    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book I)]
    [April 13, 2006]
    [Pages 720-730]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Small Business Week Conference
    April 13, 2006

        The President. Thank you all. Please be seated. Thanks for coming.
    So I see Eric behind the stage. I said,
    ``Congratulations on being the Small Business Owner of the Year.'' And
    he said, ``You know, if I thought part of the prize was having to stand
    in front of those cameras and introduce you, I might not have accepted
    it.'' [Laughter] But I appreciate your introduction, Eric. Thanks.
        I want to thank you all for allowing me to come by to celebrate the
    Small Business

    [[Page 721]]

    Week with you. You know, I'm an MBA, but I got to tell you, the most
    instructive part of my understanding about how the economy works--when I
    was trying to meet a payroll. The entrepreneurs of this country not only
    create and run their own businesses, they work hard. But I've learned
    that it's a calling to run your own business. I mean, there's something
    special about somebody who stands up and says, ``I got a dream; I got a
    hope.''
        The great thing about the entrepreneur in the small-business sector
    of our economy is that you provide great steam and strength to the
    growth of our economy. And today I want to talk to you about why the
    small-business owner is at the cornerstone of our progrowth economic
    policies and what we intend to do to make sure that the environment for
    taking risk is strong and viable here in this country.
        Before I do, I want to say thanks to Eric's wife, as well, for being here. I appreciate my friend
    Hector Barreto. He's the
    Administrator of the SBA. Thank you for being here, Hector. Thanks for
    serving. I also had the honor of congratulating Andrew Field, who is the founder and president of
    printingforless.com, Livingston, Montana, for being the runner-up; as
    well as Barbara and Leroy Shatto, owners of Shatto Milk Company, Osborn, Missouri, for
    also being the runner-up to the SBA Small Business Persons of the Year.
        This economy of ours is good. It's strong. It's a good time to be a
    small-business owner in America. After all, we grew at a healthy rate of
    3.5 percent last year. That's the fastest rate of any major
    industrialized economy. We've now had 17 straight quarters of economic
    expansion. Real after-tax income has grown by more than 8 percent since
    2001. After-tax means money in your pocket, that's what that means. That
    means, on average, Americans have an income that is $2,100 higher this
    year than it was the beginning of 2001--that's after adjusting for
    inflation.
        More Americans own a home today than ever before in history; more
    minorities own a home today than ever before in history. And that's
    positive news for this economy. Consumer confidence is at its highest
    point in nearly 4 years. Productivity is high, and it's on the rise. And
    that's good news for American entrepreneurs and really good news for
    American workers. Productivity increases improves the lives of our
    fellow citizens over time. Manufacturing activity is strong. This
    economy is going well, and the small-business owner is leading the way.
        It's really important for our country to understand this fact: Small
    businesses are vital for our workers. Small businesses create two out of
    every three new jobs, and they account for nearly half of the country's
    overall employment. Think about that. Two out of every three new jobs
    are created by the entrepreneur. That's why it makes sense to have the
    small business at the cornerstone of a progrowth economic policy.
        Recently our economic reports showed that this economy added 211,000
    jobs in the month of March. Over the last 2\1/2\ years, we've added 5.1
    million new jobs. This is the 31st straight month that the American
    economy has added jobs. The national unemployment rate is down to 4.7
    percent. That's lower than the average rate of the past four decades.
    When small businesses grow, the American economy benefits.
        Small businesses are vital for our communities. You sponsor Little
    League teams, and you donate to local charities and community drives,
    and you serve on your school boards and hospital boards and different
    community groups. Without our small businesses and entrepreneurs, our
    communities would be less vibrant and less welcoming. I appreciate the
    fact that you're close to your customers. Your hard work and investment
    is the lifeblood of our cities all across the country.

