[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 25 (Monday, June 24, 2002)]
[Pages 1020-1025]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Reception for Governor Rick Perry of Texas in Houston

June 14, 2002

    The President. Thank you for that warm welcome. It's another reason 
I'm glad to be home--[laughter]--that, plus getting a little culture. 
[Laughter] I can't tell you how great it is to see so many friends. I 
want to thank you for your prayers, for your friendship. I want to thank 
you for helping Laura and me serve our country.
    I'm here today to talk about a man who--there's no doubt in my 
mind--is not only going to win in November but do a fine, fine job on 
behalf of the Texas people. We've shared a lot. We have both been 
Governors. And we both married above ourselves. [Laughter] I appreciate 
Anita Perry, the first lady of the State of Texas, and she's bringing a 
lot of class to the office.
    I'm sorry Laura isn't here with me. She's in Crawford.
    Audience member. We are, too.
    The President. Well, I'm sure you are. I can understand that. 
[Laughter] You probably wish she was speaking. [Laughter]
    It's hard to believe that a public school librarian who didn't 
particularly care about politics or politicians--[laughter]--is now the 
First Lady of this great country, and she's doing a magnificent job.
    I'm really proud of her. Of course she, like my mother, is still 
telling me what to do. [Laughter] Marjorie, I'm of course listening. 
[Laughter] But we're doing great. We really are. Our family's strong. 
Our spirit is strong. Our love for our country has never been greater.
    I want to thank all the elected officials who are here. I 
particularly want to say something about the next attorney general, Greg 
Abbott. Greg, I want to thank you for your--[applause]. I want to thank 
Henry Bonilla for being here and for his work on behalf of our party and 
the Victory Committee. I want to thank Justices Jefferson and Rodriguez, 
who are here with us tonight.
    I know there's all kinds of candidates--Judge Carter, who's running 
in the 31st Congressional District this year. I know my

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friend--thank you, Judge. I know my friend Tommy Craddick is here. And 
members of the statehouse, both Republicans and Democrats, are here 
tonight, and I want to thank you all for coming.
    I want to thank you all for supporting Rick. I want to thank you for 
contributing your money and, as importantly, thank you for contributing 
your time.
    I see a lot of what they call grassroots activists here. I tell you, 
I know I could never have won the Governor's race and/or the Presidency 
without those of you who man the phones and sign the envelopes and lick 
them and mail them and do all the hard work. And so on behalf of 
grateful candidates, thanks for what you have done and thanks for what 
you're going to do come November.
    I appreciate Rick's record. I want to talk a little bit about 
education. It is a passion of mine, and it's a passion of Rick's. It is 
absolutely essential that at all levels of government we have people who 
are willing to raise standards for every child. It is absolutely 
essential for the good of the State of Texas that we have a Governor who 
believes every child can learn, somebody who doesn't lower the bar. See, 
if you lower the standards, if you expect mediocrity, you'll get 
mediocrity, and that's not good enough for the State of Texas.
    As Rick mentioned, we reformed the education code out of the Federal 
Government. It mirrors what Rick is doing here in Texas. Let me explain 
it to you right quick. It says that if you receive money from the 
taxpayers, you've got to measure. If you get help from the Federal 
Government or the State Government, you've got to show the taxpayers but 
more importantly the parents whether or not the children all across the 
State of Texas are learning. And if they're learning, we'll praise the 
teachers. If they're meeting standards, if they're meeting expectations, 
there will be all kinds of praise for the hardworking teachers all 
across the country and in the State of Texas.
    But when we find children who aren't learning, children who can't 
read, we've got to address the problems early, before it's too late. You 
see, every child is important in the State of Texas. Every child 
matters. And you can't tell whether or not children are learning to read 
and write and add and subtract unless you have the courage to hold 
people accountable.
    Texas must not go backwards. Texas must continue to have strong 
accountability systems, so that this business about just shuffling 
children through the system stops. You see, it's easy to quit on a 
young, black child. It's easy to say, ``That person can't learn. Let's 
just move them through.'' It's easy to quit on somebody whose parents 
may not speak English as a first language. It's easy to quit. But by 
having accountability and local control of schools, we measure each 
child, because each child counts. You cannot possibly fix the problem 
unless you know the problem exists.
    Education is the number one priority for this Governor. And it's the 
number one priority for the State of Texas, and that's as it should be. 
And we're making progress. We are. One of the things I love about Rick 
is, his vision of Texas includes everybody, not just a few. His vision 
of Texas says every child counts, and no child will be left behind in 
the great State of Texas.
    One of the big initiatives in Washington, DC, is the reauthorization 
of welfare. One of the great successes in our country has been the 1996 
welfare reform bill. And it basically said that we can do better than 
dependency upon Government, that we can free people by insisting upon 
work and by helping those learn how to work. It gives me great 
confidence to know that Rick is going to be the Governor of Texas as we 
talk about reauthorization. The cornerstone of helping people is to help 
them find the dignity of a job. And with Rick Perry as Governor, I'm 
confident that that dignity will spread throughout all parts of the 
great State of Texas.
    I appreciate a man who understands there needs to be fiscal sanity 
when it comes to spending money, spending your money. And Rick saved the 
State $500 million as a result of some bold actions he took. And as you 
know, the economy kind of slowed down a little bit, and thankfully, you 
had a Governor who is willing to make the tough fiscal choices that's 
going to stand Texas in good stead in the years to come. I appreciate 
your courage, Rick, and I appreciate your leadership.

