[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 25 (Monday, June 25, 2001)]
[Pages 954-958]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Dinner for Senator Jeff Sessions in Birmingham

June 21, 2001

    Thank you all very much. Thank you, all. Be seated. Jeff said, ``Why 
don't you come over to Birmingham and have dinner with a couple of my 
buddies.'' [Laughter] I said, ``Okay.'' I'm glad I came. Thank you for 
that warm welcome, and thank you for giving me the chance to be the 
President of the greatest Nation on the face of the Earth.
    First, I'm here to urge the people of Alabama to send this good man, 
Jeff Sessions, back to the United States Senate. He's doing a great job. 
He's a solid citizen who brings integrity to the office. Plus, he's got 
a friend in the White House. [Laughter] He married well, too. [Laughter] 
It's good to be here with Mary.
    I'm so sorry that my wife isn't here. I can't tell you how proud I 
am of Laura. She's made a big difference already in the White House. She 
has trained one small puppy. [Laughter] She keeps her husband in line. 
And she brings a lot of class to the Office of the First Lady, and I'm 
proud of her.
    After I speak, I'm heading to our ranch in central Texas, where I 
will spend some quality time with Laura. And frankly, I'm honored to be 
here. I'm looking forward to sharing some wisdom--but I can't wait to 
get back home. [Laughter] Washington, DC, is a great place to work, but 
Texas is a great place to relax.
    I'm honored to be here, as well, with the Lieutenant Governor of the 
State of Alabama, Steve Windom; the attorney general, Bill Pryor. I'm so 
pleased that my friend Bill Cabaniss is here. I want to thank the 
Members of the United States Congress who have traveled here with me 
today: the Congressman from this district, Spencer Bachus; Robert 
Aderholt; Terry Everett; Congressman Bob Riley; and Sonny Callahan. This 
is a fine delegation from Alabama who are conservative and 
compassionate, and I'm proud to call them friends, and you ought to be 
proud to call them Members of the United States Congress.
    I want to thank--I don't know if Red Blount is here or not, but I 
spent a little time in Alabama in 1972 working for Red Blount's

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senatorial campaign. It's a pretty good lesson of Alabama politics. But 
I've made a lot of friends in this State from those days, friends that 
I'll never forget. And I thank you for your friendship, and I thank you 
for giving me a pretty good lesson on southern politics. It paid off in 
the year 2000. [Laughter]
    I want to thank Mary Connors--Marty Connors, the chairman of the 
party, Edgar Welden and Bettye Fine Collins for their leadership for the 
Republican effort. Thank you all very much.
    One reason I'm so nice to the Alabama delegation is because they've 
been steady in their votes for reform. We're making some pretty good 
progress in Washington, DC, about defusing the old way of doing 
business. The old way was, you didn't worry about results; you just 
worried about how loud you yelled at somebody or how you pointed your 
finger.
    I came up to the Nation's Capital intent upon changing the tone in 
Washington, DC, of setting an agenda that's positive and hopeful for 
every American, and to working with Congress to get things done. And I'm 
proud to report, we are getting things done on behalf of the American 
people.
    I was honored the other day to sign the first broad tax relief in a 
generation. And I want to thank the members of the Alabama congressional 
delegation and the two United States Senators for voting with us, to say 
that the American people ought to be trusted with their own money.
    This was an important issue for America, because it set the stage 
for a new way of thinking about the budget. It said that we can meet our 
obligations by growing the budget at a reasonable rate. But it also 
recognized that the surplus is not the Government's money. The surplus 
is the people's money, and we ought to trust the people with their own 
money. So we cut rates on everybody who pays taxes.
    The old way in Washington was to have what they call targeted tax 
cuts. That meant that folks in Washington, DC, got to say, this side of 
the room got tax relief, and this side didn't. But we didn't think that 
was fair, and we didn't think that was right. We felt that if you're 
going to give tax relief, everybody who paid taxes ought to get tax 
relief. So we reduced the rates on every taxpayer in the United States 
of America, and we're going to start sending out checks this July to the 
taxpayers of America.
    We also recognize that the marriage penalty sent the wrong signals, 
and we mitigated the marriage penalty. And we also understood that the 
death tax was onerous on small businesses and ranchers and farmers in 
Alabama and all across the State--all across the country--so we 
eliminated the death tax.
    And this tax relief came at the right time. Our economy is kind of 
sputtering a little bit. And it's important to send money back to the 
people so they can spend it and they can invest it to make sure our 
economy gets second wind. No, I was proud to do something that President 
John Kennedy was able to do and President Ronald Reagan was able to do, 
and that's to listen to the American people and to sign broad, 
meaningful, real tax relief. And I want to thank you, Jeff, for your 
support.
    We're also making progress on an incredibly important issue, and 
that's education. I believe in short order I'm going to have the 
opportunity to sign one of the most far-reaching education reform bills 
in our Nation's history. The bill passed the House; it passed the Senate 
91 to 8. It's now going to conference. And I urge the conferees not to 
play politics with public education in America. Get that bill out and 
get it to my desk so I can sign it, so that the public schools all 
across America can plan for next fall when they open their doors for 
America's children.
    The education bill is important because it embodies certain 
principles. One principle is that it's important to set high standards, 
to believe that every child, regardless of background, birth, or accent 
can learn in America.
    Secondly, it says that we must trust local people to run the schools 
all across America. One size does not fit all when it comes to the 
education of the children in America.
    And thirdly, it says that if you receive Federal help--you, the 
State of Alabama or the State of Texas or any other State or 
jurisdiction must measure in return for Federal dollars--you must 
measure so that we as a society know whether children are being left 
behind.

