    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book I)]
    [February 23, 2006]
    [Pages 336-344]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Congressional Candidate Chris
    Chocola in Mishawaka, Indiana
    February 23, 2006

        Thank you all very much. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm
    welcome. I have grown to admire Chris Chocola a lot because he is a
    person who does in office what he said he would do during campaigns. He
    is a honest, decent, down-to-earth, practical man who deserves to be
    reelected to the United States Congress.
        Chris is a rising star in the House of Representatives. And when you
    find a rising star, it makes a lot of sense to keep him serving you. So
    I want to thank you all for recognizing talent when you see it. Thank
    you for backing this good man for his reelection. Thank you for coming
    today to give me a chance to say loud and clear, Chris is the right
    person for the Second Congressional District of Indiana.
        And like me, he married well. [Laughter] It's great to see Sarah--and Caroline and
    Colin. You know, being in politics is hard on
    your family. But it sure does help when you, in my case, marry a good
    wife, and in Chris's case, marry a good wife too. And

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    there's nothing better, by the way, in the political arena than going
    back home after a day when maybe some sharp elbows were flying, to a
    family that loves you more than anything. I think it's important to have
    somebody in the United States Congress who places his faith and his
    family as a priority in his life. And that's certainly what your
    Congressman Chris Chocola does. And I can't thank you enough for backing
    him.
        I want to thank Bethel College for letting us come by; I want to
    thank your president, Steve Cramer. And I want
    to thank the students. I know there's some students listening to this
    speech--one, I'll try to keep it short so you can get back to class.
    [Laughter] And two, please take politics seriously. In our society, all
    of us have a duty to participate. And one way you participate is when
    elections come around, you go to the polls and do your civic duty by
    voting. Now, I hear too often, ``My vote doesn't count.'' Your vote
    counts. And by the way, when you go into the booth, vote for him.
        I want to thank all the organizers of this event. It's not easy to
    organize an event that has been this successful of this size. And so,
    for all of you who have worked so hard, thanks for taking time to
    support Chris. I want to thank Jack Hiler,
    former Member of the United States Congress, who is the chairman of
    Chris's campaign. I want to thank Murray Clark,
    the chairman of our Republican Party of the State of Indiana. The
    attorney general, Steve Carter, is with us.
    General Carter, thank you for coming. Appreciate you taking time out.
    Most of all, thank you for being here.
        Before I get to my speech, I do want to thank the mayor, Jeff
    Rea. Jeff, thanks for coming. He gave me the
    key to the city. [Laughter] My only advice, Mr. Mayor, is pave the
    roads. [Laughter] And I know you will. [Laughter] I asked him, I said,
    ``Do you like being mayor?'' He said, ``I love serving the people.'' And
    I don't see how you can be in public office if you don't love serving
    the people.
        Chris loves serving the people of this district. Every time I'm with
    him, he's talking about the people of the Second Congressional District.
    He says, ``I'm concerned about things; I'm worried about the small-
    business owner,'' or, ``I want you to understand, Mr. President, how
    important Humvee is.'' I said, ``I understand the importance of Humvee;
    you don't have to tell me that.'' [Laughter] He's talking about--all the
    time, talking about people who live here. And the reason why is because
    he cares about people. It's one thing to be espoused in policy; it's
    another thing to have, deep in your heart, the desire to help people
    help themselves.
        One of the things about why I like working with Chris and people in
    Congress is that we're there for a reason. Some people in Washington
    just want to say, ``Well, I held the office.'' But that's not why Chris
    ran. He didn't need to run. He is a successful small-business owner.
    Pleased to report he and I are not lawyers. For all your lawyers out
    there, that's all right. We need them. But we got plenty of them in
    Washington, DC. [Laughter] Seems like it makes sense to have somebody
    that knows how to run a business representing this important
    congressional district.
        We're living during historic times. I wish I could report to you
    that the war on terror was over, but it's not. It's--these are serious
    times that require serious thought and serious purpose in order to do
    our most important duty, which is to protect the American people.
