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Skriven 2005-12-05 23:33:14 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0512054) for Mon, 2005 Dec 5
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President Discuses Economy and Tax Relief in North Carolina
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 5, 2005

President Discuses Economy and Tax Relief in North Carolina
John Deere-Hitachi Construction Machinery Corporation
Kernersville, North Carolina


˙˙˙˙˙Fact Sheet: President Bush's Agenda for Economic Growth
˙˙˙˙˙In Focus: Jobs and Economy

1:08 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for having me. Thanks for letting me come by to John
Deere-Hitachi. I'm here to talk about our economy. No better place to talk
about our economy in a place where people are working hard and where
they're productive, where they're making a product people want. The economy
of the United States is strong, and I'm here -- how we're going to work
together to keep it stronger.

First, I want to thank the workers of this facility for letting me come by
to interrupt your work day. (Applause.) I'll try to keep my comments brief,
so you can get back to work. (Laughter.) I appreciate the job you're doing.
This is a remarkable facility -- a facility of high technology, of good
management and great, skilled workers.

I appreciate being back in the state of North Carolina. I was somewhat
disappointed to learn that North Carolina is the best place to do business
in the United States -- I thought that might have been Texas. (Laughter.)

I'm traveling today with the Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow. Mr.
Secretary, thank you for joining us. Secretary of Commerce, Carlos
Gutierrez, is with me today. These two men are involved with making sure
that this economy stays strong, that we create an environment for people to
be able to grow their businesses and employ people.

I'm proud to be here with Senator Richard Burr of the great state of North
Carolina. (Applause.) He's a good, down-to-earth fellow, who is a strong
member of the United States Senate. And he brings -- every time I see him,
he brings this message, he says, you make sure you remember the people of
North Carolina -- which I do.

I appreciate Congresswoman Virginia Foxx -- we're right here in her
congressional district -- she's doing an excellent job on behalf of the
people of this part of the world. (Applause.) I appreciate my longtime
friend, Congressman Howard Coble, from the state of North Carolina.
(Applause.) Finally, I'm proud to be traveling with a congressman who
doesn't look old enough to be a congressman -- (laughter) -- that's Patrick
McHenry, and he's doing a fine job, as well, in the United States Congress.
(Applause.)

I want to thank the Mayor of Kernersville for joining us. I appreciate all
the other state and local officials. I want to thank Ron Morrison for the
-- he's the operation manager, in case you've never heard of him --
(applause) -- for giving me a tour. He's sure proud of this facility; he's
proud of the safety record and he's proud of the skill of the people who
work here. I appreciate Al Seeba, Jim Jenkins and Hitoshi Manabe. Thank you
all for having me.

Government does not create wealth. American and businesses and workers and
farmers and entrepreneurs create the wealth for this country. (Applause.)
And so the role of the government is to create an environment where the
small businesses can grow into a big business, where the entrepreneur can
flourish, where people who dream about owning a home are able to own a
home. In our economy, our most precious resource is the talent of the
American worker -- and there is no limit to what we can do when people have
the freedom to make a better life for themselves and their family.
(Applause.)

Ours is a confident and optimistic nation -- and our trust in the American
people has brought us through some pretty tough times. In the past five
years, our economy has endured a stock market collapse, a recession,
terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, high energy costs, and devastating
natural disasters. These were all shocks to our economy, which I felt
required decisive action. I believe that economy grows when people are
allowed to keep more of their own money, to be able to save and to spend.
(Applause.)

And so I called on the United States Congress to let the people keep more
of their own money, to cut their taxes, and Congress responded. We lowered
your taxes and gave you an opportunity to keep more of what you earn -- and
let you decide the best way to spend your own money. We cut taxes on
families by lowering the tax rates, and by doubling the child credit, and
reducing the marriage penalty. I felt we shouldn't penalize marriage; I
thought we ought to reward marriage in the tax code. (Applause.)

These cuts are making a real difference to American families. I just met
one of your co-workers, Kirby Hartsell. Kirby is an Air Force veteran; he
did a tour in South Korea. He and his wife, Carol, have three children:
Olivia, David and Claire. When we cut taxes, the Hartsells received a
refund check that they put in the bank for themselves and to save for their
children. This year, the Hartsells saved $2,200 on their 2004 federal taxes
because of our tax cuts. Now I know some in Washington say that's not a lot
of money -- well, it's a lot of money to the Hartsells. (Applause.) And
when the folks in Washington, D.C., say that our working families don't
need that tax relief, they ought to come right here to North Carolina and
talk to the Hartsells, just like I did. (Applause.)

