    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2005, Book II)]
    [December 5, 2005]
    [Pages 1809-1817]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the National Economy in Kernersville, North Carolina
    December 5, 2005

        Thanks for having me. Thanks for letting me come by to John Deere-
    Hitachi. I'm here to talk about our economy. No better place to talk
    about our economy, in a place where people are working hard and where
    they're productive, where they're making a product people want. The
    economy of the United States is strong, and I'm here--how we're going to
    work together to keep it stronger.
        First, I want to thank the workers of this facility for letting me
    come by to interrupt your work day. I'll try to keep my comments brief
    so you can get back to work. [Laughter] I appreciate the job you're
    doing. This is a remarkable facility, a facility of high technology, of
    good management, and great, skilled workers.
        I appreciate being back in the State of North Carolina. I was
    somewhat disappointed to learn that North Carolina is the best place to
    do business in the United States--I thought that might have been Texas.
    [Laughter]
         I'm traveling today with the Secretary of the Treasury, John
    Snow. Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us.
    Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
    is with me today. These two men are involved with making sure that this
    economy stays strong, that we create an environment for people to be
    able to grow their businesses and employ people.
         I'm proud to be here with Senator Richard Burr of the great State of North Carolina. He's a good, down-
    to-earth fellow who is a strong Member of the United States Senate. And
    he brings--every time I see him, he brings this message, he says, ``You
    make sure you remember the people of North Carolina.'' Which I do.
         I appreciate Congresswoman Virginia
    Foxx--we're right here in her congressional district--she's doing an
    excellent job on behalf of the people of this part of the world. I
    appreciate my longtime friend Congressman Howard Coble from the State of North Carolina. Finally, I'm proud
    to be traveling with a Congressman who doesn't look old enough to be a
    Congressman--[laughter]--that's Patrick McHenry, and he's doing a fine job, as well, in the United States
    Congress.
         I want to thank the mayor of Kernersville for joining us. I appreciate all the other State and local
    officials.
        I want to thank Ron Morrison for the--he's
    the operation manager, in case you've never heard of him--for giving me
    a tour. He's sure proud of this facility. He's proud of the safety
    record, and he's proud of the skill of the people who work here. I
    appreciate Al Seeba, Jim Jenkins, and Hitoshi Manabe. Thank you
    all for having me.
        Government does not create wealth. American and businesses and
    workers and farmers and entrepreneurs create the wealth for this
    country. And so the role of the Government is to create an environment
    where the small business can grow into a big business, where the
    entrepreneur can flourish, where people who dream about owning a home
    are able to own a home. In our economy, our most precious

    [[Page 1810]]

