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http://www.public.navy.mil/ia/Pages/ncdes.aspx
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NAVY CROSS (NX)
BACKGROUND:
The Navy Cross was established by Act of Congress (Public Law 253, 65th Congress), approved on February 4, 1919. The Navy Cross has been in effect since April 6, 1917. The Navy Cross was designed by James Earl Fraser (1876-1953). Originally, the Navy Cross was lower in precedence than the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, because it was awarded for both combat heroism and for "other distinguished service." Congress revised this on 7 August 1942, making the Navy Cross a combat-only award and second only to the Medal of Honor. Since its creation, it has been awarded more than 6,300 times.
CRITERIA:
The Navy Cross may be awarded to any person who, while serving with the Navy or Marine Corps, distinguishes himself in action by extraordinary heroism not justifying an award of the Medal of Honor. The action must take place under one of three circumstances: while engaged in action against an enemy of the United States; while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force; or, while serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict in which the United States is not a belligerent party. To earn a Navy Cross the act to be commended must be performed in the presence of great danger or at great personal risk and must be performed in such a manner as to render the individual highly conspicuous among others of equal grade, rate, experience, or position of responsibility. An accumulation of minor acts of heroism does not justify an award of the Navy Cross.
DESCRIPTION:
The Navy Cross is a modified cross patée one and a half inches wide (the ends of its arms are rounded whereas a conventional cross patée has arms that are straight on the end). There are four laurel leaves with berries in each of the re-entrant arms of the cross. In the center of the cross a sailing vessel is depicted on waves, sailing to the viewer's left. The vessel is a symbolic caravel of the type used between 1480 and 1500. Fraser selected the caravel because it was a symbol often used by the Naval Academy and because it represented both naval service and the tradition of the sea. The laurel leaves with berries refer to achievement. The ribbon is navy blue with a center stripe of white. The blue alludes to naval service and the white represents the purity of selflessness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_841
Delta Air Lines Flight 841
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Delta Air Lines Flight 841 was an aircraft hijacking that took place beginning on Monday, July 31, 1972, on a flight originally from Detroit to Miami.
Hijacking
Members of the Black Liberation Army took over the airplane in flight using weapons smuggled on board, including a bible cut out to hold a handgun. The DC-8 held 7 crew and 94 passengers, none of whom were killed during the hijacking. Five hijackers who had boarded with three children took over the plane. The plane flew to Miami where the 86 hostage-held passengers (i.e. 94 minus 8) were released in exchange for $1 million in ransom.
Apprehension of hijackers
Four of the five hijackers were captured in Paris on May 26, 1976, and tried by the French courts. The remaining hijacker, George Wright, who had dressed as a priest during the hijacking, was caught on September 26, 2011, in Lisbon.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/09/portugal-nabs-nj-killerhijacker-on-the-run-since-1970/1#
USATODAY
Sep 27, 2011
Portugal nabs N.J. killer/hijacker on the run since 1970
After being on the lam for 41 years, a murderer who escaped a New Jersey prison and later helped hijack a U.S. airliner while dressed as a priest has been captured in Portugal, the FBI announced today.
George Wright was arrested Monday at the request of the U.S. government, which is seeking his extradition so he can complete a 15-to-30-year sentence for the 1962 murder of a gas-station owner during one of several robberies. Wright had served seven years when he and three other inmates escaped from Bayside State Prison in Leesburg.
Here's how the FBI summarizes Wright's exploits:
Subsequent to his escape, Wright traveled to Detroit and became affiliated with the Black Liberation Army. On July 31, 1972, five adults, accompanied by three small children, hijacked Delta flight 841
The Associated Press writes that at the time of the hijacking, Wright, 29 at the time, was dressed as a priest and used the alias the Rev. L. Burgess.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/serbs-fail-to-destroy-dam-their-fathers-built-thanks-to-croats-and-their-enemies-the-threat-of-a-deluge-is-receding-reports-robert-fisk-1470386.html
THE INDEPENDENT
Serbs fail to destroy dam their fathers built: Thanks to Croats and their enemies the threat of a deluge is receding, reports Robert Fisk
ROBERT FISK Tuesday 02 February 1993
PERUCA - Tito's men knew how to build dams. The concrete on top is cracked six inches wide and the tarmacadam has rippled as if an earthquake moved through the walls of concrete; which is more or less what happened last week when the Serbs set off their mines.
The cement floor by the sluice gate moves beneath your feet, vibrating as the waters of the man- made Peruca lake force their way over the pine trees into the Cetina river, the spray drenching the guard rails in stalactites of ice.
Trust war to honour warriors with shame. For even the Croats who captured the dam admit that it was the Serbs who built it. Between 1958 and 1961, in the heyday of Yugoslav socialist construction, the Serbs from Krajina - the men who constructed the great dams of Kurdistan - hauled the machinery down from the largely Serb-manned factories of Karlovac and trapped 1,550 million cubic metres of water above the meadows of Sinjsko Polje to bring light to the people of Knin and Zadar and Split. Serbian fathers built the place; their sons could not destroy it.
They tried hard. The Croatian frogmen who dived deep behind the cracked concrete rampart yesterday emerged from the green waters to reveal that the Serbs had placed their largest mine at the base of the hydro-electric dam, deep in the foundations, in a sluice tunnel that flung hunks of concrete half a mile when the explosives were detonated.
The statistics were quite simple, according to the Croatian engineers. The lake's depth must be lowered by 9 metres to ensure that the dam will not crack. Of the 1,550 million cubic metre capacity, between 150 and 180 million cubic metres were being let loose into the Cetina every day, lowering the lake's depth by 80 centimetres every 24 hours. Already, the waters had fallen by 3 metres. Another 6 metres and the dam was safe.
Of course, this equation was in no way reflected on the dam wall yesterday afternoon. Victorious Croatian militiamen, television camera crews and understandably silent United Nations observers - their Kenyan troops had, after all, abandoned their posts at each end of the dam when the Croatians commenced their assault last week - wandered the cracked concrete between truckloads of earth and broken masonry. 'We cried when we first saw this,' a Croatian major announced with an emotional, slivovic-laden sigh as he stood high above the drowning generators. 'But when we realised we had driven the Serbs back 10 kilometres - a third of the way to Knin - we laughed.'
What possesses armies to wreak such destruction upon themselves as well as on their enemies? The Peruca dam helped power the Serbs' self-styled Krajina capital of Knin as well as the Croatian villages of Sinjsko Polje. Electricity will be needed by both communities long after this war is over.
Perhaps environmental catastrophe is now a legitimate weapon; the Iraqi army and the US air force spread oil over the Gulf, while Saddam Hussein set the Kuwaiti wells on fire and stained the Himalayan snow. The roar of water punching through the walls above the Peruca yesterday sounded almost identical to the subterranean thunder of Kuwait's burning oil shafts.
Standing at the southern foot of the dam, it was not difficult to imagine how swiftly disaster could pour down upon the meadows of the little, unheard-of villages in the lower valley. Their names - Bitelic, Rumin, Bajagic, Gala, Glavice, Orok, hitherto marked only by long-dishonoured, bullet-scarred Partisan memorials - would be obliterated in the flood which followed.
But thanks to pre-stressed concrete and its Serbian manufacturers, the potential Armageddon which drew the camera crews to this anonymous valley is unlikely to be fulfilled. The three British engineers sent to Croatia, trucked up to the dam in a vehicle emblazoned with a Union flag, happily concurred with this assessment.
Spectators were thus left to gaze upon the usual detritus of war: a mined ambulance, four shelled lorries, hundreds of roofless, gutted homes and fields of Serbian artillery bunkers, the earth around them splashed with ammunition boxes and used shell- cases.
Down the valley, the waters of the Cetina had risen several feet, creeping up the pastures of square farm houses, brushing the underneath of the road bridge at Obrovac Sinjski, edging the dirt road with ice beneath the Dinara mountains; but leaving the 22,000 Croatian villagers unmoved by predictions of disaster. They were relying on the skill of Croats and Serbs alike to save them.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/29/world/battle-for-dam-in-croatia-grows-ousting-un-force.html
The New York Times
Battle for Dam in Croatia Grows, Ousting U.N. Force
By JOHN DARNTON,
Published: January 29, 1993
Correction Appended
SINJ, Croatia, Jan. 28— In a widening of the hostilities in Croatia, Serbs and Croats fought a fierce artillery and mortar battle today in a struggle to control a strategic and heavily mined dam that provides hydroelectric power to much of the Dalmatian coast.
By the day's end, the United Nations troops protecting the Peruca Dam had been chased away by Serbian militiamen, according to United Nations officials. But then, the officials said, Croats who had been shelling the dam area since last night outgunned the Serbs and took ultimate control.
If the Croats succeed in holding it, they will have gained another victory in the offensive that began seven days ago, when they crossed cease-fire lines along the Adriatic coast to break a yearlong truce.
The fight over the dam was the most dramatic in a day rife with rumors and reports of Serbs' and Croats' massing forces and exchanging gunfire and mortar rounds in isolated spots along an arc roughly 80 miles long.
Both sides were reported by United Nations officials to be shelling each other at Drnis, a town 14 miles south of Knin, the heartland of the Serbian enclave inside Croatia that is called Krajina. 'Broadening of the Front'
"At the moment, we're seeing a broadening of the battle," a senior United Nations official said. "It's worse today than yesterday because of the broadening of the front."
The distant thud of artillery could be heard in this small town eight miles south of the dam. With Croatian soldiers in camouflage fatigues rushing to report for duty and residents fleeing or taking shelter in basements, Sinj is on a war footing and has proclaimed a state of alert.
The step would appear justified. If the dam should explode -- a possibility that officials from the United Nations peacekeeping force do not exclude -- then the town's 12,000 people and an estimated 50,000 other people in the valley sweeping toward the coast would be inundated.
The dam, the second largest in what was once Yugoslavia, holds back a 15-mile lake just 25 miles north of Split, Croatia's second-largest city. The dam fell into Serbian hands in 1991 and was retaken by United Nations forces last summer. They discovered that the Serbs had planted the dam and surrounding area with explosives so artfully placed that they have not been able to remove them. Radio Detonation Feared
In fact, the two power plants at the dam have not been fully operational for fear that if the sluice gates were fully opened, that might trigger an explosion. British demolition experts who inspected the dam in November believe that the explosives could be detonated by radio.
