[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 40, Number 3 (Monday, January 19, 2004)]
[Page 54]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

January 10, 2004

    Good morning. As the year 2004 begins, America's economy is strong 
and getting stronger. More Americans than ever own their own homes. More 
businesses are investing. More manufacturers are seeing increased 
activity than at any time in the last 20 years. Stock market wealth has 
increased by more than $3 trillion over the past year. And over the past 
5 months, more than a quarter-million Americans started work at new 
jobs. In December, the unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent, from a 
high of 6.3 percent last June.
    This latest report underscores a choice about the future of our 
economy and the future of those who are looking for work. We can 
continue on the path to prosperity and new jobs, a path marked by a 
progrowth agenda that has cut taxes on paychecks for 109 million 
American taxpayers, or we can reverse the course by raising taxes on 
hard-working Americans. The choice is clear. Tax relief has got this 
economy going again, and tax relief will keep it moving forward.
    In my budget for the upcoming fiscal year, I will call on Congress 
to make permanent all the tax relief we have delivered to the American 
people and our Nation's small businesses. If Congress fails to act, this 
tax relief will disappear, and millions of American families and small 
businesses would see tax hikes starting in 2005. For the sake of our 
economic expansion and for the sake of millions of Americans who depend 
on small businesses for their jobs, we need Congress to act and to make 
tax relief permanent.
    Every American who pays income taxes got a tax cut. They should keep 
that tax cut in the future. American families saw the child credit 
double to $1,000 per child. They should keep that higher credit. 
American investors, including millions of seniors, saw taxes fall on 
dividend income and investment gains. They should keep that tax relief. 
American small businesses received new tax incentives to invest in 
equipment and software. They should keep those incentives. Every 
American family, including every farmer, rancher, and small-business 
owner, will see the death tax disappear in 2010, then reappear in 2011. 
But the death tax should stay buried.
    Now is not the time to turn our backs on America's families and 
workers and entrepreneurs by letting much-needed tax relief expire. 
Making tax relief permanent is a simple step that would keep our economy 
growing so that every American who wants to work can find a job.
    We must continue to take other steps to promote growth and job 
creation throughout our economy. We must promote free and fair trade, 
reform our class action system, and help businesses and their employees 
address the problem of rising health care costs.
    To serve the economic needs of our country, we must also reform our 
immigration laws. Reform must begin by confronting a basic fact of life 
and economics: Some of the jobs being generated in America's growing 
economy are jobs American citizens are not filling. This past week, I 
proposed a new temporary-worker program that would match willing foreign 
workers with willing American employers when no Americans can be found 
to fill the jobs. If an American employer is offering a job that 
American citizens are not willing to take, we ought to welcome into our 
country a person who will fill that job.
    This temporary-worker program represents the best tradition of our 
society. It will help strengthen our economy, return order to our 
immigration system, and secure our homeland.
    Thank you for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 9:54 a.m. on January 9 in the Cabinet 
Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on January 10. The 
transcript was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary on 
January 9 but was embargoed for release until the broadcast. The Office 
of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of 
this address.