[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 43, Number 9 (Monday, March 5, 2007)]
[Pages 210-213]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks During a Meeting With the National Governors Association 
Conference

February 26, 2007

    Thank you all. Please be seated. I'm looking for some of the crumbs 
that got dropped last night here. [Laughter] Glad you're here; thanks 
for coming. I hope you enjoyed the dinner as much as we did last night. 
It was a--[applause]. I thought it was a good, relaxing evening. And I 
thank you all for joining us today.
    I want to thank the members of my Cabinet for talking to the 
Governors about how important it is for us to work together. I do want 
to spend some--a little time talking about some issues here, and then 
I'll answer questions from you.
    First, obviously--well, I don't know if it's obvious to you or not, 
but my biggest concern is protecting this country. You got to know 
something, that a lot of my thinking was defined on September the 11th. 
I wake up every day thinking about another attack. And that's my job. 
It's what the people expect. I think about how to have the best 
intelligence possible to find out where the enemy is and what they're 
thinking so we can react.

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    I think about making sure that Homeland Security and our States work 
closely together. I wish that wasn't the way it was, but it is. That's 
the reality of the world in which we live. It's easy to kind of hope 
that these radicals and extremists go away. We've got a two-pronged 
strategy in dealing with them: One is to stay on the offense and bring 
them to justice; and two, spread the conditions necessary to defeat an 
ideology of hatred. I like to say, ``We're in an ideological war that's 
going to last awhile.'' That's what I believe. That's the basis on which 
I'm making decisions to protect the country.
    We've got active fronts in this war on terror. One is Afghanistan; 
the other is Iraq. These are the most visible fronts--let me rephrase 
that--there are other active fronts; the most visible fronts are in 
Afghanistan and Iraq.
    I thank you very much for going over to visit the Guard troops and 
Reserve troops from your States that are there. I appreciate it. It 
matters to those troops that you take time as a commander in chief to 
thank them. And it matters to their families that people are paying 
attention to them.
    You've got two Governors who are active in the Guard and Reserve--
Governor Blunt and Governor Sanford. He's not here because he's at a Air 
Force Reserve meeting, as I understand, and I appreciate very much the 
example you all are setting.
    Obviously, there's concerns about the decisions I have made 
regarding Iraq, and I understand that. Look, I mean, there's a lot of 
debate here in Washington, DC. And if you want, we can spend some time 
during the question-and-answer talking about why I make the decisions I 
made. But you've just got to understand, the main reason why is because 
I understand the consequences of failure in Iraq. If we leave before 
that country can govern itself and sustain itself and defend itself, 
there will be chaos. And out of chaos will come vacuums; and out of 
vacuums will come an emboldened enemy that would like to do us harm. I 
like to remind people that if we leave Iraq before the job is done, the 
enemy will follow us here. And if our job is to protect this country, 
it's important we get it right in Iraq.
    And so I made a decision that I think is more likely to succeed than 
any of the alternatives that were presented to me. And I know you're 
concerned about the funding for your troops; so am I. I hope out of all 
this debate--and by the way, there is--you've just got to understand, 
here in Washington, I do not believe that someone is unpatriotic if they 
don't agree with my point of view. On the other hand, I think it's 
important for people to understand the consequences of not giving our 
troops the resources necessary to do the job.
    So I'm looking forward to a healthy debate. I'm also looking forward 
to defending, strongly defending the budgets we send up to Congress to 
make sure those troops who are in harm's way have the resources and that 
we have the flexibility necessary to--and our commanders have the 
flexibility necessary to execute the plan we've laid out.
    I understand Pete Pace was here and visited with you. I hope he was 
able to answer your questions about Guard funding. We submitted a strong 
budget for 2008, and we're going to need your help to make sure Congress 
keeps that budget intact. The temptation sometimes is, take a little bit 
from the defense and add it to here. And if you're concerned about 
making sure your troops get what they need, make sure you call your 
Congressman or your Senator.
    The economy is good, and we intend to keep it that way. We're not 
going to raise taxes. We don't need to raise taxes to balance the 
budget. We can work with Congress on a lot of issues, and one issue we 
can work with them on is the budget. They want to balance the budget; 
the administration wants to balance the budget. And Director Portman 
submitted a plan that balances the budget within 5 years without raising 
taxes. The reason I think it's important to keep taxes low is because I 
think that's important to sustain economic growth and vitality. I'm 
worried about running up taxes and slowing down the entrepreneurship 
that is alive and well here in America.
    I wish I had the line-item veto like you all do--or some of you do. 
[Laughter] It makes it easier to deal with the issues like earmarks or 
these interests that get stuffed

