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Skriven 2006-10-02 23:32:16 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (061002g) for Mon, 2006 Oct 2
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Remarks by the President at Heller for Congress Reception
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 2, 2006

Remarks by the President at Heller for Congress Reception



October 2, 2006

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

AT HELLER FOR CONGRESS RECEPTION

Mercury Air Center

Reno, Nevada

5:29 P.M. PDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. It's good to be back in Reno. I
appreciate the invitation. I'm here to say as clearly as I can, Dean Heller
is the right person for the United States Congress. (Applause.) And I want
to thank you for helping him.

I appreciate the fantastic fundraiser. It's a good sign, Dean, when your
friends and neighbors are willing to put a little hard-earned cash into the
hat in order to help you. (Laughter.) But he's going to need more than your
money. He's going to need your time. And so coming down the stretch, I call
on the grassroots activists and those who have been participating in
campaigns to put up the signs and go to your houses of worship or your
community centers and say, we've got a good man in Dean Heller; he loves
his family; he loves his country; he loves the people of the 2nd
congressional district -- let's send him to Washington, D.C. (Applause.)

All he's got to do is get his family to go to work for him. (Laughter.) I
met a bunch of them today. I'm really proud to be with them. (Laughter.)
With Lynne and the four children. I like a man who knows his priorities. We
need people in Washington who have got the right priorities. And the
priorities - he and I share priority: our faith, our family and our
country. (Applause.)

Now, I wasn't Dean's first choice. (Laughter.) He wisely had put in a
request for Laura -- (laughter) -- who sends her love and her best to all
our friends out here in Reno, in Nevada. We're blessed with friends. I
wouldn't be standing here without the people of this good state voting for
me, not once, but twice. (Applause.) And in selecting me, you selected a
really fine person to be the First Lady. I can't tell you how proud I am of
Laura. (Applause.) I am a lucky man that she said "yes" when I asked her to
marry me, and some of her friends in Texas wondered whether it was a wise
decision or not, but we're doing great.

And we're really proud -- I'm proud to be here. She, like me, understands
Dean Heller will make a great United States Congressman. I want to thank
his predecessor, Jim Gibbons. I've been honored to work with Jim on behalf
of the people. (Applause.) Another predecessor is here, Barbara Vucanovich,
is with us. Barbara, it's good to see you. I'm proud you're here. Mother
and Dad send their best. (Laughter.) This Barbara knows the other Barbara.
(Laughter.)

I want to thank Kenny Guinn and Dema for joining us. Kenny Guinn has been a
great governor for the state of Nevada. (Applause.) We're proud to call him
friend and I'm proud to call Dema friend. You know, one of the interesting
things that we get to do is to share the White House with our friends from
around the country. We've had the Governor and his wife spend the night
with us when the National Governors were in town. And I remember Kenny
walking around the White House saying, my goodness, I can't believe I'm
here. (Laughter.) And then he looked at me. (Laughter.)

I hope you all support Jim Gibbons to replace Governor Kenny Guinn.
(Applause.) And now that I'm going down the election roster, and make sure
you put Ensign back in, too, he's a great United States senator.
(Applause.)

I want to thank Brian Krolicki, he's going to be the lieutenant governor of
the state of Nevada. Thanks for coming, Brian. (Applause.) We've got the
mayor here, Bob Cashell. Bob, good to see you again. Mr. Mayor, proud
you're here. (Applause.) And all the local officials -- it's a good sign
when the local officials are coming. It's when they stay away from the
rallies is when you get nervous. (Laughter.)

I want to thank you all. It really is important you're here. Obviously,
this is a race that my administration considers to be an important race.
That's why I got on the airplane after meeting with the Prime Minister of
Turkey to come out here and help Dean. (Applause.)

I want to thank Troy Marston, he led the Pledge of Allegiance -- Private
1st Class, 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne, recently returned from Iraq.
(Applause.) It is an honor to be the Commander-in-Chief of the finest
military in the world. (Applause.) And the reason we're the finest military
in the world is because of the men and women who have volunteered to wear
the uniform of the United States of America. (Applause.) And being in one
of your jobs and one of my jobs is to make sure our troops have all that is
necessary to do their job and protect the United States of America.
(Applause.)

