Now, a third area that we should look to, having covered both the defense area and the economic area, relates to this whole matter of the organization of government.  The American people, at the present time, feel that we need some very significant changes in government, and they are right. They are fed up with government at all levels. They think it costs too much; they think it does not work; and they think they do not have enough to say about it. All of our plans in revenue sharing, general revenue sharing, special revenue sharing, Government reorganization, are designed to get at those three nagging questions that Americans want. We are trying to make government cost less; we are trying to make it work better, and we are trying to give people who are affected by government more of a voice in what kind of government they want, how much government they want. Those who suggest that our general and special revenue sharing, or either or both, or reorganization, any of these programs, would have the effect of having Washington have a bigger voice, of course, are 180 degrees wrong; because what has happened is that as we have grown in categorical grants, with over 400 major ones at the present time, this means that the Congress, the Federal Government, passes out money, in effect, to the States and the cities, and the Governors and the mayors, et cetera, simply become clerks for the purpose of dispensing it according to whatever rules are handed down by the Federal Government. We want to change that, and as the briefers have already indicated, we think this historic change is needed. We think the people want it. It goes far beyond simply rescuing the States and cities from a fiscal crisis. It goes to the heart of the problem of government in this country, and it is something that is basically needed if our government is to meet the responsibilities that it will have to meet in this very competitive and very crucial time in the last third of this century when the quality of American government, the quality of American leadership, and the faith of the American people in their government may determine not only our future but the future of hundreds of millions of other people on this earth. That I firmly believe and that is why I consider this so important. I come now to another point that perhaps may seem somewhat--in view of the rather hard news points that I have tried to emphasize up to this time--that seem not as realistic, but which I think in the final analysis may be even more important.


If the United States is to play the role that it needs to play, we need first to have military strength. We need a strong economy. We need a government that is responsive to the peoples' needs, that costs less, that works better. But we can have all these and still fail unless this country develops a new spirit. I say a new spirit. I am not speaking of any one individual or one area. I am speaking of the Nation as a whole--a new spirit of unity, a new spirit among its people of confidence in ourselves and faith in our future. Now I do not mean to suggest that-most Americans, I think most, still have confidence in this country. They believe in it. They have faith in our future. We are a confident people by nature. We are a very idealistic people by nature. We want to hear good news. We are terribly depressed by bad news. We cannot take the ups and downs as the great powers of the past have taken them and ridden them through. But at the present time, it is vitally important that this Nation attain a sense of unity which can only come from sharing our concerns about our common ideals. Let me not cover it in detail--that would take too much time--but simply to touch upon three or four points very briefly. I referred a moment ago to Woodrow Wilson's remarks when he came to Mobile in 1913, the year I was born, and he spoke of the end of imperialism. He said, American imperialism in the world, but I am sure that he believed that. We think of what has happened since that time, four wars, and America was in all of them-World War II, World War I, Korea, and then Vietnam. And then we look at those wars and what do we say to our young people about them, about all of them? We can argue about whether it was a mistake to go into any. My mother and grandmother and my grandmother on my mother's side would have said, yes, it was a mistake, because they were pacifists and they even disagreed when I was in World War II. Many others would say that.

Remarks to Southern News Media Representatives Attending a Briefing on Domestic Policy in Birmingham, Alabama


But when we look at the U.S. role in the world in those four wars, whatever our mistakes may have been, we at least can be proud of the fact that we did not start any of them, we gained nothing from them and asked nothing from them in the way of domination over any other people, and third we came to the aid of people whose freedom was threatened. Now I will not go into a rather meaningless debate at this point, because we all have our views, and we are probably pretty concrete about them, about the war in which we are presently engaged. But as far as the motivation of America, why we are doing what we are doing, its motivation has no imperialistic overtones, its motivation as was the case in Korea, World War I, and World War II is to help another nation whose freedom, independence, call it what you will, is threatened and also to build a more peaceful world. That is a record that we can be proud of. Second, as far as America's strength in the world is concerned, we need not be apologetic about it. At the present time, is there any other nation in the world that you would rather have this strength? I have been to 70 countries. I talked to the leaders of countries--leaders of countries with very different philosophies. I have yet to find a leader that feared the United States of America, that feared that we would use our armed strength for the purpose of invading it, of conquest, or for any other purpose except to help them maintain their independence. We made our mistakes. We make them now, but we in America, as we play our world role, perhaps we are naive, but we are basically idealistic, we maintain our strength for purposes of peace and not for other purposes. Turning to the domestic field, we have many faults here. I spoke in Mobile of the fact that we have differences between regions, we have differences between races, we have differences between religions, we have differences between the generations today, and these differences have at times been very destructive. We must recognize that we will always have those differences. People of different races, different religions, from different backgrounds, and of different ages are not always going to agree. Must they be a drain upon us? Must they go so far that they destroy the confidence and faith of this great Nation. Two specific points that I would like to mention.


I would say this in the North if I were speaking there; I say it in the South. I know the difficult problems most of you in the Southern States have had on the school desegregation problem. I went to school in the South, and so, therefore, I am more familiar with how Southerners feel about that problem than others. Also, I went to school in the North, or the West I should say, and I have nothing but utter contempt for the double hypocritical standard of Northerners who look at the South and point the finger and say, Why do not those Southerners do something about their race problem? Let us look at the facts. Oh, it is not over, there are problems-there was one in Chattanooga, I understand, the last couple days; there will be more. But look what has happened in the South. Today 38 percent of all black children in the South go to majority white schools. Today only 28 percent of all black children in the North go to majority white schools. It came about because farsighted leaders in the South, black and white, some of whom I am sure did not agree with the opinions handed down by the Supreme Court which were the law of the land, recognized as law-abiding citizens that they had the responsibility to meet that law of the land, and they had dealt with the problem--not completely, there is more yet to be done. The recent decision of the Supreme Court presents some more problems, but I am confident that over a period of time those problems will also be handled in a peaceful and orderly way for the most part. But let us look at the deeper significance of this. As I speak today in what is called the Heart of Dixie, I realize that America at this time needs to become one country. It has been North versus South versus West; Wall Street versus the country and the country versus the city and the rest. That does not mean we do not have differences and will not continue to have them, but those regional differences, it seems to me, must go. Presidents of the United States should come to Alabama and Mississippi and Georgia and Louisiana more than once, more often than every 50 years or every 100 years as the case might be, to some of the cities, and they should come because this is one nation, and we must speak as one nation, we must work as one nation.


Second, and here this is difficult, but we have made enormous progress, and we are going to make more. The problems of race can be and must be solved. They must be solved in an orderly way recognizing we will continue to have differences, but recognizing that unless they are solved, this destructive force, this division over an issue of this type is going to weaken this part of the country in a way that could be very, very detrimental to the national interest and weaken other parts of the country where there are also racial problems. I am suggesting that we are at a period in our country when America needs to be strong militarily, it must be strong economically, and it must be strong in its spirit, strong in its heart. I think the South traditionally has contributed to the military strength of this country. More Southerners voluntarily serve in the Armed Forces than any other part of the country. I think the New South has a greater contribution to make in terms of economic growth than perhaps any other section of the country, because the South starts from a lower base and now is moving up, not evenly, but moving up very significantly and will continue to. So, you have a great role to play in that respect. I think, too, that this part o$ the country has a very significant role to play insofar as the spirit of this country is concerned. I speak of such square things as patriotism; I speak of such things as religious faith. I also speak of such things as respect for law, even those laws that you do not like. And if this great and powerful and vibrant and dynamic part of the country can make the contribution of which it is capable, then America will have a better chance to meet the responsibility that it must meet in the world to be strong militarily, economically together with the ideological and spiritual strength which will enable us to meet our challenges. I simply close with a last thought. There is another point of view, I recognize it, I respect it, I totally disagree with it. It is that at this time America should turn away from the problems of the world and turn inward. It is a point of view which rejects new ventures, whether it is an SST or an exploration in space or whatever the case might be, because we have such terrible problems at home. It is one in which every time we see a chance for progress we consult our fears rather than our hopes.


