[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 35 (Monday, September 2, 2002)]
[Pages 1438-1443]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Community in Las Cruces, New Mexico

August 24, 2002

    The President. Thank you all. Please be seated. It's great to come 
to a place where you can see cowboy hats and belt buckles, boots. Thanks 
for letting me across the State line. [Laughter] I was just raised right 
around the corner, in Midland, Texas. So I kind of consider Las Cruces 
to be kind of home.
    But thank you all for greeting me today, and thanks for the warm 
welcome. It is my honor to be here in this beautiful State, in this 
dynamic city, to talk about the three great goals we have for this 
country--three great goals: First is to win the war on terror; second is 
to make sure that we protect our homeland; and third is to assure you 
that we will not rest until our economy is strong. Anybody who wants to 
find work must be able to find work in this country. We're going to help 
this economy grow.
    And this is a great place to talk about the strength of America. 
It's a great place to come to talk about the fact that, even though 
we've got challenges, we can overcome these challenges because we're 
Americans. We work hard. We have great values. We're optimistic people. 
There is no challenge that we can't overcome, and the people of this 
great part of the country understand that as well as anybody else.
    I want to thank my friend the senior Senator, Pete Domenici. He's a 
fine, fine man. Not only is he a fine man, he is a great United States 
Senator. And not only is he is a great United States Senator, he loves 
New Mexico a lot.
    And then, of course, there's the retiring Congressman, Joe Skeen, 
who has brought such class to the office of--that he has held. We're 
real proud of Joe. We're proud of his courage. We're proud of his 
strength. We're going to miss him in Washington, DC, but Washington, 
DC's loss is your gain. He and Mary love this part of the country, and 
he's going to have a lot of farewells. This is not his farewell speech 
from me, but nevertheless, it's my honor to talk in front of his 
constituents and tell him how much we love him and how much we care for 
he and Mary. Joe, thanks for coming today. [Applause] They sure love 
you, Joe.
    Jay, I want to thank you very much for inviting me and this small 
entourage I travel with--[laughter]--to this very important campus. 
It's--New Mexico State has got a proud reputation, and you've made it 
even more proud, Jay. And I appreciate your service. I want to thank all 
the folks who helped put this event on, particularly in this beautiful 
facility, where I guess the Aggies tend to dominate.
    I want to thank Ruben Smith, the mayor of Las Cruces, for being 
here. Mayor Smith, thank you for your time. Dora Dominguez, the 
president of the Greater Las Cruces Chamber, helped put on this event, 
and I'm most grateful for the Chamber members who are here. I want to 
thank very much Sara Misquez, who is the president of the Mescalero 
Apache Tribe, who is with us today. I appreciate Jesus Segura, who is 
the mayor of Sunland Park.
    I want to thank very much a special person who met me out there at 
the airport, Ophelia Chaffino. She is a USA Freedom Corps volunteer. She 
is a foster grandparent who tutors 4th and 5th year-olds. Let me tell 
you why I want to bring up the--Ophelia and people like her. Because I 
understand, and I hope you understand, the great strength of our country 
is not our governments. The great strength of our country is our people. 
And when people--and people can make a significant difference in all 
kinds of ways in the communities in which they live. The fact that 
Ophelia wants to mentor children is a significant contribution.
    Oh, you know, some may step back and say, ``Changing one life isn't 
that much.'' Changing one life is a lot--a lot. And I want to thank the 
soldiers in the armies of compassion which exist in Las Cruces, all 
across New Mexico, and all across our country, for working hard to make 
our society a compassionate and decent place. Where are you, Ophelia? 
Thank you for being here. Please stand up and wave.
    I appreciate so very much Ruben King-Shaw, Jr., who works for the 
Health and Human Services Administration, being with us today. Why don't 
you stand up, Ruben? I'm going to say something about you. Ruben

[[Page 1439]]

is here to make sure that we improve health care for the people of New 
Mexico. You can sit down, Ruben. [Laughter] Ruben is a good man. I've 
known him--I'm proud that he came up and worked in my administration. He 
also has got a big heart.
