[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
[September 21, 2006]
[Pages 1683-1688]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at a Reception for Gubernatorial Candidate Charles J. Crist,
Jr., and the Republican Party of Florida in
Orlando
September 21, 2006
The President. Thank you all. Thanks for coming. I appreciate you
all being here. Thanks for your time. From ``Chalkboard Charlie'' to
``Governor Charlie.'' Thanks for helping this good man. He's a good,
decent man. He's had plenty of experience. He knows what he needs to do.
He's been the commissioner of education; he's been your attorney
general; he's been a State senator. He's the right guy for the job, and
I want to thank you very much for standing strong when you find somebody
who is decent and honorable, willing to serve the State of Florida, and
that's Charlie Crist.
And you're right, Charlie, you're following a good man. He's made our family proud. But more importantly, he's
done a fine job for the people of Florida. He's the kind of guy--
[applause]--and, Charlie, I know you'll follow this example about you--
he doesn't need a poll or a focus group to tell him what to think.
And that's what is necessary to make the hard decisions when you're
the chief executive officer of a State, or in my case, the United
States. I'm proud to be here with Charlie. I know something about being
a Governor; I was one once. It requires a man with vision and a person
who knows how to set the right priorities for a State. There's no doubt
in my mind Charlie Crist will make a great Governor for the State of
Florida, and I want to thank you for helping him.
And my wife feels the same way. If you were
smart, Charlie, you'd get Laura down here to campaign for you. She sends
her love; she sends her love to Jeb; and she sends
her love to our friends here in Florida. And we've got a lot of friends.
We've been blessed in this great State to have made a lot of friends.
And I want to thank all my buddies who were there when nobody thought we
could win in 2000, and then came back through in 2004. Now you're back
in 2006, and I'm grateful. It's for a good cause.
I want to thank Jeff Kottkamp, the
next Lieutenant Governor of the State of Florida, who is with us today.
I, too, encourage you to vote for Katherine Harris for the United States Senate. Welcome, Katherine.
One of my long-time friends here in Orange County is a guy whose son
made him famous--[laughter]--a while ago. You might remember the
incident. I was up there giving one of my best speeches. [Laughter] I
was putting 100 percent into it. I thought I had the crowd on their
feet, until I looked behind me. And Crotty's son was sound asleep. [Laughter] So, Crotty, you tell him, stay awake the next time he comes to
one of these things. It kind of hurts an old guy's feelings. But I'm
glad to be here with Rich Crotty. He's doing a fine job in Orange
County.
I want to thank all the other State and local officials who are
here. I want to thank the party activists who are here, starting with
Carole Jean Jordan, who is the chairman of
the Republican Party of Florida, and my friend Al Austin, who is the finance chairman of the Republican Party of
Florida.
And raising money is one thing, and tonight is an extraordinarily
successful event, and I thank you. I know it takes a lot to organize one
of these events, and you've done a marvelous job. But I also want to
remind you, in order for Charlie to win, he's going to need people to
put up the signs and make the phone calls and stuff the envelopes--those
quiet heroes of grassroots politics. So for those of you who have been
involved with grassroots politics here in Florida, thank you for what
you have done and thank you for what you're going
[[Page 1684]]
to do to help this good man get elected Governor of the State of
Florida.
You know, it's--one of the big issues that faces our country and
your State is the issue of taxes. I think you're taxed too much; so does
Charlie. And I think there's going to be a clear difference in this
race, and there's certainly a clear difference nationally. You know,
the--we share a philosophy, and that is, the role of Government is not
to try to create wealth, but the role of Government is to create an
environment in which the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes and which
small businesses can grow to be big businesses. It's an environment in
which people get to keep their own money. And the fundamental question
facing this Nation and this State is, who best to spend your money? We
believe the best people to spend your money is you.
The Democrats believe they can spend it better than you can.
Audience members. Noo!
The President. And it's a fundamental, philosophical difference. I
aim to make taxes a key issue across this country, and we've got a good
record on taxes, and so does Brother Jeb, and so
will Governor Crist.
