    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
    [July 11, 2006]
    [Pages 1378-1384]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Gubernatorial Candidate Mark Green in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    July 11, 2006

        Thanks for coming. Thanks for the introduction. Thanks for
    supporting the next Governor of Wisconsin, Mark Green.
        I know a little something about what it means to be a Governor and a
    chief executive officer of government. Here is what you need: You need
    somebody who knows how to set an agenda; you need somebody who knows how
    to achieve the agenda; you need somebody who can get results without
    worrying about public opinion polls; you need somebody who stands on
    principle; you need somebody who shoots straight with the people. And
    that person is Mark Green.
        There is no doubt in my mind he will be a great Governor for
    Wisconsin. I got to know him; this isn't the first time I've been with
    him before. I've seen him in action in Washington, DC. He is a highly
    respected Member of the United States Congress. People trust his word.
    When he says something, he means it. He is a positive influence in
    Washington, DC. He can bring people together, which is what you need in
    this State. He is an honorable, decent man, and I am proud to stand with
    him as he runs for Governor. I want to thank you all for supporting him.
        I know something about running; you cannot win unless your friends
    step up. And tonight you have stepped up. And I know Mark is grateful,
    and so am I, for coming tonight. So, thanks for being here.
        You can't run for Governor unless you have a wife who loves you and
    a family standing with you. And the Green family is a fine, fine family.
    I want to thank Sue for being here and
    Rachel and Anna and
    Alex.
        I was also proud to have met Jeremy and
    Elizabeth Green, the mom and dad. The mom
    kind of reminded me of my mom--[laughter]--
    constantly reminding Mark, you know, what to do, how to say it.
    [Laughter] I said, ``Are you listening to her?'' He said, ``Yes, all the
    time.'' I said, ``Then you're going to win.'' Thank you all for being
    here.
        And by the way, Laura sends her love to the
    Greens. If you really need help coming down the stretch, I suggest you
    invite Laura to come here to Wisconsin. She'll help you win. She's a
    great First Lady.
        We're having the time of our lives, by the way, and it really helps
    to--well, I have a 45-second commute. [Laughter] And it helps to commute
    to a home where there's somebody you respect and love there. And
    she sends her best. She knows what I know, that
    you can't win in politics alone. And so for those who have given money,

    [[Page 1379]]

    thanks. And for those of you who are kind of warming up for the
    campaign, thanks in advance for what you're going to do, which is to put
    up the signs, knock on the doors, get on the telephones; go to your
    churches, community centers, your synagogues, your houses of worship and
    say, you've got a good, decent man in Mark Green who can lead this
    State.
        So thanks for being here. It means a lot to Mark, and it means a lot
    to me. I'm traveling over from Washington, by the way, with another fine
    public servant from Wisconsin, and that's Congressman Paul Ryan.
        By the way, we're working on an important piece of legislation in
    Washington. That is to give the President the opportunity to kind of
    take some of these special interest spending out of these spending
    bills. We call it the line-item veto. It's one way to bring some fiscal
    sanity to Washington, DC. It's one way to make sure that people don't
    play politics with your money. Interestingly enough, the bill passed the
    United States House of Representatives, and the bill sponsor was this
    fine Member from Wisconsin, Paul Ryan. I want to
    thank you for your leadership.
        Green's leaving the House, and he's going to be succeeded by speaker
    John Gard. And I want to thank you for running,
    and I wish you all the very best in your run for the United States
    Congress, Mr. Speaker. You'll make a fine Member of the House of
    Representatives.
        I want to thank all the local officials who are here in the
    statehouse. By the way, if you're a member of the statehouse, a senator
    or representative, you're fixing to have a sea change when Mark wins the
    governorship. You're going to find somebody that's going to be a joy to
    work with, somebody who will make an agenda, a clear agenda, somebody
    who is making decisions based upon sound principles. So I look forward
    on your behalf to get yourself a new Governor for the State of
    Wisconsin.
        I want to thank the grassroots leaders who are here. First of all,
    Margaret Farrow is here, former Lieutenant
    Governor. Margaret, thank you for coming. I appreciate you being here.
    Good to see you again. I've spent some quality time here in the State of
    Wisconsin. Some of my most fond memories campaigning in 2000 and 2004
    were in this State. And I had the honor of getting to know Margaret. So
    it's great to see you. Thanks for coming. Thanks for helping the next
    Governor. He needs your help.
        I want the thank Rick Graber, who is the
    chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. He is a good friend of
    mine and a good man. I want to thank Mary Buestrin, and I want to thank Klauser, Jim Klauser and thank all the grassroots activists again
    for coming.
        These are historic times in which we live. And I'm glad to have had
    Congressman Green in Washington, DC, during a time where the President
    has had to make some tough decisions and the country has been through
    some tough times. We are a nation at war. I wish I could report
    differently. But you need to have a President and you need to have
    leaders who see the world the way it is, not the way we would hope it
    would be. And my biggest job, and the biggest job of people in
    Washington, DC, is to protect the American people from further attack.
    And the way to do that is to stay on the offense, to give the enemy no
    quarter, and to bring them to justice before they hurt us again, and
    that's precisely what this administration will continue to do.
        Iraq is a part of the war on terror. It's the central front in the
    war on terror, and the reason it's a central front is because the enemy
    that attacked us has made it clear they would like to have a safe haven
    from which to attack us again. I didn't make this up. I'm just telling
    you what the enemy has said. In order to make sure this country is
    secure, you better have a Commander in Chief who listens carefully

