[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 26 (Monday, July 1, 2002)]
[Pages 1084-1088]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Luncheon for Representative Mike Ferguson in Newark, New 
Jersey

June 24, 2002

    The President. Thank you very much. So here's what I believe. I 
believe if you find an honest person who works hard on behalf of every 
citizen in the district in which he represents, a person who does in 
office what he said he would do, you need to send him back to 
Washington, DC.
    I'm here as as strong an advocate as I can be for the reelection of 
Mike Ferguson to the United States Congress. After all, we share some 
things in common. We both have got impressive mothers. [Laughter] We 
both got degrees from Notre Dame. [Laughter] Okay, it took me a 30-
minute speech to get mine. [Laughter] We both married great women.
    I appreciate so very much Maureen. I love her demeanor. It was an 
honor to meet their children today. And I want you to know, Maureen and 
Mike, that Laura sends her best. She is not town--not in Washington, 
that is. She's out in Texas with her mother, and she is--but boy, she's 
made me proud. People now know why I asked her to marry me. [Laughter] A 
lot of people wonder why she said yes, but--[laughter].
    But we're doing great. Listen, many of you said you pray for Laura 
and me and the family. It is the kindest gift you can give the 
President, is your prayers, and I want to thank you for that.
    We had a big event at the Port Authority today, and one of the--one 
of my treasured Cabinet secretaries and friends came with me, and that 
is your former Governor, Christie Todd Whitman. Barney--Barney's the 
little Scottish Terrier--wouldn't have happened without Christie Todd. 
[Laughter] And so I thank her for her service, but as importantly, thank 
her for Barney. [Laughter]
    I want to thank some candidates who are here. Doug Forrester, 
running for the United States Senate, is with us. Scott Garrett, running 
in the 5th District of New Jersey, thank you, Scott. My friend Buster 
Soaries, thank you, Buster, for coming. I'm glad you're here. I want to 
thank Rodney Frelinghuysen for being here. He's a fine Member of the 
United States Congress. And Rodney, thank you for your leadership. Frank 
LoBiondo is here as well. Frank, where are you? He heard I was going to 
give a speech. [Laughter]
    I want to thank Lew Eisenberg, my friend here from New Jersey, for 
being such a great Republican National Committee finance chairman. I 
want to thank Lew for taking time out of a busy life to serve our party 
and our country. And I want to thank your chairman, the new father. Joe, 
I wish you

[[Page 1085]]

