The soles of Neil Armstrong's boots on the moon made permanent impressions on OUR souls and in our national psyche. Ann and I watched those steps together on her parent's sofa. Like all Americans we went to bed that night knowing we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world. God bless Neil Armstrong. Tonight that American flag is still there on the moon. that unique blend of optimism, humility and the utter confidence that when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American. My dad had been born in Mexico and his family had to leave during the Mexican revolution. I grew up with stories of his family being fed by the US Government as war refugees. My dad never made it through college and apprenticed as a lath and plaster carpenter. And he had big dreams. He convinced my mom, a beautiful young actress, to give up Hollywood to marry him. He moved to Detroit, led a great automobile company and became Governor of the Great State of Michigan. We were Mormons and growing up in Michigan; that might have seemed unusual or out of place but I really do not remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to. My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all - the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would BE, and much less about what we would DO. Unconditional love is a gift that Ann and I have tried to pass on to our sons and now to our grandchildren. All the laws and legislation in the world will never heal this world like the loving hearts and arms of mothers and fathers. If every child could drift to sleep feeling wrapped in the love of their family - and God's love -- this world would be a far more gentle and better place. And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist - because every day Dad gave Mom a rose, which he put on her bedside table. That is how she found out what happened on the day my father died - she went looking for him because that morning, there was no rose. My mom and dad were true partners, a life lesson that shaped me by everyday example. When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?


I wish she could have been here at the convention and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. As Governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman Lt. Governor, a woman chief of staff, half of my cabinet and senior officials were women, and in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies. I grew up in Detroit in love with cars and wanted to be a car guy, like my dad. But by the time I was out of school, I realized that I had to go out on my own, that if I stayed around Michigan in the same business, I'd never really know if I was getting a break because of my dad. I wanted to go someplace new and prove myself. Those were not the easiest of days - too many long hours and weekends working, five young sons who seemed to have this need to re-enact a different world war every night. But if you ask Ann and I what we'd give, to break up just one more fight between the boys, or wake up in the morning and discover a pile of kids asleep in our room. Well, every mom and dad knows the answer to that. Those days were toughest on Ann, of course. I had to travel a lot for my job then and I'd call and try to offer support. But every mom knows that does not help get the homework done or the kids out the door to school. I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine. And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine. And as America saw Tuesday night, Ann would have succeeded at anything she wanted to. Like a lot of families in a new place with no family, we found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church. When we were new to the community it was welcoming and as the years went by, it was a joy to help others who had just moved to town or just joined our church. We had remarkably vibrant and diverse congregants from all walks of life and many who were new to America. We prayed together, our kids played together and we always stood ready to help each other out in different ways. And that is how it is in America. We look to our communities, our faiths, our families for our joy, our support, in good times and bad.

Mitt Romney Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida


It is both how we live our lives and why we live our lives. The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, our faiths. In our best days, we can feel the vibrancy of America's communities, large and small. It is when we go to work in the morning and see everybody else on our block doing the same. It is when our son or daughter calls from college to talk about which job offer they should take.and you try not to choke up when you hear that the one they like is not far from home. It is that good feeling when you have more time to volunteer to coach your kid's soccer team, or help out on school trips. But for too many Americans, these good days are harder to come by. How many days have you woken up feeling that something really special was happening in America? Many of you felt that way on Election Day four years ago. Hope and Change had a powerful appeal. If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, should not you feel that way now that he is President Obama? You know there is something wrong with the kind of job he is done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him. The President has not disappointed you because he wanted to. The President has disappointed America because he has not led America in the right direction. He took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have and one that was essential to his task. He had almost no experience working in a business. Jobs to him are about government. I learned the real lessons about how America works from experience. When I was 37, I helped start a small company. My partners and I had been working for a company that was in the business of helping other businesses. So some of us had this idea that if we really believed our advice was helping companies, we should invest in companies. We should bet on ourselves and on our advice. So we started a new business called Bain Capital. The only problem was, while WE believed in ourselves, nobody else did. We were young and had never done this before and we almost did not get off the ground. In those days, sometimes I wondered if I had made a really big mistake. I had thought about asking my church's pension fund to invest, but I did not .


I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my investors' money, but I did not want to go to hell too. Shows what I know. Another of my partners got the Episcopal Church pension fund to invest. Today there are a lot of happy retired priests who should thank him. That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples - where I am pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. At a time when nobody thought we'd ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and built one in a corn field in Indiana. Today Steel Dynamics is one of the largest steel producers in the United States. And yet the centerpiece of the President's entire re-election campaign is attacking success. Is it any wonder that someone who attacks success has led the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression? In America, we celebrate success, we do not apologize for it. We were not always successful at Bain. But no one ever is in the real world of business. That is what this President does not seem to understand. Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It is about dreams. Steve Jobs was fired at Apple. He came back and changed the world. It is the genius of the American free enterprise system - to harness the extraordinary creativity and talent and industry of the American people with a system that is dedicated to creating tomorrow's prosperity rather than trying to redistribute today's. you are better off today than you were four years ago. This president can ask us to be patient. This president can tell us it was someone else's fault. This president can tell us that the next four years he will get it right. But this president cannot tell us that YOU are better off today than when he took office. Americans have supported this president in good faith. But today, the time has come to turn the page. Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us. Now is the time to restore the Promise of America. Many Americans have given up on this president but they have not ever thought about giving up.


What is needed in our country today is not complicated or profound. It does not take a special government commission to tell us what America needs. What America needs is jobs. In the richest country in the history of the world, this Obama economy has crushed the middle class. Family income has fallen by $4,000, but health insurance premiums are higher, food prices are higher, utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices have doubled. Today more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before. Nearly one out of six Americans is living in poverty. His policies have not helped create jobs, they have depressed them. His plan to raise taxes on small business will not add jobs, it will eliminate them; His assault on coal and gas and oil will send energy and manufacturing jobs to China; His trillion dollar cuts to our military will eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs, and also put our security at greater risk; His $716 billion cut to Medicare to finance Obamacare will both hurt today's seniors, and depress innovation - and jobs - in medicine. And his trillion-dollar deficits will slow our economy, restrain employment, and cause wages to stall. if Barack Obama is re-elected, you will be right. I am running for president to help create a better future. A future where everyone who wants a job can find one. Where no senior fears for the security of their retirement. An America where every parent knows that their child will get an education that leads them to a good job and a bright horizon. And unlike the President, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs. It has 5 steps. First, by 2020, North America will be energy independent by taking full advantage of our oil and coal and gas and nuclear and renewables. Second, we will give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow. When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice, and every child should have a chance. Third, we will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements. And when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences. Fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish as have those in Greece, we will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget. And fifth, we will champion SMALL businesses, America's engine of job growth. That means reducing taxes on business, not raising them.


It means simplifying and modernizing the regulations that hurt small business the most. And it means that we must rein in the skyrocketing cost of healthcare by repealing and replacing Obamacare. Today, women are more likely than men to start a business. They need a president who respects and understands what they do. And let me make this very clear - unlike President Obama, I will not raise taxes on the middle class. As president, I will protect the sanctity of life. I will honor the institution of marriage. the freedom of religion. President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family. I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators. Every American was relieved the day President Obama gave the order, and Seal Team Six took out Osama bin Laden But on another front, every American is less secure today because he has failed to slow Iran's nuclear threat. In his first TV interview as president, he said we should talk to Iran. President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus, even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro's Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia's President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election. Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone. We will honor America's democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman and Reagan. And under my presidency we will return to it once again. You might have asked yourself if these last years are really the America we want, the America won for us by the greatest generation. Does the America we want borrow a trillion dollars from China? Does it fail to find the jobs that are needed for 23 million people and for half the kids graduating from college? Are its schools lagging behind the rest of the developed world? And does the America we want succumb to resentment and division? We know the answer. The America we all know has been a story of the many becoming one, uniting to preserve liberty, uniting to build the greatest economy in the world, uniting to save the world from unspeakable darkness.


