[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 34 (Monday, August 27, 2001)]
[Pages 1192-1199]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at Truman High School in Independence, Missouri

August 21, 2001

    Thank you all. Good morning. Thanks for that warm welcome. Mary 
Alice, thank you very much for your great introduction. And I want to 
thank the residents of the John Knox Senior Village for inviting me to 
come to Independence, Missouri. I'm glad I accepted.
    It is exciting to be here. It's good to get out of the seat of 
power, Crawford, Texas--[laughter]--and come to Missouri. Speaking about 
Missouri, I want--it's important for all Presidents to remember what 
Harry Truman said. He said, ``I try never to forget who I was and where 
I've come from and where I was going back to.'' That's one thing that 
Crawford, Texas, reminds me. [Laughter] It reminds me of where I came 
from. And after my service for this great country, where I'm going back 
to.
    I want to thank you for giving me the chance to come and talk about 
a couple of subjects dear to my heart. I want to thank my friend, the 
Senator from the State of Missouri, Kit Bond, for the invitation and for 
his great service to Missouri and the United States. I want to thank 
United States Congressman Sam Graves for being here. Thank you for 
coming, Sam. I want to thank the United States Congresswoman from this 
district, Karen McCarthy. Thank you, Karen, for being here. I appreciate 
your time. Also here is the former Congressman from Missouri; Jim Talent 
is with us today, as well.
    I wish my wife were with me. [Laughter] Like Harry Truman, I married 
well. [Laughter] She would love to be here at this school. I want to 
thank the school administrators, the principals. I want to thank the 
students who are fixing to start school tomorrow for giving us a chance 
to come to your beautiful campus.
    To the students, let me say as plainly as I can: Your Government's 
important. You've got to pay attention to your Government. I don't care 
whether you're Republican or Democrat; you need to be involved in 
democracy in America. You need to take your vote seriously.
    And having been in public service for a while, I can tell you, it's 
a noble profession. It's an important way to serve your country and your 
community. And you can do so without being the President, by the way. 
You can be a Congressperson; you can serve in the statehouse; you can 
work hard to get people elected; or you can serve your community by 
loving a neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself. And that's one 
of the most important initiatives that we're working on.
    And that's one of the most important initiatives we're working on in 
Washington, DC. It's called a Faith-Based and Community Initiative. It 
passed the House of Representatives, for which I'm grateful. We're now 
trying to get it out of the United States Senate. It's part of the 
unfinished business for this year.
    Let me explain to you briefly what we're trying to do. We're trying 
to make sure that welfare is extended in a positive and compassionate 
way. We recognize in America there are some who hurt, some who have 
needs beyond the reach of Government, some who simply need love and 
compassion from a fellow American. There are children in our country who 
wonder whether or not the American Dream is meant for them, children 
whose mom or dad may be in prison. What this Nation needs is a 
Government that stands squarely on the side of the soldiers of the 
armies of compassion, those wonderful citizens who put their arm around 
a neighbor in need, and say, ``I love you, brother,'' or ``I love you, 
sister. What can I do to help make your life better?'' Government should

[[Page 1193]]