This would clearly spell disaster for Sinj, a pleasant town of red-tile roofs and fading concrete structures set amid cypress trees and a plain of fallow corn fields within view of snow-capped mountains.
"There would be an enormous flood," said Tonci Pletikosic, a member of Sinj's town council. "It would take years to recover. Our fields would be destroyed. It would be dangerous for people and for animals."
The 13-member council met in an emergency session to decide what to do, and issued a warning to tell people to be ready to seek high ground at the first sounding of an alarm.
As Mr. Pletikosic spoke, he stood in a darkened hallway with other council members, well away from windows. Outside, the heavy thump of artillery could be heard.
Another town official, Simun Samardzic, a man in horn-rimmed glasses with a bright red tie barely holding an open-necked white shirt, brought out a dog-eared diary in which he had copiously copied statistics about the dam -- its width, its height, its history. Fear of 'Chetniks'
In a building not far away, on a square centered upon a statue of a heroic soldier, three elderly women huddled in a basement room where they had spent the last 24 hours. Asked what they feared the most, one of them replied with a single word -- Chetniks, the name given to Serbs who fought Croatian partisans in bitter combat in World War II.
But despite the fears, many people here, like those elsewhere in Croatia, appear to support the Government's decision to move against the Serbs. They are angry and frustrated that many provisions of a United Nations-brokered peace plan -- including the disarming of Serbian militiamen, the return of refugees and gradual Croatian control over lost territory -- have yet to be carried out.
When the United Nations took over the dam last year, it was proud of the move, and so its loss Wednesday night by Kenyan troops stationed there who were under orders to resist attack could prove embarrassing.
In a description provided by a knowledgeable United Nations official, Croats began shelling the dam Wednesday evening. As this was going on, a heavily armed Serbian battalion moved in to overpower the two Kenyan platoons. The Croatian shelling resumed this morning with tank, artillery and mortar fire, and by afternoon the Croats had prevailed, United Nations officials said.
The official criticized what he called "the level of lying." He said Gen. Janko Bobetko, the commander of the Croat forces, was denying the Croatian attack in a meeting with Lieut. Gen. Satish Nambiar, the commander of the United Nations forces, even as it was going on.
General Nambiar released a statement at a news conference today in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, in which he condemned the Croatian attack and warned that "it could have destructive consequences which we have not yet witnessed." Warnings From Serbs
In a typical Balkan plot within a plot, a United Nations official said that in recent days Serbs had been warning them that the Croats planned to blow the dam up and blame the Serbs for the disaster. But other officials doubted that the Croats would inflict such a blow upon themselves, even to garner international sympathy.
Speaking on state radio today, the Croatian Deputy Prime Minister, Ivan Milas, warned that the dam was "in danger" from Serbian forces. Their actions, he said, "could result in an ecological and human catastrophe in the entire area south of the dam."
The fighting began Friday when the Croats crossed the cease-fire lines into United Nations-patrolled areas near the Serbian enclave of Krajina, where the northern and southern halves of Croatia meet like a hinge. They were able to seize the area of the destroyed Maslenica Bridge to try to rebuild a lost link in the only highway joining the two halves of their country. They also gained control of an airport not far from the coastal town of Zadar.
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-01-30/news/mn-1902_1_dam-croats-lake
Los Angeles Times
Croats Rush to Drain Massive Lake Behind Dam
January 30, 1993 CAROL J. WILLIAMS TIMES STAFF WRITER
ZAGREB, Croatia — As water gushed through holes blown into the Peruca Dam by retreating Serb fighters, Croatian engineers scrambled Friday to drain a massive lake behind the damaged structure to prevent a torrent from crashing down on thousands of homes in the valley below.
Confused and conflicting official reports on the prospects for a swift, controlled drainage of the 11-mile-long reservoir reflected the Zagreb leadership's fear that their military success in recapturing Peruca this week could turn into a political and human disaster if the dam gives way.
Croatian Radio sought to calm fears, claiming that there was no immediate threat that the eroding barrier would rupture.
But a government statement issued after civil engineers visited the structure said it would take weeks to drain the lake and conceded that there was a "realistic danger" of an uncontrolled breach.
By evening, state-run media were reporting that there was "no chance of imminent catastrophe" and that there was no need to evacuate the 20,000 people living in the dam's shadow.
Meanwhile, fighting continued across hundreds of miles of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Foreign aid agencies reported that they were unable to deliver vital supplies to civilians cut off by the persistent fighting.
U.N. officials have expressed increasing despair over the fighting and concern for the safety of the nearly 25,000 peacekeepers deployed in the two former Yugoslav republics.
U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has threatened to withdraw his "blue helmet" forces if the combatants refuse to respect any of the numerous cease-fire orders issued by the world body.
In a sign of their growing fears for the lives of their U.N. soldiers, France and Britain have moved naval task forces to the Adriatic, positioning them to help protect or to evacuate their troops.
With U.N. authority waning among the rival factions, many fear that Western mediation attempts may soon cease, leaving no impediment to an all-out war that could spread to Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece.
Fighting was somewhat reduced from the previous day's intensity as Croatian soldiers joined in efforts to shore up the dam. But artillery exchanges were reported at most other sites along the nearly 80-mile line of confrontation stretching from the port of Zadar to Peruca with "no drawing back of positions on either side," said U.N. mission spokeswoman Shannon Boyd.
She described the battle for Peruca as "a stunning bit of irresponsibility" by both Serbian and Croatian forces.
Peruca Dam, the main source of electricity for most of southern Croatia and a strategic pawn in the Serb-Croat war for more than a year, was among the key installations restored to Zagreb's control over the past week during a Croatian offensive that has drawn international condemnation.
Croatian forces shattered a year-old cease-fire on Jan. 22 to retake the vital Maslenica Bridge and an airport at Zemunik, near the coast, as well as the Peruca complex won in a fierce artillery battle with rebel Serbs on Thursday.
As the Serbian gunmen were forced to retreat from the dam, they detonated some of the thousands of mines they had set at the facility to deter any Croatian move to recover it. The explosions blew huge holes at both sides of the 550-foot-wide dam, releasing water from the vast reservoir that engineers said was progressively undermining the earth-and-concrete wall through "self-erosion."
Peruca stops up the Cetinje River about 25 miles north of Croatia's largest port, Split.
The dam was seized by Serbian gunmen during their 1991 armed rebellion against Croatian independence and was used over the following months as a weapon to threaten the Croatian population living downriver. Militant Serbs closed its gates in the autumn of 1991, allowing so much water to collect behind the structure that those below it feared that it might give way.
U.N. peacekeeping officials negotiated a lowering of the lake a year ago and took over responsibility for the whole facility in September, 1992. But they failed to defuse the Serb-laid mines, and the foreign troops fled their stations Thursday when Serbs re-entered the complex.
Serbian leaders in the rebel stronghold of Knin claimed that Peruca was damaged by Croatian artillery, but the strategically placed punctures appeared unlikely to have been made by randomly fired shells.
The 12-nation European Community appealed to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to end his country's 8-day-old campaign to recover territory lost to the Serbs in 1991. But Tudjman has said he will withdraw from the disputed areas only after Serbian gunmen there are disarmed so that expelled Croats can safely return.
A U.N. peacekeeping plan drafted by former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance was supposed to lead to restoration of civilian order in the Serb-occupied region, known as Krajina, but the transition stalled after U.N. troops arrived, allowing the rebels to retain their exclusive domain.
In Bosnia, continued clashes were reported between Croatian and Muslim forces in the center of the country, and Serbs stepped up shelling of the capital, Sarajevo.
Bosnian Croats have sealed off all overland aid routes to central Bosnia, choking off live-saving food deliveries, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva reported.
Nearly 2 million people have been routed from their Bosnian homes by fighting and the Serbian practice of "ethnic cleansing." Government officials contend that 200,000 have been killed in the republic since Serbs began a siege in April.
The rebels in both Croatia and Bosnia were armed and instigated by Serbian nationalists in Belgrade, who want to link as much land as possible from the ruins of Yugoslavia into an expanded Serbian state.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3547
The American Presidency Project
Richard Nixon
XXXVII President of the United States: 1969 - 1974
275 - Memorandum of Disapproval of a Bill To Restore Seniority Rights to a Postal Service Employee.
August 29, 1972
I HAVE withheld my approval from S. 889, a bill "To restore the postal service seniority of Elmer Erickson."
Under this bill, Mr. Erickson would receive special benefits denied other postal employees who lost seniority rights under similar circumstances or who made decisions and choices based on then existing rules. Such action by Congress would be discriminatory and without justification.
The seniority rules in question here represent the result of bargaining between the postal unions and postal management. They are not a matter on which Congress has legislated in the past. The seniority involved has to do with preferred assignments, eligibility for promotions, and similar matters covered by agreements between the Postal Service and the postal unions. Employees displaced on the seniority list by Mr. Erickson certainly would have good cause to complain if this bill were to become law.
In my opinion, if seniority rights are to be retroactively restored to postal employees, it is for postal management and the postal unions to negotiate an equitable solution which covers all employees similarly situated.
RICHARD NIXON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
August 29, 1972.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=62960
The American Presidency Project
George W. Bush
XLIII President of the United States: 2001 - 2009
Remarks in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
September 9, 2004
The President. Thank you all. Thank you all very much. Thanks for coming. You know, it turns out I am the first sitting President to have visited Johnstown in more than 30 years. All those other Presidents sure missed out. Thanks for coming. I'm proud you came out. I'm honored you are here. I'm pleased to be with the good folks here in Johnstown. I know you like to hunt and fish. So do I. I know you care about your neighbors. I appreciate that.