One of the reasons I like this job so much is, you get to be introduced by your wife. And I appreciate Laura's love and compassion for all children, and I appreciate the job she is doing. I am a lucky man to be able to call her my wife. The kidnaping of a child is every parent's worst nightmare. Yet, too many moms and dads have experienced this nightmare across America. I have just met with parents-Laura and I met with parents-who have had the most precious person in their lives suddenly and brutally taken away from them. Some of these parents were eventually reunited with their children. Some know they will never see their loved ones again in this earthly life. And those responsible have committed a terrible crime. Our society has a duty, has a solemn duty, to shield children from exploitation and danger. At this conference, we are discussing the steps that parents and community leaders and law enforcement can take to prevent such tragedies. I want to thank the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for helping organize this important and vital meeting. And I want to thank you all for coming. I appreciate the senior members of my administration who are leading the sessions at today's conference. I thank our Secretary of State Colin Powell, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary Tommy Thompson, Secretary Rod Paige. I appreciate the Director of the FBI, Bob Mueller, for coming. And I want to thank the Commissioner, Robert Bonner, of the U.S. Customs. I know there is a lot of Members of Congress who are here. I see the great Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, is here, as well as other Members of Congress. I appreciate so very much the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They do a really good job for America. I want to thank Ernie Allen-I want to thank Ernie, and I want to thank Carolyn Atwell-Davis, the legal consultant, for their hard work and for their care and concern. I also want to thank Margaret Spellings, who is Assistant to ENTITY for Domestic Policy, for moderating this conference. And of course, I have got to say something about John Walsh, TV star. But he is a guy who cares deeply about our country, about the safety of our citizens. And John, thank you for the service you do on behalf of the American people.

Remarks at the White House Conference on Missing, Exploited, and Runaway Children


Our first duty as adults is to create an environment in which children can grow and thrive without fearing for their security. That is what we have got to do. Because children are so vulnerable, they need the care of adults. Because they are so vulnerable, those who are cruel and predatory often target our children. We see the dangers to our children in the cases of abduction, many of which are known to us all. Each year, tens of thousands of children are abducted by non-family members, often in connection with a crime. And while the overwhelming majority of these children are returned from abductions, too many are not. One is too many, particularly for the mom or dad who suffers deeply. We see the dangers in the experience of runaway children who are often victims of hunger and sickness and sexual abuse. Every year, assaults and illness and suicide take the lives of about 5,000 runaways. The threats to our children are found not just on the streets, but they are found on the technology which we use in our homes. The Internet is a wonderful tool for our children to broaden their knowledge, expand their minds, but the evils of the world have crept into the Internet. In 1 year alone, one in five children between the ages of 10 and 17 received a sexual solicitation over the Internet. With expanding use of the Internet and the heightened activity of predators searching for underage victims, more children are being lured into harmful and even tragic situations. In every region in the world, children can be vulnerable, not just here at home but children everywhere. Each year, about a million girls and boys are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Such trafficking is nothing less than a modern form of slavery, an unspeakable and unforgivable crime against the most vulnerable members of the global society. All these dangers put children at risk. All these dangers demand action to protect our children from harm. The Justice Department has made the prevention and investigation of child abductions a major priority. We are providing State and local authorities with access to fingerprint records and forensic experts and training on missing-children cases. We want the local authorities to have the best available technologies and skills in order to respond quickly. The Department sponsors a 24-hour hotline for reporting missing children, which is operated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We are waging a nationwide effort to prevent use of the Internet to sexually exploit children.


We are seeking to almost double the funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces, which will help State and local authorities enforce laws against child pornography and exploitation. We are vigorously prosecuting those who prey on our children. If you prey on our children, there will be serious, severe consequences. they made more than 100 arrests. I am pleased that the House of Representatives passed the Child Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act this year to revise and strengthen our pornography laws. The Senate needs to work with the House to get legislation done before they go home. We need to do everything we can to protect our children from the evils of pornography. We will not forget the suffering and struggles of America's runaway children. The Federal Government supports hundreds of emergency shelters and programs that reach out to young people living on the street, offering them food and comfort and counseling. These programs are mainly administered by community and faith-based groups. After all, it is in our faith-based community where we hear that universal call to love a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself. It is in our faith-based groups that we find deep compassion to help those in need and who are troubled. And many of the runaway kids are troubled and in deep need of love. And these children are vulnerable; they are vulnerable to exploitation. There are some great programs in America, people who are soldiers in the armies of compassion, one of which is the Covenant House. We are honored today to have Sister Mary Rose McGeady here. She runs the Covenant House. And if you do not know anything about the Covenant House and if you are interested in helping, support the Covenant House or programs like the Covenant House, because these people help those on the street, those young, vulnerable children on the street, to realize there is love in our society and there is hope for a better way. On the international front, the United States is acting vigorously against the trafficking of young people. Last February, I established an Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The task force is working hard to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and prevent future trafficking. The past year alone, the Department of Justice prosecuted four times as many traffickers as it did 2 years ago. We are making progress. We have got to continue to work with our friends and allies to prevent this scourge from not only spreading but to stop it. And this Nation stands against slavery of any kind.


The responsibility to protect America's children is shared throughout our society by government at every level and by parents in every home. Parents, of course, are the first line of defense against danger. To help our parents protect their children, the Department of Education has distributed a new guidebook providing practical steps that parents can take to make their children safer, practical steps that make it clear about how a parent needs to deal with their child about the dangers facing children. And this information, you will be pleased to hear, is written in ways so that the children can actually understand what is on the page. The book tells mothers and fathers how to rehearse with their children what to say or do if they ever feel threatened. It is a practical guide to explain to children how to deal with predators that are smooth and seductive, how to deal with somebody that is a stranger that sounds sweet-talking but may in their heart be dark and dangerous for our children. The book also lists web sites that provide information about protecting children. Parents need to pay as much attention to their children, by the way, when they are on the Internet as when they are on a playground. They have got to know what their children are doing on the Internet. They have got to know with whom they are conversing. We are passing it out to the Nation's schools, and the schools will then make it available to parents. And as well, parents can request a copy of the guidebook, a practical go-by as to how to train your children how to deal with potential danger. And you can find it on missingkids.com. If you are interested, if you want a practical go-by, call up missingkids.com on the Internet, and you will get some practical steps as to how to help your children avoid danger. Sometimes, in spite of a family's best effort, the unthinkable does happen, and that is really sad. It breaks my heart to know that that continues to happen in America. At that point, the parents need the sup-port-when their child is abducted, the parents need immediate support of their communities, quick action to find their children. Time is of the essence. One of the most successful programs to locate abducted children is what is called the AMBER Plan. It is a voluntary partnership through which police and local broadcasters issue urgent bulletins to the public as soon as a child is missing.