[[Page 1022]]

    But the thing I appreciate most is your integrity and your values, 
the fact that you make your family your top priority. I love the fact 
that you love your wife, and you love your kids. You know, we were going 
down the Gulf Freeway today. [Laughter] Traffic wasn't all that bad, by 
the way. [Laughter] If you got stuck in one of the exits, I apologize. 
[Laughter] We spent more time talking about our family. I appreciate a 
Governor who wanted to share with me the hopes and aspirations of his 
children. It's important for the State of Texas to have somebody in the 
Governor's office whose got his priorities absolutely straight, faith 
and family and the great State of Texas.
    You know, when I was one time campaigning in Chicago, a reporter 
said, ``Would you ever have a deficit?'' And I said, ``I can't imagine 
it, but there would be one if we had a war or a national emergency or a 
recession.'' [Laughter] Never did I dream we'd get the trifecta. 
[Laughter] But I want you to know we're making progress on all three 
fronts. I'm concerned about the economic security of the American 
people. I know there's a lot of focus on statistics--this number comes 
out or that number comes out. Here's my attitude: So long as somebody 
wants to work and can't find a job, we have a problem. And my focus is 
going to be to continue to expand the job base of this country so people 
can find work.
    We made a pretty good start when we cut the taxes on the working 
people. And it came at exactly the right time. There's a school of 
thought in Washington that says, if you take more of the people's money, 
the economy will benefit. I don't read the same textbook. [Laughter] My 
attitude is, when times are slow, you let people have their own money. 
And when they keep their own money, they spend it. And when they spend 
their own money, they demand a good and service. And when you demand a 
good and service, somebody's going to provide the good and service, 
which means somebody's going to be able to work. This tax cut happened 
at the right time, and we need to make the tax cuts permanent.
    In order to make sure people can find jobs and can work in America, 
we need an energy policy. We need an energy policy that, on the one 
hand, encourages conservation and makes sure that we promote renewable 
sources of energy, an energy policy that promotes the new technologies 
that are coming on line. But we need an energy policy as well that 
encourages exploration for oil and gas in the United States of America.
    The nay-sayers and the skeptics, you know, challenge that policy. 
They don't understand the technologies now available that allow us to 
provide domestic energy and at the same time protect our environment. 
But let me put it to you this way: For the sake of economic security, we 
need a sound energy policy. And for the sake of national security, we 
must become less reliant on foreign sources of energy. Some of those 
sources don't particularly care about America, I might add.
    This Congress needs to give me a trade bill so I can open up markets 
for Texas agricultural products, for high-tech products. Listen, if 
you're good at something--and we're good at a lot of things when it 
comes to our economy--we ought to be selling them to people around the 
world. This country ought to be feeding the people of the world. I need 
trade promotion authority from the United States Congress for the good 
of the job creation.
    We're making progress on economic security. And we've got a long way 
to go. But I just want you to know, so long as somebody can't find work 
that wants to work, I'm working.
    And we've got a lot to do on homeland security as well. I want you 
to know what I think about the people that we're fighting. They are 
nothing but coldblooded killers. There was a bombing in Karachi. 
Innocent people lost their lives. Most of the innocent people were 
Muslims. These people, these terrorists, these killers have hijacked a 
noble religion, but the world is seeing what they're made out of, what 
they're like. They do not value individual life. And for the good of 
freedom and for the good of America and our allies and friends, we're 
going to hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.
    We've made some progress. The other night when I announced this 
Department of Homeland Security, I laid out a statistic that