        You know, my buddies in Texas, they come up to the White House quite
    frequently. And after they get over their initial shock that I'm there--
    [laughter]--they then ask me, ``What's it like to be President of the
    United States?'' And the best way to give a job description is it's--I
    make a lot of decisions. I'm a decisionmaker. And some of the decisions
    that--you'll see them; they're visible; they're big decisions. And some
    of them you'll never see. And I want to share with you the rationale as

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    to why I made some of the decisions I've made, decisions that Chris has
    been strong to support for the good of the country.
        My thinking about the world changed on September the 11th, 2001. You
    just got to know that, so that when you see me talking about why we're
    doing things we're doing for the country, just keep in mind that on that
    day, I vowed that I would use everything in my power to protect the
    American people; that I recognized the nature of the war we were in, and
    I recognized the nature of the enemy.
        Let me talk about the enemy right quick. These are people who have
    no conscience, but they do have a philosophy. These aren't isolated
    cases of people that are acting out their anger. These are folks who
    have espoused an ideology that is the exact opposite of the United
    States of America. Perhaps the best way to describe their thinking is to
    remind you what life was like under the Taliban for people in
    Afghanistan. Life under the--in Afghanistan said that if you were a
    young girl you had no chance, no hope. As a matter of fact, you would
    never get educated. Life under the Taliban in Afghanistan said if you
    don't ascribe to the way we think about religion, you're subject to
    penalty--harsh penalty often, sometimes execution. In other words,
    there's no sense of freedom, no sense of individualism. It's all this
    kind of darkness prescribed by a few. It's totalitarianism at its worst.
        They've made it clear their intentions. When the enemy speaks, you
    better have people in Congress and in the White House who takes their
    word seriously. See, some in Washington would like to look at the world
    the way they want it to be; our job is to look at the world the way it
    is and try to work to make it better.
        And so the enemy has said, ``Don't worry, America is soft and weak,
    and all we've got to do is use the one weapon we have, which is the
    capacity and willingness to kill innocent life, and they will lose their
    nerve.'' And the reason they want us to retreat from the world is
    because they want to find safe haven again from which they can plot and
    plan and attack and kill.
        I told you September the 11th changed my frame of reference, changed
    my thinking. I am never going to give any quarter whatsoever to the
    enemy. We will stay on the hunt. We will be on the offense. And we will
    protect the American people by defeating them overseas so we do not have
    to face them here at home.
        That's why it's important to have Members of Congress who understand
    that when we put any person in harm's way, he or she deserves the best
    training, the best equipment, the best support possible. Chris Chocola
    has been a strong backer of the men and women who wear the uniform of
    the United States of America.
        I also recognize that if the enemy were able to find safe haven,
    that would make this country less secure. And so I put out a doctrine
    early on in this war, the first war of the 21st century--by the way, I
    wish I wasn't talking about war. No President ever says, ``Gosh, I hope
    there's war.'' For those of you who are young here, I want you to know
    what I'm leading to is how to keep the peace and do my job that you
    expect me to do, which is to prevent the enemy from attacking again.
        See, when I grew up, oceans would protect us. At least that's what
    we thought. You might remember the fifties and sixties. We'd see a
    threat overseas, and we were teenage kids and just didn't need to worry
    about it, did we, because oceans were there to protect us. That all
    changed on September the 11th. And so I've talked--two things to the
    American people--one, we've got to deny the terrorists safe haven; and
    secondly, we've got to deal with threats before they fully materialize.
        In the old days, a threat could be there, and we could pick and
    choose, decide whether or not we needed to deal with it or not. That's
    no longer the case in the 21st century. And so I said to the people of
    Afghanistan, ``You give up bin Laden;

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    give up Al Qaida,'' because they were providing safe haven. I said, ``If
    you harbor a terrorist, you're equally as guilty as the terrorists.''
    And when the President speaks, he better mean what he says. And I meant
    what I said, and they didn't give up Al Qaida, and we routed the
    Taliban, and 25 million people now live in freedom.