not fear faith in America. We ought to welcome faith-based programs.
    And we're making big progress on important issues, like health. For 
the last couple of legislative sessions in Washington, the Patients' 
Bill of Rights got stalled over in a partisan wrangling. I'm pleased to 
report that a bill passed out of the House of Representatives that I can 
live with. It's a bill that encourages, fosters, nourishes, the 
relationship between patient and doctor.
    But it's also a piece of legislation that will not encourage or 
enhance frivolous lawsuits that will drive people out of medical care. 
We want more people with health insurance, not less. We want fewer 
lawsuits threatening our providers, rather than more, and we want to 
make sure our patients have got direct access to important health care. 
There's a good Patients' Bill of Rights that, if Congress comes 
together, they can get on my desk, that I look forward to signing this 
fall, after Congress comes home.
    We're also making progress in changing the tone in Washington. One 
of my promises is, I said I'd go up to Washington and try to focus more 
on the people and less on partisanship. We need to focus more on the 
lives of our citizens and remember who sent us up there in the first 
place.
    During the course of the campaign, I told the American people, if 
you gave me the great honor of serving as your President, I would set 
priorities for our budget. And if we had money left over after the 
priorities, we would remember who sent it to Washington in the first 
place. The money up in Washington is not the Government's money; it's 
the people's money.
    And so we came together--with that philosophy in mind, we came 
together and passed the first tax relief in a generation. It's real; it 
is meaningful; it is important tax relief. It wasn't one of these old, 
Washington style tax relief programs, where the Congress or the 
President got to pick and choose who got tax relief and who didn't. This 
was fair tax relief. It said, ``If you pay taxes, you get relief.'' It 
wasn't targeted tax relief; it was broad tax relief.
    And the Congress wisely agreed to start sending money back this 
summer. Driving in to the high school here, I saw a sign that said, 
``Thanks for the $600 rebate check.'' But what I meant--what I should 
have done was stop and said, ``You don't need to thank me. It's your 
money to begin with.''
    Some of them in our Nation's Capital say, $600 doesn't matter to a 
family. Well what they ought to do is get out of the Capital--I presume 
they are--and come out and talk to the working people of America and 
find out what $600 means. I was in the Harley-Davidson plant yesterday 
in Milwaukee. A lot of the workers came up and said, ``Thanks for my 
$600.'' One fellow said, ``I built a deck. You need to come over and 
have a beer with me.'' [Laughter] I said, ``I quit drinking.'' 
[Laughter] He said, ``How about root beer?'' [Laughter]
    The other thing we did in the Tax Code, which I appreciate a lot--
and this is good for farmers and ranchers in Missouri and Kansas, all 
across the country. It's good for people who worry about urban sprawl. 
It's good for entrepreneurs. It's good for those folks who had a dream 
to build their business, make it work, and pass it on to their children. 
We're getting rid of the death tax. That's an important reform for our 
code. The Tax Code will be more reasonable. It will encourage 
entrepreneurship. It will get people more of their own money, and it was 
needed. And I'll talk about that a little later on.
    A second area where we're making great progress is in public 
education. There is a good, strong reform bill that passed our House of 
Representatives and a good strong reform bill that passed the United 
States Senate. And when we come back, after the so-called vacation--
[laughter]--people need to get the education bill to my desk.
    And let me talk to you about it right quick. First of all, lest you 
think I forgot where I came from, one of the key components in the 
education bill is to trust the local folks when it comes to running 
public education. I strongly believe in local control of our schools. I 
don't believe Washington has got all the answers on how to run the 
schools. I do believe we need to pass power out of Washington, to give 
school districts more flexibility, more authority. And both these bills 
do that, and that's an important component of the bill.

[[Page 1194]]