    resource is the talent of the American worker, and there is no limit to
    what we can do when people have the freedom to make a better life for
    themselves and their family.
        Ours is a confident and optimistic nation, and our trust in the
    American people has brought us through some pretty tough times. In the
    past 5 years, our economy has endured a stock market collapse, a
    recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, high energy costs, and
    devastating natural disasters. These were all shocks to our economy,
    which I felt required decisive action. I believe that economy grows when
    people are allowed to keep more of their own money, to be able to save
    and to spend.
        And so I called on the United States Congress to let the people keep
    more of their own money, to cut their taxes. And Congress responded. We
    lowered your taxes and gave you an opportunity to keep more of what you
    earn and let you decide how best to spend your own money. We cut taxes
    on families by lowering the tax rates and by doubling the child credit
    and reducing the marriage penalty. I felt we shouldn't penalize
    marriage; I thought we ought to reward marriage in the Tax Code.
        These cuts are making a real difference to American families. I just
    met one of your coworkers, Kirby Hartsell.
    Kirby is an Air Force veteran; he did a tour in South Korea. He and his
    wife, Carol, have three children,
    Olivia, David,
    and Claire. When we cut the taxes, the
    Hartsells received a refund check that they put in the bank for
    themselves and to save for their children. This year, the Hartsells
    saved $2,200 on their 2004 Federal taxes because of our tax cuts. Now, I
    know some in Washington say that's not a lot of money--well, it's a lot
    of money to the Hartsells. And when the folks in Washington, DC, say
    that our working families don't need that tax relief, they ought to come
    right here to North Carolina and talk to the Hartsells, just like I did.
        We not only reduced the taxes on individuals and families; we cut
    the taxes on dividends and capital gains to encourage job-creating
    investment. I understand most new jobs in America--and I hope you
    understand this too--most new jobs in America are created by small-
    business owners. And so we cut the taxes. We cut the taxes for our small
    businesses. Most small businesses pay taxes at the individual income tax
    rate. And so when you hear us talking about lowering the taxes on
    individuals, I want you to connect that with lowering taxes on small
    businesses. And we created incentives for small businesses to invest in
    new equipment so that they can expand and create jobs. To help our
    farmers and entrepreneurs pass on a lifetime of hard work to their loved
    ones, we put the death tax on the road to extinction.
        Now, some of those people up in Washington said the tax cuts
    wouldn't work. In the spring of 2003, one Democrat leader called tax
    relief a tragedy and said it would not create jobs or grow the economy.
    Another Democratic leader said the tax cuts ``are ruining our economy
    and costing us jobs.'' All that comes with the job, by the way--doing
    what you think is right, and people laying out the criticism. But I want
    to remind people of the facts: Since those words were spoken, our
    economy has added nearly 4\1/2\ million new jobs.
        Just this past Friday, the latest figures show our economy added
    215,000 jobs in the month of November alone. Our unemployment rate is
    down to 5 percent. That's lower than the average of the 1970s, the
    1980s, and 1990s. The latest numbers also show the economy grew at 4.3
    percent last quarter. And it has been growing at near that average for
    more than 2 years. This economy of ours is on the move. People are being
    able to find work, and that's what's important to me. I want Americans
    working. I want anybody who wants a job to be able to find work--good
    paying, steady work--and that's what's happening in America.

    [[Page 1811]]

        Americans are buying homes, and that's good news for this country.
    We hit an alltime high in October, in terms of home buying. More
    Americans now own their homes than any time in our Nation's history.
    Minority ownership--homeownership is at an alltime high in the United
    States of America. Real disposable income is up. Our consumers are
    confident. New orders for durable goods like machinery have risen
    sharply, and shipments of manufactured goods are up as well. Business
    activity in our manufacturing sector reported its 30th straight month of
    growth. In the past 5 years, productivity has grown at some of the
    fastest rates since the 1960s. Our small businesses are thriving.
    Fortunately, I didn't listen to the pessimists about tax cuts. The tax
    cuts are working.
        We've been wise with your money as well. Each year I've been in
    office, we've cut the rate of growth in nonsecurity discretionary
    spending. We're on track to reach our goal of cutting the budget deficit
    in half by 2009. Thanks to tax relief and spending restraint and
    progrowth economic policies, this economy is strong, businesses are
    booming, and the people in this country are working. See, we can't take
    this growth for granted. So we're moving forward with a comprehensive
    agenda that's going to keep the economy growing, to make sure people
    have got a hopeful future. Keeping this economy strong begins with a
    commitment to keeping your taxes low and, at the same time, being wise
    about how we spend your money.
        Unfortunately, just as we're seeing the evidence of how our tax cuts
    have helped the economy, we're hearing some voices in Washington that
    want to raise your taxes. The tax relief we set--that we delivered is
    set to expire in a couple of years. In other words, it's not permanent;
    it can go away. And unless Congress acts, you're going to get a big tax
    hike when that happens.
        Some even say, ``We should repeal the tax relief sooner.'' If that
    happens, a family of four making $60,000 today would see their Federal
    income taxes eventually go up by more than 50 percent. I want you to
    think about that. As you work hard and balance your family budgets and
    try to save for the future, back in Washington some folks want to take
    more out of your paycheck by rolling back the tax cuts. When you hear
    people say that we don't need to make the tax relief permanent, what
    they're really saying is, they're going to raise your taxes. One way to
    keep this economy growing is to have certainty in our Tax Code and to
    help you keep--and to keep--let you keep more of your paycheck, and so
    the United States Congress needs to make this tax relief permanent.
         We're going to redouble our efforts to restrain the spending
    appetite of the Federal Government. Listen, we're at war, and we're
    going to spend what it takes to support our troops in harm's way. And
    that means we've got to show real discipline in other areas of the
    Federal budget.
         Earlier this year, I submitted a budget that proposed an actual cut
    in nonsecurity discretionary spending. It's the most disciplined budget
    proposal since Ronald Reagan was in the White House, and Congress is set
    to meet this target, and I appreciate their hard work. I also proposed
    to terminate or reduce more than 150 Government programs that are
    underperforming or not meeting needs of the American people. I'm pleased
    to report it looks like the Congress is poised to deliver savings on
    more than 90 of these programs. For the first time since 1997, Congress
    is poised to deliver more than $35 billion in savings in entitlement
    programs. By taking action to restrain spending, we're on our track to
    cut that deficit in half by 2009.
         But there's a lot of work that needs to be done. In the long term,
    the most significant deficits will occur as baby boomers retire and more
    people receive Social Security and Medicare benefits. There's unfunded
    liabilities in our Social Security and Medicare systems. That means that
    there's