We not only reduced the taxes on individuals and families, we cut the taxes
on dividends and capital gains to encourage job-creating investment. I
understand most new jobs in America -- and I hope you understand this, too
-- most new jobs in America are created by small business owners.
(Applause.) And so we cut the taxes -- we cut the taxes for our small
businesses. Most small businesses pay taxes at the individual income tax
rate. And so when you hear us talking about lowering the taxes on
individuals, I want you to connect that with lowering taxes on small
businesses. And we created incentives for small businesses to invest in new
equipment so that they can expand and create jobs. To help our farmers and
entrepreneurs pass on a lifetime of hard work to their loved ones, we put
the death tax on the road to extinction.

Now some of those people up in Washington said the tax cuts wouldn't work.
In the spring of 2003, one Democrat leader called tax relief a "tragedy,"
and said it would not create jobs or grow the economy. Another Democratic
leader said the tax cuts "are ruining our economy and costing us jobs." All
comes with the job, by the way -- doing what you think is right, and people
laying out the criticism. But I want to remind people of the facts: Since
those words were spoken, our economy has added nearly four and a half
million new jobs. (Applause.)

Just this past Friday, the latest figures show our economy added 215,000
jobs in the month of November alone. Our unemployment rate is down to five
percent. That's lower than the average of the 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s.
The latest numbers also show the economy grew at 4.3 percent last quarter.
(Applause.) And it has been growing at near that average for more than two
years. This economy of ours is on the move. People are being able to find
work, and that's what's important to me. I want Americans working. I want
anybody who wants a job to be able to find work -- good paying, steady work
-- and that's what's happening in America. (Applause.)

Americans are buying homes, and that's good news for this country. We hit
an all-time high in October, in terms of home buying. More Americans now
own their homes than any time in our nation's history. Minority ownership
-- home ownership is at an all-time high in the United States of America.
(Applause.) Real disposable income is up; our consumers are confident. New
orders for durable goods, like machinery, have risen sharply, and shipments
of manufactured goods are up, as well. Business activity in our
manufacturing sector reported its 30th straight month of growth. In the
past five years, productivity has grown at some of the fastest rates since
the 1960s. Our small businesses are thriving. Fortunately, I didn't listen
to the pessimists about tax cuts. The tax cuts are working. (Applause.)

We've been wise with your money, as well. Each year I've been in office,
we've cut the rate of growth in non-security discretionary spending. We're
on track to reach our goal of cutting the budget deficit in half by 2009.
Thanks to tax relief, and spending restraint, and pro-growth economic
policies, this economy is strong, businesses are booming, and the people in
this country are working. (Applause.) See, we can't take this growth for
granted. So we're moving forward with a comprehensive agenda that's going
to keep the economy growing to make sure people have got a hopeful future.
Keeping this economy growing begins with a commitment to keeping your taxes
low, and at the same time being wise about how we spend your money.

Unfortunately, just as we're seeing the evidence of how our tax cuts have
helped the economy, we're hearing some voices in Washington that want to
raise your taxes. The tax relief we set -- that we delivered is set to
expire in a couple of years. In other words, it's not permanent -- it can
go away. And unless Congress acts, you're going to get a big tax hike when
that happens.

Some even say we should repeal the tax relief sooner. If that happens, a
family of four making $60,000 today would see their federal income taxes
eventually go up by more than 50 percent. I want you to think about that.
As you work hard and balance your family budgets and try to save for the
future, back in Washington some folks want to take more out of your
paycheck by rolling back the tax cuts. When you hear people say that we
don't need to make the tax relief permanent, what they're really saying is
they're going to raise your taxes. One way to keep this economy growing is
to have certainty in our tax code, and to help you keep -- and to keep --
let you keep more of your paycheck, and so the United States Congress needs
to make this tax relief permanent. (Applause.)

We're going to re-double our efforts to restrain the spending appetite of
the federal government. Listen, we're at war, and we're going to spend what
it takes to support our troops in harm's way. (Applause.) And that means
we've got to show real discipline in other areas of the federal budget.