The program began in a local effort in Texas, I am proud to report, in the Dallas area in 1996 after Amber Hagerman was abducted. My friend State Senator Florence Shapiro is with us-I believe, one of the panelists. She helped launch the AMBER program. I know that it makes her feel really good to know that AMBER, when in place, can really help people, just like it helped Sharon Brooks and her 16-yearold daughter, Tamara. This summer, Tamara and Jacqueline were abducted at gunpoint in Lancaster, California. Tamara told us her story. The police issued an AMBER Alert within hours and soon received tips that led to their rescue. People all across America shared a great feeling of relief when she and her buddy were rescued. One of the reasons they were is because of the AMBER Plan. There are gaps in the AMBER Plan coverage which must be filled, and we can fill them. We will develop more AMBER Plans and better coordination among plans. We should not allow another day to go by without taking steps to expand the AMBER Plan's reach all across our country. And so the Attorney General today is appointing an AMBER Alert Coordinator to help State and local officials develop, enhance, and coordinate AMBER Plans all across America. The Department of Justice will establish standards for the issuance and dissemination of alerts. The Justice and Transportation Departments will take immediate action to provide a total of $10 million to improve the growing network of AMBER Plans. We want AMBER Plan Alerts to be issued as quickly and as effectively as possible, including electronic billboards along the Nation's highways. I support legislation passed by Senator Hutchison of Texas and Senator Feinstein of California to achieve the goals I just outlined and codify them in law. And I want to thank you both for your hard work. And that is why I have just laid out the initiative. If possible, it would be very helpful if the House passed the Hutchison-Feinstein law before they go home. I also am pleased that good corporate citizens are involved with helping our children. And I particularly want to point out Toys R Us or Wal-Mart, Home Depot, as well as Ford Motor dealerships, which are providing free child photo IDs, so that parents can provide law enforcement with sharply focused head-and-shoulder pictures along with relevant biological information in the event of emergency. By the end of this year, more than 2 1/2 million children will have been photographed and identified to help recover them if they are ever abducted.


First, I want to thank the people of Nebraska, Omaha, and especially all of you for the extremely warm welcome and the wonderful hospitality that has been shown. I do want to thank you also for the kind of support and assistance that all of you have given. Without this kind of aid, cooperation, we could not be in this ball game and in the situation where we are today--where from all the reports I get, our chances are very good. Now, let me, if I might, take just a minute to give you the message as I see it, which I think epitomizes the last 21 months and which is the foundation from which, in my judgment, we have built for another good 4 years. If you would refresh your memories just a little, back to August of 1974, and then see what has transpired in the last 21 months, I think a person can say that there has been a record of peace, prosperity, and trust established. You know, in 1974 this country was going through great trauma as far as the economy was concerned. We have cut it, for the first 3 months of this year, down to under 3 percent. And the news we got yesterday about the Wholesale Price Index was one that we could have anticipated; you cannot always, in this situation, get every one of them as good as they have been the last 5 months. But the prospects overall, the trend as far as inflation is concerned is good, and it is going to stay on the decline. But if you look at the problems concerning the economy jobwise, we got some excellent news today. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Labor announced that in the month of April we had 700,000 more people on payrolls in this country, up to a total of 87,400,000--by far, the most employed in the history of the United States. So, I think a person can talk to his neighbor, to his partner, to his business associates, to anybody, and say that in the 21 months, we have taken this country through a tough, tough time by the right policies, by keeping our cool, beating the Congress over its head with 40 vetoes that have been sustained, where we have saved over $13 billion. It was not easy, believe me. We had a lot of advice from all sources saying that, Do what the Congress wants you to do, spend a lot more money, do this and do that.

Remarks at a President Ford Committee Reception in Omaha.


We are here with a wonderful group of homeowners. And I think for so many people around this country, the essence of the American Dream is owning your own home, being able to have that piece of property that is yours, that allows you to raise your kids, that represents your single biggest investment. And obviously, one of the triggers of the financial crisis and now the economic crisis that we have suffered is that because in some areas housing got--housing values got way overheated, in some cases you had a lack of regulation that allowed all sorts of complex financial instruments take advantage of homeowners. We have seen a collapse in the housing market, a precipitous drop in values, and that led to a lot of the problems in the financial markets. At the beginning of this administration, we said we are--we were going to tackle directly the problems that homeowners were experiencing and figure out ways in which we could provide them assistance in reducing their interest rates, modifying their loans so that they would be in a position to stay in their homes and reduce their monthly payments. And around the table here you see some wonderful families who have taken advantage of what are now historically low mortgage rates, brought about in part by some extraordinary actions by the Federal Reserve, but also brought about by the housing plan that Tim Geithner and Shaun Donovanhelped to design. What you have seen now is rates are as low as they have been since 1971. Three-quarters of the American people get their mortgages through a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac qualified loan. And as a consequence of us being able to reduce the interest rates that are available, we have now seen some extraordinary jumps in the rate of mortgage refinancings. And everybody here represents families who have saved hundreds of dollars a month, thousands of dollars a year in some cases, and that is money directly in their pocket. More importantly, what it is allowed them to do is to consolidate their loans in some cases, reduce the length of their mortgages in other cases. It has given them the kind of security and stability in their mortgage payments that a lot more people can take advantage of. So the main message that we want to send today is, there are 7 to 9 million people across the country who right now could be taking advantage of lower mortgage rates. That is money in their pocket.

Remarks Following a Roundtable Discussion on the Home Mortgage Industry


And we estimate that the average family can get anywhere from $1,600 to $2,000 a year in savings by taking advantage of these various mortgage programs that have been put in place. We have already seen a substantial jump, 88 percent increase in refinancings over the last month. We have seen Fannie Mae refinance $77 billion of mortgages in March, which is their highest volume in one month since 2003. And rates on 30-year mortgages have dropped to an alltime low of 4.78 percent. So we are at a time where people can really take advantage of this. And what we want to do is to send a message that if you are having problems with your mortgage, and even if you are not and you just want to save some money, you can go to makinghomeaffordable.gov--. And the way the web site is designed, you can plug in your information and immediately find out whether or not you are potentially eligible for one of these mortgage refinancings. Now, we are in the process of rolling out some additional phases to the program. Everybody here represent responsible homeowners who made their payments, who have jobs and income that support their mortgages. In some cases, people may have had difficulties because they lost a job, somebody in their family got sick, they may have missed some payments. And in those cases we also want to be helpful, and we are putting in place a loan modification program, working with banks, working with services, that will allow other folks who are closer to losing their home in a stronger position in the future. So there are a range of different programs that are available for a range of different types of borrowers. The main message we want to send today is, is that the programs that have been put in place can help responsible folks who have been making their payments, who are not looking for a handout, but this allows them to make some changes that will leave money in their pockets and leave them more secure in their homes. So we hope that everybody takes advantage of it. Again, the web site is makinghomeaffordable.gov--is that right?--makinghomeaffordable.gov, so get on the web site, find out what is available.


I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the ENTITY I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money.

Inaugural Address


Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish. The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men. Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live. Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources. Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities.

Inaugural Address


It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments, so that there will be an end to speculation with other people's money; and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency. These are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress, in special session, detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States. Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment. The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first considerations, upon the interdependence of the various elements in and parts of the United States-a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor-the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others-the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

Inaugural Address


If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife. With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems. Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations. It is to be hoped that the normal balance of Executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure. I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption. But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis-broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe. For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

Inaugural Address


For myself and Mrs. Johnson--and for the people of the United States--I am proud to extend to you and your wife our warmest and most cordial welcome to this country and to this Capital. We are particularly pleased that you come today as the first state visitor to Washington since our inauguration earlier this year. The United States has--and is proud to have--strong and friendly ties with many peoples and many nations on every continent. But we are especially gratified by the growth of such relations with your continent-and with your country. In these last two decades, independence has come for more than 1 billion people in 54 countries. Nowhere has this revolution of national independence had greater impact than in Africa. We are mindful, Mr. President, that less than 200 years ago our own forebears in America chose the course that you, and your generation, have chosen in these times. If we wish to get along with and have relations with all nations, respecting their ideologies, we intend also and above all to evolve without interference. History and fortune have smiled upon the United States. We are privileged to have great strength. But we believe that our strength means little unless we use it toward the end of assuring peoples who choose freedom the fight to live without interference from neighbors or adversaries. This has been always a commitment of our people. It . . . gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and all should have an equal chance. In America today, this generation of Americans is determined to fulfill that ideal by all that we do in the world and by all that we do here at home. Today--in these times--we intend that these forces shall find not only their match but their master in the strength of our American Nation and in the moral resolve of our American people. President, we invite and welcome the attention of all nations--young and old--to the agenda of the Congress of the United States. But this week and this session, the American Congress is devoting itself to taking up the challenge of those ancient enemies of all mankind--ignorance, poverty, disease, and discrimination. And, Mr. President, I want you to know that we are determined as a people to prevail against these foes. You, Mr. President, are committed deeply to economic progress to improve the lives of your people. You seek with neighboring states realistic means of cooperation to promote mutual welfare.

