[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 10 (Monday, March 12, 2001)]
[Pages 421-426]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

March 9, 2001

    Thank you all very much. I am glad to be here in South Dakota. I was 
telling the good Governor, the air may be a little chilly, but the 
people are awfully warm.
    I want to thank your warm hospitality. I particularly want to thank 
those who were on the road, waving to us as we came in, and those who 
have lined up outside the hangar. It's really--it really makes me feel

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great to be here. Thank you for your hospitality.
    I'm so proud to be able to call your Governor my friend. He's a good 
man, Janklow. He's kind of hard to settle down, sometimes. [Laughter] 
But the thing I like about him is he married well--[laughter]--he's 
honest, and he loves the people--and he loves the people.
    Earlier today, we toured a community health center here in Sioux 
Falls. And I was honored and so pleased that the minority leader in the 
Senate, Tom Daschle, greeted me. It's very thoughtful of him to do so. I 
appreciate--I appreciate the dialogs we have had. He treats me with 
respect; I will treat him with respect.
    I'm also appreciative of the fact that we've got two United States 
Congressmen on the stage with me today. A very capable, strong, able man 
from South Dakota, John Thune. And I've noticed you've relaxed your 
border policy and allowed Congressman Mark Kennedy from Minnesota to 
come today, too. I appreciate these two men being here. It gives me a 
chance to personally thank them for casting an important vote on behalf 
of the American people yesterday, when they cast a vote to cut the taxes 
on the people who pay the bills. I want to thank you all.
    I appreciate the mayor; I appreciate the former Senator; I 
appreciate my fellow citizens. I appreciate the fact that you've given 
me a chance to get outside of Washington--[laughter]--remember where I 
came from, to come to the heartland of America. It's important for all 
of us in the Federal Government to continue to come to the heartland, 
because it's the land of good heart and the land of commonsense people.
    And I am here to talk about a commonsense way to budget in 
Washington, a commonsense approach for what to do with your money. I 
want you to understand, first and foremost, all the talk about the 
surplus. The surplus is not the Government's money. The surplus is the 
people's money; it's the hard-working people of America's money.
    And I'm going to remind the good folks in the Nation's Capital, some 
of whom don't need reminding, some of whom may need to be occasionally 
reminded, that we work for you. And it's your money we're talking about 
when it comes to setting budgets.
    It's important to be fiscally sound and fiscally responsible with 
your money, which starts with setting priorities, clear priorities. And 
so I want to share some of the priorities that I've set.
    First, educating our children is a important priority for our 
Nation. So we spend money on public education--but I always remember 
where I came from. I hope you don't get too nervous, Governor, because I 
have always believed and will always believe in local control of 
schools. And so, while the Government will spend money, we've got to 
trust you to run your schools.
    We got a good vote out of the Senate Education Committee that passes 
power out of Washington, so the local folks can chart the path to 
excellence for every child. Education is a priority, but it must be a 
priority in the context of empowering local folks and strong 
accountability measures and trusting parents and always challenging 
failure. Because in our vision, there are no second-rate children in 
this great land of ours, and there are no second-rate dreams in America.
    Health care is an issue, and it's a priority. I believe we ought to 
double the amount of patients we cover in community health centers, to 
make sure that the poor and those on the outskirts of poverty are able 
to find primary care.
    I know we've got to make sure we take care of our elderly, and so 
we've doubled the Medicare budget in my budget. It says loud and clear 
to our seniors, the promises that we have made to you will be a promise 
we will keep. But it also requires new thinking and new leadership. We 
must reform Medicare, to give seniors more options, more choices, more 
opportunities to tailor their health care programs to meet their needs, 
all of which ought to include prescription drug benefits for our 
seniors.
    A priority is to work with States on important development projects. 
And the Lewis and Clark Rural Water Project is a project that will be in 
my budget and something that we can work together on.
    Our retirement systems are a priority in the budget. And so we've 
sent the clear message to the Congress--and it's being well-