I've been looking forward to this campaign because it gives me a chance to
travel around the country making it clear there are significant differences
in what we believe and what the other bunch believes. You take taxes, for
example. You know, Dean talked about the fact that when we came in we had a
recession and then there was a terrorist attack and then we went to war and
there was corporate scandals, there was hurricanes and high gasoline prices
-- and, yet, this economy is growing. And the reason it's growing, and the
primary reason in my mind it's growing is because we cut the taxes on the
working people, we cut the taxes on the small business owners, we cut taxes
on families with children. (Applause.)

We put an end to the marriage penalty -- or started to put an end to the
marriage penalty. I really don't understand a tax code that penalizes
marriage. (Laughter.) We ought to be encouraging marriage in the United
States. The tax cuts we passed have worked. (Applause.)

And this election campaign is one in which the people have got a stark
choice. You listen to those Democrats in Washington talk. I don't know how
they're talking in Nevada, but I can tell how they're talking in
Washington. And they're saying, well, we're not going to -- we're going to
let these tax cuts expire, see, hoping the American people don't pay
attention to those words.

See, if you let the tax cuts expire -- in other words, if you don't make
the tax cuts permanent -- it means your taxes are going to go up. It's a
tax increase. The way I like to put it is if the Democrats take control of
the United States Congress, they're going to have their hand in your
pocket, they're going to be running up your taxes. Raising the taxes on the
people who work for a living, raising the taxes on the farmers and
ranchers, raising the taxes on the small business owners is bad economic
policy. And that's why we need Dean Heller in the United States Congress.
(Applause.)

Oh, you'll hear them tell you up there, or over there, they'll say, well,
we need to raise taxes just on some of you in order to balance the budget.
That's not the way Washington, D.C. works. They'll raise your taxes and
they'll figure out new ways to spend your money. The best way to balance
the budget is to keep pro-growth economic policies in place so this economy
grows and to prioritize how we spend your money. And the priorities I've
set for the United States Congress is winning this war on terror and making
sure we've got what it takes to defend the American people. (Applause.)

You know, it's amazing what happens when you grow the economy. See, cutting
taxes is counterintuitive for some in Washington, but when you reduce taxes
it causes the economy to grow. And when the economy grows, there's more tax
revenues coming in. And that's what's happened recently. And that's why
we're cutting the deficit in half prior to the goal I set in 2009. We need
fiscally responsible people in Washington, D.C. And Dean Heller will be a
fine congressman when it comes to watching your money. (Applause.)

We need people in Washington, D.C. who understand that we need to make sure
health care is available and affordable. There's an interesting debate up
there in the nation's capital, and it's this: Who best to decide how to
make decisions for health care, who best to make that decision -- the
federal government, or the doctors and patients? We believe that the
doctors and patients should be making the health care decisions in the
United States of America. (Applause.)

And one way to make sure health care is available and affordable is to do
something about these junk lawsuits that are running good doctors out of
practice. (Applause.)

I'm looking forward to working with Dean on good domestic policy that keeps
this economy growing and keeps the power -- decision-making power in the
hands of the people. And I'm looking forward to working with him to do our
most solemn duty, and that's to protect you.

You know, when I ran in 2000 -- I remember campaigning here -- you know, I
didn't want to be a war President. As a matter of fact, anybody who says,
vote for me, I want to be a war President, don't vote for him. (Laughter.)
No one should ever wish that. But an enemy declared war on us, a war we
didn't want; but it's a war we must engage. September the 11th made it
abundantly clear that the most solemn responsibility of the federal
government is to protect the American people.

We're fighting an enemy that knows no rules. They're inhumane. They are
evil people who have taken the religion and kill in the name of that
religion to achieve geopolitical objectives. They're bound by a common
ideology. They want to establish a caliphate that ranges from Indonesia to
Spain. I'm not making this up. I'm simply repeating that which we have
learned about the enemy from their own words.

You can't negotiate with these people. Therapy is not going to work.
(Laughter.) The best way to deal with this enemy is to bring them to
justice before they hurt the American people again. (Applause.)

You know, it's a difficult task to protect the homeland, because we've got
to be right 100 percent of the time, and these killers have got to be right
once. And, therefore, I thought it was important to make sure that those on
the front line of fighting terror and the extremists had all the tools
necessary to protect the American people.

