[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 40, Number 13 (Monday, March 29, 2004)]
[Pages 477-485]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks in Albuquerque,
New Mexico
March 26, 2004
Thank you very much. Thank you all. You all be seated, please.
Thanks for coming. [Laughter]
I am glad to be in New Mexico. The sun is bright, and the people are
friendly. Thanks for having me. We're here to talk about homeownership.
We're here to talk about helping people realize their dreams. We're here
to talk about making sure the business environment, particularly for
small businesses, is strong and open so that people can realize their
dream of owning their own business. We're here to talk about the great
courage of America.
Before I begin, I do want to thank my friend Alphonso Jackson. He's
the Acting Secretary. That means that the Senate hasn't approved him
yet. [Laughter] So I made sure he sat next to Senator Domenici on the
airplane. [Laughter]
But I've known Alphonso for a long time. He was the head of the
Dallas Housing Authority. He did a great job of making sure
[[Page 478]]
the Housing Authority worked well. Now he's in Washington with me to
make sure that the HUD works well. We want money being spent to help
people buy homes. That's what we want. We want more people owning their
own home in America. And Alphonso, I want to thank you.
I want to thank John Kaltenbach, who helped arrange this event. I
want to thank the members of the Home Builders Association of Central
New Mexico. I want to thank all the entrepreneurs who are here. I want
to thank the builders who are here.
I want to thank Senator Pete Domenici. He flew down with me. This
guy is a fabulous United States Senator. He's really a good one. That's
why, when I try to get things done, I make sure Pete Domenici knows what
we're trying to do. He's accomplished. He also loves New Mexico a lot.
He loves the people here.
And so does Heather Wilson--Heather Wilson, a great Congresswoman.
She's really effective, got a decent soul. She's an accomplished, decent
person, and I love working with her. They let old Steve Pearce in from
eastern New Mexico. [Laughter] You might remember I was raised in
Midland, Texas. As a matter of fact, that's where Laura is today. She's
in Midland, right across the border from eastern New Mexico. She's
visiting with her mother. But I've spent a lot of time in eastern New
Mexico, so I know people like Steve Pearce, down-to-earth, honest,
patriotic, willing to serve his country as the United States Congressman
from that part of the world. Steve, thank you for coming with us today.
I want to thank Mayor Bill Standley from the city of Farmington for
coming down to say hello. Thank you, mayor, for being here--thank the
other local officials who are here. It's good to be in front of a crowd
where people are wearing ``gimme'' hats or cowboy hats. [Laughter] That
doesn't happen all the time in Washington. Let me just say, it doesn't
happen nearly enough in Washington. [Laughter]
Today when I landed, I met a fellow named Irving Hall. Where are
you, Irving? Right there. Stand up. Now you can sit down. [Laughter]
Irving Hall works for our Government at the laboratories, the high
tech--Sandia--I think you worked there, didn't you, Irving? Yes. He
worked there, and came time to retire, and his boss said, ``What are you
going to do, Irving?'' He said, ``Why don't you make a difference?'' I
believe that's what your boss told--what you told me your boss said.
See, he met me at the airplane. I'd never met Irving before. But the
reason he did is because this fellow, upon retirement, decided he was
going to do something to help somebody, that he was going dedicate his
years of retirement for making somebody's life better by building homes
for Habitat For Humanity.
I love the spirit of voluntarism in America, the fact that people
like Irving are willing to take time out of their life to make a
difference in somebody else's life. A lot of times we talk about the
strength of America being our military--it's part of our strength, and
we intend to keep the military strong--or the size of our wallet,
relative to other countries, and that's important. But the true strength
of America is the heart and souls of the American people. That's the
strength of our country, the fact that there are people willing to love
a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself.
And so, Irving, I want to thank you for setting such a good example
for your community and your State and your Nation. I urge others to take
time out of your life to make a difference in a child who may be lonely,
in helping somebody learn to read, by providing shelter for the homeless
or food for the hungry, and in so doing, you will make America a hopeful
place for all our citizens. Thank you, Irving.
I am very optimistic about the future of this country for a lot of
reasons. One, I know the character of the American people. When you know
the character of the American people, you can't help but be optimistic
because we're a can-do group of folks. We refuse to let anything get in
our way. And we're able to overcome challenges, and we have overcome a
lot of challenges during the past 3 years.