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received, by the way, by both Republicans and Democrats--that the 
payroll taxes, all your hard-earned taxes, aiming for Social Security, 
will be only spent on one thing, and that's Social Security--that we set 
aside that money.
    One of the biggest jobs I have is to serve as the Commander in 
Chief, and I do so proudly. I want to be the Commander in Chief of 
troops that have got high standing and high morale; people that have got 
a clear mission stated to them by the Commander in Chief, which is to 
make sure our military is properly trained, ready to fight and win war, 
and therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place. So a 
priority is to make sure our military is better paid, better housed, and 
better trained.
    Those are priorities of ours. We grow what's called the 
discretionary part of the budget by 4 percent. That's greater than the 
rate of inflation. That's a lot of money, by the way, when you're 
talking in terms of billions. We grow the budget.
    But if you listen to the voices of those who would rather keep your 
money in Washington, DC, they say we can't meet the needs. I'm telling 
you, we can meet the needs with the right kind of priorities. We can 
meet the needs with the right kind of focus.
    So we grow that budget, but the problem is, some of the folks in 
Washington are used to spending orgies. At the end of the last session, 
the discretionary spending grew at 8 percent. I mean, it's like, ``Let's 
have a contest to see who can spend the most in order to get out of 
town.'' Those days are over. We're going to bring some fiscal sanity to 
the budget.
    We can meet our priorities, and we can fund them. And we can also 
pay down debt. I know a lot of folks around America are worried about 
national debt, as am I. We pay down $2 trillion of debt over the next 10 
years. That's all the debt that's available to be retired without having 
to pay a premium for prepaying debt. That's a lot of debt retirement. It 
will be the biggest repayment of debt in the history of the world. And 
so we pay down debt.
    In order to make sure that the American people are comfortable with 
our plan, we also set aside a trillion dollars over 10 years for 
contingencies, emergencies, money for the unforeseen. So people say, 
``What do you mean by that.'' Well, I'm concerned about the agricultural 
sector here in our country, the agricultural economy.
    I want to increase demand for South Dakota products. I believe that 
the South Dakota farmer and rancher is the best in the world. And if 
given the opportunity, they can compete with anybody in the world, so 
long as the opportunity is fair. So my administration will work hard to 
increase demand for South Dakota products.
    When it comes time to negotiating trade agreements, we're not going 
to leave the farmer behind. We understand the significance. But we may 
need some contingency money to help the farmers transition from the old 
ways to the market-oriented approaches for agriculture.
    And speaking about agriculture, let me reiterate my commitment to 
value-added processing, to making sure that ethanol is an integral part 
of the gasoline mixes in the United States. It makes common sense to set 
aside money for priorities and contingencies and debt. But there is 
still money left over.
    The people are working so hard and long hours and are overtaxed--
that there's money left over. And the fundamental debate that's taking 
place in Washington, DC, is what to do with the money. That's the 
fundamental debate. And I'm here to make my case: If the American people 
are overcharged, they deserve a refund. They deserve some money back.
    It's really a matter of who you trust. It's a matter of trust. Once 
the priorities are met, once debt is repaid, once the money is set aside 
in case something goes wrong, it's, who do you trust? And I want to make 
it clear to the people of South Dakota: I trust you, rather than the 
Government, to spend your money. I trust you.
    I also don't trust the Congress to pick winners and losers in the 
Tax Code. You're going to hear the words, ``targeted tax cuts.'' That 
means a group of folks get to decide who is targeted in and who is 
targeted out. That's not my view of Government. My attitude is, if you 
pay income taxes, you ought to get relief. Everybody who pays taxes 
ought to get relief.

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    And so, yesterday, the Congress did the right thing. They heard the 
call that if we're going to have tax relief, reduce all rates. And we 
have done so. We've made the code--we're trying to make the code more 
simple. We've dropped the bottom rate from 15 percent to 10 percent and 
increased the child credit from $500 to $1,000 per child.
    And there is a reason, and the Congress must hear the reason. It's 
because we want the code to be more fair--that if you're living on the 
outskirts of poverty and you're struggling to get ahead, today's Tax 
Code penalizes hard-working people.
    I want you all to remind folks who need to be reminded, that if 
you're making about $22,000 a year and you're a single mom raising two 
kids--which I know and many of you know is the toughest job in America--
that's the hardest work in this country. For every additional dollar 
under this code--under this code that some label progressive--for every 
additional dollar, that hard-working lady earns, she pays nearly 50 
percent tax. The way the code is structured, she loses part of her 
earned-income tax credit. She pays the 15 percent bracket. She's paying 
her payroll taxes. She pays more on the margin than Wall Street bankers 
do. And that's not right, and that's not fair. And we're going to do 
something about it in the Tax Code.
    We're also dropping the top rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent. 
There's a lot of hollering about that. A lot of people--you know, they 
like the targeted tax cut, ``We're going to try to pick and choose the 
winners.'' But I want you all to remember this, that an integral part of 
America is the small-business owner. The small-business owner not only 
provides many of the new jobs we create, but the entrepreneur and the 
small-business owner represents the best of America. It talks about the 
American Dream and the American experience of starting and owning your 
own business.
    There are a lot of folks who have come to this country, whether or 
not America is meant for them, and they start their business, and they 
work hard, and they own a piece of the future. That's what America is 
about. And I want you to remind the skeptics and the naysayers and the 
doubters that many small businesses are unincorporated, many are what 
they call Subchapter S, and they pay the highest marginal rate in the 
Tax Code. And by dropping the top rate from 39.6 to 33 percent, we 
provide capital infusion into the small-business sector of America. This 
is a plan that is good for the entrepreneur and small-business people. 
It makes sense to be that way.
    And by the way, there is a need to make this happen quickly. We got 
a issue with our economy. It's beginning to sputter. It's beginning to 
get a little shaky. And one way to make sure that we provide a second 
wind to the economy is to give people their own money back. That's 
called economic recovery.
    And so I appreciate so very much the Congress working with the White 
House to make the tax relief retroactive. In other words, when we pass 
the bill, it will be as if it went into effect on January first of this 
year, to get money in your pockets quicker.
    I also want to thank those 10 Democrats who voted with us yesterday. 
People are beginning to hear from the people. People are beginning to 
hear. The elected Members are beginning to hear from the people. That's 
why I'm here. I want to remind you that you all have an incredibly 
positive effect. You can help a lot, and I appreciate so very much----

[At this point, a small fire broke out in one of the spotlights hanging 
above the crowd.]