    [[Page 1812]]

    a lot of baby boomers retiring who have been promised more benefits with
    fewer people paying into the system. That's what that means. And unless
    we do something about it--these unfunded liabilities--we're going to put
    a great burden on our children and our grandchildren.
         Reform of Social Security and Medicare is an important issue for
    the American people. And I've been talking about it, and I'm going to
    keep talking about it, because I strongly believe the United States
    Congress has an obligation to do something about it. My attitude is,
    when you get elected to office in Washington, DC, you have an obligation
    to confront problems, not pass them on to future generations and future
    Congresses.
         Our approach on spending is clear: Working families have to set
    priorities for their spending, and so should the Federal Government.
    Unfortunately, we have too many politicians back in Washington who
    preach fiscal discipline while voting against spending cuts--and too
    many who think the only answer for runaway spending is to raise your
    taxes. My solution is to keep your taxes low and to be fiscally sound
    about how we use your money.
         As we think about ways to make sure this economy remains strong
    today and strong tomorrow, one thing we've got to work on is our energy.
    I mean, we've got to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy if
    we want this economy to remain vibrant. High gasoline and heating costs
    are a tax on the working people, and they're a tax on small businesses,
    and they drain the budgets of people working hard. They make it
    expensive for people to run their companies, and they both affect our
    economic and national security. So our goal is to work for a day in
    which America is no longer dependent, beginning with less dependent on
    foreign sources of energy.
         We made a pretty good start with an energy bill I signed this
    summer. It encourages conservation, and that makes sense. One way to
    become less dependent on foreign sources of energy is to use less of it.
    We made--we're spending money on making sure we can burn coal in a clean
    way. Clean coal technologies make a lot of sense. We've got a lot of
    coal in the United States of America, and we need to figure out how to
    use it cleanly. We need to do a better job of making sure we can get
    natural gas from overseas, liquified natural gas into the United States.
    We don't have enough liquified natural gas portals to allow that gas to
    come here, and we need to expand that in the United States.
         We're promoting renewable sources of energy like ethanol and
    biodiesel. It makes sense to be able to use corn or soybeans to power
    our automobiles. I mean, one of these days, hopefully, the President
    sits down, opens up the crop report and says, ``My, we've got a lot of
    corn; it means we're less dependent on foreign sources of energy.'' It
    makes sense to explore that. We're spending money on hydrogen. One of
    these days, I hope your grandchildren or your children can start a car
    and have hydrogen being the source of power.
         So we've got a good bill on the table that I signed. But we've got
    to do more. We've got to do more. Listen, Katrina hit us, and Rita hit
    us, and we realize how dependent and how fragile our infrastructure is
    when it comes to gasoline. Listen, your prices went up. I know that. And
    these storms show that we've got bottlenecks in the system, and there
    are shortages. Now, fortunately, today's gasoline prices are down nearly
    to what they were before Katrina and Rita, and that's good news. But we
    ought to take notice of what happened. Congress needs to pass
    legislation that will allow us to build and expand refineries. Do you
    realize we have not built a new refinery in the United States since the
    early 1970s? In order to take the pressure off your pocketbook, it seems
    to make sense to me that we need to expand the amount of supply of
    gasoline. The more gasoline there is available for our consumers, the
    less pressure there will be.