Let me remind you of what we have overcome as a nation. We have
overcome a recession. That means things are going backwards. A recession
is a time when things are going backwards, where people are having
trouble
[[Page 479]]
finding work, where there's not much hope in certain quarters of our
country. We overcame that. And as we came out of a recession--and by the
way, the stock market had begun to decline in March of 2000. The
recession began in early '01. And when the stock market declined, that
too affects people's attitudes. When you think about it, there's a lot
of retired folks who look at their portfolios and see it going down.
That's kind of a discouraging moment when that happens. You begin to
wonder whether all the savings you put aside are going to be there when
you really need them most.
And as we started to come out of the recession, we got attacked by
an enemy on September the 11th, 2001, and it affected us. We lost nearly
1 million jobs in the 3 months after September the 11th attack. It also
affected the way we have to think in America. We used to think that
oceans can protect us. We now realized that America can be a
battleground, and therefore, we have to do everything in our power to
protect America. We're doing everything at home we can. But I'm going to
tell you, the best way to protect America is to stay on the offense and
get the terrorists before they get us. September the 11th affected us.
It was one of the challenges that I talked about.
We also had some corporate scandals that affected the confidence of
America. You know, it's important in a system like ours that people have
confidence in balance sheets and numbers. If you're an investor or an
employee or a shareholder, you've got to have--trust people. And yet
there are some people who betrayed the trust.
We had some corporate citizens who were not responsible. They didn't
do their duty as responsible citizens. We passed tough laws. The three
Members here worked with us. We sent a clear message: We're not going to
tolerate dishonesty in the boardrooms of America. You cannot lie and
cheat shareholders and employees without consequences in this country,
but we overcame that. We're overcoming it.
And then I made a choice to defend the security of the country,
which also affected our economy and affected the confidence of the
people. September the 11th taught a lesson. It's an important lesson for
America. We must deal with threats before they fully materialize. That's
the lesson of September the 11th. You can't see what you think is a
threat and hope it goes away. You used to could when the oceans
protected us, but the lesson of September the 11th is, is when the
President sees a threat, we must deal with it before it comes to
fruition through death on our own soils, for example.
I looked at the intelligence and saw a threat in Iraq. The United
States Congress looked at the same intelligence, and they saw a threat.
The United Nations Security Council looked at the intelligence, and it
saw a threat. In fall of 2002, I went back to the United Nations. I
said, ``Look, why don't we deal with this threat together? We all see a
threat, so why don't we get Saddam Hussein to do what the world has been
demanding to do for over a decade, which is to reveal the weapons
programs and get rid of him, for the sake of the security of the world.
Your choice, Mr. Saddam.'' He said, ``No, I'm not interested.''
You see, given that choice whether to trust the word of a madman, a
man who had used chemical weapons on his own people, or to defend our
country, I will choose to defend America every time. [Applause] Thank
you all.
The challenge we overcame was the fact that on your TV screens you
saw the words ``Marching to War.'' I don't know if you remember that or
not. As we were trying to get Saddam to disarm peacefully through the
United Nations and the collective will of the world, you see ``March to
War.'' That's hard if you're a business person. It's hard to risk
capital or expand your business when the country is marching to war.
It's not a good thought. Or if you're a consumer, maybe thinking about
buying a house, if you look on your TV screens that say ``March to
War,'' you're not so sure you want to buy the house then, because you're
not sure what the consequences of marching to war will be.
Now we're marching to peace. We're marching to peace, and the world
is better off. We've overcome that obstacle. And the reason I say we've
overcome these four things is I want to remind you of the facts.
First, our economy is growing. It's strong, and it's getting
stronger. Secondly, inflation
[[Page 480]]
is low, and interest rates are low. Manufacturing activity is up. The
unemployment rate today is lower than the average rate in the 1970s,
1980s, and 1990s. New Mexico's unemployment rate is 5.7 percent, down
from 6 percent a year ago. Things are improving. Things are getting
better. Thanks to being the most productive workforce in America--and I
might say thanks to good policies--this economy is strong, and it's
getting stronger.
I look forward to continuing to make the argument that the reason
why things are improving, besides the fact that the character of this
country is strong, is that we let people keep more of their own money.
That's what tax relief is.