[[Page 956]]

    The old, tired way of public education used to ask the question, 
``How old are you? And if you're 10, we'll put you in this grade, and if 
you're 12, we'll put you here, and if you're 14, you go there.'' And 
guess what happened? Children would simply get shuffled through the 
system. Children would get moved on, regardless if they knew what they 
were supposed to know. And that's fundamentally wrong in America. And 
that's not right. And when I sign that bill, we're going to start asking 
this question, ``What do you know? And if you do not know what you're 
supposed to know, we'll make sure you do early, before it's too late.'' 
There are no second-rate children in America, and there are no second-
rate dreams.
    Dick Cheney and I--and, by the way, the Vice President is doing a 
fabulous job. We said we would boost the morale of the United States 
military. It started with treating people better who wear the uniform. 
That means better pay and better housing, and the budget I submitted 
does just that. But it also means having a Commander in Chief who sets a 
clear mission for the military. The mission of the military is to be 
prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening 
in the first place. Our military must be properly trained and ready to 
go so that the Commander in Chief, if he needs to call upon them, can do 
to keep the peace. Things are getting better in the military, and 
throughout my tenure in Washington, we will rebuild the military so that 
we are more likely to keep the peace.
    But it also requires thinking differently as we head into the 21st 
century. The old way of thinking about military strategy must be 
addressed. Our troops need to be lighter, harder to find, more lethal 
when they act. And we must be prepared to deal with the true threats of 
the 21st century.
    I had the honor of meeting with the President of Russia in Slovenia 
last weekend. I told him, I said, ``It's time for new leadership to cast 
aside the old way of thinking about Russia and America.'' I told him, I 
said, ``Russia is no longer our Nation's enemy. And therefore, we should 
not allow a treaty, signed when Russia and America were the enemy, to 
determine how our two nations can best come together to keep the 
peace.''
    The ABM Treaty codified a day when we were hostile to each other. 
It's time to come together and to think about a new security arrangement 
that addresses the threats of the 21st century. And the threats of the 
21st century will be terrorist in nature, terror when it comes to 
weaponry. What we must do--freedom-loving people must be willing to 
think differently and develop antiballistic missile systems that will 
say to rogue nations and leaders who cannot stand America, or what we 
stand for: You will not blackmail us, nor will you blackmail our allies. 
It's time for new leadership when it comes to how the military thinks 
about keeping the peace.
    Earlier this year, I put together a Commission to think differently 
about how our retirement systems must work. I'm deeply concerned about 
Social Security. I'm not concerned about those who receive Social 
Security today or those who are near retirement, because the Congress 
and the White House has taken the sacred pledge that we will not touch 
the Social Security, that Social Security will be spent on only one 
thing, Social Security.
    But I'm concerned about younger workers. I worry that the Social 
Security System will not fulfill the promise of people who are coming up 
in our society. This issue requires new thinking, a new way of looking 
at the problem. I put together a Commission of both Republicans and 
Democrats charged with making sure there's a Social Security system in 
the future.
    And a key component of that thinking says that we, as a nation, must 
trust younger workers to manage their own money, if they so choose, in 
the private markets, to take advantage of the compounding rate of 
return, to make sure that not only is there a Social Security system 
available, that workers from all walks of life have got an asset that 
they can call their own to pass from one generation to the next. 
Ownership of assets is an incredible part of holding out hope and 
promise for the American Dream for every citizen. It's time to think 
differently in Washington, DC, about the crucial issues.
    Just before we came, I had the honor of meeting many religious 
leaders from around the State of Alabama. I did so because I wanted to 
share my vision of how best to