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said we've rounded up about 2,400 of them so far--make it 2,401.
    Audience member. That's right.
    The President. And that's good. And that's good, except there's 
still a lot of them out there. And so it is--it is my most important job 
to do everything in my power to prevent the enemy from taking innocent 
life again.
    We've got over 100 agencies in Washington, DC, involved with 
homeland security. They're scattered all throughout the bureaucracy. As 
you can imagine, it makes it kind of tough to get an efficient plan in 
place. And so I've asked the Congress to make the most impressive and 
far-reaching reorganization since Harry Truman reorganized the Defense 
Department.
    I want it all under one--one authority. I want to align authority 
and responsibility. I want it to be said that, as a result of 
reorganizing Government, our country is better prepared to enforce our 
border, to respond to emergency; our country is better prepared to 
respond to bioterrorism. We need the capacity to analyze the information 
we're getting to predict what might happen so that we can react.
    Now, this isn't going to be as easy as it seems, reorganizing 
Government. After all, there's a lot of turf in Washington, DC, and 
people are guarding their turf. There's an appropriation chairman here, 
a ranking member there that likes the idea of deciding how much money 
goes to this agency or another. For the good of the American people, I 
call upon Congress to think about not turf but security.
    I'll never forget my first hard discussion with the Director of the 
FBI. I don't know if you are aware of this fact, but he came on to work 
one week before September the 11th, so he got right in the middle of the 
action pretty quickly. And he was talking to me about, you know, they're 
doing a pretty good job of going after this white-collar criminal and 
arresting this person. And I said, ``That's all fine and good, and you 
need to keep doing it. But your most important priority now is to 
prevent attack. I want you running down every lead. If you've got a hint 
that somebody might be coming in here to do something to America, I want 
to know about it, and I want you on them. I want you doing everything in 
your power. Your agency is vital, but your mission has--the priority of 
the agency--your new mission is to use the resources of the United 
States of America to protect the homeland.''
    And we're making progress. We really are. The CIA and the FBI 
communicate in a lot closer way these days. There's a lot better sharing 
of information. You've just go to know that there's a lot of hardworking 
people doing everything they can to protect you. But the best way to 
secure the homeland, the best way, is to chase these killers down one by 
one and bring them to justice.
    We will use every tool at our disposal. We've assembled a vast 
coalition of freedom-loving countries, and we're--and they're working. 
We're communicating with these folks. Every time I meet with a foreign 
leader, I remind him or her that our most important collective job is to 
win this war on terror. History has called us into action. History will 
look back and determine the mettle and drive and desire of all of us who 
have been given awesome responsibilities.
    We're cutting off their money, and that's vital. It's kind of hard 
for them to operate unless they have cash. And although the enemy 
doesn't require much money, if they don't have any, it's going to be 
hard for them to move. So we're working with financial institutions all 
round the world on a regular basis to cut off their money.
    Probably the most effective force we've used, of course, thus far is 
the United States military. For those of you who've got relatives in the 
military or are in the military yourselves, thanks from the bottom of my 
heart and our Nation's heart.
    I was at West Point the other day, and I was honored to give a 
graduation speech where I laid out a new doctrine called preemption, 
which I'll describe here in a second. But I shook every hand of the 
graduates. Let me tell you, the military's in good shape. These are 
fine, fine young Americans.
    I sent up to Congress the largest increase in defense spending since 
Ronald Reagan was the President, and I did it for two reasons, and I 
want to explain it to you right quickly. One, any time we commit our men 
and women into harm's way, they deserve