And that's why I called upon Congress to eliminate the walls and barriers
that had arisen over time between the intelligence services and the
criminal justice people so they can share intelligence that is necessary to
protect you. And that's why I thought it was important to set up a program
that said, if al Qaeda or an al Qaeda affiliate is making a phone call into
the United States of America, we need to know why in order to protect the
American people. (Applause.)

And I want our fellow citizens to look at who voted for those proposals and
what political party voted against them. There's a clear difference of
opinion about how to protect this homeland.

You know, recently, we just had an important debate in Washington, D.C.
It's a debate over whether or not the Central Intelligence Agency should
have a program that enabled our professionals to question high-value
detainees to determine if they had information that could help protect the
homeland. Obviously, I thought that was an important program. I submitted
the bill after a speech in the East Room of the White House. I submitted
that bill to the Congress. See, I understand the nature of the information
we received from people such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is the
mastermind of the September the 11th attacks.

I'll be signing that bill pretty soon. The Congress passed the bill, but I
want you all to remember when you go to the polls here in Nevada, what
political party supported the President to make sure we had the tools
necessary to protect the American people, and which political party didn't?
(Applause.)

I have made the decision that the best way to protect the American people
is to get on the offense against this enemy, and stay on the offense. There
is a difference of opinion in Washington. If you listen closely to some of
the leaders of the Democrat Party, it sounds like -- it sounds like they
think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we're
attacked again. That's not the way it's going to be under my
administration. (Applause.) We will stay on the offense, we will defeat the
enemy overseas, so we do not have to face them here at home.

And it's hard work, but it's necessary work. It's the calling of the 21st
century. It's the call of a generation to determine whether we have the
will and the vision to protect the American people.

Now, the lesson I have learned from September the 11th was two -- one --
many, but two of the most notable ones were, if you find somebody harboring
a terrorist, they're equally as guilty as the terrorists and must be held
to account. And that's why we removed the Taliban from Afghanistan and
freed 25 million people from the clutches of a barbaric regime. (Applause.)

And I saw a threat in Iraq, and so did members of the United States
Congress and people on the United Nations Security Council. Saddam Hussein
was a state sponsor of terror. He had killed thousands of his own people.
He had used weapons of mass destruction. He was a sworn enemy of the United
States. He paid families of suicide bombers. He was a threat. And the
United Nations said that loud and clear. It was his choice to make of
whether or not he wanted war. He chose war, and the world is better off
without Saddam Hussein in power. (Applause.)

And I think it's a legitimate question to ask candidates running for
Congress, or United States senators who have been critical of policy,
whether or not they think the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein
in power. You know, when this question was asked to a senior member of the
Intelligence Committee, the Democrat member, he said, yes, the world would
be better off, given the world today, with Saddam Hussein in power.

Well, I just see it differently. I think it's important we take threats
before they come home to hurt us. America cannot wait to be attacked again.
In order to protect the United States of America, we must stay on the
offense, and we will do so. (Applause.)

The other thing you hear coming out of the nation's capital is whether Iraq
is a distraction on the war on terror -- you know, it's not part of the war
on terror. I happen to think it's a central front in the war on terror.
Success in Iraq will help make this country more secure. Failure in Iraq
will mean that we will have left behind a treacherous world for children
and our grandchildren.

But if you don't take my word, take the word of Osama bin Laden, or Mr.
Zawahiri, about the importance of Iraq. The number one and two of al Qaeda
have made it clear that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, and
their ambitions are to drive the United States out of Iraq and to abandon
the 12 million people who went to the polls, and to say it's not worth it.
They believe it's worth it. Al Qaeda thinks it's necessary in order to
defeat America. They want us to leave so they can have a safe haven from
which to plot and plan new attacks against the United States of America.

Imagine a world where moderate governments have been toppled by extremists,
and extremists get a hold of oil. If you think it was tough at $70 a
barrel, imagine what it will be like when these extremists get a hold of a
valuable resource and say to the free world, do it our way or we're going
to have an unbelievable economic peril. And couple with that an Iran with a
nuclear weapon, and 20 or 30 years from now, the world will look back and
say, what happened to America? How come they couldn't see the threat?

The threat is real. We will help those 12 million people who demanded
freedom in Iraq achieve a stable democracy that can govern itself, defend
itself, and sustain itself, and America and generations of Americans will
be more secure. (Applause.)