I was proud to sign the largest tax relief since Ronald Reagan was
President of the United States. I did so because I felt we had enough
money to spend on your behalf in Washington, DC, and I knew that if you
had more money in your pocket to save, invest, or spend, this economy
would grow.
There's a fundamental difference in Washington. When we cut the
taxes on child care, most Democrats voted against--on the child credit,
most Democrats voted against it. We tried to get rid of the marriage
penalty. It's a simple concept, by the way. You shouldn't penalize
marriage in the Tax Code; you ought to encourage--most Democrats voted
against it. When we tried to get the death tax on the road to
extinction, most Democrats voted against it. We've got a record of
cutting taxes, and they've got a record of opposing tax cuts. It's night
and day. It is a clear example of the philosophical difference that
divides Republicans and Democrats.
I remember in 2003 when we cut the taxes, one of the leading
Democrats stood up and said, ``Cutting taxes
will do nothing to create jobs.'' Well, since that person uttered those
famous words, our economy has added 5.7 million new jobs. This economy
is strong.
This economy is strong because we let you have more of your own
money, and we intend to keep it that way. Just the other day, a top
Democrat--the top Democrat on the House
tax writing committee--that's called the Ways and Means Committee;
they'll be the people who decide whether or not your taxes go up or
down--said this, ``I can't think of one of our tax cuts that should be
extended.''
Now let me try to boil down Washington-speak for you. If the tax
cuts are not extended, your taxes go up. It's kind of like an employer
saying, you know, ``I'm not going to extend your pay raise,'' see. And
so if they're going to say, ``Well, we're just not going to extend the
tax cuts,'' that means they're going to run up your taxes. Running up
your taxes would be wrong for our economy, and it would be wrong for the
working families of the United States.
So I asked Charlie, I said, what's he making a priority? He said,
``I'm making property taxes a priority in the State of Florida.'' You
put him in office, he's going to cut your property taxes, and you can
take that to the bank.
You know, we enacted some good legislation when it came to making
sure our seniors have got good health care. You might remember, the
Medicare program had gone a little stale. We would pay for surgeries but
not for the prescription drugs that would prevent the surgery from being
needed in the first place. And that didn't make any sense. My attitude
is, if you're going to provide a service for our seniors, let's provide
a good service.
[[Page 1685]]
And so we modernized Medicare, and today, the bills that seniors pay
for prescription drugs is way down, and the days of seniors--poor
seniors having to choose between food and medicine, those days are over.
And I'm going to need a Governor, just like Jeb
did, to make sure the modernization of this Medicare program is
available for all of Florida's seniors.
When I was the Governor of Texas, I used to say, education is to the
State what national defense is to the Federal Government. I think it's
the most important priority of a State, is to make sure the public
school system insists upon excellence for every single child. And that's
what Charlie thinks too. That's why I called him ``Chalkboard.''
[Laughter] He understands that a Governor, just like your Governor has done, needs to lead when it comes to challenging
mediocrity when we find it in the public schools.
It's essential that our public schools work. It's essential that we
set high standards and measure to make sure children are learning how to
read and write and add and subtract. And if we find it early, we'll
correct problems early so no child is left behind in America or in the
State of Florida.
These are the issues that the people of Florida are going to have to
decide upon, you know: taxes, fiscal sanity, making sure the health care
system works, and making sure every single child gets educated. And I
think if Floridians of all parties--or even if they're not of a party--
pay attention to the debate, they'll find that Charlie Crist stands with
them. He'll be a people's Governor. He likes to shake hands; he likes
people. That's the kind of Governor you want. You want somebody who
feels comfortable with the people of a State, somebody who can make
decisions, and somebody who can set a clear vision on behalf of this
vital State. And that's Charlie Crist.
I want to talk a little bit about the stakes of the world in which
we live. We're at war. We're at war with a group of ideologues that use
murder as a weapon to intimidate and create fear. I wish I could report
otherwise.