    One of the concerns we have is that nearly half of low-income adults 
here in New Mexico are uninsured. And that's a problem--and that's a 
problem. Most of the uninsured adults are Latinos or Hispanic. And so 
what Ruben did was, he came to approve an application that will allow 
for, the best way to put it is creative financing, to make sure that 
40,000 additional adults in this State are able to get health insurance, 
to work with the State and Senator Domenici to provide a plan so that 
more of your citizens will be able to have health insurance. And Ruben, 
I want to thank you for taking time off of your vacation to come and 
work that plan and implement it so that the good folks in New Mexico 
have got a better quality of life. Thank you for coming.
    No, as Pete mentioned, we've got some hurdles to cross here in the 
country. We've got some issues we have to deal with. One of the issues, 
of course, is our economy. When I came in, the country was beginning a 
recession. It's just a fact. We had three quarters of negative growth. 
And then the terrorists hit us, and that affected our economy. And then 
something bubbled to the service that had been brewing for a while: We 
found out some of our citizens wanted to cook the books. Some of our 
citizens didn't feel like they could do it the honest way. They had to 
try to slide one by us. Corporate scandals erupted.
    We've had three major challenges to job creation in the country. But 
you need to know, we're going to deal with it, and we're going to deal 
with it in a strong way. My view is, the role of Government is not to 
create wealth, but the role of Government is to create an environment in 
which small businesses and entrepreneurs and farmers and ranchers can 
prosper, so we can create jobs around the country.
    And one of the things we did together--and I'm talking about 
Republicans and Democrats--is we took a page out of this textbook that 
said, ``If you want to try to encourage job creation, if you want the 
economy to grow, you let hard-working people keep more of their own 
money.'' Pete and I and Joe have read that textbook. Some in Washington 
haven't. [Laughter] We understand if you let a person keep more of their 
own money--by the way, you notice I don't say ``keep more of the 
Government's money.'' It's not the Government's money we're talking 
about. It's the people's money. If people keep more of their own money, 
it means somebody is going to demand a good or a service. And if 
somebody demands a good and service, somebody is likely to produce that 
good or service, and when somebody produces that good and service, 
somebody's more likely to find work. The tax relief that we passed 
happened right at the right time. And for the sake of economic vitality 
and job creation, we need to make the tax relief permanent.
    And at the same time, my job is to work with fine Members like 
Senator Domenici and make sure that we don't overspend. We want to make 
sure that we're fiscally responsible. That doesn't mean that we can't 
set priorities and fund those priorities, and we will. But as Pete will 
tell you, every idea is a good idea in Washington, no matter what it 
costs. [Laughter] My job is to make sure that the good ideas that meet 
our priorities are funded, like fighting and winning the war on terror, 
protecting the homeland, and taking care of people who can't help 
themselves, and education--our children. Those are the priorities.
    We need to work together. When they get back out of their break and 
when they get back to Washington, they need to work to put some of our 
construction people back to work, by passing a terrorism insurance bill, 
one that will allow large-scale construction programs to go forward that 
aren't going forward because they can't get insurance necessary to cover 
a possible terrorist attack. And by the way, the bill ought to be more 
worried about the hardhats than the lawyers. This ought to be a bill 
that is aimed to help the working people.
    We need to make sure that we've got pension reform. A lot of you all 
have got assets tied up in what they call 401(k)s or IRAs, but if you're 
in a 401(k) and you're working

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for a company and the boss sells, you ought to sell. By the way, I've 
just signed, in a new law, that type of provision. It says what's good 
for one is good for all. If it's good for the head man, it ought to be 
good for everybody else working for the company.
    But we also need to have a law to allow people to diversify. We 
shouldn't force people who work for a company and who get company stock 
to have to stay in that stock forever. After a reasonable period of 
time, they ought to be able to diversify their portfolio. They ought to 
get sound investment advice, and they ought to get reports on a 
quarterly basis, not an annual basis. In order to make the economy 
stronger, we need to have pension reform on behalf of the workers of 
this country.
    Thirdly, I just got a new bill that will allow me to encourage 
trade. Let me explain my position on trade, and I'll start with 
something that's dear to the people of this part of the world, and 
that's agriculture. The good news for America is, we grow enough food to 
feed ourselves. That's good news. Imagine what it would be like if we 
didn't grow enough food to feed ourselves, if we had to go around the 
world asking for food. We'd be a little more vulnerable as a nation.
