[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 40 (Monday, October 7, 2002)]
[Pages 1678-1683]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to Hispanic Leaders

October 3, 2002

    Thank you all for coming, and welcome to the White House compound. 
It's my honor to represent--to welcome you all here, to thank you for 
serving your communities and thank you for serving your Nation. Some of 
you are seeking office for the first time, and I think you'll find this 
to be a fantastic experience. Some of you have sought and won, and I 
want to congratulate you for that, and thanks for serving.
    My job is, of course, to promote the diversity of America, to herald 
the fact that one of the great strengths of America is the fact that 
we're diverse and that we welcome diversity in this country. And we 
welcome diversity and celebrate diversity all kinds of ways, and one of 
the ways is that we've got Hispanic Heritage Month. And we recognize 
Hispanic Heritage Month here at the White House, and we do so in a 
variety of ways. One way, of course, is to remind people that I've 
picked some fabulous Americans who happen to be Hispanic to serve our 
country.
    Everybody has got to have a good lawyer. [Laughter] Mi abogado es 
magnifico. [Laughter] And I want to thank Al Gonzales for his 
friendship. There's no better advisor. He's a steady hand who knows the 
law, and he's doing a great, great job for the country. Ruben Barrales, 
who runs a very key department here in the White House--I know you're 
going to hear from Ruben, if you haven't already. He's a good young star 
and a fine guy. Rosario Marin is the Treasurer of the United States. 
Rosario, thank you for coming. I appreciate you being here.
    If you're interested in finding good examples of people who have won 
and who have served with distinction, you need to look no farther than 
two from Florida and one from Texas--[laughter]--Congressman Henry 
Bonilla, who is a fine, fine--[applause]--and of course, Lincoln Diaz-
Balart y tambien Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. I appreciate you all for coming.
    And I see you brought along Mario, tu hermano. [Laughter] Mario, 
it's good to see you again. Mario Diaz-Balart is a State rep out of the 
State of Florida, a fine member of the delegation. He's a popular--not 
only a popular candidate but a popular public servant. And he takes his 
instructions from his brother--[laughter]--actually, from his mother. 
[Laughter] Dora Irizarry is here. She is a candidate for the attorney 
general of the State of New York. Dora, good luck, buena suerte. Thanks 
for coming. We've got a lot of other great candidates--none other than 
the next Governor of the State of New Mexico, Juan Sanchez. Thank you 
for coming, John.
    I would spend all my time heralding those of you in the legislative 
branch or in the executive branch, but I've got some other things on my 
mind. But before I do, I also want to make sure there is diversity in 
the judicial branch. I have named a really good man to the bench, the DC 
Circuit Court of Appeals, named Miguel Estrada. And I expect the United 
States Senate to treat this man with respect. I don't want to see the 
same thing that happened to some of my other candidates, in that they 
distort his record. I don't want them to distort his record like they 
did Ms. Owen's or Mr. Pickering. For the sake of a good, strong Federal 
bench, for the sake of recognizing this man's intelligence and his 
capabilities, the Senate needs to confirm Miguel Estrada.

[[Page 1679]]