    [[Page 1813]]

        We've got to produce and refine more crude oil and natural gas here
    at home in environmentally sensitive ways. And we can do that. The most
    promising site for energy in America is the Arctic National Wildlife
    Refuge in Alaska. I don't know if you realize this, but technology today
    enables us to take a very small portion of the land--2,000 acres out of
    19 million acres--and use that 2,000-acre site to exploit the oil and
    gas resources in that vast area, with little or no impact on the land or
    wildlife. And that's important for people to understand, the facts
    involved. Developing this tiny area could yield up to a million barrels
    of oil a day. That's a million barrels of oil a day less from a foreign
    source of energy. I can't tell you how important I think it is for the
    United States Congress to authorize a progrowth, projob, proenvironment
    exploration of ANWR.
        We prosper as a country when our working people can look to the
    future with confidence. And people are more confident when they own
    something. And that's why I've promoted an ownership society, an
    ownership society in which people own their own homes and have control
    over their health care accounts. They can own their own small
    businesses. Americans need to know that their hard work will be rewarded
    and that the institutions they depend upon are reliable. And so I want
    to talk about some reforms and some ideas for job training and health
    care.
        We need to prepare Americans to take advantage of the opportunities
    of the 21st century. One thing is certain, is that this economy of ours
    changes, and as it changes, we've got to make sure the workers have got
    the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century. It's one of
    the real challenges of our society.
        I'm a big believer, by the way, in community centers--community
    colleges. I think they work. I think they work well, because they are
    available, and they're affordable, and they have got flexibility in
    their curriculum. I know that firsthand, that you've got a good system
    here in North Carolina because I've been to some of your community
    colleges. I've been to Forsyth Technical Community College. I've seen
    workers who were in the textile industry receiving help necessary to go
    back to school to become health care workers. And with a little bit of
    Government help, they are able to gain new skills and find permanent
    work at better pay. And that's really the challenge ahead of us, isn't
    it, to make sure that we match our workers' desire to work with the
    skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century.
        We've got a good program out of Washington, DC. It's $125 million a
    year in grants to help community colleges. More importantly, it's to
    help the workers going to community colleges. I'm working with Congress
    to make sure that we work with these schools that are developing
    curriculum for jobs which actually exist. We don't need people being
    trained for work where jobs don't exist; we need people being able to
    match the job demand with the curriculum. And it's happening. Congress
    needs to renew the job training program for our community college system
    and give us more flexibility to make sure that the money actually gets
    to the workers, not to the bureaucracies involved with the program.
        We need a health care system that makes sure that health care is
    available and affordable for all our people. And we need a health care
    system that puts patients in charge of the health care decisions, that
    offers greater choice, and allows you to have control over your plan.
    There's a new product called health savings accounts, HSAs, and they're
    a step toward consumer-driven health care.
        Now, let me try to explain this to you. Under this type of plan, you
    or your employer can put money tax-free into what they call a health
    savings account. And you use that money in your account for routine
    medical expenses. And if you don't use it all up, you can roll it over
    to the next

