    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
    [October 10, 2006]
    [Pages 1807-1814]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Congressional Candidate Michael A. ``Mac''
    Collins in Macon, Georgia
    October 10, 2006

        Thanks for coming. It's good to be in Macon. Thanks for coming out.
    One thing about old Mac is, you know where he stands. That's the kind of
    Congressman you need from this part of the world, and that's the kind of
    Congressman we need in Washington, DC, straightforward thinker, bringing
    common sense to the Nation's Capital.
        I'm proud to stand here with Mac Collins. I know him well. I've
    worked with him; I've listened carefully to his ideas. No doubt in my
    mind he's the best person to represent the Eighth Congressional District
    from the State of Georgia.
        I'm also for him because he married well. Of course, that's why he
    invited me, because I married well. [Laughter] And I want you to know,
    Julie and Mac, that Laura sends her very best to you both. I know she was your
    first choice for this fundraiser. [Laughter] She's got to be the most
    patient woman in America. I know we've got some Texans here, and they
    went to the same college as Laura did. And when she went there, she,
    frankly, wasn't interested in politics and, I think, didn't care for
    politicians. [Laughter] Now here she is as the Nation's First Lady, and
    I firmly believe this country is better off with Laura as the First
    Lady.

    [[Page 1808]]

        I'm not only proud to be here with Mac Collins--and I want to thank
    you for supporting him, by the way. I cannot thank you enough for
    helping this good man. He not only needs to fill the hat in order to run
    a good campaign, he's going to need your work coming down the stretch.
    He's going to need you to help make the phone calls and put up the signs
    and turn out the vote. He's going to need the grassroots activists to
    step up and say to their fellow citizens, you've got a good man in Mac
    Collins. He knows what happens in Washington, DC. He's not a novice up
    there. When he gets back up there, he knows what he needs to do. And
    he's going to represent the will of the people of this district, see.
    That's the thing I like about Mac. And so I want to thank you for giving
    of your money, and thank you for giving of your time when we come down
    the stretch.
        I also want to thank you for supporting one of the Nation's fine
    Governors, Governor Sonny Perdue. You know
    what--all Sonny is doing is--in office is what he said he's going to do.
    He said he's going to do this, he's going to do it, and he does. And I'm
    proud to be with Sonny, and I want to thank you for helping him.
        I'm also proud to be able to work with a really fine United States
    Senator in Senator Saxby Chambliss, and I
    see sweet Julianne is with you. Thanks
    for coming, Julianne. Now, let me say this about Saxby: If you're
    interested in agriculture, you don't have to worry about your interests
    being represented in the United States Senate. The man has got some
    stroke up there in Washington--[laughter]--and he knows what he's
    talking about. And those of us in the White House listen to him.
    Senator, we're proud you're here.
        Georgia has got a fine congressional delegation, and one of the
    Congressmen is with us today, Lynn Westmoreland. Congressman, thanks for coming. Good to see you.
    Appreciate your time. We've spent some quality time together, and I know
    he's a good one, and I know he's looking forward to getting Mac up there
    to work with him to do what's right for the country.
        I want to thank Alec Poitevint--with us;
    he's the chairman of--the national committeeman. It seems like I've been
    saying his name for two decades, or three decades. [Laughter] Thanks for
    coming, Alec. Perry McGuire--Perry McGuire is
    with us; he's the candidate for the attorney general for the State of
    Georgia. Perry, thanks for coming. Good luck to you, Perry.
        I want to thank all the local officials and State officials who are
    here. Appreciate you serving.
        There are a lot of issues that I'll be talking about. I know Mac
    will be talking about them. We've got issues such as making sure we
    become less dependent on foreign oil. It's going to be helpful to have
    these Georgia farmers growing oil--growing the feedstock for oil--
    [laughter]--like soy diesel or ethanol. It's coming. I look forward to
    working with Mac to spend some money to help new technologies evolve. We
    can't be complacent just because the price of gasoline is going down.
    Being dependent on oil from overseas is still a national security
    concern. And I intend to push hard for technologies that will enable us
    to diversify.
        I'm going to work with Mac to make sure health care costs are
    reasonable so people can have affordable insurance. There's a lot of
    issues we can talk about, but one of the most important issues is taxes.
    It's a big national issue. I want to spend a little time talking about
    it today because there's a fundamental difference between the Republican
    and Democrat Parties on this important issue. And I'm going to discuss
    this issue and these differences between now and election day. And I'm
    going to spend some time right here in Macon, Georgia, talking about it.
        Mac and I share a philosophy about taxes. We believe that the people
    who best know how to spend your money are the people who earn the money
    in the first place. And that's you. So we worked to

