[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 45, Number 2 (Monday, January 19, 2009)]
[Pages 65-66]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Following a Cabinet Meeting

January 13, 2009

    I want to thank an extraordinary group of American citizens who have 
served our country as members of my Cabinet. Everybody around this table 
here could have taken the easy road and stayed home and worried about 
their own comforts, but instead they answered the call to service. And 
the country is lucky to have folks like this step up and serve.
    I have thanked them here at my last Cabinet meeting not only for 
their service but for helping President-elect Obama transition. And we 
wish the President-elect and his team all the very best. It is our 
genuine wish that they do well.
    We also reviewed our record, and this administration has had a good, 
solid record. And I'm very proud of it. I tell people I leave town with 
a great sense of accomplishment and my head held high. We reformed 
education, and test scores for minority students are up. We reformed 
Medicare, and seniors have now got prescription drug coverage. We 
lowered taxes for everybody who pays taxes. We transformed our military 
to make it be able to deal more effectively with the threats of the 21st 
century. And the Secretary transformed the State Department so it can 
deal with the threats of the 21st century as well.
    We changed how we deliver aid around the world to--through the 
Millennium Challenge Account. I put good judges on the bench. Drug use 
for teenagers is down in America by about 25 percent. The air is 
cleaner. The water is purer. The armies of compassion are more 
invigorated than ever before. Free trade agreements have been signed.
    We dealt with an economic meltdown with strong action so that our 
successor has a better chance of dealing with the economic fallout from 
the credit crisis.
    Most of all, we protected this country from harm. And we did so by 
providing tools and--for our professionals as well as asking our 
military to do hard work, which they have done time and time again. 
Concurrent with that, we've promoted the freedom agenda.

[[Page 66]]

Fifty million people are now free in Afghanistan and Iraq because of 
action taken by the United States and our coalition.
    But when I talk about the freedom agenda, I talk about more than 
just freedom from tyranny. I talk about freedom from hunger--and we've 
had a substantial aid program to help people who are hungry--and freedom 
from disease. I'm very proud of the efforts out of the State Department 
to--on PEPFAR, which is the AIDS initiative on the continent of Africa, 
as well as our malaria initiative.
    All in all, this administration has relied upon the great compassion 
of the American people, the sacrifice of those who wear the uniform. And 
so we leave town honored to have served and proud of the job we have 
done. Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10:14 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White 
House. The Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish 
language transcript of these remarks.