all the very best with your new baby. Thanks for coming.
    So the enemy hits us, and a lot of people were wondering how people 
would respond. And Mike and Maureen spend time comforting people. They 
didn't hold press conferences. They didn't hire some camera crew to 
follow them around. They did the best they could possibly do about 
extending love and compassion and decency to people who hurt deeply. 
That's the kind of Congressman I would like to have. This was not a time 
for politics in our country. This was a time to be as good an American 
as you could possibly be. It's a time of great testing. These two folks 
passed it--passed their test with flying colors.
    And he's passed his test in the United States Congress too. A couple 
of examples: He understands, like I understand, the role of Government 
is not to create wealth. The role of Government is to create an 
environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish, in which the small 
business can grow to be a big business, in which people are willing to 
take risk. He understands that when you cut the people's taxes, it's 
part of creating an environment that encourages job growth.
    You know, when I was running, I said--they asked me, ``Would you 
ever deficit spend?'' I said, ``Well, only if we had a recession or a 
national emergency or a war.'' [Laughter] And our economy was 
floundering, and thank goodness I had allies like Mike, who agreed with 
me that we needed to let people keep more of their own money. See, we--
here's the textbook we read from. If somebody has more money in their 
pocket, they're likely to spend it, and when they spend it, they demand 
a good and--or service. And when somebody demands a good or service, 
somebody is going to produce a good and service. And when somebody is 
producing a good or a service, somebody is working.
    In Washington, they talk about statistics all the time. Here's my 
attitude: So long as somebody wants to work and can't find a job, we 
need to worry about that person. We need to worry less about statistics, 
and more about the people--more about people who are trying to find a 
job. Tax cuts came at the right time in America, and I'm glad Mike was 
by my side. And now we need to make them permanent.
    And I appreciate his commitment to making sure Social Security is 
strong, not only strong today, and that we fulfill the promise to our 
seniors today, but strong tomorrow. And as well, you need to know that 
as an impressive--as a sign of the Congress' recognition of Mike's 
leadership, he's going to be one of the leaders on the floor of the 
Congress, to make sure that our seniors get prescription drugs in 
Medicare.
    That doesn't happen all the time, when you've got a freshman 
Congressman. You know, as they say down home, it means you've got a good 
one. [Laughter] And you need to work hard to put him back in office. And 
that means more than showing up in ballrooms. That means manning the 
phones and turning out the vote. Many of you never get enough credit for 
that kind of work, here in New Jersey or anywhere around the country. 
I'm here to tell you, I thank you from the bottom of Mike's heart and my 
heart for your willingness to be grassroots activists for something you 
believe in. And I believe in this guy, and I know you do as well.
    And what I love about Mike's background is, he was a teacher. For 
those of you who have been teachers and--or are teachers today, thank 
you from the bottom of our heart. It's an incredibly important 
profession, because while homeland security is now the top priority of 
the country, economic security depends upon making sure every single 
child--I don't mean a few or some--every child gets a good education.
    We passed a great education reform bill. Mike was by my side. He 
understands it's important to set high standards. It's simple--kind of a 
simple logic, but if you set low standards, guess what you're going to 
get? You're going to get bad results. We believe every child can learn. 
Therefore, we've set the highest of high standards.
    And we believe you ought to measure. You see, if you don't measure, 
how do you know if somebody is not getting shuffling through--get 
shuffled through the system? And guess who is easy to shuffle through? 
Children whose parents don't speak English as a first language, for 
example. It's so much easier to quit on a child. Inner-city African

[[Page 1086]]

Americans, it's easy to quit on them. But when you measure, we get to 
determine whether or not the goal of every child getting educated is 
being met. And if that's the case, I promise you, I'm going to praise 
the teachers all over the country. However, where I find children 
trapped in schools that won't teach and won't change, I demand something 
different, because not one single child needs to be left behind in 
America. And Mike understands that, and I appreciated his support on the 
education matters.
    I appreciate his support on matters of economic security. That is a 
top priority of mine, to make sure we continue to work to expand our job 
base, so people can find work. It's a top priority of mine to make sure 
that we protect the homeland too.
    Today I went to the Port Authority to thank the first-responders, 
brave police and fire and Port Authority officials that work so hard on 
behalf of the American people. You just need to know, if you don't know, 
that there are a lot of people working a lot of hours to do everything 
we can to prevent the enemy from attacking America again. And I'm proud 
of their efforts, and I'm proud of their response. I went today to thank 
those on the frontline. We can't thank them enough for the diligence.
    I like to tell people that any time we get a hint or a lead or a 
piece of evidence, we're going to run it down. We're going to make sure 
that the enemy--if they think they can hit us, they're going to have to 
cross some mighty big hurdles to do so. And we're getting better at what 
we're doing. We really are. Today I saw some fairly sophisticated 
equipment--or very sophisticated equipment about how to detect hazardous 
equipment. If somebody is trying to ship it here, we've got a better job 
of risk assessment, so that not only we can facilitate trade, but we can 
also make sure that the cargo coming in is inspected. We need to know 
who is coming in our country, if they're going out when they're supposed 
to be going out. We need to know what is coming in our country, if it is 
supposed to be the stuff that's supposed to be coming in our country. 
And so, therefore, we're being wiser about how we use technology with 
our Customs and Border and INS people.
    And we need to share information better. There is no question about 
it, prior to September the 11th, the FBI and CIA weren't talking enough, 
and now they are on a regular basis. There's no question that the 
culture of the FBI wasn't focused for homeland defense. After all, 
they're charged with hauling people in that had busted the law. And they 
still need to be doing that. But the world's changed, and now the focus 
is on protecting the homeland. And every morning, I talk to the Director 
of the FBI and the head of the CIA, and we talk about information and 
how we're doing and what's happening with this lead. It's all part of 
making sure we do everything we can to--so I can travel the country to 
say we're doing--we are doing everything we can, every possible thing, 
to protect the homeland.
    I think we need to do some more in Washington, DC. I believe 
strongly we need to reorganize the agencies involved with the homeland, 
the defense of our homeland, into one single Cabinet agency. Listen, I 
didn't run on ``Vote for me; I'm going to try to make Government 
bigger.'' I understand that, and this is going to be a big agency. But I 
do want to make sure that we've got authority and responsibility 
aligned. There's over 100 different agencies involved with the defense 
of our homeland. In order to make sure we've got the right focus and the 
right culture, it seems wise to me to have them aligned under one 
agency.
    And so I'm asking Congress to make a tough decision, to give up a 
little turf, and to do what's right on behalf of the American people, so 
that I can continue to say the Government is doing good. And I must tell 
you, the response has been gratifying, the response from both 
Republicans and Democrats. And I want to thank them for that, and I just 
urge them to continue to work to get this done.
    There's a lot to do to secure the homeland, and we will. But the 
surest way to secure the homeland is to hunt the killers down one by one 
and bring them to justice, which is what we're going to do. And it's 
going to take a while. It's going to take a while.
    Audience member. You're doing a good job.