Earlier this year I submitted a budget that proposed an actual cut in
non-security discretionary spending. It's the most disciplined budget
proposal since Ronald Reagan was in the White House, and Congress is set to
meet this target -- and I appreciate their hard work. I also proposed to
terminate or reduce more than 150 government programs that are
under-performing or not meeting needs of the American people. I'm pleased
to report it looks like the Congress is poised to deliver savings on more
than 90 of these programs. For the first time since 1997, Congress is
poised to deliver more than $35 billion in savings in entitlement programs.
By taking action to restrain spending, we're on our track to cut that
deficit in half by 2009.

But there's a lot of work that needs to be done. In the long-term, the most
significant deficits will occur as baby boomers retire, and more people
receive Social Security and Medicare benefits. There's unfunded liabilities
in our Social Security and Medicare systems. That means that there's a lot
of baby boomers retiring who have been promised more benefits with fewer
people paying into the system. That's what that means. And unless we do
something about it, these unfunded liabilities, we're going to put a great
burden on our children and our grandchildren.

Reform of Social Security and Medicare is an important issue for the
American people. And I've been talking about it, and I'm going to keep
talking about it, because I strongly believe the United States Congress has
an obligation to do something about it. (Applause.) My attitude is, when
you get elected to office in Washington, D.C., you have an obligation to
confront problems, not pass them on to future generations and future
Congresses. (Applause.)

Our approach on spending is clear: Working families have to set priorities
for their spending, and so should the federal government. Unfortunately, we
have too many politicians back in Washington who preach fiscal discipline
while voting against spending cuts -- and too many who think the only
answer for runaway spending is to raise your taxes. My solution is to keep
your taxes low and to be fiscally sound about how we use your money.
(Applause.)

As we think about ways to make sure this economy remains strong today and
strong tomorrow, one thing we've got to work on is our energy. I mean,
we've got to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy if we want this
economy to remain vibrant. High gasoline and heating costs are a tax on the
working people, and they're a tax on small businesses, and they drain the
budgets of people working hard; they make it expensive for people to run
their companies. And they both affect our economic and national security.
So our goal is to work for a day in which America is no longer dependent,
beginning with less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

We made a pretty good start with an energy bill I signed this summer. It
encourages conservation, and that makes sense. One way to become less
dependent on foreign sources of energy is to use less of it. We made --
we're spending money on making sure we can burn coal in a clean way; clean
coal technologies make a lot of sense. We've got a lot of coal in the
United States of America, and we need to figure out how to use it cleanly.
We need to do a better job of making sure we can get natural gas from
overseas -- liquified natural gas into the United States. We don't have
enough liquified natural gas portals to allow that gas to come here, and we
need to expand that in the United States.

We're promoting renewable sources of energy, like ethanol and biodiesel. It
makes sense to be able to use corn or soybeans to power our -- power our
automobiles. I mean, one of these days, hopefully, the President sits down,
opens up the crop report and says, my, we've got a lot of corn, it means
we're less dependent on foreign sources of energy. It makes sense to
explore that. We're spending money on hydrogen. One of these days I hope
your grandchildren or your children can start a car and have hydrogen being
the source of power.

So we've got a good bill on the table that I signed. But we've got to do
more. We've got to do more. Listen, Katrina hit us, and Rita hit us, and we
realize how dependent and how fragile our infrastructure is when it comes
to gasoline. Listen, your prices went up -- I know that. And these storms
show that we've got bottlenecks in the system, and there are shortages.
Now, fortunately, today's gasoline prices are down nearly to what they were
before Katrina and Rita, and that's good news. But we ought to take notice
of what happened. Congress needs to pass legislation that will allow us to
build and expand refineries. Do you realize we have not built a new
refinery in the United States since the early 1970s? In order to take the
pressure off your pocketbook, it seems to make sense to me that we need to
expand the amount of supply of gasoline. The more gasoline there is
available for our consumers, the less pressure there will be. (Applause.)

We've got to produce and refine more crude oil and natural gas here at home
in environmentally sensitive ways. And we can do that. The most promising
site for energy in America is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in
Alaska. I don't know if you realize this, but technology today enables us
to take a very small portion of the land -- 2,000 acres out of 19 million
acres -- and use that 2,000-acre site to exploit the oil and gas resources
in that vast area, with little or no impact on the land or wildlife. And
that's important for people to understand, the facts involved: developing
this tiny area could yield up to a million barrels of oil a day. That's a
million barrels of oil a day less from a foreign source of energy. I can't
tell you how important I think it is for the United States Congress to
authorize a pro-growth, pro-job, pro-environment exploration of ANWR.
(Applause.)