And I would simply say that I am convinced that as opinion leaders in this country, you and me, we all have an obligation to see that America, after 190 years, now that we are the strongest nation in the world, still the richest, with more freedom, more opportunity here than any place in the world, that we do not, at this point, because of internal differences, differences between races, between religions, between regions, between ages, turn inward to attempt to solve those problems at the exclusion of moving forward, whether it is in playing our role in the world or exploring the unknown. I do not agree with everything General de Gaulle said, because he said many things about this country that were very uncomplimentary and other things that he may have been wrong about. But he was a great judge of the spirit of the people. That was his contribution to France. And he restored the French spirit and he said France is her true self only when she is engaged in a great enterprise. And America, in my view, will cease to be her true self when we cease to be engaged in an enterprise greater than ourselves, whether it is in playing our role in the world to bring peace with freedom wherever we can, whether it is exploring the unknown, whether it is moving forward in these problems, very difficult ones, human problems that we have between races and religions and generations in this country. I simply want to say that one of the reasons that these regional briefings, I think, are very important to me as an individual, it gives me an opportunity to meet the opinion leaders, to share with you my concerns and to tell you that I will, of course, do everything that I can to end the war that we are in, to have better relations to build a lasting peace, to keep the Nation strong militarily, to get this economy moving so that we can get at unemployment and resist the high inflation. But in this other field we desperately need your help to restore America's sense of confidence and sense of faith. As we travel over the world, much as we see, much as we may want to go again, that when we return we realize that we have had good fortune to live in this country at a time when what we do matters--matters to us, matters to the world. We must meet that challenge, and we can meet it materially.


I want to thank you for your kind introduction and even more for your many years of distinguished leadership for our children, our schools, our parents, and of course, for our teachers. And to all of you delegates, I want to thank you for the support you have given to our administration to help us to get here and to help us honor our commitments to the children, the teachers, and the future of America. I also want to thank you for the high honor you paid my good friend Secretary Riley by naming him your 1995 Friend of Education. I do not have to tell you that education has no better friend than Secretary Riley. I am proud to have him in my Cabinet, and I am proud to have worked with him for nearly 20 years now. He is actually doing what others say we ought to be doing. He is supporting more parental involvement. He is supporting higher standards and results-oriented programs. He is supporting accountability, but he is also supporting grassroots empowerment for teachers, for parents, and for local schools throughout this country. He is really making a difference, and he deserves the support of all Americans and all Members of Congress, without regard for their party. You know, of course, that the Vice President very much wanted to be with you today. But of course, his mother fell ill and had to have surgery yesterday. I am happy to report to you that as of this morning Mrs. Gore is doing much better. Many years ago she was the first woman lawyer in Texarkana, Arkansas, so I have always thought we have sort of had a claim on her, too. I know all of you join Hillary and me in praying for Mrs. Gore and her speedy recovery, and for her husband, Senator Gore, and for Al and Tipper and their entire family. I'd like to begin this morning by just taking a few minutes to talk about what I said when I spoke at Georgetown University a couple of hours ago. It is something I believe I should be talking about more as President. first of all, to restore the American dream and, secondly, to bring the American people together again. What I have learned from the journey we have been on for the last 2 1/2 years is that we cannot restore the American dream unless we do bring the American people together again. You and I and all Americans must talk about how we treat one another, how we reach the hard decisions we have to make during this time of profound change, how we bridge these great divides in our society.

Remarks to the National Education Association


We have got to find a way to reach common ground, a new common ground that honors our diversity but recognizes our shared values and shared interests, drawing strength from both to make the very best of what we can do in America. We have to recognize that there are real reasons why Americans feel that our sense of unity and national purpose is coming apart, why they often feel frustration and anger and confusion. The challenges of this day are new and profound, as profound as any we have faced in many, many decades. For most people my age and a little younger, two great certainties organized our lives. first, the hope of middle class dreams and, second, the strength of middle class values. Today, more and more Americans are less certain of both. The middle class dream that work will be rewarded and that the future for our children will be better is fading for too many people. More than half of all of our people are working harder to earn less than they did 15 or 20 years ago. And middle class values, the values of hard work, strong families, safe streets, secure future, those things are under attack, too, as we face threats from violence, the breakdown of families, the fraying of our social fabric, the very pace and scope of changes in this technological information age, where ideas and money and information move across the globe in a fraction of a second. The question, of course, is what are we going to do about this. That is what I have been working on for 2 years, and that is the fundamental debate now going on in Washington. And we need to have that debate not just here in Washington but all over the country. We are really back to some pretty elemental principles. So they say if everybody would just get up, go to work, behave themselves, obey the law, all of our problems would be solved. Now, on one level they are obviously right. Our problems can never be solved through purely political and community means. I have said all along, we have got to demand more responsibility from America, from all Americans. Unless people are willing to take responsibility for themselves, as every teacher knows, you cannot cram information, learning, reasoning, compassion, or good citizenship into the head of someone who will not be open to it. But at the same time, let us be completely frank. It is also true that nobody in America, no one, especially me, got where he or she is today alone.


We all have to play a role, individual citizens in their daily lives, people doing their part to help make their communities stronger, their neighbors safer, politicians in the way they deal with and address our problems. We have all got to do a better job. And I believe we have to recognize that one of the ways we all do more together is through the way our Government works and what it does to help our people meet the demands of change. Are these problems personal and cultural, on the one hand, or social and political, on the other? And there is a role, a partnership role, for the Government to help you do what you do and to help all Americans make the most of their own lives. Education is perhaps the best example of this. It is the work of your lives, but it is also the work of America's future. All of these concerns come together in education because school is where young people can learn the skills they need to pursue middle class dreams, especially now when knowledge is more important than ever to our future. School is also the place where middle class values taught by parents are reinforced by teachers, values like responsibility, honesty, trustworthiness, hard work, caring for one another and our natural environment, and good citizenship. Government plays an indispensable role in helping to make sure that the schools that you work in are as strong as possible, have the highest standards possible, provide as much opportunity as possible. A good education clearly is key to unlocking the promise of today's economy in the 21st century. Without it, people are at an ever-increasing risk of falling behind. Today, a male college graduate earns 80 percent more than a male who is just graduated from high school. That gap is double what it was just in 1979. That is why I have been fighting furiously since the day I took office to expand educational opportunity, to give all Americans a chance to grab the key to a prosperous future. As you know well, we have dramatically expanded Head Start. We passed Goals 2000 to set world-class standards for our schools and then to give grassroots reform power to empower, really empower teachers and principals and parents, to give them the flexibility to decide how to meet those standards and how to improve education. Our national service program, AmeriCorps, gives a helping hand with college for 20,000 people who are helping their country in grassroots programs all across America.


The safe and drug-free schools initiative is helping to make schools safe, places where kids can learn again and be free from fear, places where parents can trust their children to be free from crime and drugs. Our direct student loan program makes college more affordable for millions of Americans while actually cutting the cost for taxpayers. Now, there is one piece of this that is especially important for us to talk about today. As I noted before, you have just honored Dick Riley. I want to commend him for so many things, but in particular for the work the Education Department is doing to teach our children good citizenship and the values we need to stay strong. There is something that we need to remember about that Department of Education that Dick Riley is now heading and heading in the right direction. Just 18 years ago yesterday, on July 5, 1977, two sons of Minnesota, Vice President Mondale and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, shared the same stage at another NEA convention. Now, back in 1977, you all know that education policy in America fell under the giant umbrella of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, a huge bureaucratic agency responsible for health care policy and welfare responsibility and all the educational responsibilities, whether it was keeping our classrooms up to date, ensuring our public schools had the tools they need to teach our children, maintaining high curriculum standards, giving specialneeds schools and special-needs students the support they need. All those things were all lumped into this massive bureaucracy that was Health, Education, and Welfare. That was not in the best interest of public education then. It is certainly not in the best interest of the country today when education is literally the key to our economic future, to restoring middle class dreams, and it is certainly critical to reestablishing the dominance of middle class values. At that historic meeting, Vice President Humphrey made a passionate plea, and he was a very passionate man, for something the NEA had been fighting for for over 100 years, a Cabinet-level Department of Education. America's children would have only 2 more years to wait. The bill creating the Cabinet-level Department of Education was signed by President Carter in October 1979. In the last 2 1/2 years, Secretary Riley, a former Governor who labored for 8 years to dramatically improve schools in his native South Carolina, has worked hard to make the Department of Education work better than ever. We need the Department of Education today more than ever before.