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    year, tax free. And the money in the account earns interest tax-free. In
    other words, it's a tax-free account. The money goes in tax-free. It
    stays in tax-free, and it comes out tax-free. And it's your money, and
    you control it, and you pay routine health care expenses.
        And you couple that with a high-deductible insurance policy--paid by
    yourself, if you're self-employed, or your company--that pays for
    catastrophic care above a certain deductible if you get really sick or
    you get really hurt. Now, the advantage of this program is that, one,
    you make the decisions. Secondly, you own the HSA, and if you happen to
    change jobs--listen, we're in a society where people are changing jobs.
    And one of the uncertainty that comes with job changes is that you--a
    fellow or a woman worries about health care. Under this plan, it's your
    own health care plan, and you can take it with you to your next
    employer. And the employer can help you with your HSA, if that's the
    deal you're able to strike with them. In other words, if you own your
    health care plan, it brings certainty into your life. It makes your
    future more stable.
        These high-deductible policies have lower premiums, and that's what
    you've got to know, which provide savings for the self-employed or the
    small-business owner or for the large company. People are beginning to
    understand the advantages of health savings accounts. Since I signed a
    bill into law that allowed for the existence of health savings accounts,
    a million Americans have enrolled, most are families with children. And
    nearly 40 percent of HSA owners were uninsured before they got their
    account. Now, we're going to strengthen health savings accounts, make
    them more available and more affordable so people have more choices when
    it comes to health care.
        Now, that's just one part of a comprehensive health initiative.
    Congress needs to pass association health plans. I don't know if there's
    any small-business owners here--small businesses sometimes have trouble
    affording health care. They need to be allowed to pool risk across
    jurisdictional boundaries so they can buy health insurance at the same
    discounts that big companies are able to buy health insurance.
        The Federal Government has a responsibility to the elderly and the
    poor when it comes to health care. That's a commitment our Government
    made. My attitude is, if you're going to provide health care for the
    elderly, it ought to be good health care. That's why we had the most
    substantive reforms of Medicare since Lyndon Baines Johnson was the
    President, since the program was formed. The Medicare plan that is now
    available for our seniors includes prescription drug coverage and a wide
    variety of choices for our seniors to choose from. And it's going to
    become available this January, and if you've got a mother and father on
    Medicare, I strongly urge you to look on the Internet for medicare.gov,
    and take a look and explain to your mother or father the options
    available. It's a good deal. It makes sense to have a modern, reformed
    Medicare system for our seniors.
        We're going to take care of the poor with Medicaid and to make sure
    there's a strong safety net available for the poor citizens in the
    United States. And we're going to be wise about how we set up systems.
    Since I took office, we've opened or expanded more than 800 community
    health centers, places for the poor and the indigent to get primary
    health care. It makes sense to make sure that people go to a primary
    care facility, such as a health center, and not an emergency room of a
    hospital.
        We need to expand information technology in health care, which a lot
    of the experts are convinced will lower the cost of health care to the
    American citizens. To make health care available and affordable, we need
    medical liability reform. When your doctors get sued, it means there's
    going to be fewer doctors practicing medicine, and when your doctors get
    sued, it

    [[Page 1815]]