From 4/6/1917 ( the United States Navy Cross medal first established ) To 12/20/1994 ( in Bosnia as Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps captain this day is my United States Navy Cross medal date of record ) is 28382 days
28382 = 14191 + 14191
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/9/2004 is 14191 days
From 4/6/1950 ( Harry Truman - Special Message to the Congress on the Unemployment Insurance System ) To 9/9/2004 is 19880 days
19880 = 9940 + 9940
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/19/1993 ( in Asheville North Carolina as Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess I was seriously wounded by gunfire when I returned fatal gunfire to a fugitive from United States federal justice who was another criminal sent by Bill Gates-Nazi-Microsoft-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal in another attempt to kill me the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) is 9940 days
From 1/17/1991 ( the date of record of my United States Navy Medal of Honor as Kerry Wayne Burgess chief warrant officer United States Marine Corps circa 1991 also known as Matthew Kline for official duty and also known as Wayne Newman for official duty ) To 9/9/2004 is 4984 days
4984 = 2492 + 2492
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 8/29/1972 ( Richard Nixon - Memorandum of Disapproval of a Bill To Restore Seniority Rights to a Postal Service Employee ) is 2492 days
From 1/17/1991 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - the Persian Gulf War begins as scheduled severe criminal activity against the United States of America ) To 9/9/2004 is 4984 days
4984 = 2492 + 2492
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 8/29/1972 ( Richard Nixon - Memorandum of Disapproval of a Bill To Restore Seniority Rights to a Postal Service Employee ) is 2492 days
From 12/12/1997 ( premiere US film "The Postman" ) To 9/9/2004 is 2463 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/31/1972 ( the Delta Air Lines Flight 841 hijacking ) is 2463 days
From 1/2/1955 ( premiere US film "Bowery to Bagdad" ) To 11/9/1993 ( the Stari Most in Mostar Bosnia-Herzegovina destroyed by artillery fire ) is 14191 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/9/2004 is 14191 days
From 2/16/1933 ( William Maud Bryant ) To 12/25/1971 ( George Walker Bush the purveyor of illegal drugs strictly for his personal profit including the trafficking of massive amounts of cocaine into the United States confined to federal prison in Mexico for illegally smuggling narcotics in Mexico ) is 14191 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/9/2004 is 14191 days
From 9/22/1933 ( the Adolph Hitler Reich Chamber of Culture established in Nazi Germany ) To 7/30/1972 ( premiere US film "Deliverance" ) is 14191 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/9/2004 is 14191 days
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040909-8.html
THE WHITE HOUSE
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 9, 2004
President's Remarks at Victory 2004 Rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Cambria County War Memorial Arena
Johnstown, Pennsylvania
5:06 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. (Applause.) Thank you all very much. Thanks for coming. You know, it turns out I am the first sitting President to have visited Johnstown in more than 30 years. (Applause.) All those other Presidents sure missed out. (Applause.) Thanks for coming. I'm proud you came out. I'm honored you are here. I'm pleased to be with the good folks here in Johnstown. I know you like to hunt and fish. (Applause.) So do I. I know you care about your neighbors. I appreciate that. (Applause.) I know you take your baseball seriously. (Applause.) And from the looks of things, with your help, we'll carry Pennsylvania in November. (Applause.)
I'm here to ask for your vote. (Applause.) And I'm here to ask for your help. We have a duty to vote in this country, and I'm here to ask you to register your friends and neighbors, and encourage them to do their duty. (Applause.) And when you're out registering people, don't overlook discerning Democrats. (Applause.) You might remember my friend, Zell Miller. (Applause.) He represents a lot of folks who understand that when you put Dick Cheney and me back in office, this country will be safer, stronger and better for every American. (Applause.)
My regret is that Laura didn't come with me today.
AUDIENCE: Awww --
THE PRESIDENT: She was a public school librarian when I asked her to marry me. And she said, fine, I'll marry you, so long as I don't have to give a political speech. (Laughter.) I said, okay. Fortunately, she didn't hold me to that promise. You saw her the other night in New York City. You saw how gracious she is, how strong she is. (Applause.) I love her dearly. I'm going to give you some reasons why I think you ought to put me back in office, but perhaps the most important one of all is so that Laura is First Lady for four more years. (Applause.)
I'm proud of my running mate, Dick Cheney. (Applause.) I admit it, he doesn't have the waviest hair on the ticket. (Laughter.) I didn't pick him for his looks. I picked him because he's a man of sound judgment and great experience, and can get the job done for the American people. (Applause.)
I appreciate Congressman Bill Shuster joining us today. He's been telling me all along I need to come to Johnstown, Pennsylvania. (Applause.) When I showed up, he said, you finally made it. I said, I made it just in time to rally these folks to get ready to win this election come November. (Applause.)
I want to thank your Mayor, Don Zucco, for joining us today. Mr. Mayor, I'm proud you're here. Sometimes they say, well, do you ever have any advice for the local officials. Mr. Mayor, fill the potholes. (Laughter and applause.) I appreciate you coming, Mayor.
I want to thank all the state and local officials who are here. I want to thank my friend, Victor Raia. He heads Veterans for Bush. And I want to thank all the veterans who have joined us here today, as well. (Applause.)
I want to thank the Wil Gravatt Band. I appreciate them playing here. I appreciate the high school band that's here tonight. Thank you for coming. I'm going to try to keep my speech short so you can get home and do your homework. (Laughter.)
I want to thank all the grassroots activists who are here -- the people who put up the signs and make the phone calls. I really appreciate your help. (Applause.) I know you're working hard, but keep working. And I'll be working right alongside of you. I'm looking forward to the campaign. I'm going to tell the people where I stand, where I -- what I believe and where I'm going to lead this nation. (Applause.) I'm going to tell them that I have a plan to keep this country of ours safer and a more hopeful America. I'm running on a compassionate conservative philosophy that says government ought to help people, not dictate to people. (Applause.)
I believe every child can learn. That's what I believe. I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations. (Applause.) We've raised standards. We're measuring early to solve problems before it is too late. We're ending that old practice of just shuffling the kids through the system year after year without learning the basics. We trust the local people to make the right decisions for the schools. We're closing an achievement gap in America, and we're not turning back. (Applause.)
I believe we have a moral responsibility to honor our seniors with good health care. (Applause.) I went up to Washington to fix problems; we had a problem with Medicare. Let me give you one example. Medicare would pay tens of thousands of dollars for the heart surgery, and that's okay. But it wouldn't pay for the medicine to prevent the heart surgery from happening in the first place. It didn't make any sense for our seniors to have a Medicare system like that, and it certainly didn't make sense for the taxpayers. We have modernized Medicare. Our seniors will get prescription drug coverage, and we're not turning back. (Applause.)
I believe in the energy and innovative spirit of the American worker and farmer and small business owner. And that's why we unleashed that energy with the largest tax relief in a generation. (Applause.) When you're out rounding up the vote, remind your friends and neighbors that we've been through a lot. This economy of ours has been through a lot. See, five months before I got into office, the stock market had begun to decline. We had a recession. We had corporate scandals, which affected our economy. And of course, we had the attacks on our country. But we've overcome all these obstacles because we've got good workers, good small business owners. (Applause.) We've overcome them, too, because of well-timed tax cuts.
And this economy of ours is strong and it is getting stronger. Our economy has been growing at rates as fast as any in nearly 20 years. (Applause.) We're adding jobs here in America -- about 1.7 million new jobs over the last 12 months. (Applause.) We've added 107,000 manufacturing jobs since January. The unemployment rate is now 5.4 percent. (Applause.) That is lower than the average rate of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. (Applause.) The unemployment rate in your great state is 5.3 percent. The economic stimulus plan we passed is working. (Applause.)
I believe a President must confront problems, not pass them on to future Presidents and future generations. (Applause.) I believe the most solemn duty of the American President is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty or weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This is not going to happen on my watch. (Applause.) I believe this nation wants steady, consistent, principled leadership, and that is why, with your help, we're going to win a great victory in November. (Applause.)
The world in which we live and work is changing. In the generations of our dads and grandads, a man generally had one job and one career, worked for one company, and the company provided health care and a pension plan. It's a different world today. I understand it's a different world today. Many women now work inside the home and outside the home. The workplace is changing. Many people change careers. Yet many of the most fundamental systems of our government -- the tax code, health coverage, pension plans and worker training -- were created for the world of yesterday, not tomorrow. In the next four years, we will transform these systems so that all citizens are equipped, prepared and, thus, truly free to make your own choices, so you can realize the great promise of America. (Applause.)
Listen, any hopeful society has a growing economy. And I've got a plan to keep this economy moving forward. To create more jobs in America, America must be the best place in the world to do business. (Applause.) That means we must reduce the regulatory burden on our small business owners in America. (Applause.) To create more jobs in America, we must stop the junk lawsuits that threaten our employers. (Applause.) To keep jobs here and to expand our economy, Congress needs to pass my energy plan -- (applause) -- a plan that encourage conservation, encourages renewable sources of energy like ethanol and biodiesel. It encourages clean coal technology. It is a plan that understands that we must become less dependent on foreign sources of energy. (Applause.)
Listen, to create jobs here, we've got to open up markets for U.S. products. We open up our markets for goods from other countries, and that's good for the consumer. And it's good for you. If you've got more choices to choose from, you're likely to get the product you want at a better price and higher quality. So what I tell countries like China is, you treat us the way we treat you. America can compete with anybody, anytime, anywhere so long as the rules are fair. (Applause.)
To create jobs we got to be wise about how we spend your money and keep your taxes low. (Applause.) We have a difference of opinion about taxes in this campaign. I'm running against a fellow who has proposed more than $2 trillion in new spending so far.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Awfully tempting when you're coming down the pike to tell everybody what they want to hear. So they said, well, how are you going to pay for it? He said, oh, that's simple, we'll just tax the rich. There's two problems with that. One is that you can't raise enough money by taxing the rich to pay for $2 trillion. There's a gap between what he promises and what he says he's going to do. Guess who usually has to fill that gap? Yeah. Here's the other problem. You've heard that rhetoric before, oh, don't worry, we'll just tax the rich. They hire lawyers and accountants and dodge, and you get stuck with the bill. We're not going to let him tax you. We're going to win in November. (Applause.)
Thinking about taxes -- thinking about taxes, the federal tax code needs to be changed. It's a complicated mess. It is -- (Applause.) It is full of special interest loopholes. Americans spend hours after hours filling out their tax form. They estimate about six billion hours worth of paperwork and headache on an annual basis is spent by American workers and small business owners and big businesses. You see, the American people need a simpler, fairer, pro-growth tax code. In a new term, I will lead a bipartisan effort to simplify and make more fair the federal tax code. (Applause.)