And we need it even more because Dick Riley has literally reinvented it. But he is focusing on the big issues, whether it is the preschool needs of our kids, the standards and the grassroots reform we need in public schools, the need we have for school-to-work transition programs in every State in the country, the need we have for expanded and lower cost and better repayment college loans, or the need he has to cooperate with the Department of Education to give our working people the right to get the training they need the minute they become unemployed because now so many of them will have to find new jobs with higher skills. That is the record of Dick Riley; that is the record of the Department of Education; and that is why we need it. As all of you know, during this time when we have increased our investments in education, we have also cut the deficit 3 years in a row for the first time since Harry Truman was President. We are cutting it by more than a trillion dollars over 7 years. We are also cutting the bureaucracy of the National Government over a 6-year period by more than 272,000 positions to make the Federal Government the smallest it is been since President Kennedy was President. Let me tell you just how dramatic the changes have already been in 2 1/2 years. We have eliminated thousands and thousands of regulations, including regulations in the Department of Education. We have eliminated hundreds of Government programs. And the budget would be balanced today but for the interest we have to pay on just the debt run up the 12 years before I became President. We must continue to cut the deficit until we eliminate it completely and balance the budget. That is why I have proposed a plan to balance the budget in 10 years. While cutting spending to balance the budget, however, under my plan we would continue to invest in our people, especially in education. We must not sacrifice the future of our children in our zeal to save it. But let me also say to you that I know a lot of people who want to invest more money in our country question whether we actually need a balanced budget. They questioned my wisdom when I proposed a balanced budget. But let me ask you to look at the history of America. We ran deficits all during the 1970's, but we did it for good economic reasons. That was a period of stagflation, of low growth, a period when it was legitimate to stimulate the economy in a modest way by modest deficits.


We never, I reemphasize, never in the history of our Republic had a permanent structural deficit until 1981. After that, a lot of the people who got the tax cuts spent them and there was no way to reach a bipartisan consensus to lower the gap in the deficit. So we quadrupled the debt of this country in 12 years. We are 219 years old, and we have quadrupled the debt in 12 years. Now, we have to change that. Look what is happened to you. Every year in the 1980's, you had to fight to hold on to the educational advances. Every year when you knew that we needed to be investing more because many parents were able to invest less in terms of money and time in their children's education, you were often disappointed because we were spending more and more and more in interest on the debt. Next year, interest on the debt will exceed the defense budget. It takes our savings. It makes us more dependent on other economies. And it leaves us less money to invest in education, in infrastructure, in technology, in the things that will grow jobs, raise incomes, increase the middle class, and shrink the under class. So what we have to do is to balance the budget and increase investment in education. That is why I made the decision to veto the rescission bill that Congress sent me earlier last month. But it is also why I gave them an alternative. I am determined to work with the new Congress to cut the deficit and ultimately to balance the budget. But that rescission bill cut investments in our future, in education, in job training, in the environment, just to fund things that have a far lower value, even though they may be popular in the short term with specific constituencies. Now that Congress has agreed to restore funding for those investments, I will be happy to sign a bill. It will cut the deficit, and that is good. But we will also have $733 million in this year alone in critical investments, including $220 million for safe and drug-free schools, $60 million to help train teachers and pay for education reforms at the grassroots level, $105 million for AmeriCorps. As we work in the coming months to balance the budget, we have to do it in the same way. You and I know it would be self-defeating to cut our investments in education.


Our national security depends upon our ability to educate better, not just to spend more money but to reach more people, to perform at a higher level, to get real results. That is what our security depends upon. But do not kid yourselves, we have got a real fight on our hands. The congressional budget, which balances the budget in 7 years, cuts education severely, as Keith Geiger just said. My budget, which balances the budget in 10 years, increases education while cutting other spending. We are also able to go easier on Medicare and Medicaid, to take some real time and promote real health care reform, and to continue to invest in new technologies and research. All we have to do is take 3 more years and cut the size of that big tax cut roughly in half, maybe a little more. Now, I think 3 years is a pretty small price to pay to save millions and millions of dreams. Let me just give you a few examples of the difference 3 years will make. I want to increase Goals 2000 to about $900 million so that you will be able to work to improve 85,000 schools serving 44 million students. The congressional budget would eliminate Goals 2000, one of the principal engines of grassroots reform, something they say they support. I want to increase Title I by over $200 million in 1996 to serve 200,000 more children that year. Let me just say something about Title I and your efforts. All the time up here I hear the politicians saying we just throw money at education, and it does not get any results, and we spend more money and we do not show more results. Well, as the Secretary of Labor has pointed out, there are public investments in children and private investments in children. We pretty well kept up with our public investments, but our private investments are not keeping up. More and more of these children are being born in poverty, a higher percentage of them into difficult family circumstances and difficult neighborhood circumstances. And even those who have working parents have parents most of whom are working longer hours for less money. That means that parents have less money and less time to invest in our kids. Now, the Congress wants to freeze funding and deprive over one million children of the help that you can provide by 2002. I believe the money will make a difference because I know that you can make a difference.


You cannot make all the difference for what does not happen in the family, but you ought to get a lot of credit for trying and for the difference that you do make. I want to increase the school-to-work program by 60 percent next year so 43 States can help thousands of students learn the skills they need to get and keep high-paying jobs, even when they do not go on to 4-year universities. We are the only major industrialized country that does not have a system for dealing with all of the high school graduates who do not go on to 4year schools. Now, the Congress wants to cut it to half that amount. I want to expand AmeriCorps to 50,000 people next year. Congress has proposed to eliminate it completely. Those 20,000 young people that are out there now, working with each other across the lines of race and region and religion and income are revolutionizing America at the grassroots level, solving problems, serving their communities, being good citizens, doing things that other people just give talks about, and earning money to pay for their education. We ought to keep national service, and we ought to expand it. We have reformed the college loan system to make college more affordable for up to 20 million Americans. Secretary Riley has done a masterful job, along with his staff, in administering the direct loan program, which actually increases the availability of loans, lowers the cost to students, lowers the paperwork burden to colleges and universities, and cuts the cost to the taxpayers. Now, the congressional majority wants to cut $10 billion from the student loan program by removing the interest subsidy during the time of the student's education, which will raise costs significantly for up to 7 million students. In the 1980's, the cost of a college education was the only thing that went up more rapidly than the cost of health care among the essential things that families need for the future. I do not think it is a very good idea to cut the college loan program. Under my plan, we balance the budget and increase educational investment by $40 billion in proven programs that work. The plan of the Republican majority in Congress balances the budget, but it cuts education by $36 billion, not counting the cuts in student loans. Now, I am not for a minute suggesting that balancing the budget is easy. We will have to cut spending in other domestic programs about 20 percent across the board.