    But secondly, these bills challenge what I call the soft bigotry of 
low expectations. It recognizes that too often in our public education 
system, we lower the bar for students. Some folks believe, I guess, some 
kids can't learn. That's the opposite of what I think. I think every 
child can learn. I think we ought to have the high expectations. We 
expect high standards, and we expect people to deliver on those 
standards. And therefore, one of the key components of reform is to say 
to school districts, States all across our country, that if you receive 
Federal money, you must measure. You must devise an accountability 
system to let us know whether our children are learning to read and 
write and add and subtract.
    I've heard all the arguments. As the Governor of Texas I heard the 
arguments against accountability, and of course I've heard them as the 
President. On the one hand, you'll have people say, ``That's too much 
Government.'' Folks, my attitude is, if we spend money, it is reasonable 
to ask, ``What are the results?''--particularly when it comes to our 
children.
    I want to know whether a little child in the third grade can read, 
and I want to know early rather than late, and so should you. Because if 
we don't find out whether a child can read, oftentimes what happens is, 
they just get shuffled through the system. That's not fair; that's not 
right. Phyllis Hunter, my friend in the Houston Independent School 
District, stood up one time and said, ``Reading is the new civil 
right.'' How can you realize the American Dream if you can't read? And 
if you can't read, you can't learn. We've got to know. We've got to know 
whether or not the school systems and the curriculum are working, to 
make sure that no child in America gets left behind. It makes sense to 
ask the question, what are the results all across America? Your motto in 
Missouri is ``Show Me.'' It's not pass them through; it's show me 
whether or not the children can read.
    And then you'll hear people say it's racist to test. Folks, it's 
racist not to test, because guess who gets shuffled through the system, 
oftentimes: children whose parents don't speak English as a first 
language, inner-city kids. It's so much easier to quit on somebody than 
to re-mediate. And so we've got reform at the heart of this bill, and 
the reform is, every child can learn. No child should be left behind, 
and we're going to find out whether or not children are learning or not. 
And when they are, we need to praise the teachers. And by the way, for 
the teachers who are here, thanks for teaching. It's a noble profession.
    That's one thing Laura's going to spend a lot of time on. She's not 
only going to spend a lot of time heralding reading programs at work or 
working on libraries--expanding libraries around America, but she's 
going to do her job--the best job she can at recruiting folks to become 
teachers--the young, those, for example, who have served in our 
military. We've got a troops-for-teachers program that will encourage 
those who have served in the military to get back in the classroom. 
We've got to do a better job of recruiting good Americans into the 
classrooms.
    The education bill is a good bill. I look forward to signing it. It 
is a sign that we're making progress on getting things done. Washington 
needs to be a results-oriented world. And one area where we need better 
results is with our military. When I campaigned for the Presidency, Dick 
Cheney--and by the way, he's doing great. He's a wonderful man and a 
great Vice President. I'm really glad he's decided to leave the private 
sector to come and join the administration. But we both said that we 
need to strengthen the military in order to keep the peace.
    And we made great progress. The Congress has done great work. We 
passed pay raises. I had the honor of signing an additional pay raise in 
Kosovo, when I went overseas, $2 billion additional money to pay our 
troops more, house them better, better health care for the men and women 
who wear the uniform. Listen, high morale begins with treating the men 
and women who wear the uniform--treating them well and paying them 
better. And that's what we're doing.
    We've also got a vision for a stronger military reflected in the 
budget. The budget I sent up for 2002, with amendments, was the largest 
increase in military spending since the time of Ronald Reagan. It's 
important not only to spend more, but we need to spend more wisely. And 
that's why Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a total review of our military

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force today, as well as a strategic review of what our forces ought to 
look like tomorrow. We're going to spend money on research and 
development, to make sure that not only can we keep the peace today but 
that our military is properly equipped, properly trained, to make the 
world more peaceful in the out years.
    And one area that is so important, and I know there's been a lot of 
discussion about it, is to make sure America's prepared to address the 
true threats of the 21st century. I met with President Putin, as you 
know, twice. I had the privilege to represent our Nation with our former 
adversary and to look him in the eye, and say, ``Mr. President, America 
is not your enemy. The cold war is over. We need to discard all the 
relics of the cold war, a treaty, for example, that has codified hatred 
and distrust, called the ABM Treaty.''
    I said, ``Mr. President, the threats that face Russia and America 
and other freedom-loving nations are the threats of weapons of mass 
destruction in the hands of rogue nations or cyberterrorists. It's 
terrorist threats that face us, and we must develop necessary defenses 
to protect ourselves and protect freedom-loving people. We need to get 
rid of the ABM Treaty, so we can research and development--develop 
weapons systems that will meet the true threat facing America. The cold 
war is over. The hatred is gone. Let's come together, for the good of 
freedom-loving people, to protect us all.'' Let's protect Israel and our 
allies and America.
    We're making good progress about bringing morale back to the 
military. We will be strong militarily, because this is a peaceful 
nation, a nation--rests upon freedom, democracy. It's such a wonderful 
land. We cannot retreat within our borders. We've got to be an active 
nation to promote the peace, and we will.
    And finally, we're making good progress about reforming Medicare. 
Medicare is--they usually call it, in the political lexicon, 
``Mediscare.'' See, when you talk about Medicare, then somebody takes 
your words and tries to twist it and frighten people who rely upon 
Medicare. That's an old tactic, an old political tactic. That doesn't 
deter me, however, from talking about making sure the system works. 
Medicare is an incredibly important program. It's a promise the Nation 
made to our seniors, and we've got to make sure it works.
    And one of the things that Medicare doesn't do, it doesn't provide 
prescription drugs for our seniors. And that doesn't make sense in a 
world--a health world that has changed dramatically since Medicare was 
first signed. Now, I've asked Congress to--both Republicans and 
Democrats to think about how to do the following things: Make sure 
prescription drugs is available for seniors; make sure seniors who like 
their current Medicare system can stay in it, the way it is; but make 
sure seniors have got a variety of options from which to choose.
    I said, ``Why don't you all look at your own health care plan?'' 
It's not a bad place to start. If the Senators and Congressmen have got 
a variety of options from which to choose, if their own health care plan 
trusts them to design a program that meets their needs, why shouldn't we 
do the same thing for our seniors? Why shouldn't we say, let's give 
seniors choices?
    And then, of course, there's the Social Security issue, a longtime 
political issue, as well. Now, it should be becoming clearer to people 
that if you're on Social Security today or near retirement, the promises 
our Government made to you will absolutely be kept. Those days of 
demagoging the issue should be gone out of the political--out of 
politics.
    But one of the things I learned and one of the things I know, as a 
result of my travels and studying Social Security, there's a lot of 
young folks who recognize the truth. And that is, there are not going to 
be enough people paying into the system to make sure that they have got 
a Social Security system available for them. There's a lot of young 
workers who heard the message that I delivered. And I believe one of the 
reasons I'm standing here is because I had the courage to deliver this 
message. In order to make sure there's a Social Security system around 
tomorrow, to make sure there's one in the future, we must give younger 
workers the option to manage their own money in the private markets, if 
that's what they choose to do.
    You notice I said, ``if that's what they choose to do.'' Government 
ought to trust