    [[Page 722]]

        Small businesses are vital to building a more hopeful future for
    this country. When you open up a shop or lease a factory or offer a new
    service, you take a risk. Risk-taking takes vision, and risk-taking
    takes courage. And it's the risk takers--are people who help define the
    vibrancy of an economy.
        I thought Ronald Reagan put it best when he said, the entrepreneurs
    are the ``explorers of the modern era.'' Welcome to exploration, and
    thank you for betting on a brighter future, and thank you for adding
    optimism into the soul of this country.
        Opening a small business is a great opportunity for a lot of folks
    to realize their dreams. I believe that we should promote an ownership
    society in America. We want people owning something in this society.
    Women now own more than one-quarter of the businesses in our country.
    The number of women-owned businesses is growing strongly. Hispanic
    Americans are opening their own businesses, and those businesses are
    opening at a rate--at three times faster than the national average. And
    those are positive developments for a society.
        It's been said that having your own business means working 80 hours
    a week so you can avoid working 40 hours a week for somebody else.
    [Laughter] Owning your own business is a great responsibility. But there
    is a strong reward in being independent. And I hope there's a strong
    reward in your understanding that you're contributing mightily to this
    great Nation.
        And so how do we continue to help people realize this sense of
    independence? My philosophy of government is this: Government's role is
    not to create wealth; the job of the government is to create an
    environment in which people are willing to take risk, in which
    entrepreneurship flourishes. And that's a strategy I've been pursuing
    and I'm going to continue to pursue. And so today I want to talk to you
    about three broad areas where we can continue to work to make sure this
    environment is good for the small-business owner. And that includes
    taxes and spending and health care and expansion of opportunities here
    and abroad.
        First, creating an environment where small businesses can flourish
    begins with keeping taxes low and spending your money wisely. We've
    overcome a lot in this economy, and I want to thank you for your hard
    work in helping us overcome a lot. The history of the past 5 years has--
    the economic history of the past 5 years has shown this country's
    capacity to overcome some pretty major hurdles. We've overcome a stock
    market correction, a recession, a vicious attack on the United States of
    America. We've overcome war, and we've overcome natural disasters.
        I told you what the statistics were about, how fast this economy is
    growing. It's really amazing when you put it in the context of what
    you've helped us overcome. And I believe one of the reasons we've
    overcome these hurdles is because we put progrowth economic policies in
    place, starting with real, substantial tax cuts.
        We cut the taxes for everybody who paid taxes. It wasn't one of
    these tax deals where, you know, ``Okay, you're okay; you're not.
    Therefore, you get tax relief; you don't.'' That's--I didn't think that
    was fair. You might remember, we lowered taxes on families by cutting
    the rates and by doubling the child credit. We reduced the marriage
    penalty. It didn't make much sense to tax marriage. [Laughter] We passed
    something else that I think makes a lot of sense for the small-business
    owner and the farmer and the rancher, is that we put the death tax on
    the way to extinction.
        The problem with that is that it comes back to life in 2011.
    Congress needs to set aside politics and get rid of the death tax, for
    the sake of our small-business owners. It makes no sense for you to have
    to pay taxes while you're alive, and then they pay taxes on the same
    business after you die.

    [[Page 723]]