But the difference between my plan and the congressional plan is the difference between necessary cutbacks and unnecessary, ultimately self-defeating pain. One distinguished business analysis has said that the Republican budget cuts so much so fast that it will actually increase unemployment and bring on a recession and, therefore, delay the time when they can balance the budget. Now, we do have a responsibility to balance the budget. And I give them a lot of credit for proposing a balanced budget. But we have also got a responsibility to invest in our children and our future. We cannot restore the economy, we cannot rebuild the middle class, we cannot recapture middle class dreams or reinforce middle class values if we walk away from our common responsibilities, the education of our people. If we will just take 10 years instead of 7, if we cut taxes for the middle class and focus on childrearing and education, and do not have big tax cuts for people who do not really need it because they are well-off and doing very well in this economy, then we can balance the budget and improve education. We can do both, and that is what I want you to fight for. Our mission, your mission and mine, has got to be to build a bridge to the future that every American can cross. We have to give people the power they need to make the most of their own lives. That is what is behind this, balancing the budget and investing in education means building up America. And it is behind what I called for earlier today at Georgetown, a new common ground in which we come together to solve our problems. I want our children's generation to inherit an America with as much opportunity as the one I was brought into. The best days of America should be, can be, will be before us if we work together. If people take the kind of responsibility you have taken to make our country better, we will do better. But it is going to take a good attitude. It is going to take good citizenship. It is going to take a willingness to listen to one another to find that common ground. I have made a commitment that when I differ with the Republican Congress, I will offer an alternative. I have made a commitment that I will have more conversation and less combat, like I did with my conversation with the Speaker up in New Hampshire. I have made a commitment to try to work for the long-term interests of our country, not just for the short-term gain.


It is good to be with you again. I understand you have not had much of a problem attracting speakers. I thank you for inviting me. See, it is an honor to stand with the men and women of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The VFW is one of our Nation's finest organizations. You belong to an elite group of Americans. You belong to a group of people who have defended America overseas. You have fought in places from Normandy to Iwo Jima to Pusan to Khe Sahn to Kuwait to Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. You brought security to the American people. You brought hope to millions across the world. As members of this proud organization, you are advocates for the rights of our military veterans, a model of community service, and a strong and important voice for a strong national defense. I thank you for your service. I thank you for what you have done for the United States of America. I stand before you as a wartime President. I wish I did not have to say that, but an enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, declared war on the United States of America. And war is what we are engaged in. The struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization. We fight for a free way of life against a new barbarism, an ideology whose followers have killed thousands on American soil and seek to kill again on even a greater scale. We fight for the possibility that decent men and women across the broader Middle East can realize their destiny and raise up societies based on freedom and justice and personal dignity. And as long as I am Commander in Chief, we will fight to win. I am confident we will prevail because we have the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known, the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. For those of you who wear the uniform, nothing makes me more proud to say that I am your Commander in Chief. Now, I know some people doubt the universal appeal of liberty or worry that the Middle East is not ready for it. Others believe that America's presence is destabilizing and that if the United States would just leave a place like Iraq, those who kill our troops or target civilians would no longer threaten us. Today I am going to address these arguments.

Remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri


I am going to describe why helping the young democracies of the Middle East stand up to violent Islamic extremists is the only realistic path to a safer world for the American people. I am going to try to provide some historical perspective to show there is a precedent for the hard and necessary work we are doing and why I have such confidence in the fact that we will be successful. Before I do so, I want to thank the national commander-in-chief of the VFW and his wife Nancy. It is been a joy to work with Gary and the staff. As Gary said, We do not necessarily agree a hundred percent of the time. I remember the old Lieutenant Governor of Texas, a Democrat, and I was a Republican Governor. He said, Governor, if we agreed 100 percent of the time, one of us would not be necessary. We agree our veterans deserve the full support of the United States Government. That is why in this budget I submitted there is $87 billion for the veterans. It is the highest level of support ever for the veterans in American history. We agree that health care for our veterans is a top priority, and that is why we have increased health care spending for our veterans by 83 percent since I was sworn in as your President. We agree that a troop coming out of Iraq or Afghanistan deserves the best health care, not only as an active duty citizen but as a military guy, but as-also as a vet-eran-and you are going to get the best health care we can possibly provide. We agree our homeless vets ought to have shelter, and that is what we are providing. In other words, we agree the veterans deserve the full support of our Government, and that is what you are going to get as George W. Bush as your President. I want to thank Bob Wallace, the executive director. He spends a lot of time in the Oval Office. I am always checking the silverware drawer. He is going to be bringing in George Lisicki here soon. He is going to be the national commander-in-chief for my next year in office. And I am looking forward to working with George, and I am looking forward to working with Wallace, and I am looking forward to hearing from you . They are going to find an openminded President dedicated to doing what is right. I appreciate the fact-.


I appreciate Linda Meader, the national president of the Ladies Auxiliary-she brought old Dave with her-Virginia Carman, the incoming president. I want to thank Deputy Secretary of the Veterans Affairs Gordon Mansfield for joining us today. I appreciate the United States Senator from the State of Missouri, strong supporter of the military and strong supporter of the veterans, Kit Bond. Two Members of the Congress have kindly showed up today. Congressman Emanuel Cleaver-no finer man, no more decent a fellow than Emanuel Cleaver-is with us and a great Congressman from right around the corner here, Congressman Sam Graves. Lieutenant General Jack Stultz, commanding general, U.S. ENTITY Reserve Command, is with us today. Lieutenant General Bill Caldwell, commanding general, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is with us today as well. Thank you all for letting me come by. I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack and our Nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe. The enemy who attacked us despises freedom and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and the Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the violence and give up the fight. If this story sounds familiar, it is, except for one thing. The enemy I have just described is not Al Qaida, and the attack is not 9/11, and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Usama bin Laden. Instead, what I have described is the war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia. Ultimately, the United States prevailed in World War II, and we have fought two more land wars in Asia. And many in this hall were veterans of those campaigns. Yet even the most optimistic among you probably would not have foreseen that the Japanese would transform themselves into one of America's strongest and most steadfast allies, or that the South Koreans would recover from enemy invasion to raise up one of the world's most powerful economies, or that Asia would pull itself out of poverty and hopelessness as it embraced markets and freedom.


The lesson from Asia's development is that the heart's desire for liberty will not be denied. Once people even get a small taste of liberty, they are not going to rest until they are free. Today's dynamic and hopeful Asia-a region that brings us countless benefits-would not have been possible without America's presence and perseverance. And it would not have been possible without the veterans in this hall today, and I thank you for your service. There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we are fighting today. But one important similarity is, at their core, they are ideological struggles. The militarists of Japan and the Communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others. Today, the names and places have changed, but the fundamental character of the struggle has not changed. Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own, a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance, and dissent. Like our enemies in the past, they kill Americans because we stand in their way of imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world. We are still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle, but we do know how the others ended, and that knowledge helps guide our efforts today. The ideals and interests that led America to help the Japanese turn defeat into democracy are the same that lead us to remain engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq. The defense strategy that refused to hand the South Koreans over to a totalitarian neighbor helped raise up a Asian Tiger that is the model for developing countries across the world, including the Middle East. The result of American sacrifice and perseverance in Asia is a freer, more prosperous, and stable continent, whose people want to live in peace with America, not attack America. Today, most of the nations in Asia are free, and its democracies reflect the diversity of the region. Some of these nations have constitutional monarchies, some have parliaments, and some have presidents. Their governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and they desire to live in peace with their neighbors. Many times in the decades that followed World War II, American policy in Asia was dismissed as hopeless and naive.


And when we listen to the criticism of the difficult work that our generation is undertaking in the Middle East today, we can hear the echoes of the same arguments made about the Far East years ago. In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then, as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom. Some said Japanese culture was inherently incompatible with democracy. Joseph Grew, a former United States Ambassador to Japan who served as Harry Truman's Under Secretary of State, told the President flatly that-and I quote- democracy in Japan would never work. He was not alone in that belief. Democracy simply would not work. Other critics said that Americans were imposing their ideals on the Japanese. For example, Japan's Vice Prime Minister asserted that allowing Japanese women to vote would retard the progress of Japanese politics. It is interesting what General Mac-Arthur wrote in his memoirs. There was much criticism of my support for the enfranchisement of women. Many Americans, as well as many other so-called experts, expressed the view that Japanese women were too steeped in the tradition of subservience to their husbands to act with any degree of political independence. That is what General MacArthur observed. In the end, Japanese women were given the vote; 39 women won parliamentary seats in Japan's first free election. Today, Japan's Minister of Defense is a woman, and just last month, a record number of women were elected to Japan's Upper House. There are other critics, believe it or not, that argue that democracy could not succeed in Japan because the national religion, Shinto, was too fanatical and rooted in the Emperor. Senator Richard Russell denounced the Japanese faith and said that if we did not put the Emperor on trial, any steps we may take to create democracy are doomed to failure. The Emperor system must disappear if Japan is ever really to be democratic. Those who said Shinto was incompatible with democracy were mistaken. And fortunately, Americans and Japanese leaders recognized it at the time, because instead of suppressing the Shinto faith, American authorities worked with the Japanese to institute religious freedom for all faiths. Instead of abolishing the imperial throne, Americans and Japanese worked together to find a place for the Emperor in the democratic political system.