When you got more of your own money in your pocket, pretty good
chance you're going to demand an additional good or a service. And when
you demand an additional good or a service, somebody is going to provide
it for you. And when somebody provides an additional good or a service,
somebody is more likely to keep a job or to find a job. That's the way
the economy works.
And so the tax relief we passed came at the right time. The
recession was a shallow recession, thanks to the tax relief. The tax
relief helped families because we raised the child credit to $1,000 per
child. The tax relief helped marriages because we reduced the marriage
penalty. What kind of Tax Code is it that penalizes marriage, by the
way? We helped our seniors by reducing the taxes on dividends.
We also helped the small-business community a lot in our tax relief
plan. I'll tell you why. Most small businesses are sole proprietorshiops
or Subchapter S corporations, which means they pay tax at the individual
income tax rate. So when you hear me talking about reducing all taxes, I
want you to think about the benefit that does for the small-business
community. Seventy percent of new jobs in America are created by small-
business owners. And therefore, if you're worried about job creation, it
makes sense to stimulate the small-business sector of this country, and
the tax relief did exactly that.
One of the great successes of this period of time, a period of time
that had a lot of challenges, is the fact that housing starts and
homeownership are incredibly strong right now. Low interest rates help.
It makes it easier, obviously, to afford a mortgage, but so did the tax
policies. See, when people feel more confident they're going to have
money in their pocket, they're more likely to go out and buy a home.
The home sales were the highest ever recently. That's exciting news
for the country, when you think about it--good for the builders--
[laughter]--but more importantly, it's good for the owners. We want
people owning something in America. That's what we want. The great dream
about America is, ``I can own my own home,'' people say, or ``I can own
my own business,'' like many back here do, or ``I can own and manage my
own health care account or my own retirement account.''
See, we want more people owning something because when somebody owns
something, they have a vital stake in the future of the country. The
more people who own their home, the better off America is, and we're
making good progress. Our Nation's 68-percent homeownership rate is the
highest ever. More people own homes now than ever before in the
country's history, and that's exciting for the future of America.
There's a homeownership gap in America that exists for minorities.
And we got to do something about it. So Alphonso mentioned the goal--I
set a good goal, which is adding 5.5 million new minority homeowners in
America by the end of the decade. When we're talking about
homeownership, we're talking about for everybody. That's what I'm
talking about. The more people who own their home, the better off
America will be.
Since then, since I laid out the goal, more than 1.5 million
minority families have become homeowners. And for the first time ever,
more than half of minority households own their own home. We're making
progress closing the gap. But more importantly, people are understanding
what it means to be a buyer and an owner. People understand what it
means to say, ``This is my house.''
Lori Benavidez is with us. Lori, thank you for coming. She's a mom
of two. She brought her own mother with her--that would your
grandmother. [Laughter] Lori is--when I met her backstage--the kind of
person that you want really owning a home because she's
[[Page 481]]
so thrilled with the idea. We helped her. I say we--people here in this
part of the world did. We got a program that helps people who rent
through Voucher 8 programs to afford a downpayment. It helps them take
some of those payments and set it aside for a downpayment so that she
can afford to buy her own home. What she did is she got counseling
services. I know there's some--we'll talk a little bit about that in a
second.
Let me tell you what she said, though, about owning her first home.
She said, ``I never thought the day would happen when my girls and I
would be sitting in our own home. It's a miracle,'' she said. Yes, Lori
said, ``You made it possible.'' I think she told me that. I said, ``No,
Lori, you made it possible. You're the reason why the miracle
happened,'' because she decided she wanted to follow her dream. And the
role of Government is to help people realize their dream, not stand in
the way of dreams but to make it easier for people to realize their
dream.
And there are practical ways to do that. One practical way is to
help people with a downpayment. There are low-income citizens in our
country who simply cannot afford a downpayment. They may be able to
afford the mortgage over time, but they--one of the hurdles for
homeownership is, ``I can't--I don't want to put the money up. I just
don't have that kind of cash to make the downpayment,'' people will say.
I'm sure some homebuilders and real estate agents know what I'm
talking about. They say, ``I think this is what I want to live out my
dream, but I can't put up the money.'' So the Government has a chance to
help, in my judgment. I want to thank very much the Congress working on
the--providing money to help people with their downpayment on their
home, the practical way to encourage more people to own a home, to give
them a chance. There will be $900,000 coming in May to help families in
this State afford a downpayment.