    [[Page 1380]]

    to what the enemy says and takes them seriously, which I do.
        By the way, just so you know, when you're the Chief Executive
    Officer, you make a lot of decisions. And 9/11 affected my
    decisionmaking a lot. I vowed that the country would do everything--we
    would do everything to protect the country. I meant what I said. Iraq is
    part of protecting the country--not to revisit a lot of history.
        But one of the lessons of September the 11th is when this Nation
    sees a threat, it must take these threats seriously before they fully
    materialize. That's a lesson we must learn and we must not forget. And
    we saw a threat; Republicans and Democrats saw a threat in Saddam
    Hussein. After all, he had attacked his
    neighbors. He had used weapons of mass destruction. At the very least,
    he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction. He had
    terrorist connections. He was shooting at American pilots. The decision
    I made was the right decision. America is safer and the world is better
    off without Saddam Hussein in power.
        The enemy believes we're weak. That's what they say. They believe
    we'll lose our nerve. They believe it's just a matter of time before we
    pull out of Iraq. The stakes in Iraq are incredibly high. But we've got
    some things going for us. We've got a fantastic United States military.
    And I want to thank Mark Green and Brian for
    supporting these men and women. Listen, any time you have a man or a
    woman in uniform in harm's way, they deserve the full support of the
    United States Government. And thanks to these good Congressmen and this
    administration, we've given them the full support of the United States
    Government.
        We also have 12 million people in Iraq who say, ``I want to live in
    freedom.'' I know it seems like an eternity since the elections last
    December. I guess it's because we've got too many TV channels that
    things seem to move real quick. But it wasn't all that long ago that the
    people, when given the chance, went to the polls and said, ``We want to
    be free. We want to live in a Iraqi-style democracy. Just give us a
    chance.'' That's what they said.
        And there are a group of killers, coldblooded killers, that are
    trying to stop the advance of this young democracy. That's what they're
    trying to do. You got to ask yourself, what kind of people fear
    democracy? Who wouldn't want people to worship freely? What is the
    mindset where you can't go to the public square and express yourself
    openly? It's the same mindset that wants to attack us for what we
    believe in.
        We're not going to lose in Iraq. As a matter of fact, we will win in
    Iraq so long as we stay the course. Twelve million people have voted.
    They've now got a unity government.
        I went over there and saw the man, Prime Minister Maliki. You know what I was looking for? I was looking for,
    do we have someone there who can set an agenda; somebody who can follow
    through; somebody who is dedicated to a government of, by, and for the
    people. And I found a courageous man there. And he's wondering, he's
    wondering when he hears all the rhetoric in Washington, DC, and around
    the country, he's wondering whether the United States can keep its word.
    And I told him this, I said, ``So long as you're willing to make the
    tough decisions, so long as you're willing to represent the people, the
    United States of America will keep our word.''
        It's in our interest we succeed in Iraq. And we're going to succeed
    in Iraq. And when we succeed in Iraq, we'll be a powerful example of
    freedom in the heart of the Middle East.
        You know, you might have noticed recently that I went to Graceland--
    that's Elvis's place--[laughter]--with Prime Minister Koizumi. I think
    that's really interesting. I think we need to put that visit in
    perspective about what we're talking about and the hard decisions we've
    made in Washington, DC.