        We saw a threat with Saddam Hussein. I
    wasn't the only person who saw the threat. The United States Congress
    saw the threat; Republicans and Democrats saw the same threat. The
    United Nations Security Council saw the same threat. The entire world
    saw that Saddam Hussein was a threat. He'd attacked his neighbors; he
    attacked U.S.--was attacking U.S. airplanes; he had used weapons of mass
    destruction; he had destroyed thousands of his own citizens. There are
    mass graves in Iraq because of his brutality. He was a threat. It was
    his choice to make: Disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences. He
    made the wrong choice. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in
    power.
        And I want to thank Chris for his strong support in this war on
    terror. It's important to have people who are clear-eyed in this battle.
    It's important never to send mixed signals to our troops in combat. It's
    important not to play politics with the issue of war and peace. And I
    appreciate his strong stand. That's not easy, by the way. I understand
    that. Nobody wants to go around bragging about being strong in a war.
    But he is. And you just got to know, it's vital to have this kind of
    strength in the Halls of Congress as we implement a plan for victory.
        We have one option, and that is to achieve our victory. And we have
    such a plan, and it starts with making sure that we deny a safe haven to
    the terrorists in Iraq. We got a plan that, on the one hand, says that
    democracy can help heal old wounds. And the Iraqi people have stood up
    three times in the past 13 months and made it clear to the whole world
    that they want to live in democracy. Over 11 million people voted in the
    face of terror. Their voices loud and clear, ``We reject terrorism; we
    reject the dark view of the Al Qaida that want to use them as a safe
    haven.''
        And if you want to know how tough Al Qaida is, just look at--we
    don't know exactly who made the bombing of this incredibly important
    holy shrine in Iraq, but whoever did it is trying to stop the advance of
    freedom, because their ideology of darkness cannot stand the light that
    freedom brings to people around the world. The United States of America
    strongly condemns the destruction of a holy site. I firmly believe that
    whoever did this is not a religious person but an evil person. And I
    praise the leaders in Iraq who have urged for calm and who continue to
    make sure that Iraq stays on the road to democracy.
        The second part of our strategy is to train the Iraqis so they can
    take the fight to the enemy. One of the interesting things early on in
    this war in Iraq, they started bombing these recruiting stations. So the
    first question I asked our commanders on the ground was, are you having
    any problem finding recruits? And the answer was, absolutely not. The
    people of Iraq want to be free, and we're training people to help them
    secure their freedom. And as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.
    Troop decisions will not be made by politicians in Washington, DC, but
    by commanders on the ground. And we've got a plan for victory, a victory
    we will achieve.
        In the long run, the way to lay the foundation of peace for our
    children and grandchildren and defend the United States of America is
    the spread of liberty. I know some have questioned whether or not it
    made sense, in my second Inaugural Address, to put a goal for the 21st
    century to be the eradication of tyranny. I can't imagine anybody
    questioning whether or not we should work to eradicate tyranny. Part of
    my decisionmaking process is based upon this principle and belief: I
    believe there's an Almighty; I believe that freedom

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    is a gift from the Almighty; I believe everybody, deep in their soul,
    desires to be free. And therefore, you should not be surprised--I
    wasn't--when eleven million Iraqis said, ``I want to be free.'' Freedom
    is the best way to achieve peace in the long run.
        If you look at our history, we had--a lot of your relatives have
    died in wars on the continent of Europe. And yet, because democracy
    spread in Europe, Europe is now whole, free, and at peace. My dad fought the Japanese. I'm sure some of your
    relatives did as well. They were the enemy of the United States of
    America in a brutal war. And yet today, I sit down at the table with
    Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan talking
    about how to keep the peace.
        And what's the lesson to be learned? The lesson is this: That when a
    country adopts a democracy in their own style, reflecting their own
    history and their own traditions, they become a peaceful nation.
    Democracies do not war; democracies yield the peace. And someday, a duly
    elected leader from Iraq is going to be sitting down with an American
    President talking about how to keep the peace, and our children and
    grandchildren are going to be better off.
