Text 1848, 287 rader
Skriven 2005-12-09 23:33:30 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0512091) for Fri, 2005 Dec 9
===================================================
===========================================================================
President's Remarks at Mark Kennedy '06 and Minnesota Republican Party
Victory Reception
===========================================================================

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 9, 2005

President's Remarks at Mark Kennedy '06 and Minnesota Republican Party
Victory Reception
Hilton Minneapolis Hotel
Minneapolis, Minnesota



12:34 P.M. CST

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming. Thank you all. I appreciate the warm
reception. (Laughter.) This is a Senator Kennedy I can work with.
(Applause.) I have come because I know Mark and I know he is going to make
a great United States senator for the people of Minnesota. (Applause.)

He's a down-to-earth fellow. After all, he was raised in rural Minnesota.
He brings common-sense values to Washington, D.C. He's not one of these
kind of fancy guys, he's a guy that gets the job done. He focuses on
results; he works on behalf of the people; he'll make a great United States
senator from Minnesota. (Applause.)

Laura sends her love. (Applause.) Mark and I both married above ourselves.
(Laughter.) I'm proud to be up here with Debbie Kennedy, as well. I met
Sarah -- the Kennedy family, if you don't know it, is quite large.
(Laughter.) If they all vote -- (laughter) -- it's a landslide. (Laughter.)
But Laura sends her very best. One of the important things about running
for office is to have a family that stands with you. It can be a little
lonely out there at times. But there's nothing better than coming home to a
great wife, in Mark's case, and a family that dearly loves him. One reason
to send Mark Kennedy to the United States Senate is he understands the
importance of family in our society today. (Applause.)

I want to thank the Governor of your great state, Tim Pawlenty, for being
here. He's a fine man and doing a great job as Governor. (Applause.) I want
to thank the Lieutenant Governor who is here. I want to thank all the state
and local officials. I want to thank my friend, Norm Coleman. (Applause.)
Congressman Jim Ramstad is with us today. Jim, I appreciate you coming --
newlywed, I might add. (Applause.)

Mark and I flew over with Congressman John Kline. You talk about a patriot
and a good man who needs to be reelected to the United States Congress.
(Applause.)

I want to thank a longtime family friend of ours, Rudy Boschwitz. Great
leadership. I appreciate the Boschwitz family for being here. (Applause.)
All the Boschwitz boys. (Laughter.) They didn't ask for any advice, but I
gave it -- I said, listen to your mother. (Laughter.) Mark, you need to be
listening to yours, too. (Laughter.)

I want to thank all the grassroots activists. Thank you all for coming.
Here's the deal. It's important to contribute like you have. But your
contributions are going to -- are going to be needed to win this campaign,
and these are contributions of talking to your neighbors, going to your
community centers and houses of worship and places you work, and telling
people that when you've got somebody who's honest and decent, like Mark
Kennedy, they need to send him to the United States Senate for the good of
all people of Minnesota. (Applause.)

So I want to thank you for what you have done for this good man, and what
you're going to do. I know he's going to work hard. He was just telling me
today how many parades he's marched in. (Laughter.) That's a lot, by the
way. (Laughter.) Showed me that old football schedule that he passes out.
(Laughter.) He's a grassroots-type fellow, gets down to where the people
are, he tells them what's on his mind, and when he says something, he does
it. And that's the kind of people we need in Washington, D.C. (Applause.)

I also look forward to working with Mark -- we're facing -- we're living in
historic times. These are dangerous times, and they're times of great
opportunity. And I'm looking forward to working with Senator Mark Kennedy
to secure this country, to do our duty in Washington, D.C. and do
everything we can to protect the people.

Our lives and the life of our nation changed on September the 11th, 2001,
and we must never forget the lessons of that day. We must deal with threats
before they fully materialize. There's an enemy -- (applause.) We have got
to see the world the way it is, not the way we'd like it to be. There is an
enemy -- there is an enemy which hates America. They hate us because we
stand for what they don't believe in. We believe in freedom. We believe in
the freedom for people to worship any way they want in the United States of
America. We believe that people can speak their mind freely. We believe
that people can write their editorials the way they want to write them. We
believe in freedom, and we're not going to change. (Applause.)

And we face an enemy that has got an ideology and a strategy and a tactical
plan to achieve their strategy. These people have hijacked a great religion
and turned it to their advantage -- they think. They're trying to spread a
totalitarian empire from Indonesia to Spain. How do I know? Because they've
told us. They've told us point-blank what they're looking for. They're
trying to drive the United States out of the Middle East so they can take
over other countries to spread -- to spread their dark view of the world.
They want safe haven from which to launch attacks.