    It's good for our national security that we've got enough food to 
feed ourselves. But we've got more than we need, because we're the best 
in the world at growing things. Our farmers and ranchers are the best in 
the world. And if you're the best in the world at something, you ought 
to encourage it. And so, therefore, my job is to open up markets for 
U.S. agricultural products. It is the best way to allow our producers to 
make a living. It is in our Nation's interest we do so.
    And people say, ``Well, of course, he's going to say that, but that 
hasn't been the way it's been.'' And I understand that. I know there's 
some skepticism about level playing fields. And I know a lot of the 
farmers and ranchers and some from other industries have said, ``Well, 
we've heard that song and dance before.'' But you've just got to know 
how I think. If you're good at something, we're going to promote it, and 
we ought to start from our strength when it comes to enhancing job 
creation and creating wealth through trade, and that is agriculture.
    And let me just give you one example of what I'm talking about. We 
grow a lot of chickens here in America. [Laughter] Well, we do. 
[Laughter] And the Russians decided they were going to--they thought 
about buying our chickens. Then we got the chickens moving, and they 
changed their mind. And I talked to President Putin quite a bit about 
that. So one time at one of our press conferences, he said, ``Listen, 
our relationship has changed so much, we're no longer talking war; we're 
talking chickens.'' [Laughter] Two days ago, our Secretary of 
Agriculture, Ann Veneman, announced that the Russians are going to buy 
all the chickens they said they would buy. That's good for chicken 
producers. It's good for hog producers. It's good for cattle producers. 
It's good for America. It's good for America that we open up markets to 
sell our products. It's going to mean jobs for the working people of 
this country.
    It's commonsense policy. And the other day I had a chance to lay out 
a little bit of commonsense policy which affects the folks in the 
northern part of your State that Pete and I just talked about. We're 
having some serious fires here in America. One of our most precious 
resources, our forests, are burning up. And one of the reasons they're 
burning up is because we're doing a lousy job of maintaining our 
forests; we're doing a lousy job of maintaining our treasure. We've got 
to change our forest policy.
    Our forest policy now says, hands off. And guess what happens when 
you have a hands-off policy--your forests become diseased; they end up 
like a big pile of kindling. And all it takes is one lightning strike.
    I flew over the huge fire in Oregon--I mean, thousands and thousands 
of precious forest lands are burning. For the sake of a healthy forest, 
for the sake of leaving a legacy for future generations, we will change 
the forest policy of this country to thin the forest lands to keep them 
healthy.
    And finally, I had the honor of signing the most comprehensive 
corporate reform bill since Franklin Roosevelt was the President. It's a 
long time ago, it seems like. But it was needed. It was when Republican 
and Democrats came together. It's a good piece of legislation which said 
the auditors will be audited;

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crooked people are going to be held to account. We don't want anybody 
taking advantage of trustworthy people. For the sake of economic 
vitality and job creation, for the sake of confidence in our system, 
we're going to rout those out who cook the books. It's no longer going 
to be easy money; it's going to be hard time for people who have not 
upheld their responsibility.
    We've got hurdles to cross, but I'm confident in the future of this 
country. I'm confident in our economic vitality, because I know our 
people and I understand the entrepreneurial spirit. I know the fact that 
we're the best and most productive workers in the world. We are. I know 
that low interest rates and low inflation provide the platform for 
economic vitality. We're just not going to rest. We're not going to rest 
until people are able to find work, people who are looking for work can 
find work.
    And I'm not going to rest when it comes to protecting our homeland 
either. That's my most important job, is to prevent people from hitting 
us again. I say ``people''--I say ``people''--let me qualify that--
coldblooded killers. That's all they are. There's no other way to say 
it. There's no other apt description than to tell you exactly how I 
think they are, and they're coldblooded killers. And they want to kill 
again because they hate what we love, and we love freedom.
    We love the fact that people can worship freely in America. We 
respect the fact that people worship freely in America. They don't value 
life. We value life. We say, ``Everybody counts in America. Everybody is 
precious in this land.'' So long as they're out there, we've got to do 
everything we can to protect the homeland. And you need to know there's 
a lot of good folks working hard to do just that, good folks at the 
Federal level and at the State level and the local level.
