely, and methodically. This 
great Nation is doing everything we can to protect our people.
    That's why I've asked Congress for the largest increase in defense 
spending since President Reagan was the President. I did so for two 
reasons: One, anytime we put our youngsters into harm's way, they 
deserve the best pay, the best training, and the best possible 
equipment; and secondly, I wanted to send a message to friend and foe 
alike that we're in this deal for the long haul, that when it comes to 
talking about something we hold dear, our freedom, we're not going to 
quit until we succeed.
    When it comes to defending the homeland, this great Nation--the will 
of this Nation has been aroused by an enemy which inflicted serious, 
serious damage on our people. No, they--when they hit us, they thought 
we might file a lawsuit or two. [Laughter] But they realized they hit a 
mighty nation and a good nation and a decent nation and a nation that 
loves the values that we hold dear. It's going to be some rough sledding 
ahead at times--it really is--in order to defend ourselves. We're 
fighting a resourceful group of people. We're fighting people who know 
no fear.
    We've also got some other tasks, because there are some madmen in 
the world who have got weapons of mass destruction. We've got people who 
torture their own people. If there's dissent, they kill them. They've 
gassed their own people with weapons of mass destruction. The man in 
Iraq has attacked two countries. He lied to 
the world. He's deceived us.
    I went to the United Nations, and I said as clearly as I could: ``In 
order for you to be an effective organization, you must deal with 
him. If you don't, we will lead a coalition 
which will.'' We cannot allow the world's worst leaders--[applause]. 
There's no negotiation. There's no discussion. This man must disarm like 
he said he would do. After 11 years of deceit, this man must disarm.
    For the sake of peace, for the sake of peace not only in our--in 
his neighborhood but in ours, he must disarm. 
And if he does not, it's his choice to make. It's his and the United 
Nations choice to make. Our last choice is to commit our troops to 
harm's way. But if we have to, to defend our freedoms, if we have to, 
the United States will lead a coalition and do so.
    And there are a lot of good people, a lot of good people on both 
sides of the political aisle who understand the task ahead, a lot of 
good people who are working with the administration to come up with a 
common resolution to send a strong message to the world that this great 
Nation, this great Nation will not stand by and allow the world's worst 
leaders to threaten us with the world's worst weapons.
    I want you all to understand that as we work to peace--as we work 
for peace--and that's my goal--we must also work to make America a 
better place, a better place for all of us, a better place for each 
person which lives in this country. That starts with making sure that 
every child is educated and not one child is left behind. I want you to 
know that it's important for all of us to challenge the soft bigotry of 
low expectations, to understand that when you set the bar low, when you 
have such low standards, you're going to get lousy results, and children 
will be left behind. That's no longer acceptable in America.
    I'm told--Rick was telling me--Rick and the 
Governor-to-be were telling me you've

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got a great school district here in Flagstaff. That's because the 
citizens care about the schools. I want to thank the teachers who are 
here for being teachers. I want to thank the principals who are here. I 
want to thank the parents who are here who demand on high standards for 
every single child.
    A better America means we've got to have a health care system that's 
modern. Listen, Medicare is an incredibly important program. Medicine 
has changed; Medicare hasn't. [Laughter] Medicine has changed because of 
technology and innovation. Medicare is the same program it was a while 
ago. In order to make sure Medicare works like we want it to for our 
seniors and for America to be a better place, our seniors need 
prescription drug coverage.
    And you know what else we need to do? We need to end the frivolous 
and junk lawsuits which drive up the cost of medicine, which makes it 
harder for folks to find health care.
    We've also got to make sure that we unleash the true strength of the 
country, and that is the hearts and souls of the American people. I 
believe strongly that we must have a Faith-Based Initiative in America, 
an initiative which recognizes that in our churches and synagogues and 
mosques we find universal love. See, people have asked me, ``What can I 
do to help on the war against terror?'' What you can do is, you can love 
your neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself. If you want to 
fight evil, do some good in America.
    No, the enemy hit us. The enemy hit us, but they didn't realize who 
they were hitting. They hit a nation which will fight for our security 
and freedom. But they also aroused a new spirit in the country, a spirit 
which says, it's more than a patriot who puts his hand on a heart; it's 
a patriot who helps a neighbor in need. It's a patriot who understands 
that there are some pockets of despair and loneliness in America and 
that, while Government can hand out money, what Government cannot do is 
put hope in a person's heart or a sense of purpose in a person's life. 
That's done when somebody puts their arm around a neighbor in need and 
says, ``I love you. What can I do to help you?'' It's done when somebody 
mentors a child. It's done when somebody goes and feeds the hungry, 
provides shelter for those who don't have shelter. That's what it means. 
And that's happening in America.
    All across our country, people are understanding there is a new 
culture of responsibility emerging. See, out of the evil done to America 
is going to come some really incredible good, in my judgment, because I 
believe so strongly in the purpose of this great country.
    I'm reminded all the time, as I travel our country, about what 
happened on Flight 93. Flight 93 was a historic moment in our country. 
It's a sad, sad moment, but it was a time when average citizens were 
flying across the land. They knew the plane was going to be used as a 
weapon. They were on their phones, and they told their loved ones 
goodbye. They used the word ``love.'' They said a prayer. One guy said, 
``Let's roll,'' and they drove the plane into the ground to save 
somebody else's life.
    It's a powerful--it is the most profound, profound example of the 
great American values--that we understand in order to be the country of 
promise and hope that we're meant to be, that we've got to live our 
lives beyond just ourself, that we've got to serve something greater 
than ourself in life.
    There's no doubt in my mind, no doubt in my mind that we can achieve 
peace in the world if we remain strong and diligent and focused and 
tough when we need to. And there's no doubt in my mind we can be a more 
compassionate and decent and hopeful nation. And you know why? Because 
this, my fellow Americans, is the greatest nation on the face of the 
Earth, full of the most decent and loving and kind people.

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    Thank you for coming. May God bless you all, and may God bless 
America.

Note: The President spoke at 2:02 p.m. at the Coconino County 
Fairgrounds. In his remarks, he referred to Roberta Renzi, wife of 
candidate Rick Renzi; Arizona gubernatorial candidate Matt Salmon; Gov. 
Jane Dee Hull of Arizona; 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. Rick Renzi was a candidate for Arizona's First Congressional 
District.