[[Page 1087]]

    The President. Thank you. Every crowd needs a yeller. [Laughter] 
Thank you.
    I'm not doing as good a job as the U.S. military is doing though. 
I'll tell you, they're doing a great job. The--I can't imagine what was 
going through the minds of the enemy when they attacked us. They must 
have said, this country was so materialistic, so self-absorbed, so 
selfish, that after September the 11th, we might file a lawsuit or two. 
[Laughter] They found out we think differently. They did. They found out 
that we love freedom, and we love our country.
    And we're making progress. We're making progress. The other night, 
when I announced the Department of Homeland Security, I told the country 
that we have arrested--we, our friends, and allies, have arrested over 
2,400 people. And that's good. Some of them you never heard about. This 
is a different kind of war. This isn't a war with fronts and tanks and 
industrial complexes. This is a war of this great country fighting down 
shadowy killers, nothing but a bunch of coldblooded killers who do not 
value innocent life. And 2,400 of them is a good dent. We've made pretty 
good progress. But you've just got to know there's more to go. And so 
long as they're out there threatening us, we're going to run them down. 
They think they can hide--[applause].
    I've submitted to Congress the largest defense spending increase 
since Ronald Reagan was President, and I did so for two reasons: One, 
any time we send our troops into harm's way, they deserve the best 
equipment, the best training, and the best pay; and secondly, I did so 
because this is going to take a while.
    You know, I just--I don't have a calendar on my desk--it's a 
magnificent desk, I might add, in the--[laughter]--beautiful Oval 
Office--that says, on such-and-such a date, we quit. That's not how you 
think when it comes to defending freedom. There is no date of departure 
from this noble effort. Until we feel secure, that's the date. And so I 
work hard on a daily basis to keep our coalition intact.
    And this weekend, I had the honor of calling Gloria Arroyo, the 
President of the Philippines. I don't know if you remember, but they had 
this little Al-Qaida-type terrorist organization that captured two 
Americans as well as other people. The wife lives today free in America; 
the husband, unfortunately, died. They're called Abu Sayyaf. Early on in 
the war I said, ``They're there in your country. We'd like to help you. 
However you want the United States to help, we want to help.'' See, 
we're after--any time these terrorists light, we're after them. And I 
called her and congratulated her on what looks like the demise of the 
head of the organization, totally disrupting it. Either you're with us 
or you're against us, and she proved she was with us. And I want to 
thank her for her leadership.
    And so we're making steady, steady progress, just one day at a 
time--one day at a time. And as you know, I'm deeply concerned not only 
about shadowy terrorist networks; I'm deeply concerned about shadowy 
terrorist networks teaming up with nations which have got some of the 
world's worst leaders and at the same time want to develop and maintain 
the world's worst weapons. And I'm a patient man. I'll take my time. 
We've got a lot of tools at our disposal. We've got diplomatic tools, 
financial tools, military tools. But for the sake of our children and 
for the sake of freedom, we can't let the world's worst leaders threaten 
us or blackmail us with the world's worst weapons.
    I want to thank Mike for his steadfast support on this war we all 
fight. This isn't that partisan battle up in the Congress. There are no 
partisan battles when it comes to defending the homeland. This isn't a 
Republican initiative. It's not a Democrat initiative. This is an 
American initiative. And I think Congress understands that.
    Not only do I feel determined; I also feel that out of the evil done 
to America is going to come some good. I truly believe that. I believe 
that if we remain strong and steadfast, we can achieve peace. I see a 
lot of youngsters here. I want them to know that my dream is peace. I 
want our children--and matter of fact, children all around the world--to 
grow up in peace.
    Your country doesn't seek revenge. We seek justice. And when we went 
into the first battle of this new war, we liberated a country. We didn't 
conquer a country. We liberated a country. And thanks to your Government 
and your country, young girls go to school for the first time in 
Afghanistan.