I vowed after September the 11th, 2001, that I would use every one
of our national assets in order to protect you. The most important job
of any government in this day and age is to protect the American people
from further attack. That starts with making sure our homeland is secure
and making sure those on the frontline of protecting you have the tools
necessary to be able to protect you. We have to find out what the enemy
is thinking in order to stop attacks. If an Al Qaida or an Al Qaida
associate is making a phone call into the United States, we need to know
why in order to be able to protect you from further attacks.
If somebody is moving money around to finance a terrorist operation,
we want to know why they're moving money around, to protect you. If the
CIA and the FBI need to be able to share information to protect you, we
need to make sure those walls are permanently torn down. In order to
protect the United States of America, we must give those on the
frontline that are protecting this Nation the tools necessary to do so
within the Constitution of the United States, and that is precisely what
this administration is doing.
But the facts are these: The enemy only has to be right one time to
protect you--to hurt us, and we've got to be right 100 percent of the
time to protect you, which means that the best way to protect the
American people is to stay on the offense against these killers, defeat
them overseas so we do not have to face them here at home, and bring
them to justice before they hurt us again.
And that's exactly what the United States of America is doing, with
a lot of other nations. We're keeping the pressure on them. It's hard to
plot and plan when you're on the run. And that's what we have been doing
for 5\1/2\ years, and that's what we will continue to do so long as I'm
your
[[Page 1686]]
President. The most important job we have is to protect the American
people.
You know, there's an enemy that still wants to strike. I mean, it
should be clear to the American people, particularly after we recently,
working with the Brits, foiled suicide attacks, bombing these airplanes
when they're flying into the United States. These are ruthless people.
You cannot negotiate with them; you can't hope that their ambitions go
away; you can't try to--you know, therapy won't work. [Laughter] The
only thing that matters is to bring them to justice. And make no mistake
about it--[applause].
And so our strategy is twofold. On the one hand, we'll protect you
by staying on the offense. But we've got another weapon beside a
fantastic military and great intelligence people, and another weapon is
liberty and freedom.
First, let me talk about the first part of our strategy. One is that
when the President says something, he better mean it. And when I said,
``If you harbor a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist or house a
terrorist, you're equally as guilty as the terrorist, and you will be
held to account.'' That's why we removed the Taliban that was providing
safe haven for Al Qaida, from Afghanistan. Twenty-five million people
now are free.
The second part of the strategy is, when you see a threat, you must
take threats seriously before they come and hurt us in the United
States. It's a different doctrine than we had in the past, but these
threats are different than the threats we've had in the past.
I want to remind you that--what the world was like in 2001. In Iraq,
there was a state sponsor of terror. There was a tyrant who brutalized his own people. This man was the sworn
enemy of the United States of America. He paid suicide--families of
suicide bombers to attack young democracies, for example. He had used
weapons of mass destruction. He was a threat.
Now, before the President commits troops, he must try diplomacy. I
want you to walk back in that period of time and remember resolution
after resolution after resolution that came through the United Nations,
and yet the tyrant didn't change his mind.
Saddam Hussein chose war, and war he got, and the world is better off
without Saddam Hussein in power.
And now Iraq is the central front on the war on terror. I hear
people in the United States, ``Well, that's not true.'' My advice to
them is to listen carefully to the words of the enemy. Usama bin
Laden has called Iraq world war III. He and
Mr. Zawahiri, the number-two man in Al
Qaida, have made it clear that their intention is to drive us out of
Iraq. They want the death and suffering we see on our TV screens to
cause us to abandon the 12 million people who said, ``We want to be
free.''
And they want us to leave because they want to topple moderate
governments in the region. They want to get a hold of oil resources.
Imagine these radical jihadists, these extremists who've subverted a
great religion, controlling oil. They would--they would love to create
economic havoc on the United States of America. They have clearly stated
their ambitions. The Commander in Chief must always take the words of
the enemy seriously. And like them, I see Iraq as the central front in
the war on terror, and unlike them, however, I refuse to yield to their
barbarism. And we're going to stand strong with the 12 million Iraqis
and help that young democracy survive for the sake of peace for our
children and our grandchildren.
And it is hard work, but America has done this kind of work before.