    [[Page 1381]]

        You see, 60 years ago my dad, and I'm
    sure some of your relatives, fought the Japanese. They were the sworn
    enemy of the United States of America. A lot of people lost their lives
    in that war, a lot.
        By the way, as you might recall, they attacked us at Pearl Harbor.
    We lost more people on 9/11 than we did in Pearl Harbor. And yet 60
    years later, after fighting this bloody war, I go to Graceland with
    Prime Minister Koizumi. Something
    happened. And what happened in between that war and today was the
    Japanese adopted a Japanese-style democracy.
        Democracies yield the peace we want. And guess what we talked about
    after we got past talking about Elvis? [Laughter] We talked about North
    Korea. I congratulated Prime Minister Koizumi for committing 1,000 troops into Iraq to help this
    young democracy. And he did so because he knows what I know: The best
    way to defeat the terrorists in the short run is to find them and bring
    them to justice and to prevent them from having safe haven. The best way
    to defeat them in the long run is the spread of liberty. Freedom yields
    the peace we want. Freedom is able to convert. Liberty has the capacity
    of converting an enemy into an ally, and someday an American president
    will be talking with a duly elected leader of Iraq and talking about the
    peace.
        We're doing the hard work necessary to protect ourselves, and we're
    doing the hard work of supporting young democracies. So we're laying the
    foundation of peace for generations to come. And I appreciate the vision
    and strength and courage of Mark Green on this tough issue.
        So today I had an interesting announcement to make, and that is that
    the projected deficit of 423 billion is now down to 296 billion in one
    year. It now means the deficit is 2.3 percent of GDP, which is about
    average over the last 40 years. What's interesting about that
    announcement is that we were able to achieve deficit reduction primarily
    because the revenues increased in spite of the fact that we cut taxes.
        You might remember the history of this administration and working
    with Mark--he understands that and so does Ryan--
    that we've been through a recession and corporate scandals, a stock
    market correction, an attack on the United States of America, two wars--
    two battles in theaters to defend ourselves--Afghanistan and Iraq, major
    natural disasters, high energy prices. And yet this economy of ours is
    strong, and we intend to keep it that way.
        And one of the reasons it's strong and one of the reasons we
    recovered is because we cut the taxes. We cut the taxes on small-
    business people. We cut the taxes on workers. We cut the taxes on
    families raising children. We cut the taxes on dividends. We cut the
    taxes on capital gains.
        I was at Allen-Edmonds today; we accelerated depreciation, which
    caused him to buy more equipment, which makes him an incredibly,
    productive, competitive company. Cutting the taxes works. It makes this
    economy strong.
        You need a Governor who will cut the taxes in Wisconsin. Mark Green
    is that Governor.
        You know, it's amazing, the rhetoric in Washington is beyond belief
    at times. They say in order to solve the deficit, you've got to raise
    taxes. We just proved them wrong. In order to solve the deficit, you cut
    taxes, you increase economic vitality, which yields more taxes. That's
    how it works. You need a tax cutter as your Governor here. It's just a
    philosophical difference, by the way, between people like myself and
    others, me and Mark and others. And it's this: We trust you with your
    money. Who best to spend your money? You? Or the government?
        We believe that you can best spend your money. Do you realize the
    tax cuts we passed left $1.1 trillion in the hands of workers and small-
    business owners and entrepreneurs and farmers?

    [[Page 1382]]

        And I made the point today: You have clearly shown that you can
    spend your money better than the Federal Government can, and therefore,
    our economy is strong. It's the envy of the world. One thing we've got
    to do in Washington, DC, is to make sure that we continue to grow. And
    one good way to do that is to make the tax cuts permanent.
        The other equation in reducing the deficit, by the way, is to make
    sure we're wise about how we spend your money. You need a Governor who
    knows how to set priorities. I appreciate working with the
    Speaker and the leader in the
    Senate; we've set priorities. I told you what the
    priorities are. It's defending this country and giving our troops what
    they need to win the war on terror. Beyond that, believe it or not,
    we've actually cut discretionary spending on non-homeland and defense
    spending.
        We're doing a good job about watching your money. And it's hard
    work. Everybody's got a good idea. Every program sounds fantastic.
    You've got to make sure you've got a good fiscal hawk in your Governor's
    seat. You've got to have somebody who's willing to take on the sacred
    cow. Somebody's asking, ``Do these programs produce results?'' Somebody
    who is willing to look beyond the title of the program to determine
    whether or not they're delivering result for the people. Mark Green is
    that kind of guy. He's going to do you a fine job as the Governor when
    it comes to watching your money.
        This is a little off subject here, but the biggest problem we got in
    the long term is dealing with these entitlement programs that we can't
    pay for; that's Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid. If you're an
    older person, you're in good shape. If you're a younger person who is
    just working, you're in lousy shape. And I can't wait to work with
    Congress to solve the Social Security and Medicare issue.
        One reason I ran for office is to solve problems and not pass them
    on to other Presidents and other Members of Congress. It's time for the
    United States Congress to stop playing politics with Social Security and
    Medicare so a young generation of Americans can look at these
    entitlement programs and say, ``I'm not putting my money into a black
    hole.'' And it's hard work.
        It's hard work, but I'm confident we can get it done. I'm going to
    keep working it. That's what the people expect us to do. And I
    appreciate Congressman Ryan. He's not afraid to
    take on the tough issues--that's the kind of person you want in
    Washington, DC--and neither is Mark Green. You see, you've got to have
    somebody in the Governor's chair who sees a tough issue and says, ``I'm
    going to take it on; that's why I ran.'' You've got too many people in
    politics who say, ``Well, it might affect my poll numbers and therefore,
    I'm going to duck it.'' I just can't imagine people running for office
    and saying I'm going the duck the tough issue.
        You've got to have you a Governor who is willing to stand up and
    make the tough calls. And Mark Green is that man. He also understands
    this. I used to tell people when I was the Governor of Texas that
    education is to a State what national defense is to the Federal
    Government. I really believe that a Governor has got to make education
    the number-one priority of the State. And Mark Green is going to do
    that.
        I worked with him on passing the No Child Left Behind Act, and this
    is a powerful piece of legislation and necessary reform. Here's the way
    it works: It says, first of all, that we believe everybody can learn to
    read and write and add and subtract, and we refuse to accept a system
    that doesn't hold people to account if they're not learning to read and
    write and add and subtract. We said in Washington, DC, if you're going
    to receive Federal money, which States do, that we expect you, the
    State, to measure to determine whether we are achieving certain
    objectives.
        There was a huge howl, of course, when you lay that kind of
    initiative out there.