The job base is changing, and we've got to help workers gain the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century. That's why I'm such a strong proponent of helping workers gain new skills at the community colleges across this country. (Applause.) Most new jobs are now filled by people with at least two years of college. Yet one in four of our students gets there. So in our high schools, we'll fund early intervention programs to help students at risk. We'll place an emphasis on math and science. Over time we'll require a rigorous exam before graduation. By raising performance at our high schools, and by expanding Pell grants for low- and middle-income families, we will help more Americans start their career with a college diploma. (Applause.)
In this time of change, we will do more to make sure health care is available and affordable. More than half of the uninsured are employees of small businesses. Small businesses are having trouble with health care costs. In order to help those families, and help small businesses, government should allow small businesses to join together to purchase insurance at the discounts available for big companies. (Applause.)
We will expand health savings accounts. We will make sure poor companies have got community health centers. And we've got to do something about these junk lawsuits. I'm telling you, the cost of medicine is on the rise, because junk lawsuits are driving good docs out of practice and running up the cost of medicine here in America. (Applause.) You cannot be pro-doctor, pro-hospital, pro-patient and pro-trial lawyer at the same time. (Applause.) You have to choose. And my opponent has made his choice, and he put him on the ticket.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: I have made my choice. I am for medical liability reform now. (Applause.) In all we do to improve health care in America, we will make sure that health decisions are made by doctors and patients, not by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. (Applause.)
In a changing society, ownership can help bring stability to people's lives. That's why we want more people owning their own home in America. The home ownership rate in America is at an all-time high right now. Isn't that fantastic? Think about that. More people are opening their front door, saying, welcome to my home, welcome to my piece of property. (Applause.) We've got a plan to continue to expand home ownership to every community in this country.
And we also want to make sure that our pension plans are modern and work. If you're an older citizen, you're in good shape when it comes to Social Security. If you're a baby boomer, like me, you're in okay shape when it comes to Social Security. But we need to worry about our children and our grandchildren. (Applause.) I believe younger workers ought to be able to take some of their own money and set it aside in a personal account to make sure Social Security is available. (Applause.)
We have a difference of philosophy in this campaign. If you listen carefully to the rhetoric, my opponent's programs expand government. My programs expand opportunity. (Applause.) And I feel comfortable doing that because I think the role of government is to trust the people, trust the people with their own decisions, trust the people with their own money, trust the people to make the right judgment. (Applause.)
In a world of change, there's some things that just do not change -- the values we try to live by, courage and compassion, reverence and integrity. In a time of change, we must support the institutions that give us stability, our families, our schools and our religious congregations. (Applause.)
We stand for a culture of live in which every person counts and every being matters. (Applause.) We stand for marriage and family, which are the foundations of our society. (Applause.) And I stand for the appointment of federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law. (Applause.)
This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism. Since the terrible morning of September the 11th, 2001, we have fought the terrorists across the Earth -- not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake. (Applause.) Our strategy is clear: We're defending the homeland, we're transforming our military, and we're reforming and strengthening the intelligence services. We're staying on the offensive. We're striking the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: We will work to advance liberty in the broader Middle East and around the world, and we will prevail. (Applause.) Our strategy is succeeding. Four years ago, Afghanistan was the home base of al Qaeda, Pakistan was a transit point for terrorist groups, Saudi Arabia was fertile ground for terrorist fundraising, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, Iraq was a gathering threat, and al Qaeda was largely unchallenged as it planned attacks.
Because we led, because we acted, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror, Pakistan is capturing terrorists, Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests, Libya is dismantling its weapons programs. (Applause.) The army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom, and more than three-quarters of al Qaeda's key members and associates have been brought to justice. (Applause.) We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer. (Applause.)
This progress involved careful diplomacy, and clear moral purpose, and some tough decisions -- and the toughest came on Iraq. We knew Saddam Hussein's record of aggression and support for terror. We knew his long history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. And we know that after September the 11th, this nation must think differently. We must take threats seriously before they fully materialize. (Applause.)
In Saddam Hussein, we saw a threat. I went to the United States Congress. I said, take a look at this threat, and they took a look at the same intelligence I looked at. They remembered the same history I remembered. They concluded that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and authorized the use of force. (Applause.) My opponent looked at the very same intelligence I looked at, came to the same conclusion we came to, and he authorized the use of force.
Before the Commander-in-Chief commits troops into combat, we must try all means to deal with any threat. See, I was hopeful diplomacy would work. And so I went to the United Nations, and I gave a speech at the U.N.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: They looked at the same intelligence I looked at. They remembered the same history we remembered. And with a 15-to-nothing vote, the United Nations Security Council voted that Saddam Hussein must disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. But as he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein wasn't interested in what the free world has to say. As a matter of fact, he systematically deceived the inspectors that were sent into his country. So I had a choice to make, a choice that only comes to the Oval Office; a choice nobody wants to make, but must be prepared to make: Do I trust the word of a madman and forget the lessons of September the 11th, or do I take action to defend America. Given that choice, I will defend our country every time. (Applause.)
Because we acted, because we acted to defend our country, 50 million people now live in freedom. (Applause.) Fifty million people are free. In Afghanistan, the world has changed since those dark days when young girls weren't allowed to go to school and their mothers were whipped in the public square. The Taliban were barbaric people. They were backward. They had a dim vision of the world. Today, Afghanistan is an ally. They're helping us in the war on terror. And over 10 million Afghan citizens have registered to vote in the upcoming presidential elections.
Despite ongoing violence, Iraq now has a strong Prime Minister, a national council and national elections are scheduled for January. (Applause.) We are standing with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, because when America gives its word, America must keep its word. (Applause.) We're also standing with them because we're serving a vital and historic cause that will make our country safer. Free societies in the Middle East will be hopeful societies, which no longer feed resentments and breed violence for export. Free governments in the Middle East will fight terrorists, instead of harboring them. And that makes America more secure, and it makes the world more peaceful. (Applause.)
Our mission in Afghanistan and Iraq is clear: We'll help new leaders to train their armies and their police forces so citizens in those countries can do the hard work of defending the hopes of many against the terror of a few. We'll help them get on their way to elections. We'll help them become more stable, and then our troops will return home with the honor they've earned. (Applause.)
I'm proud of our military. I'm proud of our military, and I know you are, as well. We've got a fantastic United States military. (Applause.) I've had the privilege of meeting with the servicemen and women who wear our uniform. I've seen their unselfish courage. I know their great decency. The cause of freedom is in really good hands.
I made a pledge -- I made a pledge to those who wear the uniform and their families that they will have all the support they need to complete their missions. That's why, a year ago, I went to the United States Congress and proposed supplemental funding of $87 billion to help our troops in not only Iraq, but Afghanistan. It was important funding, really important funding. (Applause.) It was a really important funding request because it funded body armor and spare parts, ammunition, fuel, supplies needed for people to do their jobs. And we received great bipartisan support, so strong that only 12 United States senators voted against the funding request.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Two of those senators were my opponent and his running mate.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: In fact, only four United States senators voted to authorize the use of force and then voted against funding our troops. Two of those senators -- two of those four were my opponent and his running mate. When asked to explain his vote, he said, well, I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: Now, I suspect -- I suspect that not many people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania talks that way. (Applause.) They kept asking him. He said, well, he was proud of the vote. And finally, my opponent said, the whole thing is a complicated matter. There is nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat. (Applause.)
After voting for the war, but against funding it, after saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this week -- (laughter) -- with new campaign advisers and yet another new position. Suddenly, he's against it again.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: No matter how many times -- no matter how many times he flip-flops, we were right to remove Saddam Hussein from power. (Applause.)
I appreciate the contributions our friends and allies are making. I spoke with Tony Blair this morning. (Applause.) He's got a clear vision. He's a good, strong leader. Every time I talk to him, I thank him for his contributions. You know, we put together a broad coalition -- some 40 nations in Afghanistan, some 30 in Iraq. And I will continue, over the next four years, to build our alliances, to strengthen our relationships. But I will never turn over America's national security decisions to leaders of other countries. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!
THE PRESIDENT: I believe in the transformational power of liberty. The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom. I like to tell the people that I've spent time with the Prime Minister of Japan during my three-and-a-half years as President. I like him a lot. He's a good fellow. The amazing thing about my discussions with him is that here I am, sitting down with somebody that our country was at war with some 60 years ago -- my dad, I'm sure your dads or granddads fought against the Japanese. They were our sworn enemy. Yet right after World War II, President Harry Truman and many Americans believed that by helping the Japanese self-govern and become a democracy, that liberty would transform an enemy into a friend. And sure enough, it worked, because -- guess what -- Prime Minister Koizumi and I sit around the table talking about how to make the world more peaceful -- (applause) -- talking about how to use our respective positions in the world to make our countries more secure and the world a better place. Some day, an American President and a duly-elected leader from Iraq will be sitting down at the table talking about how to keep the peace. (Applause.)
I believe that millions in the Middle East plead for silence -- plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that if given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man. I believe these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world. (Applause.)
This young century will be liberty's century. By promoting freedom at home and freedom abroad, we will build a safer world and more hopeful America. By reforming our systems of government, we'll help more Americans realize their dreams. We'll spread ownership and opportunity to every corner of the land. We will pass the enduring values of our country on to a new generation, and we will continue to work for freedom and peace. (Applause.)
For all Americans -- for all Americans, these years in our history will always stand apart. There are quiet times in the life of a nation when little is expected of its leaders. This isn't one of those times. This is a time when we need firm resolve, clear vision, and a deep faith in the values that makes this a great nation. (Applause.)
None of us will ever forget that week when one era ended another began. On September the 14th, 2001, I stood in the ruins of the Twin Towers. It's a day I'll never forget. There were workers in hard hats yelling at me, "Whatever it takes." I remember trying to console the first responders, the brave firefighters and policemen who had gone into rubble and come out empty-handed. A lot of them had come out empty-handed. They'd lost their buddies. A guy looked me right in the eye and he said, "Do not let me down." (Applause.) I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes. (Applause.)
Four years ago, as I traveled this great state asking for the vote, I made a pledge that if you gave me a chance to serve, I would uphold the honor and the dignity of the office to which I had been elected. With your help and with your hard work, I will do so for the next four years.