[[Page 957]]

make sure the welfare system fulfills its promise. At Notre Dame a while 
ago, I gave a speech that talked about how our Nation can be a more 
compassionate country. I talked about the fact that Lyndon Johnson, at 
the University of Texas, gave a speech that declared a war on poverty. I 
mentioned the fact that that war, noble in effort, created some 
consequences that our society has had to deal with. On the one hand, the 
welfare system that he envisioned created dependency upon Government, 
and on the other hand, the welfare system that he envisioned created a 
Government that crowded out people's aspirations to help a neighbor. 
People across America said, ``Why should I be a compassionate neighbor? 
The Federal Government will solve the problem. Why should I care? The 
Government will take care.'' And what we ended up with is dependency 
upon Government on the one hand and complacency on the other.
    In that speech, I said in 1996 the United States Congress in a 
bipartisan fashion passed a bill signed by my predecessor that addressed 
one-half of the equation. The bill and the law reduced dependency upon 
Government. It said that you must work, and as a result, thousands of 
people are now gainfully employed in America, are less dependent upon 
our Government. But it did not address the second half of the equation, 
how best to capture the great compassion of America.
    I believe our Government ought to be a partner with faith-based and 
community-based programs. I believe it is essential we pass laws in the 
United States Congress that expand charitable choice, that we clearly 
say in America the great strength of our country lies in the hearts and 
souls of loving citizens. The great strength of America is in our 
churches and synagogues and mosques. And we must welcome faith-based 
programs that have got the capacity to change lives by changing hearts 
into the very fabric of our society.
    I know I can count on Senator Sessions when the bill comes before 
the United States Senate. And I feel strongly I can count on the members 
of the congressional delegation, who have traveled with me from 
Washington, DC. This is an important initiative. It is an initiative 
that addresses our Nation's culture. It is an issue that helps us 
realize the full potential of America. It is an issue that recognizes 
that Government can hand out money, but what it cannot do is put hope in 
people's hearts or a sense of purpose in people's lives.
    It is an incredibly important issue, because our great Nation must 
make this dedicated promise: No person will be left behind in America, 
that every American counts regardless of their status, but we recognize 
that some hurt, some lack hope.
    So what I hope to do in the faith-based initiative is to call upon 
mentors all across the country. There is nothing more meaningful and 
important than, say, for a child whose parent may be in prison, to have 
an arm of an adult or a loving soul say, ``I love you, brother.'' 
America means as much for you as it does for me and my children.
    A faith-based initiative understands that in order to solve the 
problems of those hooked on alcohol and drugs, that sometimes the only 
way is to call upon a higher being. The faith-based initiative 
recognizes the power of faith and hope in America. And I urge Congress 
not to get stuck on the process but to focus on results so that we can 
change America in an incredibly positive, hopeful, and optimistic way.
    That's really the job of the President. The job of the President is 
to lift the Nation's spirit.
    On my wall in the Oval Office is a picture of Abraham Lincoln. I 
hang that portrait because it reminds me my job is to unify our Nation. 
I recognize we will have differences when it comes to tax policy and 
education policy. But the job of the President is obviously to stand on 
principle and to fight for legislative matters that I think are 
important. But it's also to unite America, to unite the country around 
the fantastic values that make us unique, the values of freedom: freedom 
to speak your mind, freedom to worship where you want, freedom of the 
press to occasionally say something that I don't agree with--
[laughter]--freedom--freedom to express yourself at the ballot box, 
freedom to be anything you dream to be in America, regardless of your 
birth or where you're from. Those values set us aside as a nation. They 
are incredibly important values.

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    But uniting the Nation understands and--begins with the 
understanding of responsibility of the offices we hold. I admire Jeff 
Sessions because he understands. He has the responsibility not only to 
represent the great State of Alabama, but he has the responsibility to 
uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which he has been elected. 
And he will not let the people of Alabama down.
    I love traveling outside of Washington. Listen, I like my job, and 
the public housing is pretty darn good there. [Laughter] But I love to 
come out to the countryside. I can't thank the people of Alabama enough 
for lining the roads.
    We went to an initiative today in one of the parks outside of 
Birmingham, where I was able to say that this administration, for the 
first time, is going to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, 
so that the people of Alabama will be able to make the conservation 
decisions necessary for the great State of Alabama.
    But as we traveled the road, hundreds of people lined the road to 
wave and to hold up signs encouraging the President. It reminds me of 
what I said earlier, and I truly believe. I am blessed to be the 
President of a nation full of decent and loving and caring and 
compassionate people, people who respect their country, respect the 
office of the Presidency--sometimes like the President, sometimes not--
but respect the office of the President, who care deeply about the 
future, who love their families, who worship in houses of worship, and 
are proud to call themselves American.
    I can't tell you what an honor it is to have recently traveled 
overseas and to stand proudly for a country that represents the best of 
mankind, that holds up the best for every single citizen. I'm so honored 
to be here to represent and to urge you to support my friend. And I am 
honored to tell you, I love being your President, and thank you for the 
opportunity.
    God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 6:40 p.m. at the Jefferson Convention 
Complex. In his remarks, he referred to Mary Sessions, wife of Senator 
Sessions; William Cabaniss, finance chair, Alabama Bush 2000 campaign; 
Winton M. ``Red'' Blount, founder, Blount International, Inc.; Marty 
Connors, chairman, Alabama Republican Party; Edgar Welden and Bettye 
Fine Collins, national committee persons, Alabama Republican Executive 
Committee; and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.