[[Page 1196]]

American people to make decisions in their own life. They ought to trust 
the seniors to make the right choices when it comes to their health 
care, and they ought to trust younger workers with the choice on how to 
manage their own money. Remember the payroll tax--again, it's not the 
Government's money; it's the workers' money. And in order to have a 
Social Security System around tomorrow, we've got to have a better rate 
of return on the people's money in order to offset the fact there are 
fewer people paying into the system.
    My point is that we're beginning to address these difficult issues. 
Our charge in Washington, DC, at least the way I view it, is to not have 
endless partisan squabbling but to talk about the issues that are 
important for America, to be willing to address the tough issues, to 
make sure our country fulfills its promise, not only today but in the 
years to come.
    Now, one of the interesting battles, and I hope it's not a battle--
let me just say, one of the interesting opportunities to show America 
that we can work together, to be the positive guy--[laughter]--is the 
budget. We'll be talking about the budget. This is when we actually 
spend the money.
    See, the first discussion we had was, we set the budget, the 
parameters, about the limits of spending. And now the Members of 
Congress are coming back, and they're going to actually commit 
taxpayer's money. And it's going to be an interesting discussion. Now 
tomorrow, my Office of Management and Budget will issue what's called a 
mid-session budget review and will show in plain terms that we have 
fully funded and will be able to fully fund our Nation's priorities, 
that we've got enough money to preserve and protect Social Security, 
that we'll pay down over $100 billion of public debt, that Medicare, all 
Medicare, every dime that comes into Medicare, will be spent on 
Medicare, and we can meet our priorities when it comes to our military 
and to education.
    Our budget is in strong financial shape, despite an economic 
slowdown that began last year. The slowdown is serious, folks. Make no 
mistake about it. It's real. Since last summer, the economy has grown by 
a little over one percent. That's a slowdown. Inevitably, the slowing 
economy has resulted in slowing tax revenues, lower corporate profits, 
and in some cases layoffs.
    Yet despite the year-long trend, despite the fact that this has been 
on for a year, the Federal budget will have the second largest surplus 
in history, in part, because this administration took immediate action 
to address the downturn. We took exactly the right action, at the right 
time, by pushing the largest tax cut in a generation. You will hear 
people say that tax relief is going to make it hard to meet the budget. 
But reality is, tax relief is important to make sure our economy grows. 
I believe there are some who resent tax relief because they wanted more 
of your money in Washington, DC. It's a fundamental, philosophical 
difference.
    And the fundamental question is, who do you trust? I trust the 
people with their own money. I'd rather you spend your own money, than 
the Federal Government spend your money. I think you can do it more 
wisely than we can in Washington, DC.
    No, this tax relief has laid the foundation for expanding economic 
growth. And now we must resist the temptation of a bigger threat to 
growth, and that's excessive Federal spending. The biggest threat to our 
recovery is for the Congress to overspend. We have the funds to meet our 
obligations, so long as they resist the temptation to spend.
    You know, every new way to spend money can be made to sound urgent, 
important, but we've agreed to budget limits. That's what a budget is. 
You set budgets at your house; the Congress set a budget that we all 
agreed upon. And I expect the Congress to live within the limits of the 
budget that we all agreed on. I am optimistic that we can avoid the--
this business about shutting down things and not getting things done. I 
am optimistic, because we've made good progress so far, and both 
political parties deserve credit.
    Congressman Young of the House and Senator Byrd of the Senate have 
done a good job on the appropriations process thus far. We passed two 
supplemental spending bills: one focused on agriculture, one focused on 
defense. These supplementals in the past were usually nice platforms for 
people to load up the spending with additional programs, things that 
might sound good, but all of a