        We cut the taxes on the small-business owners. If you want the
    small-business sector to grow, if you recognize two-thirds of new jobs
    are created by small businesses, it makes sense to let small businesses
    keep more of the money they make. After all, when a small-business owner
    has got more money in his or her treasury, you're likely to expand your
    business. You talk to some of these business--the folks who won the
    business award. I said, ``How many jobs--how many employees did you have
    5 years ago, and how many do you have today?''
        You had how many 5 years ago?
        Eric Hoover. Twenty-four.
        The President. Twenty-four 5 years ago, and over 100 and----
        Mr. Hoover. ----107.
        The President. ----107. His business expanded. That's what we want.
    Two-thirds of new jobs are created by small-business owners, and when
    small-business owners have more money in their treasuries, they're
    likely to expand. I also recognize that many small-business owners are
    either a sole proprietorship or--a small business is a sole
    proprietorship, or a subchapter S corporation, or a limited partnership,
    which means that the principals pay tax--the business pays tax at the
    individual income tax level. So when we reduce taxes on individuals, we
    are really reducing taxes on small businesses as well.
        There's a healthy debate in this town about cutting taxes; I
    understand that. And some in this town said cutting taxes would ruin the
    economy. Some of them said, ``If you cut taxes, this economy is going to
    look like the Great Depression.'' As a matter of fact, on the day when
    the Republicans in the House and the Senate were finalizing the 2003 tax
    cuts, one of the Democrat leaders said these
    tax cuts would do nothing to create jobs. That person was wrong 5.1
    million times over in the last 2\1/2\ years.
        And there's an ongoing debate about the taxes. Some in Washington
    proposed that we raise your taxes, either by repealing the tax cuts or
    letting them all expire. These are the same folks who said, ``If you
    keep your own money, that would be irresponsible and reckless policy.''
    Those folks were wrong then, and they're wrong now. To keep the small-
    business sector strong and creating jobs, Congress needs to make the tax
    relief permanent.
        And they can start when they get back by sending me a bill that
    extends the tax cuts we delivered on dividends and capital gains, so
    that our businesses and investors can plan with confidence. Uncertainty
    in the Tax Code makes it hard for investors to plan. Uncertainty in the
    Tax Code makes it hard for small-business owners to plan. We need
    certainty in this Tax Code, and Congress needs to make those tax cuts
    permanent.
        Oh, I know you'll hear the argument that says, ``Well, we got to
    raise your taxes in order to balance the budget.'' That's not the way
    Washington, DC, works. I've been here long enough to tell you, it's not
    going to work that way. What will end up happening is they're going to
    raise your taxes, and then they're going to figure out new ways to spend
    your money. The best way to balance this budget, the best way to cut the
    deficit in half by 2009, is to keep the progrowth economic policies in
    place and be wise about how we spend your money.
        And that starts with setting priorities. I think you know something
    about setting priorities. When you run your business, you got to set
    priorities, and we got to set them here in Washington. So long as we've
    got people in harm's way, so long as we've got men and women in our
    uniform in a time of war, the number-one priority of this Government is
    to make sure they got all what it takes to be victorious in the war on
    terror.
        We're making progress on what's called discretionary spending. The
    last two budgets I've submitted has actually cut discretionary spending,
    except that which is applied for our military and homeland defense. And
    that required hard work by the

    [[Page 724]]

    Congress. But it's not enough, in order to get this deficit cut in half
    by 2009 and keep this economy growing. One way Congress can help is to
    pass the line-item veto. It's an important tool to help bring fiscal
    discipline here to Washington, DC.
        And the idea has received bipartisan support. I was very pleased
    that my opponent in the 2004 campaign, Senator John Kerry, came down to the White House the other day and expressed
    his support for a line-item veto. He campaigned on a line-item veto, and
    now he's supporting the administration with a line-item veto. And other
    Democrats and Republicans must give the President the chance to trim out
    that part of the budget which does not meet our priorities. And I hope
    Congress passes this important piece of legislation quickly as a sign of
    reform.
        In the long-term, though, the biggest challenge facing our--facing
    the budgets of the United States are those inherent in mandatory
    programs. And that would be Social Security and Medicare. We got a
    problem in these programs because there's a lot of people just like me
    getting ready to retire. [Laughter] As a matter of fact, my retirement
    age--my eligibility age for Social Security just happens to come in
    2008. [Laughter] I hate to admit, I'm turning 60 this year. I can see
    some other folks out there fixing to turn 60 this year as well.
    [Laughter] And there's a lot of us. There's a lot of baby boomers who
    are living longer and are promised more benefits than the previous
    generation. And the system can't be sustained. It's just not going to
    work.
        And there's an unfunded liability problem that faces this generation
    today, and it's going to be especially acute for a generation coming up.
    And Congress needs to take my offer to sit down at the table in good
    faith. We need people from both political parties putting their ideas on
    the table about how we can deal with Social Security and Medicare, how
    we can do our job. I tell people, the job of a President is to confront
    problems and not to pass them on to future Presidents and future
    Congresses. And that's what the Congress ought to do--set aside needless
    politics and do what's right for the American people. And I'm going to
    work with them to do so.
        To create an environment where small businesses flourish means that
    health care has got to be affordable and available, is a health care
    system that needs to make sure that we've got high-quality care at
    reasonable prices for our people. The Federal Government has made a
    strong commitment to the elderly, and we're going to keep that
    commitment. And by the way, if you've got a mother or father who's
    eligible for Medicare, you need to make sure he or she sees the new--the
    benefits of this new drug--prescription drug coverage we've got. This is
    a good deal for the American seniors. And we're working hard to make
    sure that American seniors realize that there is a fine opportunity for
    them to improve their lot in life.
        Listen, I couldn't stand the thought of seniors having to choose
    between an electricity bill and pharmaceuticals. That didn't make any
    sense in our country. And if you're a low-income senior listening today,
    you ought to make sure you get ahold of a representative from Medicare
    or a friend or a churchmate, or call 1-800-MEDICARE, or get your son or
    daughter to get on medicare.gov and find out the benefits inherent in
    this program. If you're one-third of the seniors who are income-
    qualified, the Federal Government is going to pay 95 percent or more of
    your prescription drug benefits.
        And the Federal Government can keep its commitment to the poor, as
    well, by making sure Medicaid works well and by continuing to expand
    community health centers. It makes sense for the taxpayers to help us
    build community health centers for the poor and the indigent to take the
    pressure off of our emergency rooms in