A practical way--another practical way to help people, first-time
homebuyers is to make zero downpayment loans possible for those whose
mortgages are insured by the Federal Housing Administration. In other
words, you go to your FHA administration, get your loan insured, then
you don't have to pay a downpayment. Right now they have to pay a 3-
percent downpayment. It doesn't sound like a lot to some. It's a lot to
people who are struggling to make ends meet and who yet still want to
realize their dream.
Those are two practical ways to help people cross the hurdle--the
initial hurdle of buying a home. By the way, if we can get the FHA plan
in place, it will help 150,000 families buy homes in the first year
alone. It's a practical way, again, of encouraging homeownership.
I don't know if you saw Lori. She had a tear in her eye when I
introduced her because of the thrill of owning her own home. We want
Loris all over the country to feel the same way, to have that great
sense of enthusiasm and joy about saying, ``This is my home. Welcome to
my home.''
The second way we can help is to make sure that Americans understand
what it means to buy a home. You know, I don't know if you've looked at
those forms, but there's a lot of fine print. [Laughter] And if you're
nervous about fine print, like a lot of good citizens are, then that may
become a stumbling block to buy a home. ``I'm not going to sign anything
that's got all that fine print,'' people might say.
And there's a practical way to help people, and that is through
counseling services. You've got good counseling services right here in
New Mexico. Home New Mexico is such a counseling service. Tierra del
Sol, in Las Cruces, is a counseling service.
Lori told me she got counseling services. I don't know if there's
any counselors here, but there are people all across the country who get
help through HUD, that sit down with people like Lori and explain what
it means to buy a home, own a home, and the responsibilities with owning
a home. They explain the credit policies. They explain what it means to
make a monthly payment. They explain what the monthly payments will be.
It's a way of compassionate people to help somebody who wants to realize
their dream.
As well, under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, people
will have access to their credit report. And that's important. A lot of
people have never seen their credit report before. Now you got access to
it.
[[Page 482]]
See, what happens is, people go start to try to buy a home and up
pops the credit report, and they say, ``Sorry, brother, your credit
isn't any good. You can't buy a home.'' People need to be able to look
at all the hurdles and impediments to buying a home as they go through
the process. We don't want people to have their dreams crushed. We want
people to realize dreams. And so I want to thank the counselors who are
here for working with the Lori Benavidezes of the world, to explain to
them what it means to be a homeowner.
As well we've got to make sure affordable housing is available to
more and more citizens. In other words, we've got to provide incentive
for homebuilders to build low-income houses, and so I've proposed a
single-family affordable housing tax credit. It's a good plan. It's a
plan that will make more homes available in parts of America that--where
a lot of homes haven't been built or rehabilitated. It's a good way to
encourage people to build homes in barrios or inner cities. It's a good
way to make sure affordable housing is more available to citizens from
all walks of life.
I also have called upon real estate and mortgage--the mortgage
finance industry to join in our efforts in closing the minority
homeownership gap to help low-income people buy a home. And more than
two dozen major companies and organizations have stepped up. Suburban
Mortgage outfit here in New Mexico as well as the Bank of Albuquerque
have committed to extending more loans to low-income families and to
financing the construction of more affordable homes. And I want to thank
these corporate citizens for stepping up to the plate and helping the
country become a better country by encouraging more people to own their
own piece of property.
Homeownership is strong. We need to keep it that way. I want these
builders back here employing people. I want people showing up for work.
By the way, when it comes to work, we ought to have reasonable
immigration policy. I bet you'd get a fair appraisal from some of the
businessowners back here. They'll tell you that the immigration policy
of this country isn't conducive for good economy; let me put it to you
that way. I mean, you don't know if you're hiring somebody who's here
legally or not legally.
See, we got a policy that has encouraged forged documents and
smugglers. My attitude is if you--a builder back here can't find an
American willing to do the job, they ought to have the ability to put
somebody on the job who can do the job. My attitude is, is that we ought
to have a temporary-worker's card for people who are willing to work.
This is not an amnesty program. I don't think it makes sense to have
amnesty right now in the country. Amnesty would encourage further
illegal immigration. And amnesty would say to those who have stood in
line for a long period of time who want to be a legal citizen,
``Standing in line legally wasn't worth it. We're going to let somebody
cut in line.''