    The President. As I said, you can have a positive effect. [Laughter]
    It's a sign from above. I'll keep an eye on it. [Laughter]
    Let me say one thing, quickly. I am concerned about our economy. And 
therefore, today, in order to make sure our transportation hubs continue 
to flourish and we continue to fly, I'm issuing an Executive order to 
protect the flying public in a time when Northwest Airlines and the 
mechanics are having trouble resolving differences, and they need time 
to do so. This order that I signed today will prevent any disruption of 
air service for the next 60 days.
    It is significant to the people living in South Dakota that I do 
this. Northwest is the first airline this year to reach a critical point 
in labor/management negotiations.

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Several other negotiations involving other national carriers face 
deadlines within the next few weeks, and I am concerned about their 
impact, concerned about what it could mean to this economy. And I intend 
to take the necessary steps to prevent airline strikes from happening 
this year.
    I urge the National Mediation Board to make sure that the parties 
work toward a solution and negotiate in good faith. It's important for 
our economy, but more important, it's important for the hard-working 
people of America to make sure air service is not disrupted.
    I'm watching. And I'm winding down, but I want to do one other 
thing. I want to remind you that tax relief is good for families. It's 
good for our families. And it is going to be better for families when we 
do something about the marriage penalty in the Tax Code. The Tax Code is 
unfair to farmers and small-business people. We need to get rid of the 
death tax in the Tax Code. There's a lot of talk about taxes. I want to 
put a face on taxes. I want people to understand that tax relief is real 
for people.
    We've got the Hagen family here. You all stand up, Scott--and their 
family, Tiffany and Christian and Austin and Kyler. This is a hard-
working family. They're raising their three children. They now pay 
$1,500 in Federal income taxes. When it's all said and done, after the 
Congress passes its plan and when it's all said and done, they'll end up 
paying zero in Federal income taxes.
    Now, I know they're going to say, and you'll hear them say in some 
of the parlors around the country, ``You know, 1,500, that's not much.'' 
Just ask the Hagens. Just ask the working families who have energy bills 
that are high. Ask the people--I want the skeptics to ask the question 
to people, what it's like to have huge consumer debt.
    There's a lot of talk about debt at the national level. We need to 
worry about debt in the communities all around America. No, that 
$1,500--$1,500 may not mean a lot to some. It means a lot to the Hagens, 
and there's a principle involved. And the principle is, we trust them to 
spend the 1,500 the way they see fit. It's their money to begin with.
    And so I'm here to thank you for your support, thank you for your 
friendship, and ask for your help. You're just an e-mail away from 
making a difference in somebody's attitude. It's the right thing to do. 
This is commonsense approach to your money. It's the commonsense 
approach. It requires some discipline. It requires reordering 
priorities. And the priority with your money is not to grow the Federal 
Government; the priority of your money is so you can grow your own 
families and meet your own needs and meet your own responsibilities.
    And that, after all, is what's important about America, 
responsibility. We have a responsibility--those of us elected to office 
have a high responsibility--responsibilities that I will keep. But it 
doesn't just start in Washington, DC. It starts in neighborhoods. At the 
community health center today, I had the honor of meeting people who 
assume the responsibility of not only providing health care but of 
saying to a neighbor in need, ``What can I do to help?'' They call it 
the heartland because people have got good hearts in this part of the 
world. People care about neighbors.
    We can argue about budgets, but that's not the greatness of America. 
The greatness of America is our people, the fact that we've got people 
who care about somebody. And so I urge you, become a Boy Scout or Girl 
Scout leader to teach a youngster right from wrong. I urge you--I urge 
you, don't hope that Washington fixes schools, don't hope that the 
Federal Government waves some magic wand to make the schools better. Get 
involved with your education systems here at the local level. Thank a 
teacher, thank a principal for their hard work.
    If your church, your synagogue, or mosque, you're looking for 
something to do, find a program that will help mentor a child. Put your 
arm around somebody. It says, ``We love you.'' America is meant for--you 
know, the greatness of this country lies in the hearts and souls of our 
citizens. My job will be to argue smart budgets. My job will be to 
represent you when it comes to making sure you've got your money back. 
My job will be to keep the peace.
    But my job will also be to call upon the best of America, to lift 
this Nation's spirits,

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to set our sights high, to call upon the goodness and kindness of 
America, to remind the moms and dads of our country, if you're fortunate 
to be a mom or dad, love your child every day, love them with all your 
heart and all your soul.
    And that's why it's such an honor to be here, an honor to be your 
President. I'm so optimistic, with the right focus, the right attitude, 
the right approach, that this great Nation can achieve anything we set 
our minds to.
    Thanks for coming out today. God bless. God bless America. Thank you 
all.

Note: The President spoke at 10:03 a.m. in the National Guard Hangar at 
Joe Foss Field. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. William J. Janklow 
of South Dakota; Mayor Gary Hanson of Sioux Falls; and former Senator 
Larry Pressler.