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    ensure that working families are able to keep more of their paycheck.
    And that--those weren't just empty campaign words. Those are actually
    deliverables; that's what we did. Mac stood squarely for cutting the
    taxes. My administration and the Congress have enacted the largest tax
    relief since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. We cut the taxes for
    every American who pays taxes.
        If you paid income taxes, we cut your taxes, see. We doubled the
    child tax credit; we reduced the marriage penalty; we cut taxes on small
    businesses; we cut taxes on capital gains and dividends to promote
    investment and jobs. And to reward family businesses and farmers for a
    lifetime of hard work and savings, we put the death tax on the road to
    extinction.
        The Republican record on taxes is clear, and the Democrats in
    Washington have a clear record of their own. The trouble is, they don't
    want you to know about it. Recently the top Democrat leader in the
    House made an interesting declaration. She
    said, ``We love tax cuts.'' Given her record, she must be a secret
    admirer. [Laughter] It's not just the so-called tax cuts for the rich
    she opposes. When we cut taxes for everybody who pays income taxes, she
    voted against it. When we reduced the marriage penalty, she voted
    against it. When we cut taxes on small businesses, she voted against it.
    When we lowered the taxes for families with children, she voted against
    it. When we put the death tax on the road to extinction, she voted
    against it. Time and time again, she had an opportunity to show her love
    for tax cuts--[laughter]--and she voted no. [Laughter] If this is a
    Democrat's idea of love--[laughter]--I wouldn't want to see what hate
    looks like.
        Now she and other Democrats are trotting
    out their old line about how they're only going to raise taxes on the
    rich. We've heard that before. Sounds like a nice idea until you start
    doing the math. Let me just give you one example. Earlier this year, the
    Democrats put forward a budget alternative that called for $177 billion
    in additional spending authority over the next 5 years, a number that
    does not include all the other spending they proposed. The problem is,
    even if they raise taxes on everyone making over $200,000, they would
    bring in only $108 billion of new revenues. And that means the Democrats
    would have to come up with $69 billion for additional spending they
    proposed. And guess who's going to have to pay?
        When the Democrats find themselves short of money to pay for all
    their spending promises, it's the middle class Americans who get stuck
    with the bill. Recently, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means
    Committee--that's the committee that writes taxes--said he can't think
    of one of our tax cuts that should be extended. Think of that, not one--
    not the tax cuts for families with children, not the reduction in the
    marriage penalty, not the tax cuts on small businesses, not the tax cuts
    on dividend and capital gains, not the cut in the death tax. Even when
    asked to explain his remarks, he refused to commit to extending a single
    tax cut we passed. If he's not going to commit to extending these tax
    cuts now, think of what he would do if the Democrats gained control over
    the United States Congress and he became chairman of this important
    committee.
        The difference between our parties could not be clearer, and so is
    your choice on election day. If you want to keep the tax cuts we passed,
    vote Republican on November the 7th.
        What they don't seem to understand, what the national Democrats
    don't seem to understand, is that the economy grows when you control
    more of your own money. The tax cuts we passed put more than a trillion
    dollars in the hands of American workers and families and small
    businesses. And you've used that money to help fuel our strong and
    growing economy. The national unemployment rate is now 4.6 percent.
    People are working in the United