What I'm talking about is a worker plan, a plan that understands
people coming up from Mexico want to put food on their table for their
sons and daughters and that people right here behind me are looking for
somebody to put roof--lay roof or lay tile, and they can't find workers
here. In order to make sure the economy runs well, in order to make sure
we treat people humanely, we need a temporary-worker plan. It makes
sense to do that. I look forward to working with Congress to get
something reasonable out.
A couple of other things I've got on my mind I'd like to share with
you about how to make sure America remains a good place to do business.
You hear a lot of talk about jobs going overseas. Some are going
overseas, and some from overseas are coming here. But the best way to
make sure people can find work in America is to make sure the business
environment, the entrepreneurial environment is strong and solid, that
it's a good place to do business; let me put it to you that way. If you
want people hiring people in America, we've got to make sure America's a
good place to do business, a good place for our employers, and there's
some things we need to do.
We need tort reform in America--too many lawsuits. Ask these
employers what it's like when you're threatened by a lawsuit or
[[Page 483]]
you see your neighbor threatened by a lawsuit. There's too many lawsuits
in the country; there just is. There's reasonable tort reform. Congress
passed--the House passed some class-action reform and some asbestos
reform and medical liability reform. It's stuck in the Senate. As people
tell you, the trial lawyers are a strong lobby up there in Washington,
DC. But I'm going to keep pushing for tort reform because it's right,
and it's the way to make sure America stays a competitive place to do
business.
Speaking about medical liability reform, another issue that plagues
small-business owners and employers is the cost of health care. It's
going up, and we need to address the cost of health care without letting
the Federal Government run the program.
And there are some practical ways to do that. One, I told you about
medical liability reform that's got stuck in the Senate. But one of the
reasons health care costs are going up is because of the frivolous and
junk lawsuits that are threatening our docs in hospitals. And so
therefore, docs and hospitals practice what's called defensive medicine
in order to protect themselves in a court of law.
Listen, there's reasonable reform. But what's not reasonable is a
system today when you've got trial lawyers who view the legal system as
a lottery where they can hit the jackpot, where they can get a big
salary. All that's going to do is make your health care costs too high.
We need association health plans for small businesses so they can
pool risk. If you're a small builder here in Albuquerque, it's hard to
go into the marketplace and find affordable insurance for your hands.
But if you're able to team up with other builders, not only in New
Mexico but around the country, and pool risks just like big corporations
do, you're going to be able to find more affordable health care for your
employees.
We also need to expand health savings accounts. This is a great
idea, by the way, for small businesses and employees to be able to put
money in tax-free, keep it in your plan tax-free, and take it out tax-
free. You cover incidentals, and then you can have major medical to make
sure you cover your big expenses. And believe me, this is a way for
small businesses to be able to better afford health care.
You know what else we need to do? We need an energy plan. Pete
Domenici is in the lead on having an energy plan in the United States
Senate. It's stuck in the Senate right now, and Pete's going to get it
unstuck. He's going to need some help. You might want to write some
other people up in Washington, DC, who aren't with us here today. This
bill needs to get moving. We need to be--we need to encourage
conservation. We need to encourage alternative sources of energy. We
need to modernize the electricity grid. But for the sake of keeping jobs
here at home and for the sake of expanding the economy, we need to be
less dependent on foreign sources of energy.
I'll tell you what else we need to do. Ask these builders what it's
like to put up with Federal, State, and local regulations. I told
Alphonso we've got to do something about it at the Federal level, and he
says we are. So we'll watch him. [Laughter] He's got a--you don't need
to fill out the same form to meet the same requirement at all three
levels of government. Regulations cost small businesses a lot of money.
It means you have less money in your pocket to expand your business and
hire people; that's what that means. If you want to keep jobs here in
America, we'll need to be--we need less paperwork.
And by the way, I don't know, Alphonso may not agree with this, but
I bet a lot of the paperwork that's filed up in the Federal Government
is never read. [Laughter] And if that's the case, it's another reason to
make sure we don't have too much paperwork.