        I want to talk about another decision I made that you've been
    reading about in the newspapers. Right after September the 11th, 2001, I
    called in people who have the responsibility of helping to protect this
    country. We've got some really fine people, by the way. Really good
    people on the frontlines of fighting off these terrorists. See, if you
    don't believe we're not at war, then I can understand why people were
    concerned about my decision with the NSA. But we are at war; there's an
    enemy that still lurks.
        I spend every morning thinking about--at least every morning
    thinking about how to protect you. That's what you asked me to do;
    that's my job. It's really important for people in this country to know
    that the Government is working as hard as they can to protect the
    American people so you can go about your business. It's hard to be a
    risk-taker if all you think about is war. See, you've hired a lot of us
    to think on your behalf.
        And so I called in those on the frontline. I said, can we do
    anything more to protect the American people? What can we do? General
    Mike Hayden of the NSA is one fine public
    servant--came back, he said, ``Mr. President, I think we can do a better
    job of picking up communications from an enemy before they attack so we
    can possibly respond.'' Mindful of that recommendation and mindful of
    the fact that I took the oath of office that said I will defend the
    Constitution and the laws of the United States--I called in the lawyers.
    I got a lot of them. [Laughter] I said, is what General Hayden
    recommended legal? Do I have the legal authority as the President of the
    United States to put this in practice--because it made a lot of sense,
    his recommendation. He said, ``Mr. President, we have the capacity to
    listen to Al Qaida or suspected Al Qaida and their affiliates in making
    phone calls from outside the United States, inside the United States and
    vice versa.''
        It seemed to make sense to me that if somebody associated with the
    enemy is making a call inside the country, that it would be helpful to
    know why, in order to protect the American people. Lawyers came back and
    said, ``You got the authority, Mr. President.''
        I then went and said, well, gosh, if we do go forward, I know
    there's going to be some consternation in the Halls of the United States
    Congress. So we briefed people responsible for intelligence and the
    leadership in both bodies, in both political parties. Just like my buddy
    in Texas said, ``If you're trying to pull one over on them, why are you
    briefing the Congress?'' [Laughter] ``If you're doing something illegal,
    why did you call the Congress in and lay it for them to fully understand
    what we're doing to protect the American people?''

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        I wanted to share that with you. I think it's important for you to
    know why I make decisions. I'm confident what I'm doing--the decision I
    made is the right decision. If Al Qaida is calling in the United States,
    we want to know why.
        We're also making decisions about how to keep this economy growing.
    One thing the people of this district ought to do is judge whether or
    not Chris's votes on creating an environment for capital to flourish is
    working or not. He said, look--he and I agree the role of government is
    not to create wealth but an environment in which small businesses can
    flourish, in which people can realize their dreams, in which capital
    moves more freely, so that people can find work.
        And our plan is working. This economy of ours has been through a
    recession, an attack, a war, and corporate scandals, major storms last
    year, and high energy prices, and we grew at 3.5 percent. The national
    unemployment rate is 4.7 percent. We've added 4.7 million new jobs over
    the past 24 months--or a little longer than--2\1/2\ years. Productivity
    is at an alltime high. More people own a home today than ever before in
    our Nation's history. More minorities own a home today than ever before
    in our Nation's history.
        Our progrowth economic policies are working, and it starts with
    keeping your taxes low. Cutting taxes was the right thing to do. And if
    we don't permanently keep these tax cuts in place, you're going to have
    a tax increase. And raising taxes is the wrong way to cause this economy
    to continue to grow.
        I'm proud to have somebody like Chris who understands that when you
    have more money in your pockets to spend and save and invest, the
    economy grows. I've heard it--I'm sure you've heard all the talk in
    Washington. They said, ``Look, we need to balance the budget, and
    therefore, let's raise the taxes.'' That's not how Washington works.
    They're going to raise your taxes, and they're going to figure out new
    ways to spend your money. That's how Washington works. The best way to
    balance the budget is keep taxes low, grow the economy, and be wise
    about how we spend your money.