God bless. (Applause.) Thank you all, thanks for coming. (Applause.)
END 5:46 P.M. EDT
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=13759
The American Presidency Project
Harry S. Truman
XXXIII President of the United States: 1945-1953
84 - Special Message to the Congress on the Unemployment Insurance System.
April 6, 1950
To the ,Congress of the United States:
One of the great advances in economic legislation made during the 1930's was to establish the Federal-State system of employment security. This system has two parts-first, a nation-wide employment service to help workers find jobs and employers find job-seekers, and, second, a nation-wide system of unemployment insurance to help tide workers over periods of unemployment.
Finding a job is of more importance to an unemployed worker, of course, than receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Consequently, great emphasis has always been placed on strengthening and improving the employment service.
We cannot, however, completely eliminate unemployment; even in times of high employment, there will be turnover of jobs and numerous shifts and changes in job opportunities. Consequently, we must have a strong and steadily improving system of unemployment insurance.
Under our Federal-State unemployment insurance system, benefits are paid, in accordance with State laws, to workers who, while able and seeking to work, are unemployed through no fault of their own. These benefits are paid from the proceeds of State payroll taxes, which are deposited in reserve accounts--one for each State--in the Unemployment Trust Fund in the United States Treasury.
In the past twelve years, unemployment insurance has proved its worth not only as an invaluable source of support to unemployed workers and their families, but also as a means of maintaining purchasing power of great value to the entire economy. In 1949, for example, 1.7 billion dollars in benefits were paid to more than seven million individuals, the largest amount for any year in the history of the system. This was a significant factor in preventing serious dislocations during last year's period of economic readjustment.
Our experience with unemployment insurance has revealed weaknesses as well as strengths in the existing system. While many improvements have been made in the State laws since the program began, the system is far from adequate today.
Over 15 million workers--about one-third of all employees--are not protected by unemployment insurance. In 1949, only about one-fifth of the purchasing power lost through unemployment was replaced by unemployment insurance benefits. In 1949, weekly benefits averaged only about $20--not enough to preserve a minimum standard of living. Nearly 2 million workers used up their benefits entirely--showing that benefits were not available for a long enough period. While the unemployment reserve funds of the States have so far proved to be adequate, a few States may soon face financial difficulties because of local concentration of unemployment.
On several occasions in recent years, I have recommended that the system be improved, to extend protection to many workers not now covered; to provide, in every State, benefits for 26 weeks ranging up to $30 a week for single persons, with additional benefits for dependents; and to increase the financial stability of the system.
Action on these proposals has become more urgent as unemployment has increased somewhat in spite of the continuing high levels of business activity. While unemployment dropped over half a million between February and March, on the average nearly 4 1/2 million persons were looking for work during the first three months of this year, as compared to 3 million in the same months of 1949, and nearly 2 1/2 million in 1948. Furthermore, the length of time it takes people to find jobs is becoming longer. One million people--about one out of every four unemployed--have been out of work for 15 weeks or more. A year ago, only 420,000 were without jobs that long, and in 1948, only 330,000.
This gradual growth in unemployment over the last two years is not because there are fewer jobs. Employment has remained at high levels, along with industrial production, consumer incomes, and other indicators of the health of our economy.
But there are more people looking for work. In recent years, up to one million more people have come into the labor market each year, looking for work, than have left the labor market. Part of the new group entering the labor market this year will be the largest number of college graduates in our history--some 500,000 young people, including about 250,000 veterans. In addition, of course, a large number of high school graduates will also be looking for jobs.
Furthermore, as new plants and equipment have been added and supplies of raw materials have become more ample, businessmen have been able to produce more with the same number of workers.
Thus, our labor force has increased, our productivity has increased, but the number of jobs has not kept pace. This emphasizes the importance of expanding our economy so that new jobs will be created to use skills and energies that are now being wasted. It also emphasizes the importance of making better provision for those who are temporarily out of work.
The Congress now is well along toward completing action on legislation to improve the old-age and survivors' insurance and public assistance programs. Like those programs, the unemployment insurance system needs to be improved in the light of experience. Accordingly, I recommend that the Congress turn its attention as soon as possible to strengthening our Federal-State unemployment insurance system.
First, I recommend that coverage be extended to about 6 million workers not now covered. The first major deficiency in the present Federal-State system of unemployment insurance is that it excludes large numbers of workers.
Coverage should be extended to employees of small firms--those employing one to seven workers. Workers in firms employing fewer than eight workers were originally left out of the Federal law because of expected administrative difficulties. In fact, however, such employees have been satisfactorily covered for years under the Federal old-age and survivors' insurance system, and 17 States have already extended their unemployment compensation systems to cover them, without encountering any serious administrative difficulties. Many other States are waiting for the Federal Government to act, and have provisions in their laws which would cover these employees automatically when the coverage of the Federal Act is extended. No reason exists for discriminating longer in the Federal law against such workers.
Coverage should also be extended to Federal Government civilian employees. Although the Federal Government took the leadership in establishing a system of unemployment insurance for workers in private industry, it has not assumed the same obligation toward its own employees. Yet the rate at which Federal workers--especially manual workers--are separated from their jobs is approximately as high as in private industry. Federal workers should no longer be denied the protection of unemployment insurance.
I also propose extensions of coverage to about 500,000 persons who are employed on a commission basis, and about 200,000 workers in occupations of an industrial nature connected with agriculture, all of whom are excluded at present. Moreover, the Federal unemployment insurance legislation should be extended to Puerto Rico, subject to its acceptance by the Territorial Legislature.
Second, I recommend the establishment of nation-wide minimum levels for amounts and duration of unemployment benefits, in order to correct the second major deficiency in the present unemployment insurance system--the inadequacy of benefits.
At present, while the Federal law includes a number of standards which the States are required to meet, it does not establish minimum levels for benefit amounts or duration. Maximum weekly benefits in the various States now range from $15 to $27 for single persons; benefits are somewhat larger for persons with dependents in the 11 States providing dependents' allowances. With these maximum levels, average weekly benefits for the Nation as a whole were just over $20 in 1949.
The variations among States create serious inequities. They mean that workers who lose their jobs in identical circumstances are treated very differently because of the accident of geographical location. They mean that businessmen in some States suffer a greater loss in markets when unemployment occurs than do those in other States.
Furthermore, while the States generally have increased benefits in recent years, so that the situation is not nearly so bad as in the case of old-age and survivors' benefits, in most States the increases in benefits have lagged considerably behind increases in wages and costs of living. Thus, unemployment benefits today replace a smaller proportion of a worker's regular wages than was the case when the system was started.
For these reasons, I believe that nationwide minimums should be established by law which will assure adequate benefits in all States. The standards proposed are these: benefits for single persons should approximate 50 percent of normal earnings, up to a maximum of at least $30 a week. Additional allowances should be granted for individuals with dependents. The proportion of previous earnings replaced would vary with the number of dependents, up to a maximum of 70 percent of wages, or $42, whichever is lower, for an individual with three or more dependents.
These standards are not high. If they had been in effect, the national average weekly benefits in 1949 would have been just over $24. But this would be a substantial improvement in an income level which, at best, is intended to provide only for subsistence expenses. Furthermore, uniform standards would reduce present inequities in benefit levels among different States. Some variation in benefit amounts would and should remain, reflecting the differences in wage levels and costs of living in different parts of the country.
At present, the maximum duration of benefits varies among the States from 12 to 26 weeks. Like the variation in size of benefits, this is inequitable, and in many States simply represents a lag in reaching what was considered from the beginning to be a desirable standard, but which was originally set low because of actuarial uncertainties. With this wide range, the average duration of benefits in 1949 was less than 13 weeks. Because of the short duration of benefits, nearly 2 million workers exhausted their rights to benefits before finding another job.
Benefits should be available for at least 26 weeks in a year to all workers who are out of work that long. Experience in the States which have increased the duration of benefits is that while average duration does not rise very much, because most workers find a new job before using up benefits, the number who use up their benefits entirely is markedly decreased. It is estimated that, under my proposal, the number of workers who exhausted their benefits in 1949 would have been only half as large as it was.
The combined effect of my recommendations for extended coverage, higher benefits, and longer duration, would have resulted in about $850 million more in benefits--and in consumer demand--in 1949. The cost of these improvements would be moderate. At the same time that weekly benefits are raised, the upper limit to the amount of wages taxed should be raised from $3,000 to $4,800 per worker, in line with the increases in wage levels. On this basis, the combined cost of all benefits for all States under these proposals would have been about 1.2 percent of taxable payrolls in 1948 and 2.5 percent in 1949--compared with actual costs (on the basis of the present $3,000 wage limit) of .9 percent of taxable payrolls in 1948 and 2.2 percent in 1949.
In most States, the rate of tax has been extremely low in recent years--many employers have had to pay no tax whatever. Some States have had to increase rates somewhat last year or this year, but in all but a few cases, taxes are still well below the rate of 2.7 percent contemplated when the system was started. Under my proposals, many States would not have to increase tax rates to cover all the increased costs, since they still have excess reserves. Most, if not all, States would find no trouble meeting the additional costs within the 2.7 percent tax rate.
Consequently, I believe that the standards I propose will achieve substantial improvement in the unemployment insurance system, benefiting both workers and businessmen, at very reasonable costs. As is the case at present with respect to coverage, the Federal law should not prevent the States from exceeding the minimum standards if they wish to do so.
Third, I recommend that adequate methods should be required to provide benefits for workers who move from one State to another.
Clearly a worker who is employed in two different States during a year is as entitled to unemployment insurance benefits when out of work as a worker who is employed in only one. The States have generally recognized this, and have attempted voluntarily to work out methods for paying benefits in such interstate cases. They have, however, been only partially successful. Interstate workers generally must wait much longer to receive benefits than intrastate workers. Furthermore, the benefits of many interstate workers are lower than if they had worked in only one State.
It is a difficult problem to develop adequate methods for paying benefits promptly and equitably to interstate workers in our Federal-State unemployment insurance system. Nevertheless, it is in the national interest to encourage the mobility of labor, since that is indispensable to economic expansion in a free society like ours. Consequently, I believe that the States should be required to adopt such methods as are necessary to provide fair and adequate protection for interstate workers.