    Let me share some things that are on my mind, things that I've spent 
a lot of time thinking about. First is jobs. I think a lot--I spend a 
lot of time thinking about jobs here in America. I want people to find 
work. I want people to be able to put bread on the table. I want this 
country to continue to promote policies that encourage job growth. 
That's what we ought to be asking here in Washington: What can we do to 
encourage there to be job growth?
    The economy is not like it should be. There are some encouraging 
signs. Of course, interest rates are low; inflation is low; productivity 
amongst our workers and producers is the best in the world; and that's 
incredibly positive.
    The foundation for growth is there. The foundation was somewhat 
troubled by the fact that we had some of our corporate citizens decide 
they weren't going to tell the truth. They fudged the numbers to deceive 
shareholder and employee alike. We're taking care of that. I've signed 
the most comprehensive corporate reform since Franklin Roosevelt was the 
President. You might have noticed yesterday, people are being brought to 
justice here in America. We expect there to be corporate responsibility 
in America, and we will enforce the law to make sure there is corporate 
responsibility in America.
    We're also dealing with things here in Congress to help people have 
more money. We believe very strongly that when a person has more money 
in his or her pocket, it is more likely to increase the job base, 
because if you have more money, you demand a good or a service. When you 
demand a good or a service, somebody will produce the good or a service. 
And when somebody produces a good or a service, somebody is more likely 
to find work.
    Tax relief was incredibly important at this moment in our American 
history. Tax relief will help stimulate job growth because it helps 
stimulate the growth of small businesses. There are a lot of Latino-
owned small businesses in America. One of the great success stories 
about our economy and about our Nation is the fact that a lot of people 
realize their dreams through owning their own business. One of the 
fastest growing sectors of small business in the country is Latino-owned 
businesses. And the tax relief plan was really good for small businesses 
here in America. And the Congress needs to make them permanent.
    In order to make sure that we grow our economy, we've got to make 
sure Congress doesn't overspend. The Senate doesn't even have a budget. 
If you don't have a budget, it makes it hard to be fiscally sound with 
the people's money. Sometimes here in Washington, people forget whose 
money we spend. See, they think it's the Government's money. It's not. 
It's the people's money. And we've got to be sound when we spend the 
people's money. We ought to fund priorities, but as they head out of 
town, the Congress must not overspend. For the sake of job creation and 
job growth, they must be realistic with the people's money.
    I submitted a budget that will get us to balance--a budget that if 
there's fiscal discipline, we can get back to balance. And Congress 
needs to not only remember whose money they spend, but Congress must not 
overspend on their--as they're trying to get out of town.
    And finally, there are some things that we can do here to create 
jobs for working people. We need to have a terrorism insurance package. 
You see, there's a lot of folks that cannot get insurance, a lot of 
construction programs that aren't going forward because people can't get 
insurance, because of what the terrorists did. It's estimated there's 
over 300,000 hardhats that could be working, 300,000 hardhat jobs that 
are delayed. Those are our fellow Americans who aren't getting the 
chance to employ their skills. This afternoon, I'm going to be talking 
about this issue more. But if Congress truly is interested in joining 
with me to do everything we can to expand the job base, they need to get 
a terrorism insurance package before they go home. It's good for the 
hardhats of America.
    The security of the country is on my mind, too. See, there's an 
enemy which still hates America, and they want to hit us. It's just 
reality. And therefore, we've got to do everything we can to protect the 
homeland. I spend a lot of time worrying about the job security of the 
American people. I spend a lot of time worrying about the homeland 
security of the American people as well. It's

[[Page 1680]]

my number one priority right now as the President, to protect our 
homeland.
    We must do everything we can to protect innocent life here at home. 
I'm sure people have--have asked you, you know, why--why would the enemy 
hate America? Your kids are probably saying, ``Why would they hate 
America?'' And you've got to tell them it's because they hate us for 
what we love. We love freedom. We love the freedom to worship the way we 
see fit. We love the freedom to speak our mind. We love the freedom to 
campaign. We love the freedom of the press. We love all our freedoms. We 
love our diversity. We love the fact that God has created people equal. 
We love that. We value life in America. Everybody is precious. Everybody 
has worth. Everybody counts. And we're not changing our mind about those 
values and our freedom.
    The enemy hates freedom. They hate innocent life. They are willing 
to take innocent life and, at the same time, hijack a great religion. 
And so long as they are out there, we must do everything we can to 
defend the homeland--which means I need the capacity here in Washington 
to assure the American people that the good folks at the Federal level 
are doing everything they can to protect you.
    There's over 100 agencies involved with homeland security, and so I 
decided, in order to make the protection of the homeland the number one 
priority, that we ought to bundle all those up to the extent possible 
and put them under one agency, so that there is authority and 
responsibility, so that we can set the legacy for future Presidents to 
be able to better protect the homeland.
    And we're having a pretty good debate here in Washington. The House 
of Representatives, thankfully, passed a bill that is a good bill. The 
Senate is still struggling with the bill. They need to get it done 
before they go home. The--let me just tell you what the problem is, so 
you can get a sense of why I have some frustrations with what is taking 
place in the Senate.
    First of all, the frontline troops, the employees who are working on 
your behalf, are really good people, good, honorable, hard-working 
people. And they are people that the morale of which is going to be in 
the interest of any President or any Secretary of Homeland Security. In 
other words, we've got to make sure that morale is high in order for us 
to better do our jobs. So there should be no question in any employee's 
mind about the intentions of a President or a future President, that we 
want people to have job satisfaction in order to be able to do the job.
    But we also need to have the authority necessary to succeed in the 
critical mission. We've got to have the ability to put the right people 
at the right place at the right time in order to protect America.
    Many of you come from border communities or border States. You know 
full well that on our borders, there's three different agencies involved 
with protecting the border, agencies of good, hard-working people, but 
sometimes agencies with different strategies and different approaches. 
And sometimes those different strategies and different approaches can 
promote gaps in security. And we've got to have the capacity to do 
everything we can to protect the American people from somebody who would 
want to bring a weapon into our country, for example.
    In other words, we've got to be able to let the hard-working people 
in these agencies better do their job. We can't be constrained by work 
rules that prevent us from doing a better job, and that's the debate.
    The Senate--and some Members of the Senate want to deny this 
President and future Presidents the authority of--the ability to protect 
our national security, the ability in some cases to suspend collective 
bargaining for the sake of national security. That ability has been 
granted from Jimmy Carter on. President Kennedy had the authority; Jimmy 
Carter was President when they codified it into law. It doesn't make any 
sense, in a time of war, to take away that part of the Presidential 
authority. It just doesn't make any sense to me. It's very important 
that the President have the capacity to determine that vital national 
security interests take priority over standard rules governing 
management and labor relations.
    What's really interesting is that if this authority is not applied 
to the Department of Homeland Security, it still will be applied to 
Departments such as the Department of Education or the Department of 
Agriculture.