        And I appreciate Chris's support of fiscal austerity, and he does a
    good job. Every program sounds like a brilliant program in Washington,
    but you got to set priorities with the people's money, and that's what
    we're doing. We're on a plan to cut the deficit in half by 2009, but the
    toughest deficit of all is the unfunded liabilities inherent in Medicare
    and Social Security.
        And I recognize some of them in Washington don't want to touch that
    issue. By the way, it's a problem for both Republicans and Democrats.
    Sometimes if the issue looks too tough, the easiest thing to do is head
    for the hills. That's not the way Chris thinks. On Air Force One today,
    he said, ``Mr. President, are you serious about continuing to discuss
    how to fix Social Security and Medicare?'' And I said, ``Absolutely,
    Chris.'' He understands what I know. Our job is to confront problems and
    not pass them on to future Presidents and future Congresses. And I
    intend to continue working with Chris on Social Security and Medicare
    reform.
        You know, there's always a series of choices in Washington, DC, and
    I understand there's still uncertainty in the economy. And I understand
    why. There's a lot of changeover with new jobs, and you got some folks
    here in this district that lost work. And this troubles our fellow
    citizens, and it troubles me, and it troubles Chris. And we have a
    choice to make during this period of uncertainty, and that is whether or
    not we become protectionists and isolationists, or whether or not we're
    confident about the capacity of the United States to continue to lead
    the world's economy. And I'm proud to have a partner who ascribes to the
    latter philosophy.
        Our view is this: We shouldn't fear the future because we intend to
    shape the future. And you shape the future with good

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    tax policy and good spending policy. You shape the future with good
    legal policy. We got too many junk lawsuits making it hard for people to
    invest capital. We need legal reform in the United States of America if
    we intend to lead the world economy.
        We intend to shape the future by encouraging research and
    development so this country remains the leading exporter and developer
    of new technologies. We're going to shape the future by changing our
    energy habits. I understand when an oil guy--I'm a guy from Texas--
    stands up and says, ``We're addicted to oil,'' it caused people to take
    a second look. But I'm going to tell you something: Being addicted to
    oil puts us in an economic bind as well as a national security bind. And
    I intend to do something about it.
        I'm glad to have a partner with Chris. We're going to spend money
    wisely--your money wisely on research and development so we can develop
    advanced new batteries, so you can plug in your car at night and be able
    to drive 40 miles on electricity, not using a drop of gasoline. We're
    going to continue to expand the use of ethanol. It makes sense, by the
    way, to use research and development--your dollars for research and
    development to figure out ways to burn--better ways to burn corn and
    wood chips and saw grass. I want it so the American agriculture sector
    is providing energy for United States automobiles, not unstable parts of
    the world providing energy for U.S. automobiles.
        We've got an aggressive agenda. We believe in things. We're
    optimistic people. We believe in our philosophy, and we know you've sent
    us to Washington to produce results. And one of the really important
    areas, I know, for people in this part of the world is to make sure
    health care is available and affordable, particularly if you're a small-
    business owner. Everywhere I go small-business owners say, ``It's tough
    for me to stay in business because I'm having trouble with my health
    care costs.'' And that's dangerous for the United States. Two-thirds of
    all new jobs in the United States are produced by small-business owners,
    and so we got to do something about it.
        I want to warn you, however, that there is a philosophical debate in
    Washington, and I would very--listen very carefully to the rhetoric
    during a political campaign. The debate is this, whether or not we
    should encourage market forces to help set price, or whether or not the
    Federal Government ought to be setting price. I strongly do not believe
    the Federal Government ought to be running our health care system, and
    neither does Chris Chocola. We believe that we ought to strengthen the
    doctor-patient relationship, bring transparency to pricing and medicine,
    encourage the development of information technology so medicine is
    modern.
        In order to make sure health care is available and affordable, we've
    got to do something about these lawsuits--not necessarily in Indiana--
    but around the country that are running good docs out of business and
    running up the cost of medicine for the taxpayers.