    I mean, anytime we're getting a hint, we're acting on it. Anytime we 
get a whisper that somebody might be thinking about doing something to 
America, people are on it. And we're following every lead. People are 
working hard. But I want to take a step further, and I've asked Congress 
to join me in setting up a Department of Homeland Security. And let me 
explain to you why I made that suggestion.
    There are over 100 agencies in Washington, scattered all over 
Washington, I might add, that have got something to do with homeland 
security. And it seems logical to me that if the number one priority of 
this administration--and by the way, future administrations--is to 
protect the homeland, then we ought to have the capacity to make that 
the number one priority of the other 100 agencies. You see, you can't 
just say, ``That's your priority,'' and everybody snaps to. The best way 
to get them to snap to is to put them under one Secretary of Homeland 
Security. And that's what we intend to do.
    But let me tell you something, what I'm not going to do is accept a 
bill that tries to micromanage the process, tell us who to hire, where 
to move them, and how to do it. I warn the Senate--and Pete--I'm not 
warning Pete, because he understands what I'm talking about. He knows 
who I'm talking about. There are Senators who are more worried about the 
special interests in Washington than they are about protecting the 
people. They're more interested in their turf than they are about 
homeland security. And they need to get me a good bill. I can count on 
him.
    But the best way to protect the homeland--we're going to work hard 
to do this--we're going to make sure our border--we need to know who's 
coming in the country, what are they bringing in the country, if they're 
leaving the country when they say they're going to leave the country. We 
need to have a strong first-responders initiative to work with the 
mayors and the county judges and the sheriff's departments to be able to 
respond. We need to work closely with some of our labs to devise ways to 
be able to detect and respond to a bioterrorist attack, for example, or 
the use of weapons of mass destruction. There's a lot we're going to do.
    But my theory is and my strategy is--and it's the way it's going to 
be so long as I'm the President--the way to best protect the homeland is 
to hunt the killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice. And so 
I submitted a budget, an appropriations request to the Congress that was 
the largest defense increase since Ronald Reagan was the President.

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    I did it for two reasons--two reasons: One, anytime we put our 
soldiers into harm's way, they deserve the best pay, the best training, 
and the best equipment possible. We not only owe it to the men and women 
who wear our uniform; we owe that to their loved ones as well. The other 
reason I submitted this budget is because I wanted to tell our friends 
and allies and enemy alike that we're in this deal for the long haul. 
See, when it comes to defending freedom, there is no calendar that says 
you've got to quit by such-and-such a date. That this--history has 
called us to action, and we're going to stay on course, stay steady, 
until we have achieved the mission, which is to make the world free, to 
defend our freedoms.
    Now, I understand that this is a different kind of war, and I hope 
you do as well. You see, no longer are we able to count the size of the 
enemy by counting tanks or airplanes or ships. This is an enemy which 
hides in caves and then sends youngsters to their suicidal death. These 
people kind of run and scatter. So it's a different kind of mission; 
it's a different kind of war. But we've got a strategy. And they 
understand the strategy is, get them on the run, and once we get them on 
the run, don't let them light anyplace. And if they do try to light 
someplace, bring them to justice. And that's precisely what the United 
States is going to do.
    Audience members. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
    The President. And so my request to the Congress--and I know Pete 
agrees with me--is to get the defense bill to my desk as soon as they 
get back. We need to get the defense bill signed. See, the Senate passed 
it, and the House passed it. They need to get the differences quickly. 
We're at war. We need to send that signal loud and clear to our troops 
and to the world, that we're strongly united in this effort to win the 
war against terror.
    I say it's hard to count, but I've got kind of an idea of how we're 
doing. I say ``kind of.'' We estimate that over 2,500 or--of the enemy 
have been captured by the United States or our friends and allies. And 
remember, we've got a huge coalition of countries that are working 
together to cut their money off or to share intelligence, put pressure. 
And the--we've got about 2,500 of them or so, maybe a little more than 
that, that are now in captivity, that are no longer in caves, that 
aren't able to fight. And just about that many weren't as lucky.
    We will continue to uphold the doctrine that says, ``If you harbor 
one of them, you're just as guilty as those who killed American 
citizens.'' We will be relentless and patient and strong and determined 
and wise about how we conduct this war. And we're going to win the war 
on terror. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren; that's who 
we owe it to. We owe it to them as well to make sure that the world's 
worst leaders are not able to develop and deploy the world's worst 
weapons. We've got a lot of work to do. But I'm proud of our military, 
and I'm proud of our team, and we're going to get the job done.