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    States of America. Since August of 2003, our economy has added more than
    6.6 million new jobs. Our progrowth economic policies work. They're
    making a difference for the people of America.
        And this strong and growing economy has helped us reduce the Federal
    deficit. When I set a goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009,
    Democrats said we couldn't get it done. Last year the ranking Democrat
    on the House Budget Committee said
    that my budget brought us nowhere near the goal of cutting the deficit
    in half. Here's what actually happened: A growing economy has helped
    produce record tax revenues, and in July, I announced that we were a
    year ahead of schedule in our plans to cut the deficit in half.
        The Democrats' approach to cutting the deficit is taking more of
    your money to pay for their spending. The Republican approach is to
    restrain spending and let you keep more of your own money so this
    economy grows. And there's a fundamental difference, and it's clear as
    night and day.
        Next month, our Nation has got this choice to make: Do we keep taxes
    low so we can keep this economy growing, or do we let the Democrats in
    Washington raise taxes and hurt the economic vitality of this country?
    The decision is yours to make in the voting booth. This decision will
    have a huge impact on the working people all across the United States of
    America. Whether you're a worker worried about the size of your paycheck
    or a business owner who's thinking about hiring more workers or a family
    worried about gas prices or health care costs, the last thing you need
    is higher taxes. To keep this economy growing and delivering prosperity
    to more Americans, we need to make the tax relief we passed permanent.
    And the best man for the Eighth Congressional District from Georgia to
    do that is Mac Collins.
        Now, there are a lot of issues we got to discuss on the campaign
    trail, lot of domestic issues. But there is no bigger issue facing the
    voters than who best to protect the United States of America. You know,
    when I was campaigning in Georgia in 2000, I didn't believe I'd be
    saying such a statement. I didn't want to be a war President. I don't
    remember a lot of discussion about war in the 2000 campaign. But war
    came to our shores, a war we didn't ask for and a war we must win for
    the sake of future generations.
        People ask me, what's it like to be the President. I said, it's a
    decisionmaking experience. [Laughter] And I make a lot. And a lot of
    decisions I make are based upon the knowledge I learned from that attack
    on September the 11th, 2001. I learned we face an enemy that is
    ruthless, that will kill the innocent in order to achieve objectives. I
    learned we face an enemy that has got an ideology, an ideology that is
    hard for a lot of Americans to understand, an ideology that does not
    believe in the same freedoms we believe.
        Let's talk about religion for a second. One of the great, great
    beliefs of America and the fundamental cornerstone of our liberty is the
    fact that in America, you can worship any way you so choose. If you're a
    Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, you're equally
    American, equally American. That's a sacred right for all of our
    citizens. It's a right that we must never abandon in America. And it
    stands in stark contrast to what the enemies of freedom believe. They
    say if you don't worship the way they tell you to worship, you'll be
    held to account. They say that if you don't view religion the way they
    view religion, you'll be punished.
        We're in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. It's a
    struggle between rational, reasonable people who believe in basic
    freedoms versus extremists and radicals who murder the innocent in order
    to achieve their objectives. Right after 9/11, I made it clear that if
    one were to harvest--harbor one of these extremists or radicals, they
    will be judged as equally as guilty as those who commit murder.

    [[Page 1811]]