Think about Afghanistan. They had achieved their objective for a short
period of time. They had taken over Afghanistan so they could plot and plan
their attacks, one of which was the September the 11th attack. I told the
world -- and I meant it -- if you harbor a terrorist, you're equally as
guilty as the terrorist. Our troops liberated the people of Afghanistan and
routed the Taliban. (Applause.) And that part of the world is better off,
and our country is more secure, because democracy has taken hold in
Afghanistan.

The enemy has made it abundantly clear that Iraq is a central front in
their war against humanity; that's what they've said. And our nation must
understand that Iraq is the central front in the war against the
terrorists. And that's why -- we're there for one reason, and that is to
achieve a victory, to make America more secure. (Applause.)

We took the threat seriously, and we removed that threat. And now our
strategy is twofold. On the one hand, we're helping the brave Iraqis
establish a democracy. Any way you look at it, these people that lived
under the brutal thumb of a tyrant have made incredible progress. They had
January elections, they approved a constitution, and next week they're
voting for a four-year government. Democracy is making progress because of
the courage of the Iraqi people.

And the second prong of our strategy is to train Iraqis so they can take
the fight to the enemy, so they can bring people to justice. And we're
making progress there, as well. Of course, it's been uneven at times. But
it's important for you to know that the Iraqis want to secure their
democracy, and democracy helps make this world more peaceful.

Now, there's a debate raging in Washington, D.C. There are some who are
arguing for a fixed timetable of withdrawal. I think it's the wrong policy,
and so does Mark Kennedy. A fixed timetable of withdrawal would embolden
the enemy, would confuse the Iraqis, and would send the wrong signal to our
young men and women in uniform. The United States of America -- (applause.)

We have got a strategy for victory and we'll see that strategy through. We
will defeat the terrorists in Iraq. We will not let al Qaeda take a
stronghold -- get a stronghold in Iraq. We'll help this country develop a
democracy, which will send a powerful signal to people in Damascus and
Tehran. (Applause.)

Our short-term objective is to stay on the hunt and bring the killers to
justice before they hurt us again. I'd rather be defeating them there than
facing them here at home. (Applause.) And our long-term objective is to
spread the power of democracy and freedom.

You know, I recently went to the Far East, as you may know, and visited
with my friend, Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan. He's a good fellow, and
he's a good friend. It struck me then, like it has in previous times, about
how ironic it is in a way that the son of an 18-year-old Navy fighter pilot
who fought the Japanese is now talking peace with the leader of a country
that was our sworn enemy. Think about that for a minute. Sixty years ago, a
lot of folks, a lot of your relatives, signed up to fight an enemy that
attacked us. By the way, we lost more people on September the 11th than we
did when Pearl Harbor was bombed. And a lot of people went and fought, and
there was a lot of death and destruction. And yet, 60 years later -- which
seems like a long time when you're 59 -- (laughter) -- but it's really not
all that long in the march of history -- I'm talking with Prime Minister
Koizumi about how to keep the peace. So something happened between the time
that my dad and your relatives signed up in World War II, and I'm talking
peace with Koizumi. And what happened was Japan became a democracy.

These are historic times. We have an obligation and a duty to protect the
American people. And we'll do just that. That's why Mark Kennedy needs to
be in the United States Senate. And we have an opportunity -- (applause) --
and we have an historic opportunity to lay the foundation of peace for
generations to come. I'm absolutely convinced that some day, 50 or 60 years
from now, an American President will be speaking to an audience saying,
thank goodness a generation of Americans rose to the challenge and helped
people be liberated from tyranny; democracy spread, and the world is more
peaceful for it. (Applause.)

And there's no doubt in my mind Mark Kennedy understands the stakes and
shares the vision for laying that foundation for peace. He needs to be a
United States senator from the state of Minnesota. (Applause.)

I've enjoyed working with Mark Kennedy on economic matters. We share a
philosophy that says this: The role of government is not to create wealth;
the role of government is to create an environment in which the
entrepreneurial spirit is strong in America.

We've been through some tough times in this country. As you might recall,
we had a recession, some corporate scandals, an attack on our country, a
war, major hurricanes. And yet the third quarter growth in 2005 was 4.3
percent. We've added 4.5 million jobs since May of 2003. The unemployment
rate in Minnesota is 3.7 percent. The unemployment rate nationally is 5
percent. Home ownership is at an all-time high. More minorities own a home
than ever before in our nation's history. This economy is strong, and it's
going to be stronger. (Applause.)