    I believe that out of the evil done to America is going to come some 
incredible good. I believe that. I know it's going to happen, because 
we're America. I can't imagine what was going through the enemy's mind 
when they hit us. They must have thought, ``That Nation is so self-
absorbed and so materialistic, so shallow in its beliefs, so selfish, 
that after 9/11 all they might do is file a lawsuit or two.'' [Laughter] 
They found out different about America. They understand--they're 
beginning to learn the character of this Nation. They and our allies and 
the enemy understand that when we go into a country, we go in not as 
conquerors but as liberators.
    I want you all to tell your children, this great Nation, in 
liberating Afghanistan, made it possible for young girls, many young 
girls for the first time in their life, to be able to go to school. 
They're learning that this Nation does not seek revenge; we seek 
justice. And we will all learn, by being strong and tough and diligent 
and compassionate, we can achieve peace.
    In the midst of all this talk--in the midst of all this talk, I want 
you all to tell your children that this country of ours yearns for 
peace, that we want peace for not only this generation but future 
generations to come. Oh, the hill might be steep at times. It might be a 
rugged terrain, like you're used to out here in New Mexico, but we're 
going to cross that terrain to achieve peace--not only peace

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for ourselves, but, see, we value life all around the world. When we say 
we value life and everybody counts, it's not just American lives; it's 
lives in every part of the world.
    I believe we can achieve peace by routing out terror and professing 
the God-given values--not American values--God-given values that matter 
to everybody. I believe we can achieve peace in parts of the world that 
have quit on peace.
    I believe out of the evil done to America can come some incredible 
good here at home, besides peace. See, ours is a great country, full of 
hope. But we've got to recognize there are pockets of despair and 
addiction and hopelessness. We've got to understand that when one hurts, 
all hurt. We have a chance, I believe, to take the evil done to America 
and convert it to great good. Because--well, let me put it to you this 
way: People say, ``What can I do to help?'' You know what you can do to 
help? You can love a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself. 
That's what you can do.
    Oftentimes we look to Government, but Government can hand out money, 
but it cannot put hope in people's hearts or a sense of purpose in 
people's lives. No, it's those millions of acts of kindness and decency 
that take place in America which really and truly define the true 
character of the country and enable me to predict that out of the evil 
done to America will come some good.
    You see, mentoring a child is part of helping change America for the 
better. We can change our society, one person at a time. I hear people 
say, ``I can't do everything.'' Of course you can't, but you can do 
something. You can do something to help change America, one lost soul at 
a time.
    And that's happening in this country; it really is. People are 
beginning to understand there is a different kind of patriotism alive in 
America. It's the patriotism that's much bigger than just putting your 
hand over your heart and saying, ``one Nation under God.'' It's a 
patriotism that says, serving something greater than yourself is part of 
being a patriotic American. It's a patriotism that understands that 
you're responsible for the decisions you make in life. And if you happen 
to be fortunate to be a mom or a dad, love your child with all your 
heart and all your soul. Tell them you love them every single day, in 
order to make America a more compassionate and more decent place.
    It's a patriotism that says, each of us have a responsibility to the 
quality of life in the communities in which we live. Help your schools. 
Go to your churches or synagogues and help feed the hungry. That's what 
the patriotism is, and it's alive and well and was best exemplified on 
that fateful, horrible day, September the 11th, when some of our fellow 
citizens on a flight that was flying across the country realized the 
plane they were on was to be used as a weapon, a weapon perhaps at the 
White House or at our Nation's Capitol. History shows that they were on 
cell phones, and they told their loved ones they loved them. Some of the 
last words they said were ``love.'' They said a prayer. One guy said, 
``Let's roll.'' And they served something greater than themselves in 
life. They set an example for all of us here in America.
    No, out of the evil done to America is going to come incredible 
good, because this is the most compassionate, decent, strong nation on 
the face of the Earth.
    May God bless you all, and may God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 2:15 p.m. in the Pan American Center at New 
Mexico State University. In his remarks, he referred to Mary Skeen, wife 
of Representative Joe Skeen; Jay Gogue, president, New Mexico State 
University; and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The Office of the 
Press Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of these 
remarks.