Fourth, I recommend that both Federal and State laws concerning fraud and disqualifications should be revised and improved.
It was a weakness in the original Federal legislation that it did not clearly require the States to deal adequately with the question of fraud. Some States--without going to uneconomical extremes in inspection and policing-have instituted effective methods for preventing or detecting fraudulent claims. I believe, however, that the Federal law should be clarified so that all States can be required to have adequate means for dealing with those few individuals who attempt to obtain benefits through misrepresentation.
During the last few years, some States have considerably enlarged the number of reasons for disqualifying workers who seek unemployment benefits and have increased the severity of penalties for disqualification. These excessive disqualifications have operated to prevent persons who are genuinely out of work through no fault of their own from receiving benefits. These over-severe disqualification provisions, which penalize the innocent along with the guilty, should be corrected.
Fifth, I recommend, at this time, two improvements in the financing arrangements for unemployment insurance.
Since the beginning of the program, a small part of the unemployment tax has been collected by the Federal Government and included in general Federal revenues. The administrative costs of the program--both Federal and State--have been paid out of general Federal revenues, and have never been as large as the Federal unemployment tax collections. I propose that the Federal unemployment tax be paid into a special Federal unemployment account in the Unemployment Trust Fund (which now includes the separate State reserve accounts for the payment of benefits). This account would be used exclusively to pay the cost of State and Federal administration of the employment security program, and the cost of reinsurance grants, to be available to States who encounter temporarily severe financial difficulties.
Experience has demonstrated that the cost of unemployment insurance varies widely among the different States. This is mainly due to differences in each State's economic structure and in the incidence of unemployment in certain industries, which are beyond the control of the individual State. It has become evident that a few States, while able to finance an adequate system of unemployment insurance in normal periods, may not be able to maintain the solvency of their unemployment funds in a period of severe unemployment under the present financial provisions provided in the Federal legislation. So that these States will not be forced to increase their tax rates unduly during periods of declining employment and payrolls, the legislation should be amended to provide assistance to such States through reinsurance grants when their funds approach exhaustion. This will be a major step toward strengthening our Federal-State system of unemployment insurance, since it will, without detracting from the independence of State action, gain some of the advantages of pooled reserves.
A strengthened unemployment insurance system not only will furnish more adequate aid to those who become unemployed, but also will do more to maintain the high volume of consumer purchasing power so necessary to the welfare of the entire economy. Thus it is a strong element in our program to support growth and expansion in the economy.
Our essential economic problem is to put to sound, productive use our increasing technical knowledge and our growing labor force. To this end, we need imaginative and enterprising investment--in plant capacity, in new equipment, in basic resource development. To this end, we need vigorous competition and a growing number of new businesses. To this end, we need a stable agriculture, sensible wage-price-profit decisions, and mature labor-management relations. To this end, we need an expanding world economy, with a productive flow of international trade and investment.
Both private and public policies must be directed to these purposes, and I have recommended a series of measures to the Congress for Federal action. My present proposal to strengthen our unemployment insurance system is one of these measures.
I am particularly urging action at this session of Congress on unemployment insurance because State legislation must follow the Federal amendments. Action by the Congress this year would clear the way for State action in 1951, when practically all of the State legislatures will be meeting in regular session.
But the primary reason for Congressional action is the real need of those who are unemployed. The unemployment insurance system is a tried and proven means of assisting them. That system urgently needs strengthening. I therefore request favorable consideration of these recommendations at this session of Congress.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068473/quotes
IMDb
Deliverance (1972)
Quotes
Bobby: Mister, I love the way you wear that hat.
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040909-8.html
THE WHITE HOUSE
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 9, 2004
President's Remarks at Victory 2004 Rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
My regret is that Laura didn't come with me today.
AUDIENCE: Awww --
THE PRESIDENT: She was a public school librarian when I asked her to marry me. And she said, fine, I'll marry you, so long as I don't have to give a political speech. (Laughter.)
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1576
GHDI
Nazi Germany (1933-1945)
Documents - Literature, Art, and Music
Extracts from the Manual of the Reich Chamber of Culture (1937)
The mightiest instrument of Nazi cultural policy was the Reich Chamber of Culture [Reichskulturkammer or RKK], which was founded by Goebbels on September 22, 1933. The “nature and functions” of its various sub-chambers are described in the Manual of the Reich Chamber of Culture (1937), which is excerpted below. The RKK led and controlled the National Socialist “coordination” [Gleichschaltung] of culture by making membership in its organization mandatory for anyone active in any cultural field and by engaging heavily in censorship. Artists who were deemed racially or politically undesirable were barred from membership and were thus effectively prevented from working. Particular attention was given to new media, radio and film, for they had great potential with respect to propaganda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closeted
Closeted
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Closeted and in the closet are adjectives for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender etc. (LGBT) people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior.
Background
In late 20th-century America, the closet had become a central metaphor for grasping the history and social dynamics of gay life. The notion of the closet is inseparable from the concept of coming out. The closet narrative sets up an implicit dualism between being "in" or being "out". Those who are "in" are often stigmatized as living false, unhappy lives. However, though many people would prefer to be “out” of the closet, there are numerous social, economic, familial, and personal repercussions that lead to them remaining, whether consciously or unconsciously, “in” the closet. The decision to come out or remain in the closet is considered a deeply personal one, and outing remains a problem in today’s culture.
Effects
In the early stages of the lesbian, gay or bisexual identity development process, people feel confused and experience turmoil. In 1993, Michelangelo Signorile wrote Queer in America, in which he explored the harm caused both to a closeted person and to society in general by being closeted.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=64858
The American Presidency Project
George W. Bush
XLIII President of the United States: 2001 - 2009
Remarks in Colmar, Pennsylvania
September 9, 2004
The President. Thank you all for coming. Thank you all very much. Please be seated. Thank you all for coming. Thanks for the welcome. It's good to be back in Pennsylvania—again. It just seems like I was here yesterday. [Laughter] I was—[laughter]— kind of. But I'm glad to be here. I really appreciate you all coming out. Spirits are high. I'm feeling great about life.
I really appreciate being here at Byers Choice. Thank you all for your hospitality. You sure know how to make a President feel welcome. We're here because I want to talk about the economy some and a plan to keep this economy moving forward so people can realize their dreams. And it's such a wonderful place to come because the entrepreneurial spirit here is strong.
This is a company that was formed by Bob and Joyce Byers——
[At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]
Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
The President. We are here—I appreciate you coming to Byers. It's such an honor to meet Bob and Joyce Byers. They are— they had a dream, and they wanted to build a small company into a large company, and they've done so. They started their company in the 1960s. They found a good idea—they thought of the idea. Government didn't think of the idea. They did. They decided to take risk. They hired people wisely. They invested wisely, and their company is growing. And I appreciate the contribution they've made.
They've got a fantastic customer base, because they——
[The disturbance continued.]
Audience members. Boo-o-o!
Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
The President. We are here because the entrepreneurial spirit is strong, because there is an optimism in this room that says it can remain stronger. The Byers have got a significant customer base, which means they understand how to run a business, and my mother is one of their customers. [Laughter]
And so what we're going to talk about today is our economy and how to keep it growing and how to make sure the entrepreneurial spirit is strong so people can realize their dreams. Today I want to discuss with you the plan I have to keep us on the path to growth and opportunity, a plan that I'm convinced that when Americans listen to, they'll put me and Dick Cheney back in office for 4 more years.
So I told Laura I was coming here, and she said, "Give everybody my best." She's great. She's a fantastic mom and a great wife. She is a wonderful First Lady. So when I asked her to marry me, she said, "Fine, just so long as I don't have to give any political speeches." [Laughter] I said, "Okay, you won't have to give a speech." Fortunately, she didn't hold me to that promise. She gave a great speech the other night. People got to see her heart and her compassion.
I appreciate Congressman Jim Greenwood a lot. I must confess to you that when I heard he was retiring, I got a little mad at him, because I've enjoyed working with him. He is a good, decent, honorable man. And I appreciate you.
I appreciate the fact that Arlen Specter is with us today. I hope you put him back into office for 6 more years. There he is. I enjoy working with Arlen. He's a good, independent thinker, and he's a good—fine United States Senator, and we'll work well together during the next 4 years.
I want to thank Pat Toomey for joining us today as well. He's a class act. I appreciate—I told this to Pat on Air Force One, I said, "I appreciate the way he handled himself after a tough primary." He's coming together. He's working for the ticket, and that shows what kind of guy he is. And I'm honored you're here, Pat.
Where is Mayor Joe? Mr. Mayor. Thank you for coming, Mr. Mayor. I'm proud you're here. [Applause] Yes. I always like to stay in touch with the local power. [Laughter] Sure enough, there he is. Thanks for coming, Mayor. I appreciate you being here.
Mike Fitzpatrick is with us today. I appreciate you coming, Mike. Appreciate you being here. Tom Corbett is with us today. Appreciate you coming, Tom. Good luck. I want to thank all the candidates who are here and the grassroots activists. I'm traveling your State and traveling the country to ask people not only for the vote but for their help. And I hope you go register voters, find people to show up to the polls. We have a duty in America to vote and— so thanks for the work you're doing. And when you get them to the polls, headed to the polls, remind them, if they want a safer America, a stronger America, and a better America, to put me and Dick Cheney back in there.
Eunice Sanchez is with us. Where are you, Eunice? There she is. Thanks. And you've got your son and daughter. Thanks for coming. I met Eunice. She works for the Amachi mentoring program in Philadelphia. I don't know if you've heard of Amachi. I have. I have been fortunate enough to be briefed by the people that run that program. Amachi is a mentoring program for children with incarcerated parents. I want you to think about what this good American citizen does. She takes time out of her life to mentor a child to show there's love, the possibility of love. I tell the people of this country that the great strength of our country is the hearts and souls of the American citizens. That's really the true strength of America. And the reason I've asked—and the reason that Eunice has kindly come today is for me to hold her up as an example for others—for others to recognize that they can help change America, one heart and one soul at a time as well, that our society is a compassionate society because people from all walks of life put their arm around somebody who hurts and says, "I love you, and what can I do to help you?" I appreciate you coming, Eunice. God bless you, and thanks for coming.