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into these bills at the last minute without having been debated. And I'm 
going to keep working with Congress to try to get line-item vetos. If 
you want to give the President a hand, you might suggest to Congress to 
let me have the tools that many of you have, in this room. You know it 
works; it makes sense. It helps keep those budgets lean and focused and 
having the priorities real clear.
    I'm looking forward to working with Congress on health care. I know 
that Michael has been spending some time with you. I firmly believe, and 
I know Mike agrees, that the States are oftentimes the best place to 
reform systems and to work on programs that meet needs. We believe one 
of the biggest needs is to make sure private health insurance is 
available to a lot of folks in our country. And so the Affordable 
Choices program is a real program. And I thank Mike for spending time 
with you talking about it and wanting to work with you to get it 
designed properly so it works.
    And I also strongly believe we need to change our Tax Code. It's a 
Tax Code that says, if you're single or you're working for a company 
that doesn't provide insurance, you're discriminated against, relative 
to the person working for a big corporation. And it doesn't make sense. 
If you want people to be able to have health insurance, to be able to 
afford private insurance, it makes sense to reform the Tax Code. And we 
look forward to working with you on that.
    Look forward to working with you and Congress on reauthorizing No 
Child Left Behind. I know Margaret talked about it. The real challenge 
facing this country is whether or not we're going to be competitive, 
whether or not we've got the skill set necessary to fill the jobs of the 
21st century. If we don't, they'll go elsewhere. That's just what 
happens in a globalized world.
    No Child Left Behind is the beginning of a comprehensive, 
competitive program, and we want to work with you to make sure it works 
properly, to make sure that accountability is used properly. The thing I 
like most about the law is that when we find a youngster who is 
struggling with reading, that we provide extra help to make sure he or 
she gets up to speed early, before it's too late. I also like the idea 
of us being able to say, ``We're making progress toward high goals.'' 
And we know we are, or we know we aren't if we're not, because we 
measure. I don't see how you can fix a problem unless you measure the 
problem.
    I look forward to working with you on immigration. It's a tough 
issue here in Washington. I strongly believe Congress needs to pass 
comprehensive immigration reform. I strongly believe that we need to 
uphold our laws, enforce our borders, and uphold our traditions in 
America. We need to treat people fairly.
    I'm looking forward to working with Congress on energy policy. We've 
made some progress through comprehensive energy bills. There's more to 
be done. We've spent about $12 billion since I've been the President on 
technologies that will enable us to become less dependent on oil. We're 
going to continue to invest, by the way, in clean coal technologies and 
solar technologies and wind technologies. But the area where we're 
pretty close to some amazing breakthroughs is on getting--changing our 
usage of gasoline. Some amazing battery technologies that are now 
heading toward the market, which will enable people in New York City, 
for example, to drive the first 20 to 40 miles on electricity. That will 
make us less dependent on oil from overseas.
    Another exciting technological breakthrough is going to come with 
cellulosic ethanol. That's a long, fancy word for making gasoline--or 
making ethanol out of product other than sugar and corn, like switch 
grass or wood chips. The ethanol production from corn is full-steam 
ahead, but it's beginning to squeeze some of the hog farmers and cattle 
raisers. And therefore, we're going to have to accelerate research into 
alternative feedstocks for ethanol to enable us to meet a goal I set, a 
mandatory goal of using 35 billion gallons of alternative sources of 
fuel by 2017. It reduces our gasoline consumption by 20 percent over the 
next 10 years.
    I wouldn't have put out the goal if I didn't think it was possible 
and achievable. I also know it's necessary. Becoming less dependent on 
oil is in our national security interests, it's in our national economic 
interests, and it will enable us to be better stewards of the 
environment.

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    I believe we can find a lot of common ground with the Congress on 
these issues. I've had some good meetings with the Democratic 
leadership. I appreciate the openness of our discussions. I'm--will 
continue to reach out to find common ground with them and, as well, with 
you. We owe it to the people to do so.
    Anyway, thanks for giving me a chance to come by. I appreciate it.

Note: The President spoke at 11:22 a.m. in the State Dining Room at the 
White House. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Matt Blunt of Missouri; 
Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina; Gen. Peter Pace, USMC, Chairman, 
Joint Chiefs of Staff; Office of Management and Budget Director Robert 
J. Portman; Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt; 
and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.