The other thing we need to do here in this country is to make the
tax cuts we passed permanent. The way it works up there is they passed
the tax cuts so people have more money in their pocket, and they're set
to expire. The child credit is going to go down next year unless the
Senate and the House make the tax cuts permanent. The marriage penalty's
going to go up next year. The 10-percent bracket expansion is going to
shrink. In other words, it's a tax increase. We're fixing to get taxed
if the Congress doesn't act. These three Members are strong supporters
[[Page 484]]
of making those aspects of the tax cuts permanent. It makes sense not to
be taking money out of people's pockets just as this economy is
beginning to recover. We want to keep demand strong. We want people
being able to have their own money.
I like to tell people, the people of the country spent their own
money better than the Federal Government could have, and that's why the
economy is getting stronger. So they need to make the tax cuts
permanent. If you're a businessperson, you need to be able to plan. You
don't want to think your taxes are going to be here today and gone
tomorrow. You need certainty in the Tax Code. Ask any businessperson
what it's like to run a business, and the more certain the environment
is in the future, the more likely it is they will be successful, and
when they're successful, somebody will be able to find a job.
I also want to talk about trade. Presidents before me in both
political parties made decisions to make sure America's markets were
open for goods produced overseas. It made sense in many ways. It helped
keep consumer prices down. It helps the consumer when there's
competition.
My attitude is, if our markets are open, I want the other people's
markets to be open. My attitude is, instead of walling each other off
like the economic isolationists want us to do, let's be confident. Let's
trust in our entrepreneurs. Let's understand our farmers and ranchers
are the best at the world. Let's say, ``If you trade with us in an open
way, you got to open up your market.'' That's the Bush policy, ``You
open up your market so we can compete.''
Economic isolationism will lead to economic stagnation. We can't
have that. If we want people working, we've got to be confident in our
ability to compete. A lot of people make a living here in America
because their products they make are sold overseas. We're good at things
in this country. When you see that label ``Made in the USA,'' you know
you got yourself a quality product. I want ``Made in the USA'' sold all
over the world.
What I'm telling you is in order to be--make sure people can find
work and retain a job, we got to make sure this economy grows. These are
what we call progrowth policies. We say we understand that the vibrancy
of the country is in the small-business sector. We're vibrant when we
make sure the entrepreneurial spirit is strong.
I want to talk about one other thing we've got to do to make sure
this is a good place for people to realize their dreams and start a
business and get well educated, is we've got to make sure this country
is on the leading end of broadband technology. You see, new ideas and
new businesses and new ways to educate people in Farmington, New Mexico,
are going to occur when we're able to get information flowing across
cables and telephone lines in a fast way. That's what broadband
technology is. It means we'll open the highways of knowledge--new
highways of knowledge.
This country needs a national goal for broadband technology, for the
spread of broadband technology. We ought to have a universal, affordable
access for broadband technology by the year 2007, and then we ought to
make sure as soon as possible thereafter, consumers have got plenty of
choices when it comes to purchasing the broadband carrier. See, the more
choices there are, the more the price will go down. And the more the
price goes down, the more users there will be. And the more users there
will be, the more likely it is America will stay on the competitive edge
of world trade.
The more users there are, the more likely it is people will be able
to have interesting new ways to receive doctors' advices in the home.
The more affordable broadband technology is, the more innovative we can
be with education. It's important that we stay on the cutting edge of
technological change, and one way to do so is to have a bold plan for
broadband.
Let me say one thing about broadband. We don't need to tax access to
broadband. The Congress must not tax access to broadband technology if
we want to spread it around.
The role of Government is to create an environment in which the
entrepreneurial spirit is strong and in which people are able to realize
their dreams. And that's what we're here talking about, when you think
about it. We're talking about making sure America is
[[Page 485]]
the place where dreams can be realized and people can own something.
People can own their own business. People can own their own home. People
have a chance to say, ``This is mine. This is my property.'' And we're
making good progress here, doing just that.
Remember where I started? I talked about the hurdles we've overcome.
We really have. The country is a strong country. It's overcome a lot,
and there's more hurdles to overcome in the future. I'm confident of
that. But you know what else I'm confident of? We'll overcome. This is
such a great country, full of decent and honorable people.
Thank you for coming. May God bless. Thank you all.
Note: The President spoke at 10:45 a.m. at Expo New Mexico. In his
remarks, he referred to John Kaltenbach, owner, John Kaltenbach Homes;
and former President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.