And the result of all these steps was that every Japanese citizen gained freedom of religion, and the Emperor remained on his throne, and Japanese democracy grew stronger because it embraced a cherished part of Japanese culture. And today, in defiance of the critics and the doubters and the skeptics, Japan retains its religions and cultural traditions and stands as one of the world's greatest free societies. It is an interesting observation, one historian put it, he said, Had these erstwhile experts -he was talking about people criticizing the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society-he said, Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early stage. A democratic Japan has brought peace and prosperity to its people. Its foreign trade and investment have helped jump-start the economies of others in the region. The alliance between our two nations is the linchpin for freedom and stability throughout the Pacific. Japan has transformed from America's enemy in the ideological struggle of the 20th century to one of America's strongest allies in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. Critics also complained when America intervened to save South Korea from Communist invasion. Then, as now, the critics argued that the war was futile, that we should never have sent our troops in, or they argued that America's intervention was divisive here at home. After the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950, President Harry Truman came to the defense of the South, and he found himself attacked from all sides. From the left, I.F. Stone wrote a book suggesting that the South Koreans were the real aggressors and that we had entered the war on a false pretext. From the right, Republicans vacillated. Initially, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate endorsed Harry Truman's action, saying, I welcome the indication of a more definite policy. He went on to say, I strongly hope that having adopted it, the President may maintain it intact, then later said, It was a mistake originally to go into Korea because it meant a land war. Throughout the war, the Republicans really never had a clear position. They never could decide whether they wanted the United States to withdraw from the war in Korea or expand the war to the Chinese mainland. Others complained that our troops were not getting the support from the Government.


He rejected calls to come together in a time of war on the grounds that, We will not allow the cloak of national unity to be wrapped around horrible blunders. Many in the press agreed. One columnist in the Washington Post said, The fact is that the conduct of the Korean war has been shot through with errors great and small. It is bleeding, and there is no cure for it in sight. He said that the American people could not understand why Americans are doing about 95 percent of the fighting in Korea. Many of these criticisms were offered as reasons for abandoning our commitments in Korea. And while it is true the Korean war had its share of challenges, the United States never broke its word. Today, we see the result of a sacrifice of people in this room in the stark contrast of life on the Korean Peninsula. Without Americans' intervention during the war and our willingness to stick with the South Koreans after the war, millions of South Koreans would now be living under a brutal and repressive regime. The Soviets and Chinese Communists would have learned the lesson that aggression pays. The world would be facing a more dangerous situation. Instead, South Korea is a strong, democratic ally of the United States of America. South Korean troops are serving side by side with American forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And America can count on the free people of South Korea to be lasting partners in the ideological struggle we are facing in the beginning of the 21st century. For those of you who served in Korea, thank you for your sacrifice, and thank you for your service. This is a complex and painful subject for many Americans. The tragedy of Vietnam is too large to be contained in one speech. So I am going to limit myself to one argument that has particular significance today. The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called The Quiet American. It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young Government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism and dangerous naivete. I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused. After America entered the Vietnam war, the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out, there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.


What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince, or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they have never seen and may never heard of? It is difficult to imagine, he said, how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone. Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution. In Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea. Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam war and how we left. There is no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like boat people, reeducation camps, and killing fields. There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle, those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Usama bin Laden declared that the American people had risen against their Government's war in Vietnam, and they must do the same today. His number-two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to Al Qaida's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed-and I quote-to the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents. Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans, quote, know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet. Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see it differently. We must listen to the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever.


Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror, but it is the central front. It is the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again, and it is the central front for the United States. If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened. They would use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy would follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America. Recently, two men who were on the opposite sides of the debate over the Vietnam war came together to write an article. One was a member of President Nixon's foreign policy team and the other was a fierce critic of the Nixon administration's policies. Together, they wrote that the consequences of an American defeat in Iraq would be disastrous. Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamic extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences. In Iraq, our moral obligations and our strategic interests are one. So we pursue the extremists wherever we find them, and we stand with the Iraqis at this difficult hour, because the shadow of terror will never be lifted from our world and the American people will never be safe until the people of the Middle East know the freedom that our Creator meant for all. I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history. In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives, and that freedom has yielded peace for generations. The American military graveyards across Europe attest to the terrible human cost in the fight against nazism. They also attest to the triumph of a continent that today is whole, free, and at peace.


The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we have seen in Asia and elsewhere, if we show the same perseverance and the same sense of purpose. In a world where the terrorists are willing to act on their twisted beliefs with sickening acts of barbarism, we must put faith in the timeless truths about human nature that have made us free. Across the Middle East, millions of ordinary citizens are tired of war; they are tired of dictatorship and corruption; they are tired of despair. They want societies where they are treated with dignity and respect, where their children have the hope for a better life. They want nations where their faiths are honored and they can worship in freedom. And that is why millions of Iraqis and Afghans turned out to the polls; millions turned out to the polls. And that is why their leaders have stepped forward at the risk of assassination. And that is why tens of thousands are joining the security forces of their nations. These men and women are taking great risks to build a free and peaceful Middle East, and for the sake of our own security, we must not abandon them. There is one group of people who understand the stakes, understand as well as any expert, anybody in America-those are the men and women who wear the uniform. Through nearly 6 years of war, they have performed magnificently. Day after day, hour after hour, they keep the pressure on the enemy that would do our citizens harm. They have overthrown two of the most brutal tyrannies of the world and liberated more than 50 million citizens. In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 Al Qaida terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year. We are in the fight. Today, our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and radicals, into the fight against Al Qaida, into the fight against the enemy that would do us harm. They are clearing out the terrorists out of population centers; they are giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a look at a decent and hopeful life. Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground.


Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they are gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? We will support our troops, we will support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed. Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who wants to attack us. It is critical work to lay the foundation for peace that veterans have done before you all. A free Iraq will not make decisions as quickly as the country did under the dictatorship. Many are frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand this. As I noted yesterday, the Iraqi Government is distributing oil revenues across its Provinces despite not having an oil revenue law on its books, that the Parliament has passed about 60 pieces of legislation. Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him. And it is not up to the politicians in Washington, DC, to say whether he will remain in his position; that is up to the Iraqi people, who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship. A free Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight. But a free Iraq will be a massive defeat for Al Qaida, it will be an example that provides hope for millions throughout the Middle East, it will be a friend of the United States, and it is going to be an important ally in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. Will today's generation of Americans resist the allure of retreat, and will we do in the Middle East what the veterans in this room did in Asia? At the outset of the war in the Pacific, there were those who argued that freedom had seen its day and that the future belonged to the hard men in Tokyo. A year and a half before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan's Foreign Minister gave a hint of things to come during an interview with a New York newspaper. He said, In the battle between democracy and totalitarianism, the latter adversary will without question win and will control the world. The era of democracy is finished, the democratic system bankrupt. In fact, the war machines of Imperial Japan would be brought down, brought down by good folks who only months before had been students and farmers and bank clerks and factory hands. Some are in the room today.