Remarks of Welcome at the White House to President Yameogo of Upper Volta


It is with great honor and respect that I come before you today, the first American President ever to address the Japanese Diet. I have been in your country only 2 days. But speaking for my wife, Nancy, and myself, may I say you have more than made us feel at home. The warmth of your welcome has touched our hearts. In welcoming us, you pay tribute to the more than 230 million Americans whom I have the privilege to represent. The bonds of friendship which unite us are even greater than the ocean which divides us. It was a dozen years ago on an autumn day like this one that I first visited Japan, and today, as then, I feel energy, initiative, and industry surging through your country in a mighty current for progress. You do not build your future at the expense of the grace and beauty of your past. Harmony is a treasured hallmark of Japanese civilization, and this has always been pleasing to Americans. Harmony requires differences to be joined in pursuit of higher ideals, many of which we share. When former President Ulysses S. Grant visited here in 1878, he discovered Japan is a land of enchantment. During his stay, he met with the Emperor, and their discussion turned to democracy, the pressing issue of the day. President Grant observed that governments are always more stable and nations more prosperous when they truly represent their people. the 100th session of the Diet under the modern Japanese Constitution. In 6 years you will celebrate your 100th anniversary of representative government in Japan, just as we will celebrate the birth of our own Congress. I bring you the best wishes and heartfelt greetings from your American counterparts, the Congress of the United States. One cannot stand in this chamber without feeling a part of your proud history of nationhood and democracy, and the spirit of hope carrying the dreams of your free people. Of all the strengths we possess, of all the ties that bind us, I believe the greatest is our dedication to freedom. Japan and America stand at the forefront of the free nations and free economies in the world. Yes, we are 5,000 miles apart; yes, we are distinctly different in customs, language, and tradition; and yes, we are often competitors in the world markets. But I believe the people represented by this proud parliament and by my own United States Congress are of one heart in their devotion to the principles of our free societies.

Address Before the Japanese Diet in Tokyo


I am talking about principles that begin with the sacred worth of human life; the cherished place of the family; the responsibility of parents and schools to be teachers of truth, tolerance, hard work, cooperation, and love; and the role of our major institutions government, industry, and labor to provide the opportunities and security opportunities and security free people need to build and leave behind a better world for their children and their children's children. America and Japan are situated far apart, but we are united in our belief that freedom means dedication to the dignity, rights, and equality of man. Heaven has made no man higher or no man lower than any other man. No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. We both value the right to have a government of our own choosing. We expect government to serve the people; we do not expect the people to serve government. America and Japan speak with different tongues, but both converse, worship, and work with the language of freedom. We defend the right to voice our views, to speak words of dissent without being afraid, and to seek inner peace through communion with our God. We believe in rewarding initiative, savings, and risk-taking. And we encourage those who set their sights on the farthest stars and chart new paths to progress through the winds and waters of commerce. Others censor and stifle their citizens. We trust in freedom to nurture the diversity and creativity that enriches us all. Many kinds of plants and each one triumphant in its special blossoms. Finally, our freedom inspires no fear because it poses no threat. We intimidate no one, and we will not be intimidated by anyone. The United States and Japan do not build walls to keep our people in. We do not have armies of secret police to keep them quiet. We do not throw dissidents into so-called mental hospitals. And we would never cold-bloodedly shoot a defenseless airliner out of the sky. We share your grief for that tragic and needless loss of innocent lives. But in this imperfect and dangerous world, the United States and Japan represent the deepest aspirations of men and women everywhere to be free, to live in peace, and to create and renew the wealth of abundance and spiritual fulfillment. I have come to Japan because we have an historic opportunity, indeed, an historic responsibility. We can become a powerful partnership for good, not just in our own countries, not just in the Pacific region but throughout the world.


Do we have the determination to meet the challenge of partnership and make it happen? Yes we do, and yes we will. For much of our histories, our countries looked inward. With our combined economies accounting for half the output of the free world, we cannot escape our global responsibilities. Our industries depend on the importation of energy and minerals from distant lands. Our prosperity requires a sound international financial system and free and open trading markets. And our security is inseparable from the security of our friends and neighbors. The simple hope for world peace and prosperity will not be enough. Our two great nations, working with others, must preserve the values and freedoms our societies have struggled so hard to achieve. Nor should our partnership for peace, prosperity, and freedom be considered a quest for competing goals. And we will not succeed in any of these endeavors unless Japan and America work in harmony. I have come to your country carrying the heartfelt desires of America for peace. I know our desires are shared by Prime Minister Nakasone and all of Japan. We are people of peace. We understand the terrible trauma of human suffering. I have lived through four wars in' my lifetime. So, I speak not just as President of the United States, but also as a husband, a father, and as a grandfather. I believe there can be only one policy for preserving our precious civilization in this modern age. The only value in possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they cannot be used ever. I know I speak for people everywhere when I say our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth. Arms control must mean arms reductions. America is doing its part. As I pledged to the United Nations less than 2 months ago, the United States will accept any equitable, verifiable agreement that stabilizes forces at lower levels than currently exist. We want significant reductions, and we are willing to compromise. In the strategic arms reduction talks, American negotiators continue to press the Soviet Union for any formula that will achieve these objectives. In the longer range INF talks, we are pursuing the same course, even offering to eliminate an entire category of weapons. I am very conscious of our negotiating responsibility on issues that concern the safety and well-being of the Japanese people. We must not and we will not accept any agreement that transfers the threat of longer range nuclear missiles from Europe to Asia. Our great frustration has been the other side's unwillingness to negotiate in good faith.


We wanted to cut deep into nuclear arsenals, and still do. But they are blocking the dramatic reductions the world wants. In our good-faith effort to move the negotiations forward, we have offered new initiatives, provided for substantial reductions to equal levels, and the lower the level the better. We still wait for the first positive response. Despite this bleak picture, I will not be deterred in my search for a breakthrough. The United States will never walk away from the negotiating table. We live in uncertain times. There are trials and tests for freedom wherever freedom stands. It is as stark as the tragedy over the Sea of Japan, when 269 innocent people were killed for the so-called cause of sacred airspace. It is as real as the terrorist attacks last month on the Republic of Korea's leadership in Rangoon and against American and French members of the international peacekeeping force in Beirut. And yes, it is as telling as the stonewalling of our adversaries at the negotiating table, and as their crude attempts to intimidate freedom-loving people everywhere. These threats to peace and freedom underscore the importance of closer cooperation among all nations. You have an old proverb that says, A single arrow is easily broken, but not three in a bunch. The stronger the dedication of Japan, the United States, and our allies to peace through strength, the greater our contributions to building a more secure future will be. The U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security must continue to serve us as the bedrock of our security relationship. Japan will not have to bear the burden of defending freedom alone. We will bear that burden together. The defense of freedom should be a shared burden. We can afford to defend freedom; we cannot afford to lose it. The blessings of your economic miracle, created with the genius of a talented, determined, and dynamic people, can only be protected in the safe harbor of freedom. In the hundred years since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has constantly endeavored to catch up and eventually overtake the more advanced countries of the world. Well, I do not think I will be making headlines when I say, you have not only caught up; in some eases, you have pulled ahead. Come to Japan. Come to a country whose economic production will soon surpass the Soviet Union's, making Japan's economy the second largest in the entire world.