    means your cost of medicine goes up. And for the sake of affordable
    health care, we need medical liability reform now. In order to make sure
    the economy is--keeps going on, we need a comprehensive health care
    agenda that gives you the power for making medical decisions, not
    bureaucracies in Washington, DC.
        Now, for the good of the workers, we need to strengthen the rules
    governing private pensions as well. You know, most Americans work for
    private companies that offer traditional pensions. And most companies,
    like this one, are fulfilling their obligations to their employees and
    their retirees. But too many companies are not putting away the cash
    they need to fund the retirement promises they're making to their
    employees. In other words, they're saying, ``We'll make sure you got a
    retirement system,'' but they're not funding it. Therefore, when--if the
    company were to get into financial trouble and go bankrupt, their
    failure to live up to their promises, their failure to fund their
    pensions will leave retirees with pension checks that have been slashed.
        Now, the Federal Government insures these pensions, and that means
    that if more and more companies fail to meet their responsibilities, the
    Federal Government might have to step in and bail them out. In that
    case, it would not only be the retirees who are harmed by the companies
    not fulfilling their obligations, but it can mean the taxpayers as well.
    Every American has an interest in seeing to it that this system gets
    fixed. So whether you're a worker at a company with an underfunded
    pension or a taxpayer, it's what I want you to understand.
        In our society, we've had some companies--big companies go bankrupt,
    and workers at those companies know what I'm talking about. And so my
    message to corporate America is: You need to fulfill your promises. When
    you say to a worker, this is what they're going to get when they retire,
    you better put enough money in the account to make sure the worker gets
    that which you said.
        The Government's current pension rules are confusing and misleading.
    They allow companies to technically play by the rules and yet still not
    fund the promises they've made to their employees. And so Congress needs
    to straighten up these rules so that there's no confusion, so that
    everybody understands what I just said. I said, ``If you make a promise
    to a worker, you put enough money in the account to fulfill that
    promise.''
        So we proposed reforms to the pension rules that say this, that say
    that companies must accurately measure and report the financial status
    of their pension plans to make sure they're fulfilling the promises they
    make. This reform plan would give companies that underfund their
    pensions 7 years to catch up. That seems reasonable to me. We're going
    to give you a little time to do what you said you're going to do, but
    you're going to do what you said you're going to do.
        But some in Congress have said this reform is too tough, or some may
    be on the outskirts of Congress who have said the reform is too tough.
    And not only that, they want to weaken the current law even further. I
    believe that if you put in your hours, your pension should be there for
    you when you retire. Our workers need reform that significantly improves
    funding for these private pension plans, not a piece of legislation that
    weakens it. And I'm not going to sign a bill that weakens pension
    funding for the American workers.
        And, finally, keeping this economy strong means welcoming
    opportunities that a global economy offers, not fearing those
    opportunities. And this country is home to about 5 percent of the
    world's population, which means that 95 percent of potential customers
    live abroad. By opening up new markets for our goods and our farm
    products and our services, we can help this