I'm looking forward to this—I'm looking forward to the campaign. I'm—there's some things I want to do for the next 4 years. [Laughter] And I'm looking forward to telling the people of the country where I stand and where I believe and where I'm going to lead the country. I'm running with a clear and positive plan to build a safer world and a more hopeful America. I'm running with what I call a compassionate conservative philosophy, that Government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives.
I believe it's the job of a President to confront problems, not to pass them on to future Presidents and future generations. In the last 4 years, we have confronted economic problems. We have got some short-term challenges that came from an economic downturn and a national emergency. We've got some long-term challenges because our economy is changing. In all these areas, we've acted, and we're moving forward. Today I want to talk to you about some of the plans we have.
Remember the history. When you're out rounding up the vote, remind the people what we have been through. When Dick Cheney and I took office in January—on January 20th of 2001, our economy was heading into a recession, and the stock market had been declining for 5 months prior to our arrival. Our Nation faced some corporate scandals that cost people jobs and savings and shook our confidence. Today, it is absolutely clear that we're not going to tolerate dishonesty in the boardrooms of America.
America was attacked. Our economy lost nearly a million jobs after that attack in just 3 months. We acted with a clear strategy. We unleashed the energy and innovative spirit of America with the largest tax relief in a generation. The tax relief provided small-business owners the resources and incentives they need to expand and grow and hire more workers. The entrepreneurial spirit is strong. The small-business sector of our economy is strong, and the tax relief helped strengthen it.
We encouraged savings and investment by cutting taxes on dividends and capital gains. Tax relief put money in the hands of American workers so they could save for their retirement or for their home or for the education of their children. My philosophy is, Government sets priorities, funds its priorities, and lets the people keep as much money as possible. I think you can spend your money better than the Federal Government can.
We increased the child credit and reduced the marriage penalty. The Tax Code ought to encourage marriage, not discourage marriage. And the results are clear. Our country has now seen 12 straight months of job gains. Over the past year, we've added 1.7 million jobs. That is more than Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Canada, and France combined. Unemployment is down to 5.4 percent. That is nearly a full point below the rate in the summer of 2003, and it is below the average of the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s.
Interest rates and mortgage rates are near historic lows. Our economy is growing at rates as fast as any in the last 20 years. The manufacturing sector is improving. When I took office, manufacturing employment had been declining for almost 3 years. In the last 6 months of the prior administration, more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. We're turning that around. Since January, America has added 107,000 manufacturing jobs, including 22,000 last month alone. We are making steady progress for American workers.
Because of the tax relief, the middle class is paying less in Federal taxes. The average family of four with an income of $40,000 got nearly a $2,000 tax cut. Real after-tax incomes are up almost 10 percent since December of 2000. People have got more money in their pockets because of the tax relief. Our economy is stronger because people are keeping more of what they earn.
Listen, we also face long-term challenges in this economy. The workers of our parents' generation typically had one job, one skill, one career, often with one company that provided health care and a pension. That's the way it used to be. This world of ours is changing. By the way, most of those workers were men. Today, workers change jobs, even careers, many times during their lives. And in one of the most dramatic shifts our society has seen, two-thirds of all moms also work outside the home. This world of ours has changed. And yet, the institutions of Government haven't changed.
Let me tell you what else has changed. Productivity has grown faster over the last 3 years than any time in more than 40 years, in part because technology is changing the way we do things. You'd rather use a computer than a typewriter. You'd rather use a backhoe than a shovel. [Laughter] That's productivity. But it also means that the same work can be done by fewer workers. And that creates a problem for someone looking for a job. That's why manufacturing still produces roughly the same share of our GDP but with a smaller share of the workforce. So these are some long-term challenges we face.
But it's a time of great opportunity. A time of change creates great opportunity, so long as the Government takes the side of the workers and the families here in America, so long as Government recognizes this: Our fundamental systems, the Tax Code, health coverage, pension plans, and worker training, were created for the world of yesterday—think about that—not for tomorrow. I believe in the next 4 years, we've got to transform these systems to help our citizens, to help prepare our citizens, to help free citizens so they can realize the great dream of our country.
And so you'll hear me talk a lot about changing systems to help people, not increasing Government to stifle dreams. Obviously, in order for people to realize their dreams, there has to be robust economic growth. In order to make sure that the productivity increases don't cause people not to be able to find a job, we got to grow this economy. And that's what I want to talk to you about right quick, a plan to make sure we continue to create jobs here in America.
First of all, in order to have jobs here, America must be the best place in the world to do business. If you want people working here, it's got to be the best place to risk capital, the best place to expand, the best place to realize dreams. One way to make sure it's the best place to do business is to reduce the regulatory burden on small businesses. You fill out a lot of paperwork if you're a small-business owner in America. I can't promise you anybody in Government ever reads it. [Laughter]
We want jobs here in the Philadelphia area. We want to make sure the manufacturing sector is robust. Congress needs to get an energy plan to my desk now. I submitted a plan 2 years ago. It's a plan that encourages conservation, expands renewables, uses clean coal technologies. Listen, we must become less dependent on foreign sources of energy if we want jobs to remain in America.
In order to keep jobs here so people can realize their dreams, we must open up markets for U.S. products. Listen, we've opened up our markets, and it's good for consumers we've opened up our markets. If you have more choices in the marketplace, you're likely to get the product you want at a better price and better quality. And so what I'm saying to countries like China is, "Treat us the way we treat you." I believe American farmers and manufacturers and businessowners can compete with anybody, anywhere, anytime, so long as the rules are fair. What we will do is reject economic isolationism. Economic isolationism will hurt America's workers.
In order to make sure we create jobs here, we've got to do something about these junk lawsuits that threaten employers. I believe strongly in legal reform, because I understand personal injury lawyers should not get richer at the expense of hard-working Americans and American entrepreneurs.
Finally, in order to keep jobs here, we've got to be wise about how we spend your money and keep your taxes low. Running up the taxes on the entrepreneurs in America is bad economic policy.
I told you there's some systems that need to change. One system that needs to change is the Federal Tax Code. It is too cumbersome. I tried to hold it the other day—[laughter]—when I was campaigning in Missouri. I'm in pretty good shape. It was hard to hold it. [Laughter] It's got a million words in it. It takes the American people 6 billion hours a year, every year, to file these forms. It is full of special interest loopholes. For the sake of economic growth and for the sake of fairness, we need to change the Tax Code. We need to make it simple and easy to understand.
A changing world means that the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century are changing, and it's something we've got to recognize. And a changing economy is one that creates new opportunities. But sometimes there's a skills gap. And that's why I believe we ought to expand access to our community college systems, to make sure that the workers have the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century.
As well most new jobs in a changing— this changing world require 2 years of college. Yet only one in four of our students gets there. And so we need early intervention programs in our high schools to solve problems early, before they're too late. We need to have new focus on math and science. As the No Child Left Behind Act begins to fill the education pipeline with good readers, we will require a rigorous exam before graduation from high school. See, what I'm telling you is, by raising performance in high schools and expanding Pell grants for low- and middle-income families, we will help more Americans start their career with a college diploma.
These are changing times, and our economy is changing. And there are communities around where manufacturing, textiles, and other jobs no longer exist. There are poor communities in our country that need help as well. And that's why, the other night at the convention, I announced American opportunity zones. These zones will provide tax relief and other incentives for new businesses to be created and to improve housing and job training and bringing hope. In other words, in changing times, there are ways to help communities that have suffered during changing times, with good tax policy, good regulation policy, and good housing policy.
Listen, in order to make sure jobs stay here, we've got to do something about health care. We need to make sure health care is available and affordable. Do you realize more than half the uninsured are employees of small businesses? Small businesses are having trouble affording health care. One way to help small businesses afford health care is to allow small firms to join together to purchase insurance at the discounts available to big companies.
We will offer tax credits to encourage small businesses and their employees to set up health savings accounts. We'll provide direct help for low-income Americans to purchase health savings accounts. These accounts give workers the security of insurance against major illness, the opportunity to save tax-free for routine health expenses, and the freedom of knowing you can take your account with you whenever you change jobs or careers.
I'm a big believer in community and rural health centers. These are facilities where low-income Americans can get primary care. I believe every poor county in America ought to have one of these facilities in order to take the pressure off emergency rooms around the United States.
In order to make sure health care is available and affordable, we've got to do something about these frivolous lawsuits that are running good doctors out of practice and running up your health care costs. I appreciate working with Jim Greenwood on this issue. He figured it out, and I hope the people of this country figure it out. These frivolous lawsuits are making it awfully hard for a lot of docs to practice medicine. You're losing good docs. Greenwood was telling me about the doctor that saved his dad's life, had to leave practice because his premiums were too high. Many doctors, in order to avoid litigation, practice defensive medicine. In other words, they run up the costs of health care so if they ever get caught—pulled in front of a court of law, they've got a defense. It's costing the taxpayers about $28 billion a year; the defensive practice of medicine costs 28 billion a year. We have a national problem, and it requires a national solution. I've submitted legislation that Greenwood got passed in the House. It's stuck in the Senate because the trial lawyers are powerful in the United States Senate.
Audience members. Boo-o-o!
The President. See, I don't think you can be pro-doctor, pro-patient, and pro-trial-lawyer at the same time. I think you have to choose. My opponent made his choice, and he put him on the ticket. I made my choice. I am for medical liability reform— now.
I'm looking forward to the debate on health care. I'm looking forward to it. In all we do to improve health care in America, we'll make sure that health decisions are made by doctors and patients, not by bureaucrats in Washington, DC.
Our labor laws need to change. We've got a lot of moms who are now in the workplace. And yet, it's really hard for moms to find enough time to do their duty as moms, see, because the rules—the labor laws are stuck in the past. I think we need to have flex-time and comp-time to allow families to be able to have more quality time.
In a changing world, ownership can bring stability to your life. One of the most hopeful statistics of the last year or two has been that the homeownership rate is at an alltime high in America. There's more minority families who are opening up the door where they live and say, "Welcome to my home. Come in to my house." It's a really important part of a future, when more and more people can own their home. We've got a plan to encourage homeownership in this country.