Come to learn from a culture that instills in its people a strong spirit of cooperation, discipline, and striving for excellence; and yes, learn from government policies which helped create this economic miracle not so much by central planning, as by stimulating competition, encouraging initiative, and rewarding savings and risk-taking. Our country has made great strides in this direction during the last 3 years. We are correcting past mistakes. We have turned the corner from overtaxing, overspending, record interest rates, high inflation, and low growth. The United States is beginning the first stage of a new industrial renaissance, and we are helping pull other nations forward to worldwide recovery. But some in my country still flinch from the need to restrain spending. Under the guise of lowering deficits, they would turn back to policies of higher taxes. They would ignore the lesson of Japan. A look at Japan's postwar history yields two stunning conclusions. Among the major industrialized countries, your tax burden has remained the lowest and your growth and saving rates the highest. Savers in Japan can exempt very large amounts of interest income from taxation. Your taxes on so-called unearned income are low. You have no capital gains tax on securities for investors. And the overwhelming majority of your working people face tax rates dramatically lower than in the other industrial countries, including my own. And incentives for everyone-that is the secret of strong growth for a shining future filled with hope, and opportunities and incentives for growth, not tax increases, is our policy for America. Sometimes I wonder if we should not further our friendship by my sending our Congress here and you coming over and occupying our Capitol Building for a while. Partnership must be a two-way street grounded in mutual trust. Let us always be willing to learn from each other and cooperate together. We have every reason to do so. Our combined economies account for almost 35 percent of the world's entire economic output. Last year Japan took about 10 percent of our total exports, and we bought some 25 percent of yours. Our two-way trade will exceed $60 billion in 1983, more than double the level of just 7 years ago. At the Williamsburg summit last May, the leaders of our industrial democracies pledged to cooperate in rolling back protectionism. My personal commitment to that goal is based on economic principles, old-fashioned common sense, and experience. It was a nightmare called the Great Depression. World trade fell at that time by 60 percent.


Let us have the wisdom never to repeat that policy. We are in the same boat with our trading partners around the globe. And if one partner in the boat shoots a hole in the boat, it does not make much sense for the other partner to shoot another hole in the boat. Some say, yes, and call that getting tough. Well, forgive me, but I call it getting wet all over. Rather than shoot holes, let us work together to plug them up so our boat of free markets and free trade and fair trade can lead us all to greater economic growth and international stability. I have vigorously opposed quick fixes of protectionism in America. Anticompetitive legislation like the local content rule, which would force our domestic manufacturers of cars to use a rising share of U.S. labor and parts now, this would be a cruel hoax. It would be raising prices without protecting jobs. We would buy less from you. You would buy less from us. It is not easy for elected officials to balance the concerns of constituents with the greater interests of the Nation, but that is what our jobs are all about. And we need your help in demonstrating free trade to address concerns of my own people. Americans believe your markets are less open than ours. We need your support to lower further the barriers that still make it difficult for some American products to enter your markets easily. Your government's recent series of actions to reduce trade barriers are positive steps in this direction. In turn, I pledge my support to combat protectionist measures in my own country. If we each give a little, we can all gain a lot. As two great and mature democracies, let us have the faith to believe in each other, to draw on our long and good friendship, and to make our partnership grow. We are leaders in the world economy. We and the other industrialized countries share a responsibility to open up capital and trading markets, promote greater investment in each other's country, assist developing nations, and stop the leakage of military technology to an adversary bent on aggression and domination. We believe that the currency of the world's second largest free-market economy should reflect the economic strength and political stability that you enjoy. We look forward to the yen playing a greater role in international financial and economic affairs. We welcome the recent trend toward a stronger yen. And we would welcome Japan's increasingly active role in global affairs.


Your leadership in aid to refugees and in economic assistance to various countries has been most important in helping to promote greater stability in key regions of the world. Your counsel on arms reduction initiatives is highly valued by us. We may have periodic disputes, but the real quarrel is not between us. It is with those who would impose regimentation over freedom, drudgery over dynamic initiative, a future of despair over the certainty of betterment, and the forced feeding of a military Goliath over a personal stake in the products and progress of tomorrow. You and your neighbors are shining examples for all who seek rapid development. The Pacific Basin represents the most exciting region of economic growth in the world today. Your people stretch your abilities to the limit, and when an entire nation does this, miracles occur. Being a Californian I have seen many miracles hardworking Japanese have brought to our shores. In 1865 a young Samurai student, Kanaye Nagasawa, left Japan to learn what made the West economically strong and technologically advanced. Ten years later he founded a small winery at Santa Rosa, California, called the Fountaingrove Round Barn and Winery. Soon he became known as the grape king of California. Nagasawa came to California to learn and stayed to enrich our lives. Both our countries owe much to this Japanese warrior-turned-businessman. As the years pass, our contacts continue to increase at an astounding rate. Today some 13,000 of your best college and graduate students are studying in America, and increasing numbers of U.S. citizens are coming here to learn everything they can about Japan. Companies like Nissan, Kyocera, Sony, and Toshiba have brought thousands of jobs to America's shores. The State of California is planning to build a rapid speed train that is adapted from your highly successful bullet train. In 1985 the United States will join Japan in a major exhibition of science and technology at Tsukuba, another symbol of our cooperation. For my part, I welcome this new Pacific tide. Let it roll peacefully on, carrying a two-way flow of people and ideas that can break from barriers of suspicion and mistrust and build up bonds of cooperation and shared optimism. Our two nations may spring from separate pasts; we may live at opposite sides of the Earth; but we have been brought together by our indomitable spirit of determination, our love of liberty, and devotion to progress. We are like climbers who begin their ascent from opposite ends of the mountain.


Sorry to keep you waiting, I was getting further updates. I spoke with Governor Hochul of New York and Governor Murphy of New Jersey, and I plan to speak with Governor Wolf of Pennsylvania after last night's devastating storm and floods from Hurricane Ida, the fifth largest hurricane in our history. Record rain fell in these states and New York recorded more rain yesterday on the first day of September than it usually sees the entire month of September. We saw more than three inches of rain per hour fall in Central Park. The United States National Weather Service issued a flood emergency in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, and parts of Long Island last night. This is the first time that such a warning has ever been issued for the city. People were trapped in subways with heroic men and women the New York Fire Department rescued all of them, they were trapped. We are seeing the same story of devastation and heroism across New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well. For now, 11 people in New York and New Jersey died because of the storm and I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all the first responders and everyone who is been working through the night and well into the morning to save lives and get power back. There is a lot of damage and I made it clear to the governors that my team at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, is on the ground and ready to provide all the assistance that is needed. In fact, our FEMA Director and Administrator, Deanna Griswell, was the chief federal response officer after Superstorm Sandy in 2012, she knows what to do. Last night at the request of California Governor, Newsom, I approved an emergency declaration for California for the counter of fire which is burning aggressively toward Lake Tahoe Basin and in Nevada. And it is also one of the few fires that has ever burned from one side of the stair in Nevada mountain range to the other. So far it is burned more than 200,000 acres. Tens of thousands of people had to evacuate their homes. The fire is threatening close to 35,000 structures and more than 4,400 firefighters from the state and my federal team are working to contain and suppress this raging wildfire. The Department of Defense has trained and is deploying additional firefighters to support our ongoing firefighting efforts in California. This disaster declaration will help with evacuation, including sheltering and feeding for those who have been displaced. I want you to know, I have seen these firefighters up close.

