[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2007, Book II)]
[December 29, 2007]
[Pages 1594-1595]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
December 29, 2007

    Good morning. New Year's Day will soon be upon us, and with it will 
come New Year's resolutions. This weekend is a good time to give thanks 
for our blessings and to resolve to do better in the coming year.
    One of our greatest blessings as Americans is that we live in a 
country with a growing economy, where people can pursue their dreams, 
turn ideas into enterprises, and provide for their families. It is a 
measure of our economy's resilience that even with high oil prices and 
softness in the housing market, we're still growing. In November, our 
economy added jobs for the 51st straight month, making this the longest 
period of uninterrupted job growth on record. Unemployment is a low 4.7 
percent. Exports are up. And the fundamentals of our economy are strong.
    Economic statistics are important indicators. Yet it is more 
important to remember that behind all these numbers are real people. 
These people include the entrepreneurs who live their dreams by starting 
up new businesses. These people include small-business owners who create 
most of the new jobs in our economy. And most of all, these people 
include the tens of millions of working moms and dads whose jobs provide 
for their families.
    I know that even in this growing economy, some of you have real 
concerns. Some of you worry about your ability to afford health care 
coverage for your families. Some of you are concerned about meeting

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your monthly mortgage payments. Some of you worry about the impact of 
rising energy costs on fueling your cars and heating your homes. You 
expect your elected leaders in Washington to address these pressures on 
our economy and give you more options to help you deal with them. And I 
have put forth several proposals to do so.
    In the last month, Congress has responded to some of my initiatives. 
They passed a good energy bill, they passed a temporary patch to protect 
middle class families from the burden of the Alternative Minimum Tax, 
and they passed a law that will help protect families from higher taxes 
when their lenders reduce their mortgage debt. But this is only a start. 
Congress needs to do more to decrease America's dependence on oil. 
Congress needs to pass legislation that will help make health care 
coverage more affordable for small businesses and workers who buy their 
own policies. And Congress needs to act quickly on the rest of my 
proposals to help families struggling with rising mortgage payments keep 
their homes.
    Most of all, we need to set a good example in Washington by being 
careful with your money. I'm disappointed that leaders in Congress sent 
me a massive spending bill that includes about 9,800 earmarks. Earmarks 
are special interest items that are slipped into big spending bills like 
this one, often at the last hour, without discussion or debate. Among 
the earmarks Congress approved was one for a prison museum and another 
for a sailing school. In the last election, congressional leaders ran on 
a promise that they would reform earmarks. They made some progress, but 
not nearly enough. So my administration is reviewing options to address 
wasteful earmark spending.
    As we address earmarks, we also must restrain spending, keep taxes 
low, and continue on a path towards a balanced budget. And that is what 
the budget I submit in February will do. You work hard for your money 
and to live within your means. As you provide for your families, the 
last thing you need is wasteful spending that will lead to a tax hike. 
My resolution for the New Year is this: to work with Congress to keep 
our economy growing, to keep your tax burden low, and to ensure that the 
money you send to Washington is spent wisely or not at all.
    Thank you for listening, and happy New Year.

Note: The address was recorded at 8:20 a.m. on December 28 at the Bush 
Ranch in Crawford, TX, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on December 29. The 
transcript was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary on 
December 28, but was embargoed for release until the broadcast. The 
Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language 
transcript of this address.