You know, people ask me all the time, do you really think people in the
Middle East want to be free? It's a legitimate question, I guess. But it
belies the fact that we believe in the universality of freedom. Freedom is
not just an American possession. It's not our gift to the world. I happen
to believe there is an Almighty, and I believe one of the great gifts of
that Almighty is the desire to be free to every man, woman, and child on
the face of the earth. (Applause.)

So in the short term our strategy is clear, we will stay on the offense, we
will bring people to justice before they can hurt us again. In the long
term, we will defeat the ideology of hatred with an ideology of hope.

I have made it clear to the American people, I view the struggle we're in
as the great ideological struggle of the 21st century. It's akin to the
Cold War in some ways. It is a difference between tyranny and freedom,
between moderation and extremism. Make no mistake about it, most moms in
the Middle East yearn for the same things our mom's want, which is a
peaceful world in which to raise their children. Most people in the Middle
East long for peace. What we're dealing with are radicals and extremists
who have a dark vision for the future. And the fundamental question facing
this country is, will we have the nerve, will we have the willpower, will
we have the perseverance to do the hard work today so a generation of
younger Americans can grow up in a more peaceful world.

And I take great hope, and I'm optimistic about achieving our objectives.
First, I know how good our military is. Point them in the right direction,
give them a clear goal, and they'll achieve the objective. Second, I know
how hard people are working to protect you. Our intelligence is getting
better. See, it's a different kind of war. You used to -- could measure
progress based upon the number of airplanes in the air or number of ships
on the sea. It's hard to measure progress in this kind of war. But I'm just
telling you, we're dismantling al Qaeda one person at a time. We're on the
hunt. (Applause.) And it's just a matter of time before Osama bin Laden
gets the justice he deserves. (Applause.)

You know, let me conclude by sharing this story with you. You might
remember, I had an interesting experience recently when I went down with
the former Prime Minister of Japan, my buddy, Koizumi, who just left office
recently. And we went down to Elvis' place -- (laughter) -- in Memphis. It
was an interesting experience. (Laughter.) I went there for a couple of
reasons. One, I wanted to see Elvis' place; I'd never been. (Laughter.)
Sixty years old and had never been to Graceland. Plus, Laura wanted to go.
Secondly, Prime Minister Koizumi really wanted to go. (Laughter.) He liked
Elvis. He likes his songs, he likes everything about Elvis.

Thirdly, I wanted to tell a story about what's possible and what will
happen if we keep faith in the values that led to our formation and has led
to us doing hard work in order to keep the peace. You see, the story I tell
is the one that started with 18-year-old George H.W. Bush, my dad, when he
joined the United States Navy to fight the sworn enemy, the Japanese. A lot
of other people did, too. It was a brutal war. A lot of folks died.

And I find it interesting -- not only interesting, I find it ironic in many
ways that some 60 years later, the son of the 18-year-old fighter pilot was
on Air Force One, flying to Memphis, Tennessee, with the Prime Minister of
the former enemy, talking about how to keep the peace. We talked about
North Korea, we talked about the fact that the way you defeat extremists
and radicals is by helping people realize the blessings of liberty. Isn't
that interesting? The Prime Minister of the former enemy talking about the
blessings of liberty and freedom. (Applause.)

Something happened between World War II and 2006, and that was, Japan
adopted a Japanese-style democracy. Liberty has the capacity to transform
enemies into allies. Liberty has the capacity to transform regions of hate
into regions of hope. What you're seeing is the beginning of a victory
against an ideology of extremists, by an ideology that yields the blessings
of peace, an ideology that enables the sons of former enemies to sit down,
crafting strategy to make the world a better place for generations to come.

And that's what's going to happen some day. Elected leaders in the Middle
East will be sitting down with an American President, talking about how to
keep the peace. And our children and our grandchildren will be better off
for it. (Applause.)

And those are the stakes in this election. It's an important election. And
we need people in the United States Congress who see the world the way it
is, not the way we would hope it would be now. We have to have clear-eyed
realists on the one hand, but people who have got faith in the great
values, the universal values that can enable us to look back when history
passes by and say, we did our jobs. We were called to serve, and we served
by leaving behind a better world -- and Dean Heller is such a man.

Thanks for coming. God bless. (Applause.)

END 5:55 P.M. PDT
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