Joe Biden Hurricane Ida Federal Response Speech Briefing Transcript September 2


Their courage is astounding and they are some of the bravest people I have ever known, and I have known a lot of them. My heart goes out to them. My thanks is an abundant thanks for what they do. Now, I want to provide an update in our efforts to help millions of Americans down south recover and rebuild from Hurricane Ida. We have been monitoring this hurricane closely and the devastation it is caused. While the catastrophic flooding was not as severe as it was during Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago, Ida was so powerful that it caused the Mississippi River to change direction, the flow, changed the flow temporarily. The good news is that as a result of a significant multi-billion dollar federal investment in the levee system around Metro in New Orleans, it held, it was strong, it worked. But too many people and too many areas are still unprotected and saw a storm surge and flooding that was devastating. We have seen the reports of winds up to 170 miles per hour. It is not been confirmed yet by FEMA, but 170 miles an hour, causing unimaginable damage with debris and down power lines, making roads impassable and slowing response efforts to save folks and property. Now, people continue to shelter-in-place. Tomorrow, I will be traveling to Louisiana to meet with Governor John Bel Edwards as well as the parish presidents and mayors and the local officials representing the effected areas. Governor Edwards encouraged me to come and assured me that my visit will not disrupt recovery efforts on the ground, that is what I wanted to be sure of. My message to everyone affected is we are all in this together, the nation is here to help. That is the message I have been making clear to the mayors, governors, energy and utility leaders in the region who my administration has been working closely with over the past few days. Working with governors in the area, even before Ida made landfall, I issued an emergency declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi to help us respond quickly. positioned more than 4.3 million meals and more than 3 million liters of water and other critical resources in the region before it hit. We deployed more than 250 generators and we are working into getting more into the area, especially the hospitals that desperately need them. The Department of Health and Human Services deployed a 250-bed federal medical shelter in New Orleans and five medical assistance teams available throughout the state.


As the hurricane hit, more than 600 members of the National Guard have been activated in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas, and other states to support search and rescue and recovery efforts. For those who have lost their home, states have been working with the American Red Cross to open almost 50 shelters across the Gulf Coast. We know that there is much to be done in this response on our part. I get hourly updates on the progress from FEMA, well into the night, and we will be working around the clock until the critical needs of the region are fully met and we will meet them. Even as we tackle the core elements of the disaster response, we are also deploying new tools to help speed this recovery, things that have not been used very much in prior hurricane responses. Working with private companies that own and operate the lifeline infrastructure like electricity and communications, we have used the latest technology to accelerate restoration of power and cell phone service. For example, to minimum the amount of time it will take to get the power back to everyone I have directed the federal aviation commission, the FAA, authorize the use of surveillance drones to assess Ida's damage to energy infrastructure while ensuring those slights to not disrupt aerial search and rescue missions. Likewise, I have asked the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy to immediately make available any satellite imagery they can help provide in assessing the extent of the damage. Drones and satellites can make the work faster by getting to the places that are most desperately in need. They can identify where the lines are down, map the damage, help get the transmission lines back up and running in all the parishes. But people, hardworking people, do the complicated and dangerous work. In Alabama two have died on the job. It is important to know that the region hit by Ida is a key center of our nation's oil production and refining infrastructure, that is why we are not waiting to assess the full impact the storm is going to have on oil production and refineries. We are moving already quickly to increase the availability of gas and easing the pressure on gas prices around the country. I have directed the Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, to use all of the tools at her disposal, including using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep gas flowing to the pumps. In order to get critical supplies to the region to beat the pandemic, I directed the Department of Transportation to renew an energy declaration to provide flexibility on how many hours a truck driver can drive.


Most people do not know there is a limitation on the number of hours you can be on the road. The transportation department is broadening that emergency declaration to include transportation of gasoline and other types of fuel as well in addition to medical supplies and food. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency has approved emergency waivers for Louisiana and Mississippi that will expand the supply of gasoline that can be sold in those states and increase availability at such a critical time. These actions should help reduce the risk of gas shortages and price increases as a result of the hurricane. We also know a lot of people lost cell phone service because their particular carrier's tower went down or got damaged. A few days ago I asked the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, and my White House team to work with the cell phone companies to allow customers to use roaming services, so that means that folks in the area should be able to get a signal no matter what carrier they are up on. If they are one carrier down they can roam and use another carrier they are not part of, they are not signed up with. Just think of the sons and the daughters, moms and dads, and loved ones trying to reach each other and the feeling of fear or maybe something happened and it is just because the cell phones not working. Now, a lot of private companies and public entities are doing their part. Today I am calling on insurance companies not to evade the responsibility, to keep the priorities they made to their customers and the promises they made and help some folks who are hurting. Here is the deal, FEMA is providing critical needs assistance, for example, to help the hotel bill you racked up because you could not stay in your home during the hurricane. The Department of Housing and Urban affairs, HUD, is also offering assistance to families in impacted areas, but right now we are hearing reports that some insurance companies may deny coverage for additional living assistance expenses unless the homeowner was under a mandatory evacuation order. People pay their insurance premiums and they are supposed to get payments from their insurance companies for relocation costs, but insurance companies in the face of the strongest storm since 1850 say, No, no, we are not going to pay you what we owe you, because the fact is parishes in Louisiana like Orleans and St. John's issued a voluntary event order at first and may not have even had enough time to make a mandatory one as the storm moved in so fast.


Other parishes, a voluntary evacuation order suggested that residents could try to protect themselves by sheltering in place against the ferocious winds. We can all understand why folks felt safest leaving their homes and going elsewhere, out of the path of the devastating storm. No one, no one fled this killer storm because they were looking for a vacation or a road trip, to be able to stay in a hotel, they left their homes because they felt it was flee or risk death, there is nothing voluntary about that, so I am calling on the private insurance companies right now at this critical moment, do not hide behind the fine print and technicality. Keep your commitments to your communities that you insured. Do the right thing and pay your policy holders what do you owe them to cover the cost of temporary housing in the midst of a natural disaster. Help those in need, that is what all of us need to do. That is what we are trying to do. I have tasked my Senior Advisor, Cedric Richmond, a New Orleans neighbor and former Congressman from Louisiana's 2nd District for 10 years to lead this relief effort. He knows the area, he knows the people, he knows how to get things done. He knows they get things done when local, state, and federal level are all working together alongside the private sector. The people of Louisiana and Mississippi are resilient and resourceful. We are going to stand with you for as long as it takes to recover and allow you to rebuild. And to the country, the past few days of Hurricane Ida and the wildfires in the west and the unprecedented flash floods in New York and New Jersey is yet another reminder that these extreme storms and the climate crisis are here. When Congress returns this month I am going to press for their action on my Build Back Better Plan. That is going to make historic investments in electrical infrastructure, modernizing our roads, bridges, our water systems, sewer and draining systems, electric grids and transmission lines and make them more resilient to these superstorms and wildfires, and floods that are going to happen with increasing frequency and ferocity. We are reminded that this is not about politics. Hurricane Ida did not care if you were a Democrat or a Republican, rural or urban, this destruction is everywhere and it is a matter of life and death and we are all in this together. This is one of the great challenges of our time, but I am confident we will meet it.