And we've got to make sure that our pension systems work, the Social Security system works. If you're an older American, nothing will change. The Social Security trust will fulfill its promise to you. If you're a baby boomer, we're in pretty good shape when it comes to receiving the promise of Social Security. But we need to worry about our children and grandchildren when it comes to Social Security. I believe younger workers ought to be able to take some of their taxes and set up a personal savings account, to make sure the Social Security promise that's made to them—an account that they can call their own, an account that Government cannot take away, and an account that they can pass on from one generation to the next.
In these proposals, we seek not to provide a Government program but a greater path to opportunity and more freedom for you to decide what's best for your life and, therefore, I believe, more opportunity for every citizen. And we got a choice in this race. I mean, it's a clear choice. See, I believe our opponent's philosophy is very different from ours. If you carefully listen, he wants to expand Government. Listen to the proposals. That's what he wants to do. What we want to do is expand opportunity. He wants to give more power to Washington by raising taxes and spending more money, and he's got a record to match his promises. [Laughter]
Over two decades in Washington, he has voted for higher income taxes, higher taxes on Social Security benefits. That's part of his record. He repeatedly voted for higher taxes on small businesses, higher taxes on gasoline. He voted against tax relief for married couples, for increasing the child credit, and against expanding tax-free retirement savings. We have a difference of opinion when it comes to taxation. If you drive a car, Senator Kerry has voted for higher taxes on you. If you have a job, he's voted for higher taxes on you. If you're married or have children, he's voted for higher taxes on you. The good news is, on the 2d of November, you have a chance to vote.
Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
The President. There is a reason for supporting higher taxes, because he wants to dramatically increase Government spending. It's part of his platform. On the campaign trail, he's proposed more than $2 trillion in new Federal spending so far. [Laughter] And we still have 54 more days to go. Now, he says he's going to pay for all that by raising taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of the population. There's just one problem with that. My opponent's tax increases would bring only about $650 billion in revenue over the next 10 years, see? And he wants to spend over 2 trillion. So you do the math. [Laughter] The plan leaves him more than $1.4 trillion short. And guess who would wind up paying the bill?
Now, one of his key economic advisers— one of my opponent's key economic advisers is saying they won't give the details on how they would raise spending and lower the deficit until after the election. [Laughter] Well, if they want to hold back information until the people vote, you can bet it won't be good news for the taxpayers. But America will reject the hidden Kerry tax plan.
Raising taxes will be bad for our economy. Raising taxes will be bad for the small-business sector of America. And I'll tell you why. Ninety percent of small-business owners pay tax at the individual income-tax level. Ninety percent of small-business owners are Subchapter S corporations or sole proprietorship. Byers Choice is a Subchapter S corporation. Now, if you're organized as a Subchapter S or sole proprietorship, when you pay your tax, you fill out the individual income-tax forms. And so when you talk about raising the top two brackets in the individual taxes, you're talking about taxing companies like Byers Choice. I don't see—and by the way, 70 percent of new jobs in America are created by small businesses. Why does it make sense to tax the job creators? It doesn't make sense to tax the job creators.
Bob said this, he said, "That would hurt my company." When he heard the plan to raise taxes to pay for promises, political promises, he said, "That would hurt my company. It would cut off jobs I plan to create." My opponent, by making political promises and by promising to tax small businesses such as Byers Choice, would hurt our economy. I believe in order to continue economic growth, we need an energy plan, good trade policy, good regulatory policy, good legal policy, good health policy, and we need to make the tax relief permanent.
In order to make sure we have sustained economic growth, we will also continue to protect the homeland over the next 4 years. There's a lot of good people working hard on your behalf. And we reorganized the Department—departments to create the Department of Homeland Security so we can better talk to each other, better respond to crisis, better deal with emergency, better share intelligence. And we're getting better in Washington, DC, about doing what is necessary to protect you. And there's a lot of good people working hard to do so, and I appreciate it. As the 9/ 11 Commission said, "America is safer but not yet safe." I agree. And so you just got to know there's some fine people at all levels of government working hard.
But the best way to protect the homeland is to stay on the offensive, is to find the terrorists. You cannot talk sense to these people. You've seen how they behave. You saw the attacks of September the 11th. You saw what happened to those Russian schoolchildren. America must continue to lead the world. We will find them overseas so we do not have to face them here at home.
We're making progress. We're making progress. Three-quarters of Al Qaida's known leadership has been brought to justice. Because we upheld doctrine that said, "If you harbor a terrorist, you're equally as guilty as the terrorists," the Taliban are no longer in power in Afghanistan. Think about the progress in Afghanistan. It wasn't all that long ago that young girls weren't allow to go to school and their moms would be pulled in a public square and whipped if they didn't toe the line of these barbaric people. And today, Afghanistan is an ally in the war on terror. Over 10 million citizens have registered to vote in the upcoming Presidential election. Amazing, isn't it? Freedom is on the march in Afghanistan, and that's good for America.
In Iraq, we removed a sworn enemy of America who had ties to terror and used weapons of mass destruction. Listen, I recognize we didn't find the stockpiles we all thought were there—all of us thought were there. But remember Saddam Hussein had the capability of making weapons. He could have passed that capability on to the enemy. And that's not a risk we could afford to take after September the 11th. Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision. America and the world are safer with Saddam in a prison cell.
We're making progress there. I'm impressed by Prime Minister Allawi. He's a strong guy who believes that democracy is the future of Iraq, and he's got hard work to do. It wasn't all that long ago that people were brutalized by Saddam Hussein. But we're making progress. There will be elections in January of next year. It's amazing, when you think about it. They've gone from tyranny to elections in a brief period of time.
Our goal in Iraq is to—like it is in Afghanistan—is to help provide enough stability so the political process can move forward, is to train Iraqis and Afghan citizens so they can do the hard work of defending their country against the few who want to thwart the desires of the many, is to put those countries on the path to stability and democracy as quickly as possible, and then bring our troops home.
I'm oftentimes asked what I tell those who—the loved ones of those who lost their life in combat. I tell them this, I say, "Your son or daughter or wife or husband is serving during historic times." These are times that will help make this world a more peaceful place. It's a time for little children to be able to—when we get it right—for children to grow up in a peaceful world. I tell them that in order to honor their memory, we will complete the mission.
I say this: I believe in the power of liberty to transform lives. That's what I believe. The core of my belief is that liberty has got the incredible capacity to convert enemies to friends, tyrannical societies to free societies. And that makes the world more peaceful, a peace we all want.
You know, I tell people about my meetings with Prime Minister Koizumi, the Prime Minister of Japan, who is the Prime Minister of a country that my dad fought against, your dads and grandfathers fought against. They were the sworn enemy of America some 60 years ago. And today, I sit down at the table with him to discuss peace. He's an ally in peace. And I'm able to do so because my predecessor Harry Truman and other American citizens believed that the enemy could become a friend if democracy took hold in Japan.
Now, there was a lot of skeptics and doubters during those days, and you can understand why. We'd just been fighting these people. But because they believed in the power of liberty to transform lives, they helped Japan develop a self-governing democracy. And today, Japan is an ally when it comes to keeping the peace. The Prime Minister and I talk about North Korea. We talk about Iraq. We talk about humanitarian needs around the world. Someday, an American President will be sitting down with a duly elected leader of Iraq, and they're going to be talking about the peace, and they're going to look back in history and say, "Thank goodness America never forgot the power of liberty to change lives."
I want to thank you all for giving me a chance to come by today. As you can see, I've got a plan to continue growing this economy so people can realize their hopes and dreams; that I know what needs to be done when it comes to securing this homeland and winning the war on terror; that I believe strongly in the values that make us a great nation; and that, with your help, we're going to win Pennsylvania and win a great election in November.
God bless. Thank you all for coming. Thank you all.
NOTE: The President spoke at 12:35 p.m. at Byers Choice.
http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/3238/bryant-william-maud.php
Congressional Medal of Honor Society
BRYANT, WILLIAM MAUD
Rank: Sergeant First Class Organization: U.S. Army
Company: Company A Division: 5th Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces
Born: 16 February 1933, Cochran, Ga.
Place / Date: Long Khanh Province, Republic of Vietnam, 24 March 1969
Citation
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sfc. Bryant, assigned to Company A, distinguished himself while serving as commanding officer of Civilian Irregular Defense Group Company 321, 2d Battalion, 3d Mobile Strike Force Command, during combat operations. The battalion came under heavy fire and became surrounded by the elements of 3 enemy regiments. Sfc. Bryant displayed extraordinary heroism throughout the succeeding 34 hours of incessant attack as he moved throughout the company position heedless of the intense hostile fire while establishing and improving the defensive perimeter, directing fire during critical phases of the battle, distributing ammunition, assisting the wounded, and providing the leadership and inspirational example of courage to his men. When a helicopter drop of ammunition was made to re-supply the beleaguered force, Sfc. Bryant with complete disregard for his safety ran through the heavy enemy fire to retrieve the scattered ammunition boxes and distributed needed ammunition to his men. During a lull in the intense fighting, Sfc. Bryant led a patrol outside the perimeter to obtain information of the enemy. The patrol came under intense automatic weapons fire and was pinned down. Sfc. Bryant single-handedly repulsed 1 enemy attack on his small force and by his heroic action inspired his men to fight off other assaults. Seeing a wounded enemy soldier some distance from the patrol location, Sfc. Bryant crawled forward alone under heavy fire to retrieve the soldier for intelligence purposes. Finding that the enemy soldier had expired, Sfc. Bryant crawled back to his patrol and led his men back to the company position where he again took command of the defense. As the siege continued, Sfc. Bryant organized and led a patrol in a daring attempt to break through the enemy encirclement. The patrol had advanced some 200 meters by heavy fighting when it was pinned down by the intense automatic weapons fire from heavily fortified bunkers and Sfc. Bryant was severely wounded. Despite his wounds he rallied his men, called for helicopter gunship support, and directed heavy suppressive fire upon the enemy positions. Following the last gunship attack, Sfc. Bryant fearlessly charged an enemy automatic weapons position, overrunning it, and single-handedly destroying its 3 defenders. Inspired by his heroic example, his men renewed their attack on the entrenched enemy. While regrouping his small force for the final assault against the enemy, Sfc. Bryant fell mortally wounded by an enemy rocket. Sfc. Bryant's selfless concern for his comrades, at the cost of his life above and beyond the call of duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 12:15 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Monday 13 April 2015