    [[Page 1383]]

    People said, ``How dare you measure.'' And my answer is, how dare we not
    measure. How can you expect the school system to be good unless you're
    willing to test to see whether or not children are learning to read and
    write and add and subtract. And guess what happens, by the way, in a
    school system that has no accountability? Guess who loses? Generally
    inner-city kids or parents who don't speak English as a first language.
        See, it's easy to quit on those kinds of children. It's easy just to
    shuffle them through the grades: say, ``When you're 10, you're supposed
    to be here; if you're 11, you're supposed to be in this grade.'' We blew
    the whistle on that kind of soft bigotry of low expectations. We said we
    were going to measure to determine whether or not the schools are
    succeeding. And if they're not succeeding, we're going to make sure a
    child gets extra help early, before it gets too late.
        I know there's a big debate here about school choice, and there
    should be a debate. And it's an important debate. And my attitude is,
    when you find a child trapped in a school that will not teach and will
    not change, you have got to give parents other options.
        In Mark Green you'll have a Governor who's willing to challenge the
    status quo in education, a Governor who's willing to insist upon high
    standards and excellence in the classroom, a Governor who will not rest
    if he finds children trapped in mediocrity. He understands that the
    future of a State depends upon the State's capacity to provide an
    excellent education for every child regardless of what he or she looks
    like. And that's the Governor Mark Green's going to be.
        I bet the doctors in this State can't wait to get yourself a
    Governor who's willing to support medical liability reform. You can't
    have good health care; you cannot have affordable and available health
    care if you have a liability system that has run amok. And I know how
    tough these trial lawyers are in some of these States. I took them on in
    the State of Texas. And you need to have a Governor, for the sake of
    good medicine, for the sake of affordable medicine, for the sake of
    patients, and for the sake of needed professionals, to stand up to the
    trial bar and pass medical liability reform. And Mark Green is going to
    do that.
        I think you can tell I'm quite enthusiastic about him. [Laughter] I
    do want to conclude by saying this about Mark: He and I understand that
    government is limited in its capacity to love. I mean government--you
    can pass laws, and you can hold people to account. And government is
    justice, as it should be. Government is fairness. But government can't
    put hope in a person's heart or a sense of purpose in a person's life.
    That happens when a loving person puts their arm around a lost soul and
    says, ``I love you, brother,'' or, ``I love you, sister. What can I do
    to help?''
        I think the State of Wisconsin will benefit mightly from having a
    person as Governor who is willing to rally the faith-based community and
    community center groups to do their duty to help change Wisconsin one
    heart and one soul and one conscience at a time.
        Our society should not fear the involvement of faith in helping to
    cure some of the intractable social ills. We ought to have leaders who
    welcome those who've heard the universal call to love a neighbor just
    like you'd like to be loved yourself, to make your State as good as it
    can possibly be. And that Governor is going to be Governor Mark Green.
    Thank you all for coming tonight. God bless.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:51 p.m. at the Hilton Milwaukee City
    Center. In his remarks, he referred to Mary Buestrin, national
    committeewoman, Republican Party of Wisconsin; James R. Klauser, former
    secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration; former
    President Saddam Hussein and

    [[Page 1384]]

    Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq; and Prime Minister Junichiro
    Koizumi of Japan.