[[Page 1681]]

Those are vital Departments, but does it make sense to allow the 
authority to exist in the Department of Agriculture but not in the new 
Department of Homeland Security? Of course it doesn't make any sense. 
And that's why the Senate must be realistic and reasonable as it 
approaches this very important issue about how to leave a legacy of 
homeland security in place.
    I will not accept a rollback in the authority that other Presidents 
have had, and the Senate must understand that. The Senate must 
understand that I have a duty not only to protect the American people 
but a duty to protect the prerogatives of the President. If it's good 
enough for the Department of Agriculture, if this authority is good 
enough for the employees of the Department of Education or HHS, it 
certainly should be good enough for the Department of Homeland Security.
    We need flexibility to deal with emerging threats. The Customs 
Service, for example, decided to require inspectors at the Nation's 301 
ports to wear radiation detection devices. The world changed. We are 
worried about weapons of mass destruction coming into our country, and 
so the Customs Service said, ``Why don't we have our folks wear 
radiation detection devices to be able to pick up any possible signal.'' 
The devices work, and they're an important part of somebody being able 
to do their job.
    Under the rules that some Senators support, the union that 
represents the Customs would be able to say, ``You can't do that. That 
must be voluntary.'' For the--that doesn't make any sense to me, that we 
not--that we have to work through a process that would enable our hard-
working Customs officials to be able to do that which they think is 
necessary to protect America. And we can't afford sitting around for a 
year debating whether or not wearing devices ought to be voluntary or 
not.
    Collective bargaining is important. I support the idea of workers 
being able to have collective bargaining. But we need to be able to 
manage the new agency so that we can best protect the American people. 
And I call upon the Senate to understand the importance of what I just 
said.
    The best way to protect America is to hunt the killers down, one at 
a time. And that's what we're going to do. This is a different kind of 
war. It is a war which is not going to be measured in terms of 
territories gained or tanks destroyed or flotilla destroyed. It's a war 
in which we're going through an international manhunt, one killer at a 
time, and bringing people to justice--which means it's essential we 
continue to uphold the doctrine that says, ``Either you're with us, or 
you're with them.'' And that doctrine still stands, and there's a lot of 
really fine countries, with good leaders, working with us to find these 
killers and to bring them to justice.
    And we're just doing just that. Sometimes you'll read about it; 
sometimes you won't read about it. That's the kind of war this is. 
Sometimes there's achievements that they'll be blasting out over the 
cables, and people will be talking about it forever, and sometimes you 
just won't know what's taking place. But you've got to know, we're 
making progress. We've hauled in over a couple of thousand of these--we 
got a guy the other day, who popped his head up and is now no longer a 
threat to America. He's the one that was going to be the 20th hijacker, 
and he's no longer available for action with the enemy.
    It takes a lot of work--it takes a lot of work. It takes a strong 
military. And for those of you who have got loved ones in the military, 
you've got to know, I've got great confidence in our troops. And I want 
to thank you for your service, and I want to thank you for their 
service.
    And the United States Congress must get a defense appropriations 
bill to my desk before they go home. I asked for the largest increase in 
defense spending since President Reagan was the President, because I 
want our troops to have the best pay, the best training, and best 
possible equipment. And I want to send a message to the world: When it 
comes to the defense of our freedom, there's no artificial timeline. 
When it comes to defending America, civilization, the ability for our 
children to grow up in a free society, it doesn't matter how long it 
takes. This great nation will stay the course.
    So I expect there to be a defense bill on my desk. I know that 
Members of the House and Senate are working hard to reconcile

[[Page 1682]]

