[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

[[Page 729]]

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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