        And that's why we went into Afghanistan. I said, ``You've been
    harboring Al Qaida''--remember, they were providing safe haven for Al
    Qaida to train. I gave them time to turn over Al Qaida to us; they chose
    otherwise. And as a result of defending ourselves, which is the most
    important job of government, we liberated 25 million people from the
    clutches of that ideology.
        This Nation cannot wait for threats to fully materialize. If we're
    to do our most important job, which is to protect the American people,
    we must make sure we deal with threats before they hurt us. That's one
    of the fundamental changes of September the 11th. And it's important to
    have people in Congress who understand that. It's important to have a
    person like Mac Collins who knows that we must deal with the threat
    overseas so we do not have to face that threat here at home. I saw a
    threat, the Congress saw a threat, the United Nations saw a threat in
    Saddam Hussein, and the world is better off
    without him in power.
        And now the challenge is to do the hard work of helping the Iraqis
    defend their freedom, the hard work of helping this young democracy
    survive the onslaught of murder from those who would prevent democracy
    from taking root. It's in our interests that we do so because, you see,
    we must defeat the enemy overseas so we don't have to face them here at
    home. And if we were to retreat before the job is done, they would
    follow us straight to America.
        And I understand it's hard on the American people, because the enemy
    is able to take innocent lives, and it gets on our TV screens. And it's
    hard. I know it's hard, because Americans are compassionate people. We
    care about innocent life. We care about the human condition. But it's
    necessary work. We'll continue to make sure our commanders have that
    which they need to do the job. We will be flexible in our tactics in
    order to help this young democracy survive. We will deploy the assets
    necessary to bring people to justice overseas so we don't have to face
    them here at home.
        And I need people by my side in the United States Congress like Mac
    Collins, who will make sure our brave men and women who wear the uniform
    have all that's necessary to defend the United States of America. We
    will stay; we will fight; and we will win, for the security of the
    United States.
        But we must do more than just stay on the offense against these
    killers. We pressure them every day. It's harder to plot and plan when
    you're on the run or you're hiding in a cave. But I recognized after 9/
    11, we must also deploy all assets to protect you. I think about my job
    of protecting you every day. It's the most fundamental of all
    requirements of government. And so after 9/11, I called upon Congress,
    and sometimes--and a week later called upon Congress to give our folks
    on the frontline of fighting terror the tools necessary to protect you.
        There were walls set up between intelligence and criminal
    investigators that made it impossible for folks to share intelligence
    with those who are hired to protect you. It's hard for me to explain why
    that was the case--just take my word for it. [Laughter] It was there.
    You had somebody get some intelligence; they couldn't share it with the
    person charged with criminal justice matters. And it made us vulnerable
    to attack.
        And so I asked Congress to pass the PATRIOT Act. Congressman Mac
    Collins didn't hesitate. He said it's the right thing to do, to give
    those on the frontline of fighting terror the tools necessary to protect
    you. As a matter of fact, right after 9/11, it wasn't hard to get the
    bill passed. Five years later, however--or 4 years later, I came back
    and said, ``We need to renew the bill,'' and on the floor of the United
    States Senate, Democrats filibustered the bill. See, that's Democrat-
    talk--I mean, Washington-talk for killing it, trying to kill it. They
    must think differently about this

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    war on terror. It's a fundamental issue in this campaign, the difference
    about how to defend America.
        The Senate minority leader openly bragged
    about--``We killed the bill,'' he said, killed the PATRIOT Act. To me,
    it speaks volumes in this campaign about which party clearly sees the
    enemy as it is and which party is willing to do the hard work necessary
    to protect the American people. I do not question the patriotism of
    anybody. I just know there's a different mindset, when they fought the
    PATRIOT Act's renewal.
        As you know, I put in place a plan that said if Al Qaida is calling
    into the United States, we want to know why. We want to know why. In
    this war on terror, we're capturing people. And sometimes, for example,
    we might find something in somebody's pocket, and, say, it had a phone
    number of--an American phone number, and that phone number gets called
    from overseas--not with a call within the United States but from outside
    in. We need to know. If the most important job is to protect the
    American people, we need to know why that person, that Al Qaida and/or
    Al Qaida affiliate, is making a phone call.
        So the United States Congress had a vote on this recently; out of
    the House of Representatives, 166 Democrats voted against the bill,
    voted against giving our people the tools necessary to protect you.
    These are fine people; I know a lot of them. They're decent citizens of
    our country. They just have a different view about the world in which we
    live. Perhaps one way to summarize it is, okay, we'll get tough; we'll
    respond after we're attacked. My attitude is, we better give our folks
    the tools necessary to protect you before we get attacked, to protect
    the American people.
        As you, I'm sure, read, we have been capturing people on the
    battlefield--I call it a battlefield because this is a war--and we have
    interrogated those people in order to find out whether or not they know
    about attacks on the United States. In my discussion to the American
    people about this issue, I talked about some of the examples. For
    example, we have captured and interrogated a fellow named Khalid Sheikh
    Mohammed, who our intelligence people
    believe was the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks.
        This country is under threat. The enemy still wants to hurt us. And
    therefore, it seemed like it made sense to me that when we found the
    mastermind, or the presumed mastermind of the September the 11th
    attacks, that our professionals should find out what this fellow knows.
    If the most important job is to protect the American people, we must
    give our professionals the tools necessary to protect you.
        This bill came up for a vote recently in the House and the Senate.
    The overwhelming majority of Democrats voted against giving our
    professionals the tools necessary to protect you. There's a fundamental
    difference in this campaign, and it's a clear difference. And the
    American people need to understand there's a difference in this
    campaign. Our most important job is to protect you from attack, and the
    Republican Party will make sure our professionals have the tools
    necessary to defend you.
        And the people of this congressional district don't need to worry
    about where Mac Collins stands. I look forward to working with this good
    man to help protect you from the threats we face.
        We're in an ideological struggle. It's the challenge of our time.
    It's the call of our generation. We've got a great military. We've got
    wonderful professionals working hard to protect you. We've got one other
    fantastic way to defend America, a great asset, and that's freedom. I
    believe in the universality of freedom. I believe there's an Almighty. I
    believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire for people
    to be free. And I believe that the United States of America, it's in our
    interest that we promote liberty. Oh, not every democracy is going to
    look like ours. Each