    [[Page 725]]

    America's hospitals--a place where people can get reasonable primary
    care.
        But for the rest of us, we have got to make sure that the system is
    affordable and available without empowering the Federal Government to
    make all the decisions for the businessowners and the consumers and the
    providers. There's a debate here in Washington, DC, about who knows what
    to do best about health care. And there's some folks who said, ``The
    Federal Government can handle it all,'' and I'm not one of them. I
    believe the best health care system has the patient and the doctor
    central to the decisionmaking of this important industry. And I also
    understand that small businesses are hit hard by health care costs. As a
    matter of fact, many of the working uninsured work for small businesses,
    because small businesses cannot afford the health care they want to
    provide for their employees.
        And so here are some ideas to help. One, I think it's important to,
    as I said, make sure the patient and the doctor are central to the
    health care systems. And therefore, I believe strongly in what's called
    health savings accounts. And I think it's very important for the small-
    business owners to pay attention to the benefits of a health savings
    account for your particular company.
        Health savings accounts stand in contrast to the traditional
    insurance system. The traditional insurance system, as you know, the
    employer provides their employee with a plan that they pay for the
    deductible and a small copayment, and somebody else pays the bills. It's
    a third-party payer system. And when somebody else pays the bills, you
    really don't care about the cost, unless you're having to pay for the
    rising premium.
        Here's the way health savings accounts work. It says that, on the
    one hand, you buy catastrophic insurance coverage at a low price, and on
    the other hand, there is a cash account that covers the deductible of
    the catastrophic plan, that's contributed into the plan by employer,
    employee, or combination of both, tax-free. And that's--you use that to
    pay for your ordinary medical expenses, until the catastrophic plan
    kicks in. If you don't spend the money, the interest on that money is
    tax-free, and you roll it over to the next year that you--in which you
    can contribute again.
        It turns out that the combination of the contribution--the cash
    contribution into the tax-free health savings account, plus the premium
    on the insurance plan, is generally less than third-party payer systems.
    Small businesses can save money under this plan.
        The plan also empowers the employee to make rational decisions about
    health care. The more the consumer is involved in the quality and price
    of a product, the more likely it is the product is not going to be
    increasing at double-digits rates. Consumer involvement is an important
    aspect of quality health care at affordable prices.
        Over the past few years, the number of Americans who own health
    savings account has gone from 1 million to 3 million. More than a third
    of those who have chosen HSAs were previously uninsured. You know, if
    you're a young person feeling relatively healthy, you may decide, ``I
    don't want any health insurance; I'm never going to get sick.'' You
    might remember those days. [Laughter] Doesn't it make sense to be able
    to set aside money on a tax-free basis--that you earn tax-free to cover
    future medical costs? Health savings accounts do just that. Forty
    percent of those who own an HSA have family incomes below $50,000 a
    year. It's a really good idea, and I strongly urge you to look into
    them.
        In Connecticut earlier this month, I met a small-business
    guy who runs a retirement community. He said a
    third of his employees now have HSAs--health savings accounts. It's
    given them good coverage, and it saved the company $78,000 on health
    premiums. Health savings accounts make a lot of sense, and we've got to
    make them stronger, not weaker here in Washington, DC.