Just one personal note, if I might. I just returned from the hospital where I saw Betty as she came from the operating room. Lukash has assured me that she came through the operation all right. Our faith will sustain us, and Betty would expect me to be here. I thank each and every one of you for your contributions to this summit. From this summit, we are going to start going up. This is not the end, but it is the beginning of a battle against inflation and waste which will not end until it is won. I have vowed and asked all of you to resolve here that we will celebrate our Nation's 200th birthday with our economy healthy and strong, with prosperity as well as peace that brings the solid realities of a great republic. Thousands and thousands of dedicated men and women have come together in this series of inflation conferences to map the strategies and the tactics of our all-out war against America's domestic enemy number one. All of you will be the Founding Fathers--if we succeed.  Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God. And God helps those who help themselves. On this principle, Americans in two centuries have astonished the world and, time and time again, have confounded the pessimists and the cynics who said it could not be done. You have discussed many ideas. And as a result, I, along with other Americans, have gained a far better understanding of our economic problems. Perhaps we have caught glimpses of the political problems, and we understand those, but even in our controversies, we have all developed a super sense of direction. You have done your homework well. In the days immediately ahead, I will offer to the American people and to the Congress a program of action which will help bring balance and vitality to our economy. This program could not be formulated without your participation and without the support of millions of other Americans who have given us their ideas. Inflation must be stopped. But this Administration will respond not with words but with action and with programs.

Remarks Concluding the Summit Conference on Inflation


As your ENTITY, the only special interest I have, the only special interest I represent is the American people---housewives struggling with rising grocery prices, workers whose real purchasing power has eroded because of inflation, businessmen trying to control rising costs, families needing new homes but unable to find mortgage money to buy them, those thousands of unemployed who want work, the elderly locked into pension programs earned years ago--indeed, all 213 million Americans. I pledge to you that I will not shrink from the hard decisions needed to meet the problems facing each and every one of us. This is a critical hour in America's history. It requires that Americans once again rise above petty partisanship or factional interests in any segment of our society. The very future of our political and economic institutions, indeed our whole way of life, is literally at stake. Nations which cannot impose on themselves a disciplined management of their fiscal and monetary affairs are doomed to economic disorder and widespread inflation. Such discipline is imperative, it is urgent if we are to achieve a stable and expanding economy. The American people have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to submerge personal and group interests to the general welfare. When they know the chips are down, they are really down--and they have done it in the past, and they will do it again--they will respond as they always have. As part of the demanded discipline, I will send to the Congress a plan of action to keep Federal outlays for fiscal year 1975 at or under $300 billion. Every dollar the Federal Treasury must borrow is a dollar not available to the home buyer or the businessman trying to expand or other citizens who may be borrowers for good and sufficient reasons. A coherent national policy on energy is essential for economic stability. It must encourage prudent use of available energy. I will soon propose a national energy program aimed at assuring adequate internal supplies while reducing dependence on external sources. At this very minute, Secretaries Kissinger and Simon are exploring with their counterparts from four major industrial nations a coordinated plan to cope with a world energy crisis and world economic dislocations.   First, I have directed the consolidation by Executive order of all the Federal Government economic efforts, domestic and international, under a new Economic Policy Board. The Secretary of the Treasury, Bill Simon, will serve as Chairman of this Board and as my principal spokesman on matters of economic policy.


I have appointed Bill Seidman, who has done so well with this conference, to serve as my Assistant for the coordination and the implementation of economic affairs and also as Executive Director of the new Economic Policy Board. In addition to Secretary Simon and Bill Seidman, I have appointed eight Cabinet officers as members of this Board. They include Henry Kissinger, Rog Morton, Earl Butz, Fred Dent, Pete Brennan, Caspar Weinberger, Jim Lynn, and Claude Brinegar. In addition, membership includes the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Roy Ash; the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Greenspan; and the Executive Director of the Council on International Economic Policy, William Eberle. Arthur Burns, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, will attend meetings of this Board, which will start work immediately. Second, I have established by Executive order a White House Labor-Management Committee whose counsel and recommendations will not only be sought by me but given to me man-to-man and face-to-face. Eight distinguished labor leaders and eight distinguished business executives comprise its membership. The objective of this Committee is not only to serve as advisers to me on major economic policies but to help assure effective collective bargaining, promote sound wage and price policies, develop higher standards of living, boost productivity, and establish more effective manpower policies. John T. Dunlop, a dedicated public servant and professor of economics at Harvard University, has agreed--and we are very thankful--to serve as coordinator of this Committee. Representing labor on this Committee will be President George Meany of the AFL-CIO; Secretary-Treasurer Lane Kirkland of the AFL-CIO; President I. W. Abel of the United Steel Workers of America; President Murray H. Finley of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; President Paul Hall of the Seafarers International Union of North America; President Frank Fitzsimmons of the Teamsters International Union; and President Leonard Woodcock of the United Auto Workers; and President Arnold Miller of the United Mine Workers. Representing management on the Committee will be John Harper of the Aluminum Company of America; Reginald H. Jones of General Electric; Steve Bechtel of the Bechtel group; Richard Gerstenberg of General Motors; Rawleigh Warner of the Mobil Oil Company; Walter Wriston of the First National City Bank; Arthur Wood of Sears, Roebuck and Company; and R. Heath Larry of U.S. Steel.


I am proud to announce this group of 16 distinguished, outstanding American. The Council on Wage and Price Stability, recently established by Congress at my request and with my deep appreciation, is another arm I will use in the fight on inflation. I have asked Dr. Albert Rees, a distinguished economist and professor of economics at Princeton, to direct the Council's work. We are fortunate to have Dr. Rees with us. And may I express to all the people--those that I have mentioned and others that will help--their willingness to step in and help the country and 213 million people. But nobody knows better than I that councils and committees cannot win this war. The most important weapon in the fight against inflation is the spirit of the American people. This spirit is no secret weapon; it is renowned all over the world. And I call on each of you in this room, but more urgently, on each of you at home watching on television and all the other Americans across this vast land who either hear or read my words, I urge them, as I know they will, to join with all of us in a great effort to become inflation fighters and energy savers. I know all across our country the question everyone asks me is, What can I do to help? I will tell you how we can start. Right now, make a list of some 10 ways you can save energy and you can fight inflation. Little things that become habits-they do become habits--they do not really affect, in some instances, your health and happiness. They are habits that you can abandon if we are all faced with this emergency. I suggest that each person exchange your family's list with your neighbors, and I urge you and ask you to send me a copy. Some of the best ideas come from your home rather than from the White House. The success or failure of our fight against inflation rests with every individual American. Our country is above all a union, and you and I can make it a more perfect union as our fathers did. One of our delegates yesterday, Sylvia Porter, the wall-known newspaper columnist on economics, has kindly consented to help me get this voluntary citizens program organized and underway, and I thank you very, very much, Sylvia. It was dramatically pointed out here yesterday that inflation strikes our society very unevenly. Government must concern itself with those on whom the burden falls excessively. For instance, we must provide productive work for those without jobs.


We must adjust our tax system to encourage savings, stimulate productivity, discourage excessive debt, and to correct inflation-caused inequities. And I can assure the American people that the executive branch and the Congress working together will effectuate and implement such a program. May I add a very special word to our distinguished foreign guests. What you heard here yesterday and today may remind each of you of the current problems of your own country's economy. The problems of people are not very different in these days wherever they live and work. The whole world suffers from inflation. I assure you the United States is seeking honest solutions that will help, not hinder, other nations' efforts to advance or to restore their economic health. I will have extensive consultations with leaders of other governments aimed at strengthening international institutions and to assure that we never again experience worldwide and interacting inflations and deflations. From the many alternative policies which we have heard here, given in good faith, listened to in good faith, we can and will fashion a coherent and consistent program. I will present my recommendations to the Nation and to the Congress within the next 10 days. Finally, you will understand my two compelling reasons for canceling all but my most essential appointments and travel plans in order to be here in Washington. I will devote every minute that I can to forge the mass of evidence and the evaluations generated by this conference into concrete action--into concrete plans and legislative proposals. A great leader of this country--of this century, I should say--in whom the unbeatable willpower of his American heritage combined with English eloquence, rallied his embattled countrymen from almost certain defeat by a blunt promise of blood, toil, tears, and sweat. I trust we can avoid blood and tears, and we will. But I do offer you plenty of toil and plenty of sweat. I will roll up my sleeves and work every bit as hard as you do, starting this weekend, until every American is enlisted as an inflation fighter and as an energy saver until this job is done. Thank you and God bless you.