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    democracy ought to represent their own history and traditions. But it's
    in our interest that liberty flourish because that's how you ultimately
    win the ideological struggle that pits reasonable people against
    extremists. That's how you win a struggle with those who want their
    children to grow up in a reasonable society, a hopeful society, against
    those who will create chaos so that they can't do so.
        You know, I recently--you might remember, I just had an interesting
    experience recently when the Prime Minister of Japan and I went down to Elvis's place. [Laughter]
    Laura and I had never been there, and so--
    [laughter]--I thought that would be fun. [Laughter] Prime Minister
    Koizumi really wanted to go there--[laughter]--because he is a--he's an
    Elvis fan. He loves Elvis. But I also wanted to tell a story. I'm going
    to tell it right quick and then head back up and have dinner with Laura.
    Here it is: I find it is a really interesting kind of twist of history,
    I guess you could put it, that I'm going to Elvis's place with the Prime
    Minister of Japan, and my dad fought the
    Japanese. Eighteen-year-old George H.W. Bush--I'm sure you've got
    relatives, the same thing happened to them--responded to the violent
    attack on the United States and said, ``I want to volunteer,'' like
    thousands of other kids.
        And we fought the Japanese with all we had. And it was a bloody
    war--really bloody war. And yet 60 years later, I'm on Air Force One
    flying to Memphis--[laughter]--talking about the peace, working with
    Prime Minister Koizumi on issues like
    North Korea. And I will tell you, we're more likely to solve this issue
    peacefully when we've got people like Japan and China and South Korea
    and Russia saying the exact same thing as the United States is to the
    man in North Korea.
        It helps to be able to sit down and talk ally to ally about the
    peace. We talked about the fact that the Japanese had 1,000 troops in
    Iraq helping this young democracy fight off the extremists that can't
    stand the thought of a free society in their midst. We talked about the
    strategic implications of abandoning those who long for liberty in the
    Middle East. He knows what I know, that
    there could be a world in which moderate governments get toppled, which
    is precisely what the enemy said they want to do, so that these
    extremists control energy resources in which they'd be able to blackmail
    the free world.
        And combine that with a nuclear weapon in the hands of an Iran, and
    Koizumi and I understand that the world
    would look back and say, ``What happened to them? How come they couldn't
    see the threat?'' We're all flying on Air Force One with the former
    Prime Minister of Japan--he recently left office--talking about the
    peace. And I found that to be amazing. Something happened between when
    George H.W. Bush became a Navy pilot, and
    his son is talking about the peace. And what happened was, Japan adopted
    a Japanese-style democracy. Liberty has got the capacity to change an
    enemy into an ally. Liberty has got the capacity to bring hope where
    hope is needed and light where there's darkness.
        I believe if this generation does its duty to protect future
    generations of Americans, someday an American President will be sitting
    down talking with the duly elected leaders of the Middle East and
    talking about the peace, and a generation of Americans will be better
    off.
        Those are the stakes of the elections of 2006, the stakes of the
    world in which we live. And I'll be proud to work with Mac Collins to
    bring the peace we all want. God bless.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:35 p.m. at the Macon Centreplex. In his
    remarks, he referred to former President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; former
    Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan; and Chairman Kim Jong Il of
    North Korea.

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