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the best equipment, the best training, the best possible pay. And 
secondly, I submitted a significant increase, because we're in for a 
long war. I know some would hope the enemy would go away. They're not 
going away until we get them. That's a fact. The good news is, the 
American people are united and strong and resolved. They understand what 
I know, that we must defend our freedoms at all costs.
    You know, I can't imagine what went through the mind of the enemy. 
They probably looked at America and thought we were so self-absorbed and 
materialistic and selfish that after they killed thousands of our 
citizens, all we would do is file a lawsuit or two. [Laughter] They and 
the world have seen the true character of America.
    We love our freedom. We care about our children. We love our values. 
We love the fact that people can worship freely in America. We love the 
fact that you can have honest political discourse. That's what we love. 
We love our lifestyle, and we will use all our might to protect it.
    The threats we face go beyond just one terrorist network. The 
threats we face are bigger than a group of these shadowy figures who try 
to hide in caves and then send youngsters to their death. We face 
threats of weapons of mass destruction. In the past, we used to have a 
doctrine called containment and deterrence. You can't contain a shadowy 
terrorist network. You can't deter somebody who doesn't have a country. 
And you're not going to be able--future Presidents won't be able to 
deter or contain one of these nations which harbors weapons of mass 
destruction, nations who hate America. For the good of the American 
people, I will use all the resources at my disposal to make sure the 
world's worst regimes do not threaten, blackmail America and our friends 
with the world's worst weapons.
    I believe that out of the evil done to America is going to come 
incredible good. I've got a great painting by Tom Lee. Many of you know 
Tom Lee from El Paso. He passed away, unfortunately, earlier this year. 
And on my wall is his fantastic picture--painting, I guess you'd call 
it--of West Texas. And it reminds me of a quote Tom Lee said; it's 
something I said at our convention. He said, ``Sarah and I live on the 
east side of the mountain. It is the sunrise side, not the sunset side. 
It is the side to see the day that is coming, not to see the day that is 
gone.''
    The day I see coming for this great country is one of peace. I want 
you to tell your children that behind all the war rhetoric is a strong 
desire for peace, that I long for peace not only in America, but I think 
if the United States of America remains tough and vigilant and strong 
and steady, that we will be able to achieve peace in parts of the world 
where there is no hope for peace right now. I believe that. I believe 
that the enemy, much to their chagrin--much to their chagrin--out of the 
evil will come a more peaceful world. And at home, I know out of the 
evil will come a better America.
    Today I had the honor of speaking at the Ohio State University 
graduation ceremonies. I told those kids, I said that patriotism is more 
than saluting the flag. Patriotism is service to your country. 
Patriotism is loving your neighbor just like you'd like to be loved 
yourself. If you want to fight evil, if you want to join the war on 
terror, love somebody. Do some good. It's the gathering momentum of 
thousands of acts of kindness and generosity which will show the world 
the compassionate face of America and, at the same time, show the world 
that this country is not going to be cowed by evil people.
    One person can't do everything in this society. I know that. But one 
person can do something to save a soul. Listen, in this great land of 
ours, a land of plenty, there are pockets of hopelessness and despair. 
There are too many children who wonder whether America is meant for 
them, and we're going to do something about that here in America. There 
are too many people addicted and sad and lonely, and we'll do something 
about that too. The Government can hand out checks. But what Government 
cannot do is put hope in people's hearts or sense of purpose in their 
lives or love people. That's going to happen because this great country 
is full of loving and decent and caring souls.
    I call upon you all to continue what you're doing when it comes to 
helping a neighbor in need. The acts don't have to be huge acts. Listen, 
if you just walk across the street and tell somebody shut in that you 
love them,

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it's a part of making our society whole and complete. Mentor a child. 
Grab a child around the shoulders and tell them you love them and teach 
them how to read. It's these acts of compassion and decency which will 
help lay the foundation for a more hopeful America in the future.
    You know, when I was campaigning for Governor and still as 
President, I've talked about a cultural change. I said, it's so 
important for us to change the culture away from that of my generation, 
which has said, if it feels good, just go ahead and do it, and if you've 
got a problem, blame somebody else. That's happening in America. People 
understand that they are responsible for the decisions they make in 
life.
    I believe a culture of personal responsibility is beginning to take 
hold, and perhaps the most important catalyst for that cultural shift is 
what took place on Flight 93. People were driving--flying across the 
country, trying to get home, and all of a sudden they realized their 
airplane was a weapon. And they said a prayer, and they told their loved 
ones goodbye, and they served a cause greater than self by driving that 
airplane into the ground.
    It's that sense of sacrifice and courage that will serve as an 
example for young and old alike. It's that concept of serving something 
greater than you which will allow this great Nation to show the world 
that we will overcome evil with good.
    I want to thank you all for your friendship. I repeat, I want to 
thank you for the greatest gift you can give a President and his wife, 
and that's your prayers. I want to thank you for supporting my friend, 
the current and next Governor of the State of Texas. I want to thank you 
all for coming.
    May God bless you all, and may God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 6:09 p.m. in the Imperial Ballroom at the 
Hyatt Regency Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Marjorie Arsht, 
Republican Party activist; Greg Abbott, candidate for State attorney 
general of Texas; Justices Wallace Jefferson and Xavier Rodriguez of the 
Texas Supreme Court; Texas State Representative Tom Craddick; and John 
R. Carter, candidate for Texas' 31st Congressional District. This item 
was not received in time for publication in the appropriate issue.