It is an honor to be here today with the members of the American Tort Reform Association. You know, we'd originally planned to meet across the street in the White House, but it turned out there was so much interest, we had to find a bigger hall. Now, I know that you have already heard from the Attorney General and the Secretary of Commerce and a number of others, so I will try to keep my own remarks brief. Given the subject, I would not want anyone to mistake me for a lawyer. But looking out, I can see what a diverse group we make up from Boy Scouts to businessmen, from campers to child-care workers. This is an all-American event, because this problem affects all of America-every man, woman, and child. Originally, of course, tort law protected innocent people against wrongful damage or injury. Rooted in the Middle Ages, tort law became especially important at the onset of the Industrial Revolution, when ordinary men and women began to find themselves presented with services and products they'd never before encountered. By providing consumers with a measure of protection, tort law enabled them to enter this new marketplace with a certain confidence and ease. Back in the days when toothpaste was a newfangled invention, for example, consumers could purchase it with a much greater sense of assurance when they knew that, because of tort law, the manufacturers had to take all reasonable steps to make certain that the product was both effective and safe. Maybe some of you will remember a passage in Huckleberry Finn that deals with this very subject. I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth, and it does take it off, too, and generally the enamel along with it. [ Twain never mentions tort law, but it is there in the background, the force that kept this character in the book constantly on the run up and down the Mississippi. And in the real world it was, in large part, tort law that reduced such swindlers from an actual presence in our economic life to figures that we remember with laughter. So, over the years, tort law has helped us drive the malevolent and the negligent out of the marketplace. This, in turn, has permitted legitimate economic innovation to take its course and raise living standards throughout the Nation. Twisted and abused, tort law has become a pretext for outrageous legal outcomes outcomes that impede our economic life, not promote it.

Remarks to Members of the American Tort Reform Association


Listen to just a few cases, and I hope I will not be repeating some that maybe have already been told to you. In California, a man was using a public telephone booth to place a call. An alleged drunk driver careened down the street, lost control of her car, and crashed into the phone booth. the telephone company and associated firms. That is right, according to Chief Justice Rose Bird of the California Supreme Court, a jury could find that the companies responsible for the design, location, installation, and maintenance of the telephone booth were liable. In another case, suit was brought by a man who suffered a heart attack while having some trouble starting a lawn mower. He claimed that pulling the starter rope was the cause of the attack. I suppose all this might be amusing if such absurd results only took place occasionally. In the past two decades the number of awards involving a million dollars or more has climbed from just 1 a year to more than 400 a year. Between 1975 and 1985, the average award in a product liability case more than quadrupled, to some $1.8 million. During the same period, the average medical malpractice verdict I said average went up more than 350 percent, to over a million dollars. This expansion of tort liability penalizes virtually every American-manufacturers, doctors, small businessmen, government at all levels, nonprofit organizations, entrepreneurs, and perhaps most severely, the consumer. On one of the Hawaiian islands, all the doctors on that island who had once delivered babies have stopped doing so because their malpractice premiums were outstripping their fees; pregnant women must now travel elsewhere, to another island, for their needs. In 1984 Connaught Laboratories discontinued distribution of an important vaccine for children because it could not obtain liability insurance. It later succeeded in doing so, but only at a very high cost. As a result, in just 3 years the cost of this vaccine rose from 11 cents per dose to $4.50. Hundreds of American cities and towns find themselves unable to afford basic liability coverage. The city of Blue Lake, California, has been forced to shut its skating rink, tennis court, and parks. And at New York's famous Coney Island Amusement Park, they have had to close the roller coaster. Even everyday items contain hidden costs that arise from the expansion of tort liability.


It is been estimated, for example, that 20 percent of the cost of an ordinary stepladder goes to pay for liability insurance, lawyers, and related costs. And because the Boy Scouts of America have been forced to increase their insurance coverage, it is feared that every Boy Scout and Cub Scout troop may have to be assessed some $20-not an insignificant sum in the underprivileged neighborhoods that perhaps need the Boy Scouts most. These problems have begun to eat away at the fabric of American life. There is still such a thing as common sense, and this ain't it! The time has come for action. Earlier this year I endorsed the report of my Domestic Policy Council's Tort Policy Working Group. This report contains a number of recommendations, recommendations that include fixed-dollar limitations for certain kinds of awards and the establishment of assurances that liability judgments go to those actually wronged or injured and not to the lining of their attorney's pockets. Now, one of the report's most important recommendations urged our administration to submit reform legislation to the Congress. This legislation, carefully drafted, has now been introduced in the Congress by Senator Robert Kasten and Congressman Hamilton Fish. It restores the fault standard, which requires that actual fault or wrongdoing must be established in most cases before liability can be assessed. It limits pain-and-suffering and punitive damage awards, awards the amount contingency-fee lawyers could earn, and restricts the joint and several liability doctrine that can force a single defendant to pay all damages even if he is only partly to blame. To be sure, much tort law would remain to be reformed by the 50 States, not the Federal Government. And in our Federal system of government this is only right. Many of the Tort Policy Working Group recommendations, for example, would have to be implemented at the State level to be fully effective. This administration's bill represents a much-needed overhaul of Federal laws governing interstate commerce one of the fields of authority the Federal Government is specifically granted by the Constitution and sets an example of common sense for the rest of the Nation to follow. Many here have been following this issue closely. Indeed, there are stalwarts in this hall who have been out front since the beginning, and I am grateful for your support. Now I ask you to join me in urging the Congress to pass this bill and to do so with dispatch.


All our fighting men overseas today have their appointed stations on the far-flung battlefronts of the world. We at home have ours too. We need, we are proud of, our fighting men most decidedly. But, during the anxious times ahead, let us not forget that they need us too. It goes almost without saying that we must continue to forge the weapons of victory- the hundreds of thousands of items, large and small, essential to the waging of the war. This has been the major task from the very start, and it is still a major task. This is the very worst time for any war worker to think of leaving his machine or to look for a peacetime job. And it goes almost without saying, too, that we must continue to provide our Government with the funds necessary for waging war not only by the payment of taxes- which, after all, is an obligation of American citizenship but also by the purchase of war bonds- an act of free choice which every citizen has to make for himself under the guidance of his own conscience. Whatever else any of us may be doing, the purchase of war bonds and stamps is something all of us can do and should do to help win the war. I am happy to report tonight that it is something which nearly everyone seems to be doing. Although there are now approximately sixty-seven million persons who have or earn some form of income, eighty-one million persons or their children have already bought war bonds. They have bought more than six hundred million individual bonds. Their purchases have totaled more than thirty-two billion dollars. These are the purchases of individual men, women, and children. Anyone who would have said this was possible a few years ago would have been put down as a starry-eyed visionary. But of such visions is the stuff of America fashioned. I am reminded of the fact that after the fall of France in 1940 I asked the Congress for the money for the production by the United States of fifty thousand airplanes per year. And yet today we are building airplanes at the rate of one hundred thousand a year. There is a direct connection between the bonds you have bought and the stream of men and equipment now rushing over the English Channel for the liberation of Europe.

Fireside Chat.


Tonight, therefore, on the opening of this Fifth War Loan Drive, it is appropriate for us to take a broad look at this panorama of world war, for the success or the failure of the drive is going to have so much to do with the speed with which we can accomplish victory and the peace. While I know that the chief interest tonight is centered on the English Channel and on the beaches and farms and the cities of Normandy, we should not lose sight of the fact that our armed forces are engaged on other battlefronts all over the world, and that no one front can be considered alone without its proper relation to all. It is worth while, therefore, to make over-all comparisons with the past. At that time Germany was in control of practically all of Europe, and was steadily driving the Russians back toward the Ural Mountains. Germany was practically in control of North Africa and the Mediterranean, and was beating at the gates of the Suez Canal and the route to India. Japan was in control of the western Aleutian Islands; and in the South Pacific was knocking at the gates of Australia and New Zealand- and also was threatening India. Japan had seized control of most of the Central Pacific. American armed forces on land and sea and in the air were still very definitely on the defensive, and in the building-up stage. Our allies were bearing the heat and the brunt of the attack. In 1942 Washington heaved a sigh of relief that the first war bond issue had been cheerfully oversubscribed by the American people. Way back in those days, two years ago, America was still hearing from many amateur strategists and political critics, some of whom were doing more good for Hitler than for the United States- two years ago. But today we are on the offensive all over the world bringing the attack to our enemies. In the Pacific, by relentless submarine and naval attacks, and amphibious thrusts, and ever-mounting air attacks, we have deprived the Japs of the power to check the momentum of our ever-growing and ever-advancing military forces. We have reduced the Japs' shipping by more than three million tons. We have overcome their original advantage in the air. We have cut off from a return to the homeland tens of thousands of beleaguered Japanese troops who now face starvation or ultimate surrender. And we have cut down their naval strength, so that for many months they have avoided all risk of encounter with our naval forces.