    [[Page 726]]

        One obstacle to expanding health savings accounts is the Federal Tax
    Code. Under current law, employers and employees pay no income tax or
    payroll tax on any health insurance provided through the workplace. But
    if you buy insurance on your own, you don't get the same tax break. And
    that means that the self-employed or the unemployed or workers at
    companies that don't provide health insurance are at a great
    disadvantage. So Congress needs to end discrimination in the Tax Code
    and give Americans who buy HSA policies on their own the same tax breaks
    that those who get their health insurance from their employers.
        Another problem with this Tax Code is that it limits the amount you
    can contribute to your HSA tax-free. The limit is usually tied to your
    deductible. Buy a high-deductible catastrophic plan, and you can
    contribute up to the deductible, by current law. But sometimes your out-
    of-pocket expenses are greater than your deductible. It's especially
    important for those with chronic illnesses. They often have expenses
    that go well beyond their deductibles. And so we need to fix the Tax
    Code by raising the cap on the amount of money you can put into your HSA
    tax-free. Raising this cap is going to help Americans cover all their
    out-of-pocket expenses. And equally important, raising this cap will
    help make sure this product is attractive to people. We want people
    being able to have different options in the marketplace. We want people
    directly involved in the decisionmaking of their health care.
        And by the way, I got another idea for small businesses, and that is
    business--small businesses ought to be allowed to pool risk across
    jurisdictional boundaries so they can buy insurance at the same discount
    big companies get. So I'm a strong believer in health--association
    health plans.
        Congress needs to act on this idea; it's a good idea for small
    businesses. I mean, if people want the small-business sector to
    flourish, then they ought to help small businesses be able to afford
    health care. This is a rational idea. It makes a lot of sense. The House
    has done its part, and now the United States Senate needs to do its part
    as well.
        Here's another idea to make sure health care is affordable and
    available. We got too many junk lawsuits running docs out of business
    and running up the cost of your medicine. When it looks like you might
    get sued, if you're a doctor, then you practice what's called defensive
    medicine. In other words, you prescribe more than you should, more
    procedures than necessary, because you're constantly thinking about how
    to make sure you can make your case in front of a jury. These frivolous
    lawsuits, this plethora of lawsuits, is running up the cost of health
    care for you. It's not only causing your premiums to go up, but it's
    causing the cost of medicine to go up, as doctors try to protect
    themselves against a lawsuit.
        And it affects the Federal budget, by the way. As you know, we've
    got a lot of health care here in Washington. We've got a Medicare system
    and a Medicaid system and a veterans system. It is anticipated--it is
    estimated that we spend $28 billion extra a year because of the
    defensive practice of medicine. And that's why I believe this issue is a
    Federal problem that requires a Federal response, and the United States
    Congress needs to pass medical liability reform this year.
        A couple of other points I want to make on health care. In other
    words, we've got a comprehensive strategy that says, ``We've got a
    better vision than having the Federal Government make all the decisions
    for you.'' It's a vision that says, ``We're going to take care of the
    elderly, and we're going to help the poor.'' But it's also a vision that
    says, ``We trust consumers, and we want the marketplace to function, and
    we want there to be reasonable policy to help deal with the rising cost
    of health care.''
        One such way is to promote transparency, so patients know exactly
    what their options are. When you really think about

    [[Page 727]]