We prosper as a country when working people can look to the future with
confidence. And people are more confident when they own something. And
that's why I've promoted an ownership society -- an ownership society in
which people own their own homes, and have control over their health care
accounts. They can own their own small businesses. Americans need to know
that their hard work will be rewarded, and that the institutions they
depend upon are reliable. And so I want to talk about some reforms and some
ideas for job training and health care.

We need to prepare Americans to take advantage of the opportunities of the
21st century. One thing is certain, is that this economy of ours changes,
and as it changes, we've got to make sure the workers have got the skills
necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century. It's one of the real
challenges of our society.

I'm a big believer, by the way, in community centers -- community colleges.
I think they work. I think they work well because they are available and
they're affordable. And they have got flexibility in their curriculum. I
know that firsthand, that you've got a good system here in North Carolina
because I've been to some of your community colleges. I've been to Forsythe
Technical Community College. I've seen workers who were in the textile
industry receiving help necessary to go back to school to become health
care workers. And with a little bit of government help, they are able to
gain new skills and find permanent work at better pay. And that's really
the challenge ahead of us, isn't it -- to make sure that we match our
workers' desire to work with the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the
21st century. (Applause.)

We've got a good program out of Washington, D.C. It's $125 million a year
in grants to help community colleges. More importantly, it's to help the
workers going to community colleges. I'm working with Congress to make sure
that we work with these schools that are developing curriculum for jobs
which actually exist. We don't need people being trained for work where
jobs don't exist; we need people being able to match the job demand with
the curriculum. And it's happening. Congress needs to renew the job
training program for our community college system, and give us more
flexibility to make sure that the money actually gets to the workers, not
to the bureaucracies involved with the program. (Applause.)

We need a health care system that makes sure that health care is available
and affordable for all our people. And we need a health care system that
puts patients in charge of the health care decisions, that offers greater
choice, and allows you to have control over -- over your plan. There's a
new product called health savings accounts -- HSAs -- and they're a step
toward consumer-driven health care.

Now, let me try to explain this to you. Under this type of plan, you or
your employer can put money tax-free into what they call a health savings
account. And you use that money in your account for routine medical
expenses. And if you don't use it all up, you can roll it over to the next
year, tax free. And the money in the account earns interest tax free. In
other words, it's a tax-free account. The money goes in tax free, it stays
in tax free, and it comes out tax free. And it's your money, and you
control it, and you pay routine health care expenses.

And you couple that with a high-deducible insurance policy -- paid by
yourself if you're self-employed, or your company -- that pays for
catastrophic care above a certain deductible if you get really sick or you
get really hurt. Now, the advantage of this program is that, one, you make
the decisions. Secondly, you own the HSA, and if you happen to change jobs
-- listen, we're in a society where people are changing jobs. And one of
the uncertainty that comes with job changes is that you -- a fellow or a
woman worries about health care. Under this plan, it's your own health care
plan, and you can take it with you to your next employer. And the employer
can help you with your HSA, if that's the deal you're able to strike with
them. In other words, if you own your health care plan, it brings certainty
into your life. It makes your future more stable.

These high-deductible policies have lower premiums, and that's what you've
got to know, which provide savings for the self-employed or the small
business owner or for the large company. People are beginning to understand
the advantages of health savings accounts. Since I signed a bill into law
that allowed for the existence of health savings accounts, a million
Americans have enrolled. Most are families with children -- and nearly 40
percent of HSA owners were uninsured before they got their account. Now
we're going to strengthen health savings accounts, make them more available
and more affordable so people have more choices when it comes to health
care.

Now that's just one part of a comprehensive health initiative. Congress
needs to pass association health plans. I don't know if there's any small
business owners here -- small businesses sometimes have trouble affording
health care. They need to be allowed to pool risk across jurisdictional
boundaries so they can buy health insurance at the same discounts that big
companies are able to buy health insurance.

The federal government has a responsibility to the elderly and the poor
when it comes to health care. That's a commitment our government made. My
attitude is, if you're going to provide health care for the elderly, it
ought to be good health care. That's why we had the most substantive
reforms of Medicare since Lyndon Baines Johnson was the President, since
the program was formed. The Medicare plan that is now available for our
seniors includes prescription drug coverage and a wide variety of choices
for our seniors to choose from. And it's going to become available this
January, and if you've got a mother and father on Medicare, I strongly urge
you to look on the Internet for medicare.gov, and take a look and explain
to your mother or father the options available. It's a good deal. It makes
sense to have a modern, reformed Medicare system for our seniors.