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    economy continue to grow and create opportunity for people right here in
    our country.
        Out in Washington, there are economic isolationists, people who are
    afraid of new opportunities. I think they've got to have more faith in
    the American worker and in the entrepreneur. The folks in North Carolina
    are showing them why. Today, one of every 12 jobs in North Carolina is
    exported by--is supported by exports. In other words, one in 12 of the
    people who work in this State do so because they're selling a product
    overseas. And it's just not what you're sending overseas that is helping
    North Carolina grow; more than 200,000 North Carolinians have jobs
    because foreign companies have chosen to invest in the Tar Heel State.
    In other words, this is a good place to be. All across America, we see
    the same story: Foreign businesses come here because they recognize the
    quality and the skill and ethic of the American worker. That's why
    they're coming.
        This company is a good example of how trade has transformed American
    business. In 1837, an Illinois blacksmith named John Deere fashioned a
    steel plow that let pioneer farmers cut through prairie soil. Today, the
    company that this guy started ships products--ships combines made in
    Illinois to Russia. Interesting, isn't it? A lot of the Deere business
    is done overseas because the product is good. People want the Deere
    product. People realize that their society could become more productive
    if they use products made by John Deere.
        You've got an advantage right here in Kernersville. You've got an
    interesting joint venture with Hitachi. This plant is actually ``in-
    sourcing.'' Over the past 4 years, this factory has taken on production
    that used to be done in Japan and Mexico. You've tripled your workforce.
    That's what opening markets means. It means good, steady work. It means
    good opportunity. In the 21st century, no economy can afford to be an
    island. And to create new opportunities for our workers, we need to keep
    this economy open to trade and investment. And we've got to make sure
    that everybody else treats us the way we treat them, that we want to
    have free trade, and we want to have fair trade.
        The textile industry in this State has been through tough times. I
    understand that. We just did a deal with Central America that says,
    ``You treat us the way we treat you.'' Do you realize products going
    from the United States to Central America were taxed? Products coming
    the other way weren't. It seemed to make sense to level the playing
    field, which we're in the process of doing. But it also means that by
    working together with Central American partners, North Carolina textiles
    are more likely to be able to compete with Asian textiles.
        My predecessor worked to get China
    into the WTO. And one of the conditions was that the United States and
    other WTO members would take steps to prevent their markets from being
    flooded with cheap Chinese textiles. Last month, we reached an agreement
    with China to have them meet that obligation under the textile
    agreements. It's an important agreement. It means that not only are we
    for free trade with China, but we expect China to be fair with American
    textile companies and American workers. This agreement adds certainty
    and predictability for businesses in both America and China.
        Here's what I believe. I believe free trade is good for jobs. I
    believe opening markets for U.S. products is smart to do. I know we've
    got to make sure we have a level playing field because when we have a
    level playing field, the American worker, the American entrepreneur, and
    the American farmer can compete with anybody, anytime, anyplace.
        The greatest opportunity we do have to advance the goal of free and
    fair trade is through the Doha round of trade talks. The Doha trade
    round has great potential to boost jobs here in America. By reducing and
    eliminating tariffs and other barriers

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    on industrial goods and on farm goods--industrial goods like John Deere
    products, by the way--to end unfair subsidies and open up global markets
    for our services. Trade ministers will gather in Hong Kong next week for
    a critical meeting. I told our Trade Representative, Ambassador Rob
    Portman, that he's got to push for a
    bold and wide-ranging agreement. Opportunity increasingly depends on a
    free and fair trading global system, and our administration is going to
    continue to use our influence to bring greater opportunities for the
    American worker.
        You know, throughout the last century, we often heard pessimists
    telling us that our best days are behind us and that the future belongs
    to others. Our grandparents heard the pessimists in the 1930s and 1940s
    say that the future belonged to the central planners. Our parents heard
    the pessimists again in the 1950s when the Soviet Union launched the
    first satellite. Some of us remember hearing the pessimists in the 1970s
    and 1980s when we were told that America was tired and could no longer
    compete with Japan. At that moment, Ronald Reagan's tax cuts were just
    beginning to kick in, and that set off one of the largest economic
    expansions in our history. One newspaper editorialized about ``the
    stench of failure'' during that period of time.
        You know, the great thing about our history when you look at it is,
    the American people have always proved the pessimists wrong. At the
    start of a hopeful new century, the American worker is the most
    productive worker that human history has ever known. At the start of
    this new century, we have proven that progrowth economic policies out of
    Washington, DC, do work and can overcome some mighty obstacles. At the
    start of the century, we recommit ourselves to the notion that the more
    free people are, the better off your economy will be.
        This great country of ours is a place where people can start out
    with nothing and be able to raise a family and own a home or start a
    business. Through all my travels around the world, I'm always struck by
    how bright the future of America is. Our job in Washington is to keep
    that future bright and hopeful by making choices that reward hard work
    and enterprise. This economy is strong, and the best days are yet to
    come for the American economy.
        I'm honored you let me come by. I'm always glad to come back to
    North Carolina. And I'm particularly pleased to be with the good, fine
    folks right here at the Deere-Hitachi plant. May God bless you and your
    families, and may God continue to bless our country.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:08 p.m. at John Deere-Hitachi
    Construction Machinery Corp. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Curtis
    L. Swisher of Kernersville, NC; and James R. Jenkins, senior vice
    president and general counsel, Deere & Co.