[[Page 1197]]

sudden end up busting the budget. And both bodies of the Congress stuck 
to the limits that we agreed to. It's a good sign. It's a sign that 
fiscal responsibility is now an important part of the psyche in 
Washington, DC.
    However, even though I'm optimistic, there are some temptations that 
will face the Congress when they come back. I'd like to share some of 
the with you. The first temptation, when it comes to budgeting, is what 
we call the temptation of the false emergency. Now, our budget system 
provides for special consideration for emergency, as it should. We've 
had natural disasters, and we need to have money set aside. That's an 
emergency, and we need to get money quickly into the communities when 
there's a natural disaster. An economic recession is an emergency. A 
declaration of war is an emergency. But far too often in the past, the 
normal has been declared an emergency in order to increase the budget. 
Far too long in the past, well meaning Members have declared that such-
and-such pet project in their district is an emergency, and therefore we 
need to spend that money under the emergency provisions. That's going to 
end.
    A second temptation is to complain that the budget has been cut 
when, in fact, it is increased. One of the amazing things about 
Washington accounting is that when a budget increase is less than 
expected or less than anticipated or less than someone hopes for, that's 
called a cut. [Laughter] So if budget X goes from point A to point B and 
it's a 6 percent growth and reasonable folks come together and say it 
ought to only grow at 4 percent, that's a cut. And we're not going to 
let the so-called Washington cuts cause the budget to get out of 
balance. We're going to blow the whistle.
    Then there's what they call the last minute budget raid. That's when 
the bills are coming, winding down the process, and in order to get 
votes, Members start demanding this or that. There were 6,000 last 
minute additions to the budget last year, some of them small, some of 
them large, but all of them adding up to one thing, a budget that could 
be out of balance. And so as the watchdog of the Treasury, as the person 
who's got the opportunity to bring fiscal sanity to Washington, I'm 
going to be watching carefully for the last minute budget additions.
    Seven out of the last eight budgets submitted by the Executive and 
passed by the Congress have raided the Social Security or used part of 
the Social Security to fund the budgets. One of the temptations is to 
use Social Security money for something other than Social Security. Now 
the good news is, is that both political parties and both parties of 
Congress have declared that we're not going to do that. But I'm going to 
watch carefully, to make sure that the old temptations of the past don't 
come back to haunt us when it comes to budgeting your money in the year 
2001.
    And finally, there is a--not finally, next to finally. [Laughter] I 
was afraid some of you were going to fall out. [Laughter] There is a 
temptation not to listen to the budget in the first place. During the 
last session, the appropriations process created $35 billion more 
dollars than the budget called for. A budget's a budget, folks. We spent 
a lot of time working on the budget. People came together. Both parties 
said, ``Here's the budget.'' And I know the American taxpayers, and I 
know the President in this case, expects for Congress to live within the 
budget we passed. We don't want the budget to be a hollow noise. We want 
the budget to be real, and that's why I've been given the power of the 
veto, to make sure that the budget--make sure the appropriations are 
within the guidelines of the budget.
    And finally--[laughter]--and finally, one of the temptations, and 
perhaps the greatest temptation of all is what we call appropriations 
gamesmanship. And here's the way it works. We've got a budget of X 
amount, and you add up all the potential appropriations bills. The 
budget amount is X. And so they'll pass one bill of the 13, and they may 
add a little bit here. Then they'll pass another bill, all still within 
the budget. And they finally get to the last appropriations bills, and 
all of a sudden, if the budget amount becomes the appropriated amount, 
we busted the budget, because of all the previous bills have added a 
little here or there. And guess what generally is the last ones out? 
Defense--the defense bill.