        We have passed what's called health savings accounts. It's a great
    new vehicle to add market pricing into medicine and to put doctors and
    patients in charge of medicine. I strongly urge people who have run the
    small businesses to take a look at health savings accounts. And I look
    forward to working with Chris to make health savings account more
    acceptable and more available as an important antidote to those who want
    to federalize health care.
        I do want to talk about one aspect of health care that is a Federal
    responsibility, and that's Medicare. When I got to Washington, DC, I
    decided to do something about a health care system that had become
    stagnant and old as a result of Federal bureaucracies making decisions.
    I'll give you an example. The Government would pay your taxpayers'
    money--your money to help a person with an ulcer surgery. It may cost 50
    grand; I don't know what ulcer surgeries

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    cost. Fortunately, I haven't had one. But it costs a lot. But wouldn't
    pay a dime for the prescription drugs to prevent the ulcer surgery from
    happening in the first place. That seemed like the system was a little
    old to me and stale.
        If you make a commitment to somebody, you got to make the commitment
    of excellence. And so I worked with Congress, Congressmen like Chris, to
    modernize Medicare, to provide a prescription drug benefit for our
    seniors. The Medicare modernization bill not only introduced HSAs but it
    gave seniors different options from which to choose. It's amazing what
    happens when you interject a sense of competition into a system. Do you
    realize that when we first analyzed the prescription drug benefit for
    seniors, they thought it was going to cost about $35 a month for the
    seniors? Because of competition, it's down to less than $28 a month.
    Competition works. Trusting people to make decisions works. Modernizing
    Medicare is an important, vital thing to have done. The Medicare bill I
    signed, that Chris supported, is going to make medicine for our seniors
    modern, and it's been necessary to do.
        Good public policy is more than just talking about economic issues
    or cultural issues which matter to the United States as well. I'm proud
    to have a partner in promoting a culture of life in the United States of
    America. Banning partial-birth abortion was an important bill I signed
    and sends a signal that the United States of America should value all
    life in all forms.
        The true strength of the United States of America is not our
    military strength or our economic strength, but it's the--the strength
    lies in the hearts and souls of our citizens. I am always astounded at
    the social entrepreneurship that takes place all around our country. I'm
    impressed by the thousands who have joined the armies of compassion to
    help bring hope where there's hopelessness and love where there's a lack
    of love.
        Chris and I understand that the role of government is limited, and
    it's a fact that governments don't love. Governments can dispense law
    and justice but not love. And therefore, one of the most important
    initiatives of my tenure as your President has been to promote the
    Faith-Based and Community-Based Initiative, which recognizes governments
    should welcome people of faith in helping to solve the intractable
    problems of our society. We should not fear faith in America. We ought
    to say to those who want to love their neighbor just like they'd like to
    be loved themselves, ``You should have equal access to Federal money, so
    long as you're helping to meet a Federal need.'' And we have a lot of
    need when it comes to saying to a brother or sister who's lost, ``I love
    you. What can I do to help you?''
        I've probably been going on a little too long. I hope the food's not
    getting cold. [Laughter] But I do tell you I'm proud to be here. I'm
    honored to stand by this good man. He's a fine, fine person and a great
    Member of the United States Congress who ran for a reason. And today I
    hope I can share some of the reasons why both he and I are proud to
    serve our country. I hope you can get a sense of philosophy behind why.
    We're not making up our minds based upon polls or focus groups. We're
    making up our mind based upon a philosophy and what we think is right
    for all the people of this country.
        Please send him back to the United States Congress. He's necessary.
    He's important, and he's doing a fantastic job for the people of the
    Second Congressional District.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:30 p.m. at Bethel College Indiana. In
    his remarks, he referred Sarah Chocola, wife of Representative Chris
    Chocola, and their children, Caroline and Colin; Indiana State Attorney
    General Steve Carter; Mayor Jeffrey L. Rea of Mishawaka, IN; Usama bin
    Laden, leader of

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    the Al Qaida terrorist organization; and former President Saddam Hussein
    of Iraq.