Well, it is good to see you all again. I have not thought of anything. I thought I could tell you a few things off the record. Of course, well, for instance, Steve just came in to give me a thing that just arrived about our aircraft production. I think some of us real old people remember a day when I went up to Congress and said we need for national defense fifty thousand airplanes in a year. Well, we are now up to a hundred thousand a year, and we are keeping on going keeping on making records. The two-hundred-thousandth United States-financed airplane since July 1, 1940, was accepted on May 31 of this year, a year and three days after the acceptance of the one-hundred-thousandth- which is pretty good. The first hundred thousand took 1431 days to build. The second hundred thousand took 369 days to build, approximately only a third as long. And in May, 8,851 were accepted. That was actually two percent in numbers below the March peak. But a thing that the layman does not understand, which you will understand, is that the weight, 89 million pounds, is really the controlling factor; and that was one percent over March, which is again a new high. The rest of the figures relate to different types, but just for example, just in one field of action, we have ten thousand American planes working. In another field of action, we have over five thousand American planes. Now, they are operating planes. Of course, the figures vary from day to day, but that is an awful lot of planes that we have got overseas. I have not got the figures for some of the other areas, but that is just two out of three or four different areas where we are operating planes. I hope that you are in touch with the Departments, and with Leo Crowley, about places where either there is a jam or we want more things. Now, of course, one thing we have realized, and that is that with the development of warfare we discover new things all the time- new construction. I do not suppose any one of us could have visioned three years ago the building of this vast number of landing craft, turning them out all over the place with all the things that go with landing craft. In the present operations in France, they have been badly bumped on the beaches. They sit down on top of a boulder, and the boulder comes through the bottom that sort of thing.

Excerpts from the Press Conference for Business Paper Editors


Quite a lot of them have been damaged on the railroad rails that the Germans stuck down on the beaches; and sometimes, when they have discharged their cargo on the beach and start to back up, they find they are sitting on the sharp end of a railroad rail. But, of course, a great many of them can be salvaged, but the last three days show that we have got to speed that particular construction up even some more. We thought we had speeded it up just as fast as we possibly could. Things are going pretty well on the other side. As somebody remarked to me the other day, probably there has been more human suffering on the English Channel than any other place in the world. And on the whole, things are going along pretty well. We have been doing awfully well north of Rome, since I spoke the other day. We are about 40 miles north of Rome. We have got the important seaport of Civitavecchia. I think the greatest contribution there is always a silver lining in every cloud that war makes is teaching people geography. A lot of people in this country now know where Italy is. And of course, on the whole, I really think that we can feel encouraged, but we mustn't be overoptimistic .... Of course, we are trying to plan all we can on the reconversion of plants, which will be of interest to nearly all of you. I think the Executive end of things has done all it could. They have made various recommendations to Congress for legislation, and nothing has yet come out of the hopper. So the more that you do to encourage Congress to speed up a little on reconversion legislation, the better it is. We have done practically all that we can here. So, if you can help on that, it is all to the good. Industry has done a perfectly splendid job. And we are doing all we can to think not only about the rest of the war, but about the period after the war.


Chief justice, senators, learned counsel for the president, you will be pleased to know this is the last presentation of the evening. And as I started last night, I made reference to some good advice I got from a encouraging voice that said, Keep it up but not too long. Tonight I got some equally good advice, To be immortal, you do not need to be eternal. And I will do my best not to be eternally eternal. I do not know about you but I am exhausted. And I can only imagine how you feel, but I am also very deeply grateful for just how you have attended to these presentations and discussions over the last few days. I can tell how much consideration you have given to our point of view and the president's point of view and that is all we can ask. At the end of the day, all we can ask is that you hear us out and make the best judgment that you can consistent with your conscience and our constitution. Now, I wanted to start out tonight with where we began when we first appeared before you about a week ago, and that is with the resolution itself. With what the president is charged with in the articles and how that holds up now that you have heard the evidence from the house. Donald Trump was impeached in article one for abuse of power. And that article provides that in his conduct of the Office of President of the United States and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the Office of President of the United States and to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States, and is in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of his presidency in that using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States presidential election. President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence 2020 US presidential election to his advantage. President Trump also sought to pressure the government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official US government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations. President Trump engaged in the scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit.

Adam Schiff Friday Concluding Statement Transcript: Trump Impeachment Trial


In doing so, President Trump used the power of the presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the nation. President Trump engaged in the scheme or course of conduct through the following means. President Trump acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the United States government corruptly solicited the government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into, A, a political opponent, Former Vice President, Joseph R. Biden Jr. A discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine rather than Russia interfered in the 2016 United States presidential election. With the same corrupt motives, President Trump acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the US government conditioned to official acts on the public announcements that he had requested the release of $391 million of US taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended. And B, a head of state meeting at the White House, which the president of Ukraine sought to demonstrate continued United States support for the government of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. Faced with public revelation of his actions, President Trump ultimately released the military and security assistance to the government of Ukraine, but has persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting Ukraine to undertake investigations for his personal political benefit. These actions were consistent with President Trump's previous invitations of foreign interference in US elections. In all of this, President Trump abused the powers of the presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit. He also betrayed the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections. Wherefore, President Trump by such conduct has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the constitution if allowed to remain in office and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self governments and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. We have met our burden. The constitution provides that the House of Representative shall have the sole power of impeachment and the president shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.


In his conduct of the Office of the President, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the Office of President United States and to the best of his ability preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed , Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented categorical and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole power of impeachment. President Trump has abused the powers of the presidency in a manner offensive to and subversive of the constitution in that the House of Representatives has engaged in an impeachment inquiry focused on President Trump's corrupt solicitation of the government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 US presidential election. As part of this impeachment inquiry, the committee's undertaking the investigation served subpoenas seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry for various executive branch agencies and offices and current and former officials. In response without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed executive branch agencies, offices and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President Trump thus interpose the powers of the presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives and assume to himself functions and judgements necessary to exercise the sole power of impeachment vested in the constitution in the House of Representatives. President Trump abused the powers of his high office through the following means. Directing other executive branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the committees in response to which the Department of State, the Office of Management Budget, Department of Energy and Department of Defense refused to produce a single record or document. Direct and current and former executive branch officials not to cooperate with the committees in response to which nine administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony namely John Michael Mick Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl. These actions were consistent with President Trump's previous efforts to undermine United States government investigations into foreign interference in US elections.


Through these actions, President Trump sought to arrogate himself the right to determine the propriety scope and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct, as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the House of Representatives in the exercise of its sole power of impeachment. In the history of the Republic, no president has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate high crimes and misdemeanors. The abuse of office serve to cover up the president's own repeated misconduct and to seize and control the power of impeachment and thus to nullify a vital safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives. In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Whereas or wherefore, President Trump by such conduct has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the constitution if allowed to remain in office and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self government and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. Let me say something about this second article. The facts of the president's defiance of Congress are very simple because they were so uniform. Because they are so uncontested, but too do not mistake for a moment the fact that it was simple and easy and quick to present that course of conduct compared with a sophisticated campaign to coerce Ukraine into thinking that that second article is any less significant than the first. If there is no article two, let me tell you something, there will never be an article one. Because if you and we lack the power to investigate a president, there will never be an article one. Whether that article one is abuse of power or that article one is treason or that article one is bribery, there will never be an article one if the Congress cannot investigate an impeachable offense. If the Congress cannot because the president prevents it investigate the president's own wrongdoing, there will never be an article one because there will be no more impeachment power. As I said before, our relationship with Ukraine will survive.