their differences, and I appreciate that. There needs to be a bill on my 
desk before they go home. There's going to be an important message to 
determine--important message we send to the world.
    And so we're making progress on that front of the war against 
terror. But there are other fronts on the war against terror that we 
must deal with. We must deal with countries run by people who are some 
of the world's worst leaders, who harbor, develop, want to hurt us with 
the world's worst weapons. That's a form of terror.
    The war on terror is more than just Al Qaida. The war on terror is 
to deal with nations who have terrorized their own people and have 
intention to terrorize us. See, oceans no longer protect us. There's a 
new era in America. There's a new threat that faces us. And we've got to 
deal with these threats. I made the decision to deal with these--the 
threat of Iraq in an international community. I've called upon other 
nations to join us, and there will be other nations joining us to help 
disarm Iraq.
    We'll determine whether or not the U.N. Security Council wants to 
live up to its obligations. After all, for 11 long years the dictator in 
Iraq, the man who has gassed his own people, gassed people in his 
neighborhood, the man who's expressly--expressed his hatred for America 
and our friends and allies--we'll see whether or not the United Nations 
will be the United Nations or the League of Nations when it comes to 
dealing with this man who for 11 years has thumbed his nose at 
resolution after resolution after resolution after resolution.
    My intent, of course, is for the United Nations to do its job. I 
think it'll make it easier for us to keep the peace. My intent is for 
the world to understand that the obligation is up to Saddam Hussein to 
disarm like he said he would do. My intent is to put together a vast 
coalition of countries who understand the threat of Saddam Hussein.
    The military option is my last choice, not my first. It's my last 
choice. But Saddam has got to understand, the United Nations must know, 
that the will of this country is strong.
    Yesterday I had the honor of standing on the steps of the White 
House, at the Rose Garden, with the Republican leader and Democrat 
leader alike--Speaker Hastert and Leader Gephardt, Trent Lott and Joe 
Lieberman, John McCain and Evan Bayh--Member after Member who has 
committed to join with the administration to send a clear signal that 
when it comes to defending our freedom, the United States of America 
will stand united and stand strong.
    The choice is up to the United Nations to show its resolve. The 
choice is up to Saddam Hussein to fulfill its word--his word. And if 
neither of them acts, the United States, in deliberate fashion, will 
lead a coalition to take away the world's worst weapons from one of the 
world's worst leaders.
    I say that because I have a deep desire for peace, peace in America, 
peace in the Middle East. I believe peace is possible. I believe that 
out of the evil done to America can come some really--some good. And one 
of the good is international peace; I believe that. And therefore, I 
will continue to speak clearly about good and evil, continue to renounce 
terrorism in any form, continue to lead the world toward peace, peace 
not only for ourselves but, because we value all human life, peace in 
parts of the world that have given up on peace.
    I know at home we can be a better country, too. The great country of 
ours must recognize there are pockets of despair and hopelessness in 
America. Amongst our plenty, there are people who hurt. So long as any 
of us hurt, we all should hurt. But I believe that this country can 
solve any problem put in its path, and one of those is to help inspire 
all Americans to understand the greatness of this country.
    One way to do so, to make a better country, is to make sure that 
everybody is educated. I passed a really good bill with the Congress and 
signed a really good bill. They passed it; I signed it. [Laughter] I 
worked with them. And it says this: Every child can learn, see. Every 
child can learn. And this country will challenge the soft bigotry of low 
expectations. This plan recognizes it's so easy to quit on children 
whose parents may not speak English as a first language. It's easy just 
to shuffle them through, say, ``You know, these kids can't learn; move 
them through.''
    We insist upon strong accountability. If you receive Federal money, 
you've got to

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measure, because we believe every child can learn. And therefore, we 
want to know--we want to know. We must have the courage as citizens of 
the country to blow the whistle on failure when we find our children 
trapped in schools which will not teach and will not change.
    A better America is one that takes care of our seniors, with a good 
health care system. Medicine has changed. Medicare hasn't. Medicine has 
changed, and yet the old system hasn't changed with it. And we've got to 
change Medicare. For the good of our seniors, we need prescription drug 
benefits for our seniors. We need a modern Medicare system.
    But the best way to change America is for America to really rely 
upon the true strength of the country, which is the people of the 
country. See, Government can hand out money, but it cannot put love in 
people's hearts or a sense of purpose in people's lives. That is done 
when one of our fellow citizens finds somebody who hurts and puts their 
arm around him or her, and says, ``I love you. What can I do to help 
you? What can I do to make sure you understand the American Dream is 
meant for you?'' That could be mentoring a child, teaching a child to 
read. That could be running a Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop, teaching a 
child values. That could be making sure somebody has got food if they're 
hungry.
    See, the great strength of America is the heart and soul of the 
people of this country. And so what's happened is, and it seems like to 
me, is that the evil ones hit us; America took a step back and said, 
``In order to fight evil, we all must do some good.'' And my call to the 
fellow--my fellow Americans is: Love somebody just like you'd like to be 
loved yourself; that if you're interested in fighting the evil done to 
us, it doesn't take much, just a small act of kindness and generosity on 
a daily basis. And it's that gathering momentum of the millions of acts 
of kindness and generosity and compassion which takes place in America 
that truly defines the character of this Nation.
    I want to thank you all for serving this Nation. May God bless you 
all, and may God bless America.

Note: The President spoke at 9:59 a.m. in Presidential Hall in the 
Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he 
referred to Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and Judge Charles 
W. Pickering, Sr., whose nominations to be U.S. Circuit Judges for the 
Fifth Circuit failed when the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to send 
them forward for a vote by the Senate.