    it, the health care field is not a very transparent place when it comes
    to price and quality. I mean, how many of you really ever shopped for
    health care? How many of you have ever actually gotten on the Internet
    and tried to compare price before you make a health care decision? Not
    many, because, one, the system has somebody else paying the bills for
    you, and, two, there's not a lot of transparency. So this Government is
    going to continue to work with folks in the health care field to make
    sure that price and quality are available to you as a consumer. It's
    amazing what happens when people have information at their fingertips
    before they make decisions.
        And another way to help wring out the costs in health care is to
    help encourage and expand the health care industry to adopt information
    technology as an integral part of its industry. Many of you have done
    that. Many of you have used the--information technology to help enhance
    the productivity of your business. That's generally not the case in
    health care. I mean, think about the guy who goes to the hospital, and
    he's carrying the file with him where all the pages are handwritten.
    It's kind of a problem in health care, since most doctors can't write
    legibly to begin with. [Laughter]
        And so I believe we ought to work to make sure we have electronic
    health records for each individual here in America that, one, protects
    your safety, but, two, carries your history with you so that we help
    wring out additional costs in medicine and, at the same time, reduce
    errors. So there's a comprehensive vision to make sure health care is
    available and affordable, particularly for our small-business owners.
        I want to talk about something else, and that is how to make sure
    that small businesses can expand here at home and abroad. First, at
    home, the Small Business Administration is working hard to make it
    easier for people to start up companies. We understand that sometimes
    people have got a good idea, but they're not sure how to get something
    started. They're a little worried about the startup. And so we've
    doubled the number of small-business loans out of the SBA since I came
    to office. And we've increased the number of loans to minority
    entrepreneurs by 175 percent. I told Hector I want people from all walks of life benefiting from
    Government programs, and he's done his job, and I appreciate that.
        Another important fact is this: We've lowered the cost of running
    the SBA by more than 20 percent. And so we've increased the amount of
    our loans to the entrepreneurs by 80 percent. By reducing the cost of
    granting a loan, it makes the loan less expensive for you.
        I'm also going to continue working up markets--working to open up
    markets overseas. I don't know if you realize this, but we're home to 5
    percent of the world's population. That means 95 percent of the
    potential customers live outside of the United States. If you're good at
    making something or growing something, it seems like you'd want to make
    sure your customer base is expanded, that you have an opportunity to be
    able to access those markets.
        Today, small businesses account for about a quarter of this
    country's exports. I find that to be an encouraging and interesting
    statistic. The problem is that a lot of small businesses in certain
    markets find it very difficult to navigate the bureaucracies and
    paperwork required to sell their good or their service in a particular
    country. Big businesses have got staffs of people who can do that; small
    businesses don't. And therefore, I think it is very important for the
    American citizen to understand that when we work to expand free and fair
    trade, in one way, we're helping to make sure the small-business sector
    of this country remains strong. The easier it is for somebody to sell a
    product in somebody else's market, the more likely it is people will be
    able to find opportunity here in the United States of America.

    [[Page 728]]

        When I took office, we had three free trade agreements; now we've
    got free trade agreements with 11 countries and 18 more pending. I'm
    also pushing for an ambitious conclusion to the Doha round of the world
    trade talks so we can lower barriers and reduce regulations to make it
    easier for people to be able to sell in foreign markets. So we need to
    be confident in our ability to compete. I believe the United States can
    outcompete anybody, anytime, anywhere, so long as the rules are fair.
        And so one of the places--one country that can show the world that
    it means to be a trading partner that plays by the rules is China. This
    coming week, next week, I'm going to meet with President Hu Jintao, and I look forward to welcoming him to the White
    House. America values China as a trading partner, but we expect China to
    live up to its commitments. China needs to make itself more transparent.
    China needs to enforce intellectual property rights. China needs to take
    additional steps to address the trade imbalance between our countries.
    And China needs to move to a flexible market-based currency.
        This country needs to be confident about the future, and we need to
    shape the future. And one way we can shape the future is to make sure
    that we stay on the leading edge of technology and research. And so I've
    called on Congress to double funding for basic--vital, basic research. I
    think that's a proper role for the Federal Government, to be involved
    with helping the basic sciences expand new horizons. Congress needs to
    make the research and development tax credit a permanent part of the Tax
    Code to encourage private sector to do its part about making sure this
    country is technologically advanced and innovative.
        And our education system must make sure we set high standards and
    measure and make sure that we're just not passing kids through the
    schools that can't read and write. And I'm calling on Congress to
    encourage school districts to have a special emphasis on math and
    science. We want our children to be educated so they can lead the world.
    We want them educated with the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the
    21st century.
        I also recognize that in order for us to be competitive, we've got
    to get off oil. I said in my State of the Union that the United States
    has a problem--we're addicted to oil. Now, I know you probably thought
    that was kind of weird for a Texan to say. [Laughter] But I'm telling
    you, we've got an economic security problem because of our reliance upon
    fossil fuels, and we've got a national security problem because of our
    reliance on fossil fuels.
        And I'm looking forward to working with Congress when they get back
    to make sure we invest wisely in new technologies that will encourage
    additional use of ethanol to power our automobiles; new technologies
    that will enable us to develop plug-in batteries so that hybrid vehicles
    are able to drive the first 40 miles on electricity, without using any
    gasoline; new technologies that will encourage solar energy; and
    technologies that will enable us to develop a safe nuclear power
    industry. We're spending a lot of money right now on clean coal
    technologies. What I'm telling you is we've got a comprehensive agenda
    and plan to take this country into a different era when it comes to
    consuming energy, an era that will make us less dependent on foreign
    sources of oil, enable us to be wise stewards of the environment.
        I want to talk to you about another issue to make sure this country
    remains competitive, and that's immigration. This is a highly emotional
    issue; it's a vitally important issue. It's an issue that we need to
    conduct a debate on in a way that is worthy of this country's best
    traditions. We are a land of immigrants. Any immigration reform has got
    to improve the ability to secure our borders and enforce our laws. We
    are a nation of laws. I don't know if you realize this, but since 2001,
    we have turned back 6 million folks trying to come into this country
    illegally. There are a lot of people