I believe we're in a great ideological struggle. It's the ideological
struggle of the 21st century. On the one hand, you have reasonable
people--moms who want their children to grow up in a peaceful world;
decent people who can't stand terror and violence and who long to be
free--versus ideologues, people bound together by a common philosophy
who use murder as a weapon. These are the stakes of the 21st century.
[[Page 1687]]
And I'm confident we will prevail, because I believe that liberty,
liberty and freedom have got the capacity to overcome the dark vision of
these ideologues.
We've seen it happen in our history before. We have seen liberty
triumph over hopelessness and despair. See, in the short run, we will
stay on the offense, and we will help those brave souls who want to
fight the enemy overseas so we don't have to face them here. In the long
run, we will lay the foundation of peace for our children by spreading
liberty.
Now, one way to make this point to you and to the American citizens
is to remind people about an interesting experience that I just had,
when I flew to Memphis, Tennessee, with the Prime Minister of
Japan. Prime Minister Koizumi and I went
to Elvis's place. [Laughter] It was an interesting experience. I chose
to go for three reasons: One, I had never been to Elvis's place--
[laughter]--and I thought that would be fun to do; plus, Laura wanted to go to Elvis's place. [Laughter] Secondly--and
secondly, the Prime Minister wanted to go to Elvis's place--[laughter]--
because he's a big Elvis fan. He loved Elvis Presley. Isn't that
interesting? The Prime Minister of Japan thought Elvis was ``It.''
But I also wanted to make a point to the American citizens, and it's
this: My dad, and many of your relatives,
fought the Japanese. They were the sworn enemy of the United States of
America. And yet his son had invited the Prime Minister of the former sworn enemy to travel to Elvis
Presley's place. And on that plane going down there, we talked about
peace. We talked about what we could do, working together, to deal with
Kim Jong Il in North Korea. We talked about the
fact that Japan had 1,000 of her troops alongside our brave troops in
Iraq to help this young democracy defeat the forces of hatred. We talked
about HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa and how the United States and
Japan can work together to save lives. We talked about feeding the
hungry. We talked about helping the fledgling democracy in Afghanistan
survive against the Taliban's attempts to overthrow them.
Isn't it interesting? My dad fought the
Japanese--or our dad fought the Japanese, and his son is now talking
about the peace with the sworn enemy. Can you imagine somebody in 1948,
after this terrible war, with all the hatred and bloodshed, standing up
in front of the country and saying, ``I predict an American President
someday will be taking a leader of the sworn enemy to the singer's
house.'' [Laughter] They would have run him out of town. [Laughter]
But it happened; it happened because Japan adopted a Japanese-style
democracy. And the lesson of history is that liberty has got the
capacity to change enemies into allies. Liberty has got the capacity to
lay the foundation of peace. Someday, an American President will be
sitting down with duly elected leaders in the Middle East talking about
the peace, and a generation of Americans will be better off.
These are trying times for our country. We've got a lot of stuff
going for us, though, you know. We've got a fantastic military. And I
will assure you this, that our military will have whatever it takes to
do their job and defend this country.
But we also have a lot of people who understand that liberty is not
just an American concept. Liberty is universal. I personally believe
there is an Almighty, and I believe that that Almighty's gift to each
man and woman on the whole face of the Earth is the desire to be free.
And I know that when people are able to realize that ambition, no matter
what their religion, no matter where they live, the world will become a
more peaceful place.
It's an honor to be the President of a country that has got such
good values, determined country, a country that knows that history can
repeat itself with perseverance and strength of character. No, these are
challenging times, but out of these times will come a more secure
America and a more peaceful world.
[[Page 1688]]
Thanks for helping Charlie. May God bless you all.
Note: The President spoke at 5:55 p.m. at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando. In
his remarks, he referred to Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida; Mayor Richard T.
Crotty of Orange County, FL, and his son, Tyler; former President Saddam
Hussein of Iraq; Usama bin Laden, leader of the Al Qaida terrorist
organization; and Chairman Kim Jong Il of North Korea.