[[Page 1198]]

    In other words, they'll put it on the President's desk, and say, 
``You either get to bust the budget, Mr. President, or you have to 
choose between defense or perhaps education.'' That's gamesmanship. And 
that's not necessary, folks. That's not good to play with our national 
security or our national interests in educating every child.
    And so what I expect and hope is that Congress will, at the very 
minimum, agree on the funding levels for defense and education early in 
the process, not late. This will be an interesting test of the 
priorities of the leaders of Congress. It will be an interesting test to 
see whether or not they agree with the administration that our true 
priorities begin with educating our children, and a true priority is the 
defense of our Nation. I'm confident we can work together, but it's 
going to require the people to help us watch the process. The people 
need to pay attention. And if you see the appropriations process 
dragging on and it looks like the old games of the past, we all need to 
blow the whistle. We all need to expect better out of Washington, DC.
    And I believe we can do better. I know this: We're not going to 
raise the taxes on the people. I know this: that we're going to make 
sure additional spending doesn't cut into essential programs, like 
Social Security or Medicare. I know this: We won't short-change the 
military, because it's important to rebuild our military. And I know 
this: We're making progress in changing the tone in Washington, and the 
budget process is the way to show the American people that we can work 
together for what's right.
    Harry Truman brought a lot of wisdom to Washington, in what he said. 
He said some things, and I think he called--he was a plain-spoken 
fellow. Nothing wrong with that. [Laughter] Nothing wrong with telling 
people exactly what you believe. Washington can use a lot of that. He 
said, ``Washington is a very easy place to forget where you came from 
and why you got there in the first place.'' Pretty wise.
    I think one of the reasons I got there in the first place is to show 
the American people that it's possible to work together. I think one of 
the reasons I got there in the first place is to do in office what I 
said I would do, to try to bring some faith back into the political 
process. I know one of the reasons I got there in the first place; one 
of the reasons I got there in the first place was to watch the budget 
and to trust the American people.
    But there's a large call, as well, and that's to work with the 
American folks to help change our culture from one that will be more 
respectful and more compassionate, from one that used to say, if it 
feels good, do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else, to 
one in which all of us are responsible for the decisions we make in 
life.
    A responsible culture, a culture of personal responsibility means 
that if you're fortunate enough to be a mom or a dad, that you 
understand your responsibility is to love your children with all your 
heart and all of your soul. A culture of responsibility understands that 
if you live in a community and see a neighbor in need, that instead of 
relying upon Government, that you ought to walk across the street and 
help that neighbor in need. A culture of responsibility says that if 
you're a part of corporate America, you have a responsibility to the 
workers that work for you. A culture of responsibility says that if 
you're fortunate enough to hold high office, that you have a 
responsibility to set the highest of high standards and to live by those 
standards.
    I am honored to be in such a position. I'm honored to be in a 
position to help work with decent Americans all across our country to 
usher in this period. And I know it can happen, because we're all 
inhabitants of the greatest land on the face of the Earth.
    Thanks for coming today. May God bless, and may God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 8:58 a.m. in the gymnasium. In his remarks, 
he referred to Mary Alice Gensor, president, Democratic Club, John Knox 
Village retirement community; Phyllis Hunter, consultant, Texas Reading 
Initiative; and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

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