[[Page 1088]]

    And I also believe here at home, out of the evil done to America can 
come some incredible good as well. I do. I see--if you want to fight 
evil, love your neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself. If you 
want to fight evil, do some good--do some good. Help a neighbor in need. 
Mentor a child. Teach a child to read. Listen, there are pockets of 
despair and loneliness and hopelessness in America that we need to worry 
about. There are people who hurt in this country, people who wonder, is 
America meant for them? And I believe that because this Nation is so 
compassionate and decent, that out of the evil done to America on 
September the 11th will come the good by reaching into neighborhoods 
with love and compassion and decency.
    I'm a strong backer of the Faith-Based Initiative, because I believe 
in providing help and hope to those in need. Government can write a 
check, but what Government cannot do is put hope in people's hearts or a 
sense of purpose in people's lives. That will be done by our fellow 
citizens. We will change America one soul, one conscience, one person at 
a time.
    And it's happening here in this country. Joanna Glick came out to 
the airport today and then was at the Port Authority with me; she's a 
17-year-old child, a high school student who, the day after September 
the 11th, started what's called Teen Freedom Corps Club in her high 
school to help people in need. You know, what made her story most 
interesting is, her brother, Jeremy, was on Flight 93. And so here's a 
child who asked the question, ``What can I do to fight evil,'' and of 
course, obviously, misses her brother and loves her brother but 
immediately went out to rally compassion and decency to help people in 
need.
    Her brother serves as a great example of what I think is happening 
in America, and why I say that out of evil will come some good. Here's a 
guy, along with others, on an airplane they knew was a weapon--told 
their loved ones goodbye, told them they loved them, said a prayer, 
said, ``Let's roll,'' drove the plane in the ground.
    They served something greater than themselves in life. They were 
willing to say, ``I will die to save somebody else.'' Joanna was willing 
to say, ``I will work. I will set aside myself, to serve somebody 
else.'' And that's my call to my fellow Americans. If you want to do 
some good, you can fight evil by loving a neighbor just like you'd like 
to be loved yourself.
    Now, out of the evil will come some good, because this is America. 
We are the greatest country, the greatest country, on the face of the 
Earth. It is my privilege to campaign for a Congressman of that great 
country, as the President of the greatest country.
    God bless you all, and God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 12:28 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the 
Sheraton Newark Airport Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Maureen 
Ferguson, wife of Representative Ferguson; Jenna Welch, mother of First 
Lady Laura Bush; DeForest ``Buster'' Soaries, candidate for New Jersey's 
12th Congressional District; State Senator Joseph M. Kyrillos, Jr., 
chairman, New Jersey Republican Party; and missionary Gracia Burnham, 
who, along with her husband, Martin, was held captive by the Abu Sayyaf 
terrorist group in the Philippines. Representative Ferguson is a 
candidate for reelection in New Jersey's Seventh Congressional District.