We're going to take care of the poor with Medicaid, and to make sure
there's a strong safety net available for the poor citizens in the United
States. And we're going to be wise about how we set up systems. Since I
took office, we've opened or expanded more than 800 community health
centers, places for the poor and the indigent to get primary health care.
It makes sense to make sure that people go to a primary care facility, such
as a health center, and not an emergency room of a hospital.

We need to expand information technology in health care, which a lot of the
experts are convinced will lower the cost of health care to the American
citizens. To make health care available and affordable, we need medical
liability reform. When your doctors get sued, it means there's going to be
fewer doctors practicing medicine, and when your doctors get sued, it means
your cost of medicine goes up. And for the sake of affordable health care,
we need medical liability reform now. (Applause.)

In order to make sure the economy is -- keeps going on, we need a
comprehensive health care agenda that gives you the power for making
medical decisions, not bureaucracies in Washington, D.C.

Now for the good of the workers, we need to strengthen the rules governing
private pensions, as well. You know, most Americans work for private
companies that offer traditional pensions. And most companies, like this
one, are fulfilling their obligations to their employees and their
retirees. But too many companies are not putting away the cash they need to
fund the retirement promises they're making to their employees. In other
words, they're saying, we'll make sure you got a retirement system, but
they're not funding it. Therefore, when -- if the company were to get into
financial trouble and go bankrupt, their failure to live up to their
promises, their failure to fund their pensions will leave retirees with
pension checks that have been slashed.

Now, the federal government insures these pensions, and that means that if
more and more companies fail to meet their responsibilities, the federal
government might have to step in and bail them out. In that case, it would
not only be the retirees who are harmed by the companies not fulfilling
their obligations, but it can mean the taxpayers, as well. Every American
has an interest in seeing to it that this system gets fixed. So whether
you're a worker at a company with an under-funded pension, or a taxpayer,
it's what I want you to understand.

In our society, we've had some companies -- big companies go bankrupt, and
workers at those companies know what I'm talking about. And so my message
to corporate America is: You need to fulfill your promises. When you say to
a worker, this is what they're going to get when they retire, you better
put enough money in the account to make sure the worker gets that which you
said. (Applause.)

The government's current pension rules are confusing and misleading -- they
allow companies to technically play by the rules and yet still not fund the
promises they've made to their employees. And so Congress needs to
straighten up these rules so that there's no confusion, so that everybody
understands what I just said. I said, if you make a promise to a worker,
you put enough money in the account to fulfill that promise.

So we proposed reforms to the pension rules that say this, that say that
companies must accurately measure and report the financial status of their
pension plans to make sure they're fulfilling the promises they make. This
reform plan would give companies that under-fund their pensions seven years
to catch up. That seems reasonable to me. We're going to give you a little
time to do what you said you're going to do, but you're going to do what
you said you're going to do.

But some in Congress have said this reform is too tough, or some may be on
the outskirts of Congress who have said the reform is too tough. And not
only that, they want to weaken the current law even further. I believe that
if you put in your hours, your pension should be there for you when you
retire. Our workers need reform that significantly improves funding for
these private pension plans, not a piece of legislation that weakens it.
And I'm not going to sign a bill that weakens pension funding for the
American workers. (Applause.)

And, finally, keeping this economy strong means welcoming opportunities
that a global economy offers -- not fearing those opportunities. And this
country is home to about 5 percent of the world's population, which means
that 95 percent of potential customers live abroad. By opening up new
markets for our goods and our farm products and our services, we will help
our economy continue to grow and create opportunity for people right here
in our country.

In Washington, there are economic isolationists, people who are afraid of
new opportunities. I think they've got to have more faith in the American
worker and in the entrepreneur. The folks in North Carolina are showing
them why. Today, one of every 12 jobs in North Carolina is exported by --
is supported by exports. In other words, one in 12 of the people who work
in this state do so because they're selling a product overseas. And it's
just not what you're sending overseas that is helping North Carolina grow.
More than 200,000 North Carolinians have jobs because foreign companies
have chosen to invest in the Tar Heel state. In other words, this is a good
place to be. All across America, we see the same story: Foreign businesses
come here because they recognize the quality and the skill and ethic of the
American worker. That's why they're coming. (Applause.)