Fireside Chat.


True, we still have a long way to go to Tokyo. But, carrying out our original strategy of eliminating our European enemy first and then turning all our strength to the Pacific, we can force the Japanese to unconditional surrender or to national suicide much more rapidly than has been thought possible. Turning now to our enemy who is first on the list for destruction- Germany has her back against the wall- in fact three walls at once! In the south- we have broken the German hold on central Italy. On June 4, the city of Rome fell to the Allied armies. And allowing the enemy no respite, the Allies are now pressing hard on the heels of the Germans as they retreat northwards in evergrowing confusion. On the east our gallant Soviet allies have driven the enemy back from the lands which were invaded three years ago. The great Soviet armies are now initiating crushing blows. Overhead vast Allied air fleets of bombers and fighters have been waging a bitter air war over Germany and Western Europe. to destroy German war industries which maintain the German armies and air forces; and to shoot the German Luftwaffe out of the air. As a result, German production has been whittled down continuously, and the German fighter forces now have only a fraction of their former power. This great air campaign, strategic and tactical, is going to continue with increasing power. And on the west the hammer blow which struck the coast of France last Tuesday morning, less than a week ago, was the culmination of many months of careful planning and strenuous preparation. Millions of tons of weapons and supplies, and hundreds of thousands of men assembled in England, are now being poured into the great battle in Europe. I think that from the standpoint of our enemy we have achieved the impossible. We have broken through their supposedly impregnable wall in northern France. But the assault has been costly in men and costly in materials. Some of our landings were desperate adventures; but from advices received so far, the losses were lower than our commanders had estimated would occur. We have established a firm foothold. We are now prepared to meet the inevitable counterattacks of the Germans with power and with confidence. And we all pray that we will have far more, soon, than a firm foothold. The liberation forces now streaming across the Channel, and up the beaches and through the fields and the forests of France are using thousands and thousands of planes and ships and tanks and heavy guns.

Fireside Chat.


Ladies and gentlemen, we can get all this out of the way early. It is a distinct privilege for Barbara and me to salute this evening an extraordinary leader of honor, compassion, and courage. With the greatest admiration, we welcome to the White House Nicaragua's President, Violeta Chamorro. Or, as I hear she was known by her growing family, or the family growing up, Madre Superiora. For those of you who do not speak good Spanish -- -- that means Mother Superior. For even as a young girl, Violeta could get her brothers and sisters standing at attention as she cracked her benevolent whip to get her family's house in order. Well, now, this Mother Superior is getting her nation's house in order, and we honor her for it. We honor her as the conciliator who is forging a future of peace and unity for her beleaguered land, as the elected leader who ended a bitter civil war and who replaced a repressive and undemocratic regime, as the President whom history will acclaim as the liberator of not only her country's government but also of its heartbeat, its spirit. Her people call her Dona Violeta, a name of affection and respect. And as I have come to know her I have understood, for she personifies the blend of resolve and compassion that inspires a nation to become the best it can be. I will tell you something that impresses me. Not only is she working resolutely to bring about tangible reforms expanding democracy and economic opportunity, but she is also embarked on what she terms a quest to restore moral values. a triangle for equality, a rainbow for peace, and a shower of light for liberty shining throughout the land, liberty that is embodied by Violeta Chamorro and by her late husband and inspiration, Pedro Joaquin. He used to own a boat named Santa Libertad, glorious liberty. Well, the world now watches as his widow steers her own Santa Libertad, her ship of state, bound for a bright horizon that promises freedom, respect, and dignity for every person in her land. On a shelf in President Chamorro's office is a plaque of a prayer she tries to live by. A prayer that, in fact, reminds me of her. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love.

Toasts at the State Dinner for President Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua


IT IS nice to see you all, and it is very, very nice to have you in the White House and in the East Room. I think it is particularly appropriate that we meet here in the East Room to chat for a few minutes about some of our Nation's problems. As I think most of you know, the East Room is very, very rich in history in our National Capital. This famous room is full of happy as well as sad moments in the lives of residents of this house and in this Nation's past. You might be interested to know that the first First Lady in this house was Abigail Adams, who wrote her family of hanging laundry in this room and the problems of the new Federal City. Adams sent news to her family of the large and small problems that she faced as First Lady--the same kind of news, I might add, that you in this room share with your readers back home. I have some very fond memories of non-metropolitan weekly and daily newspapers in the Fifth District of Michigan, which was, of course, the district that I had the honor and privilege of representing for over 25 years. During the various Congressional campaigns that I had--13 in all--I advertised very, very heavily, with good results----which I think is a tribute to the impact that all of you in your respective communities has on the people that you represent. I know firsthand that the weekly newspaper or the daily newspaper in a suburban area is the best means of communication, and I have been in many homes in rural areas as wall as in small towns where the paper that came on Thursday or Friday was still good reading material on the following Wednesday. In recent years, the growth in the number of suburban newspapers, I think, reflects the importance of this brand of personal journalism. In an age of mass communications, you are in the business--and fortunately--the business of local communications. It is my judgment, as I expressed a moment ago, that you fill a very important need for your readers--the need to know about the problems of the local community. Although we must recognize--and we do--that the world has grown small and interdependent in many, many ways, the fact remains that the news around the corner and down the street is still mighty important to people all over this great country. We live in a very mobile society, and too many of us, we have been pulled away from our communities.

Remarks to Participants in the Government Affairs Conference of the National Newspaper Association.


We have been pulled away from the roots of our early youth. Yet, your newspapers put us in touch with our new communities and give us links to our hometowns. I think it is very fortunate that you are a part of the dialog that keeps self-government going--healthy, strong, and very critical in these days. Naturally, I admire your work, but I add very quickly that I need your help. A meaningful discussion of national problems cannot take place only on network television or in large metropolitan newspapers, because these forums do not provide sufficient opportunity for audience response and direct participation. One of the reasons, in my judgment, it is important for me and members of this Administration to travel around our country and to meet in Washington with groups like this one is to listen as well as to talk about the Nation's problems. Perhaps my Congressional background convinced me of the value of face-to-face contact, but there is no substitute for the discussions of ideas in person with community leaders such as yourselves. The best briefing paper in the world cannot explain problems as well as someone who deals with those problems on a very daily and direct basis. Government officials, I have learned, whether it was in the Congress or in this house, need more talkback from the people that they serve, and that is particularly true of those of us in Washington in the political atmosphere in which we live. This town can be just as parochial as a town of 250 people, and in some respects it is even more so. One of our ways at the White House of getting talkback is the briefing sessions that you have participated in, but another is for you to send your comments, your editorials to Ron Nessen of our Press Office. We need to hear from you, and we need to hear from the readers that all of you serve. We also need your help in describing the problems and the solutions that seem to be the best answer to the problems that we have. But the economic and energy debate underway now must not become simply an exchange of rhetoric, whether it is in the printed media, the electronic media, or just plain talk among people. The debate, as I see it, must produce action. In January, for example, this Administration outlined a comprehensive program to deal with some very harsh realities facing our Nation, both economically and in energy. We made some hard, stern choices in drawing up the Administration plan.