And one reason it's strong is we cut the taxes on the people. We understand
that when somebody has got more money to spend or save, this economy is
going to grow. And Mark Kennedy understands that. He also understands that
we must have certainty in the tax code. We need to make the tax cuts we
passed permanent. (Applause.)

By the way, when you hear somebody say, don't make the tax cuts permanent,
that's Washington, D.C. code for saying, we're going to raise your taxes.
(Laughter.) That's what that is.

And the other thing we've done is we've worked hard to make sure that we've
been wise about how we spend your money. Each year we've cut the rate of
growth of non-security discretionary spending. I'm hoping to sign a series
of appropriation bills that will actually have negative growth and
non-discretionary -- and non-security discretionary spending -- the first
time since Ronald Reagan was the President. Mark Kennedy is a fiscal
conservative. He is a CPA. It seems like to me we got enough lawyers in the
United States; why shouldn't we have a CPA in the United States Senate?
(Applause.)

I want to talk about a couple of more issues. We got a farm bill coming up.
This is an important farm state. It seems like to me you want to have a
United States senator who can come in the Oval Office and talk to the
President about Minnesota farmers. We passed a good farm bill. I want to
thank Mark for working on it. And in that farm bill was not only a safety
net for our farmers, but a commitment to open up markets for Minnesota
farmers. Here's what I think. I think if you're good at something, like the
Minnesota farmers are, they ought to be given the opportunity to sell
product all across the world.

In the farm bill, there was a strong conservation title called the CRP
program. It's good for Minnesota ranchers and farmers. If you're interested
in a strong ag economy like we got today, if you're a Minnesota farmer,
there's only one man suited to be the United States senator in this race,
and that's Mark Kennedy. (Applause.)

Health care is an issue. It's an issue for patients, it's an issue for
docs, it's an issue for small business owners. We intend to do something
about it. There's a philosophical divide, however, and there will be one in
this race. There are some who believe that the government ought to be
making all the decisions. And there's people like Mark and I who believe
that the decision-making in health care is between the patient and the
doctor. (Applause.) And that's why we strongly support health savings
accounts, associated health plans for small businesses, community health
centers, a reformed Medicare program.

But I want to talk about one other issue in health care. You cannot have
affordable and available health care if your doctors are getting sued all
the time. (Applause.) We got a problem in this country. We got too many
docs being run out of the practice of medicine because of these junk
lawsuits. And you're paying for it twice. You're paying for it as a result
of higher doctor bills when you go to the office, and you're paying for it
through higher -- because the federal government has got a huge, huge share
of health care spending.

See, when I first went to Washington, I said, well, this is a local issue.
The governors can take care of it. But then I realized all these federal
lawsuits and the defensive practice of medicine and the increase of
premiums for docs are costing us billions of dollars a year at the federal
level, through Medicaid, Medicare and veterans spending, for example. So
medical liability is a national problem that requires a national solution.
And I look forward to working with United States Senator Mark Kennedy to
make sure health care is available and affordable for Minnesota patients.
(Applause.)

There are three branches of government, as you know. Well, some of them
back there think there's four branches. (Laughter.) The Constitution
recognizes three branches. (Laughter.) I'm proudly part of the executive
branch; you'll be proudly part of the -- he is a part of the legislative
branch. And we've got to make sure that the judiciary -- judicial branch of
government functions the way the framers of our Constitution wanted it to
function, and that is to have people who serve on our bench who are not
going to try to legislate, but who will strictly interpret the Constitution
of the United States of America. I look forward to working with United
States Senator Mark Kennedy, who will make sure that the judges I name,
those strict constructionists, those who will not try to legislate from the
bench, are given an up or down vote on the floor of the United States
Senate and confirmed -- judges like John Roberts and Judge Sam Alito.
(Applause.)

So I've come to thank you for supporting a good man. I've come to lay out
my opinion, and that is he's the right person for the job. He thinks right,
he acts right. He's not one of these kind of politicians that takes a poll
and then tries to figure out what to believe. We got too many of those in
Washington, D.C. We need straight shooters, people of principle, and people
who care deeply about the state of Minnesota. And that person is Mark
Kennedy.

Thanks for coming and God bless. (Applause.)

END 12:55 P.M. CST

===========================================================================
Return to this article at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051209-1.html

 * Origin: (1:3634/12)