This company is a good example of how trade has transformed American
business. In 1837, an Illinois blacksmith named John Deere fashioned a
steel plow that let pioneer farmers cut through prairie soil. Today, the
company that this guy started ships products -- ships combines made in
Illinois to Russia. Interesting, isn't it? A lot of the Deere business is
done overseas because the product is good. People want the Deere product.
People realize that their society could become more productive if they use
products made by John Deere.

You've got an advantage right here in Kernersville. You've got an
interesting joint venture with Hitachi. This plant is actually
"in-sourcing". Over the past four years, this factory has taken on
production that used to be done in Japan and Mexico. You've tripled your
workforce. That's what opening markets means. It means good, steady work.
It means good opportunity. In the 21st century, no economy can afford to be
an island. And to create new opportunities for our workers, we need to keep
this economy open to trade and investment. And we've got to make sure that
everybody else treats us the way we treat them, that we want to have free
trade, and we want to have fair trade. (Applause.)

The textile industry in this state has been through tough times. I
understand that. We just did a deal with Central America that says, you
treat us the way we treat you. Do you realize products going from the
United States to Central America were taxed? Products coming the other way
weren't. It seemed to make sense to level the playing field, which we're in
the process of doing. But it also means that by working together with
Central American partners, North Carolina textiles are more likely to be
able to compete with Asian textiles.

My predecessor worked to get China into the WTO. And one of the conditions
was that the United States and other WTO members would take steps to
prevent their markets from being flooded with cheap Chinese textiles. Last
month, we reached an agreement with China to have them meet that obligation
under the textile agreements. It's an important agreement. It means that
not only are we for free trade with China, but we expect China to be fair
with American textile companies and American workers. This agreement adds
certainty and predictability for businesses in both America and China.

Here's what I believe. I believe free trade is good for jobs. I believe
opening markets for U.S. products is smart to do. I know we've got to make
sure we have a level playing field because when we have a level playing
field, the American worker, the American entrepreneur, and the American
farmer can compete with anybody, any time, anyplace. (Applause.)

The greatest opportunity we have to advance the goal of free and fair trade
is through the Doha round of trade talks. The Doha trade round has great
potential to boost jobs here in America. By reducing and eliminating
tariffs and other barriers on industrial goods, and on farm goods --
industrial goods like John Deere products, by the way -- to end unfair
subsidies, and open up global markets for our services. Trade ministers
will gather in Hong Kong next week for a critical meeting. I told our Trade
Representative, Ambassador Rob Portman, that he's got to push for a bold
and wide-ranging agreement. Opportunity increasingly depends on a free and
fair trading global system, and our administration is going to continue to
use our influence to bring greater opportunities for the American worker.

You know, throughout the last century, we often heard pessimists telling us
that our best days are behind us, and that the future belongs to others.
Our grandparents heard the pessimists in the 1930s and 1940s say that the
future belonged to the central planners. Our parents heard the pessimists
again in the 1950s, when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite.
Some of us remember hearing the pessimists in the 1970s and 1980s, when we
were told that America was tired and could no longer compete with Japan. At
that moment, Ronald Reagan's tax cuts were just beginning to kick in, and
that set off one of the largest economic expansions in history. One
newspaper editorialized about "the stench of failure" during that period of
time.

You know, the great thing about our history when you look at it is the
American people have always proved the pessimists wrong. At the start of a
hopeful new century, the American worker is the most productive worker that
human history has ever known. (Applause.) At the start of this new century,
we have proven that pro-growth economic policies out of Washington, D.C.,
do work, and can overcome some mighty obstacles. At the start of the
century, we recommit ourselves to the notion that the more free people are,
the better off your economy will be. (Applause.)

This great country of ours is a place where people can start out with
nothing -- and be able to raise a family, and own a home, or start a
business. Through all my travels around the world, I'm always struck by how
bright the future of America is. Our job in Washington is to keep that
future bright and hopeful by making choices that reward hard work and
enterprise. This economy is strong, and the best days are yet to come for
the American economy. (Applause.)

I'm honored you let me come by. I'm always glad to come back to North
Carolina. And I'm particularly pleased to be with the good, fine folks
right here at the Deere-Hitachi plant. May God bless you and your families,
and may God continue to bless our country. (Applause.)

END 1:52 P.M. EST

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