God willing, our relationship with Ukraine will survive and Ukraine will prosper and we will get beyond this ugly chapter of our history. But if we are to decide here that a president of the United States can simply say under article two, I can do whatever I want and I do not have to treat a coequal branch of government like it exists. I do not have to give it any more than the back of my hand. That will be an unending injury to this country. Ukraine will survive and so will we, but that will be an unending injury to this country because the balance of power that our founders set out will never be the same. If a president can simply say, I am going to fight all subpoenas, and I will tell you something else. Truism in the courts is just as true here in the Senate where they say justice delayed is justice denied. You give this president or any other the unilateral power to delay as long as he or she likes, to litigate matters for years and years in the courts and do not fool yourself into thinking it is anything less. In April, it will be a year since we subpoenaed Don McGahn and there is no sign of an end to that case. I will tell you, when it gets to the Supreme court, you might think that is the end and that is just the end of the first chapter because Don McGahn is in court saying, I am absolutely immune from testimony. Now that is been rejected by every court that is looked at it. But we will see what the Court of Appeal says and then we will see if it goes to an en banc Court of Appeals. And then we will see what the Supreme Court says. And when we prevail on the Supreme Court, you know what happens? That is not the end of the matter. It comes back to the trial court and then Well, they cannot claim absolute immunity more. So now we are going to turn to plan B, executive privilege. We are going to say we cannot and will not answer any of the questions that are really pertinent to your impeachment inquiry. And let us start out in district court and then go to the Court Appeals and then go en banc and then go to the Supreme Court. You can game the system for years. Justice delayed is justice denied and so is true about presidential accountability.


So when you suggest or I suggest or anyone suggests or the White House suggest, why does not the Congress, why did not the house just exhaust their remedies as if in the constitution where it says, The house shall have the sole power of impeachment. There is an asterisk that says, After exhausting all court remedies and for seeking court in the district court and then seeking relief in the court of appeals and after that, go in the Supreme Court. Let us not kid ourselves about what that really means. What that really means is you allow the president to control the timing of his own impeachment or if it will ever be permitted to come before this body. That is the absence of an impeachment power. Article two is every bit as important as article one. No matter how egregious this president's conduct or any other, it is fundamental to the separation of powers. If you cannot have the ability to enforce an impeachment power, you might as well not put it in the constitution. Now, shortly, the president's lawyers will have a chance to make their presentation and as we will not have the ability to respond to what they say, I want to give you a little preview of what I think they are going to have in store for you so that when you do hear it, you can put it into some perspective. I expect that they will attack the process. I do not think that is any mystery, but I want to tell you both what I expect they will share it with you and what it really means. When you cut through all the chaff, what does it really mean that they are saying? So here is what I expect that they will tell you. It was the most unfair in the history of the world. Because of the house, they took depositions. How dare they take depositions? How dare they listen to Trey Gowdy? How dare they follow the Republican procedures that preceded their investigation? And they were so secret in the bunker, in the basement, as if whether it is on the ground floor of the basement of the first floor makes any difference. Those super secret depositions in which only a hundred members of Congress equivalent to the entire Senate could participate. Every Democrat, every Republican on three committees could participate. Of course, that was not enough so you had even more storm the SCIF.


You know how we did it in those super secret depositions and you could look this up yourself because we released the transcripts. We got an hour. They got an hour. We got 45 minutes. They got 45 minutes. And we did that back and forth until everyone was done asking their questions. He would not allow us to ask our questions. Because we want to punish that whistle blower. Because yes, some of us in this house and in this house believe we ought to protect whistle blowers. So yes, I did not allow the outing of the whistle blower. So when they say the chairman would not allow certain questions, that is what they mean. That means that we protect people who have the courage to come forward and blow the whistle. To believe that someone who blows the whistle on misconduct of the serious nature that you now know took place is a traitor or a spy. There is only one way you can come to that conclusion. And that is if you believe you are the state and that anything that contradicts you is treason. That is the only way that you can conceive of someone who exposes wrongdoing is a trader or a spy. But that is exactly how this president views those who expose his wrongdoing because he is the state. Like any good Monarch, he is the state. And you will hear, The president was not allowed to participate in the judiciary committee. The president had the same rights in our proceedings as President Nixon and President Clinton. And one other thing that was really unfair is all the subpoenas were invalid because the house did not pass a resolution announcing its impeachment inquiry. Well, of course, as you know, the constitution says the house will have the sole power of impeachment. If we want to do it by house resolution, we can do it by house resolution. If we want to do it by house resolution, we can do it by house resolution. If we want to do it by committee, we can do it by committee. It is not the President's place to tell us how to conduct an impeachment proceeding any more than it is the President's place to tell you how you should try it.


When you see that eight-page diatribe from the White House council saying, We should have been able to have a resolution in the House, or, We should have been able to have this, what you should hear, what they really mean is, Donald Trump had the right to control his own impeachment proceeding, and it is an outrage that Donald Trump did not get to write the rules of his own impeachment proceeding in the House. You give a president that right, there is no impeachment power. When you hear them say that, when you hear them complain about depositions that were the same as the Republicans, or the right to participate, that was the same in Clinton and Nixon. By the way, they were not allowed to call witnesses, they said. Three of the 12 witnesses that we heard at our open hearings were the minority witness requests. You will hear those arguments, the most unfair and history. The fact is we had the same process. In those other impeachments, the majority did not surrender its subpoena power to the minority. You know what it did? It said, You can subpoena witnesses, and if the majority does not agree you can force a vote. The majority does not surrender its subpoena power. When they say the process was unfair, what they are really mean is do not look at what the President did. For God's sake, do not look at what the President did. Now, you will also hear, I think the second thing you will hear from the President's team is, Attack the managers. Exhibit A, he mocked the President. He mocked the President. He mocked the President as if he was shaking down a leader of another country, like he was an organized crime figure. He mocked the President. He said it was like the President said, 'Listen, Zelensky, because I am only going to say this seven times.' I discovered something very significant by mocking the President. That is, for a man who loves to mock others, he does not like to be mocked. Turns out, he is got a pretty thin skin. Who would've thought it? Nevermind that I said I was not using his words before I said it, and I was not using his words after I said it, and I said I was making a parody of his words. He mocked the President.


Now, they will attack my other colleagues too, for things said in the heat of debate here on the floor as we were reaching the wee hours of the morning. They will attack some of my colleagues who are not even in this chamber. Maybe they will attack the squad. That is a perennial favorite with the President. If they attack the squad you should ask, What does that have to do with the price of beans? You can expect a tax on all kinds of members of the House that have nothing to do with the issues before you. When you hear those attacks you should ask yourself, Away from what do they want to distract my attention? Nine times out of 10 it will be the President's misconduct, but look for it. Attacks on the managers, attacks on other House members, attacks on the speaker, attacks on who knows what. It is all of the same ilk. Whatever you do, just do not consider the President's misconduct. You will also hear attacks on the constitution. Of course, it will not be framed as an attack on the constitution, but that is really what it represents. That is, abusive power does not violate the constitution. Presidents of United States have every right to abuse their power. Presidents have a constitutional right to abuse their power, and how dare the House of Representatives charge a president with abusing his power. Now, I am looking forward to that constitutional argument by Alan Dershowitz, because I want to know why abusing power and trust is not impeachable now, but it was a few years ago. The last time I checked, I do not think there was a significant change to the constitution between the time he said it was impeachable, and the time he is saying now that apparently it is not impeachable. I am looking forward to that argument, but I am also looking forward to Ken Starr's presentation. During the Clinton impeachment, he maintained that a president not only could, but must be impeached for obstructing justice. That Bill Clinton needed to be impeached because he lied under oath about sex, and to do so obstructed justice. You can be impeached for obstructing justice, but you cannot be impeached for obstructing Congress. The logical conclusion from that is, Ken Starr saying that Bill Clinton's mistake was in showing up under subpoena.