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    working hard down on our borders, and we're going to continue to
    modernize the borders to enable them to do--better do their jobs. But
    any effective immigration reform must include a temporary-worker program
    that includes a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing
    American employers to fill the jobs Americans will not do.

        This immigration program should not provide automatic citizenship or
    amnesty. It should provide a chance for people to work here legally on a
    temporary basis. Encouraging people to abide by the law is a necessary
    part of our country--the history of our country. Recognizing that people
    are doing jobs here that nobody else will do is important for, perhaps,
    some of you here in this audience. Making sure there are tamper-proof
    identification cards so people can't cheat on the system makes sense to
    me. Treating people with dignity makes sense to me. Making sure the
    system doesn't force people into the shadows of our society, changing
    that system for the better--for security and for decency--makes sense to
    me. And the Congress needs to set aside partisan differences and get a
    good bill to my desk.

        I was encouraged last week when Members of the United States Senate
    reached a promising bipartisan compromise on comprehensive immigration
    reform. That was a hopeful sign. Unfortunately, the compromise was
    blocked by the Senate Democratic minority leader.
    He refused to allow Senators to move forward and vote for amendments to
    the bill. It was a procedural gimmick that meant he was singlehandedly
    thwarting the will of the American people and impeding bipartisan
    efforts to secure this border and make this immigration system of ours
    more humane and rational. This town has got too much politics to it.
    It's time to set aside needless partisan poli-tics and focus on what's
    right for the United States of America.
        I appreciate being with people who are the entrepreneurs of this
    country. The entrepreneurial spirit of America is strong, and I intend
    to keep it strong. Look, I can't make you take risk; I can't make you
    dream. It's up to you. But I can keep your taxes low to make it easier
    for you to realize your dream. We can do something about health care
    costs so that you can realize the dream of making sure your employees
    have got health care coverage. We can open up markets for you. We can
    make sure the environment is strong, so people continue to realize their
    dreams.
        I love a society in which people are able to pursue their dreams, no
    matter who they are or where they're from. I think this really speaks to
    the greatness of the United States of America--a place where a person
    can start with nothing and end up with something, a place where a small-
    business owner can grow to be a big-business owner, if that's what he or
    she desires. A society in which people are able to accomplish their
    dreams is a whole society and a complete society.
        Ours is a remarkable country because of the entrepreneurial spirit
    of America. And I want to thank you for being a part of this great land
    of ours. Thanks for what you do. Thanks for expanding the job base. May
    God bless you, and may God continue to bless your families.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:46 a.m. at the Ronald Reagan Building
    and International Trade Center. In his remarks, he referred to Eric
    Hoover, president and chief executive officer, Excalibur Machine Co.,
    and his wife, Annette; and President Hu Jintao of China. The Office of
    the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of these
    remarks. A portion of these remarks could not be verified because the
    tape was incomplete.

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