For Immediate Release October 8, 2002
President to Congress: Pass Terrorism Insurance and
Homeland Security Bills
Excerpt from October 8, 2002 Remarks in Alcoa, Tennessee Click
here to read full remarks.
And before they go home, there's something else they can do. They
can pass a terrorism insurance bill. See, there's $15 billion worth
of construction projects which are on hold around America because
people can't get insurance for the project. The enemy hit us, and it
made it very difficult for people to be able to insure those
projects. And so, therefore, I think it's a useful role for the
Congress to serve as a backstop against a potential terrorist
attack.
This is a jobs program. This is
a way to get our people back to work the right way, to encourage
private sector jobs. There's over 300,000 jobs, good hard-hat jobs
that have been delayed because we can't get a terrorism insurance
package out of the United States Congress. There's a lot of voices
up there talking about the economy, and I'm glad they're talking
about it. But they ought to stop talking and they ought to start
doing, by getting a terrorism insurance bill to my desk so we can
get people back to work. (Applause.)
And that terrorism insurance bill must remember who we're trying
to help. We're not trying to help the trial lawyers; we're trying to
help the hard-hats of America. (Applause.) Now, I -- the economy is
on my mind because I want our fellow countrymen working, I want them
to be able to put bread on the table. The safety of the country is
on my mind, too. See, there's still an enemy which hates America
lurking around. And so long as that's the case, my most important
job is to protect you. My most important job is to rally the assets
of government at all levels to do everything we can to deny the
enemy, to prevent them from hitting America.
People say, well, why -- and I know a lot of kids are probably
asking, well, why America? And you've just got to understand that
the enemy hates us because of what we love. We love freedom. We love
the idea of people -- (applause). We love the fact that, in this
great country, people can worship an almighty God any way they see
fit. That's what we love. (Applause.) We love free political -- we
love the debates, we love free -- we love the discourse of free
people. We love a free press. We love everything about our freedom,
and we're not going to change. We're going to stand tall and stand
strong. (Applause.)
We also value life in America. Everybody counts, everybody has
worth, everybody is a precious soul. And the enemy we -- the enemy
doesn't regard life the way we do. You see, they hijack a great
religion and kill innocent people. They don't care, but we do. And
so long as we hold those values dear, which we will, the enemy will
try to strike us.
And so we've got a lot of good people, you just need to know,
working hard to protect you. A lot of good folks. We're sharing
information. I mean, we're running down every hint, every idea.
Every piece of evidence we get, we're chasing it down so that we can
say to the American people, we're doing everything we can do.
That's why I went to Congress and asked them to put together a
department of homeland security, to join me in creating a new
department, so we could better coordinate the over 100 agencies that
are involved with protecting you. And we got a good bill out of the
House, and it's stuck in the Senate.
And the reason it's stuck in the Senate is because there is a
disagreement over how best to manage the agency. On the one hand,
they want us to have a thick book of rules to micromanage the
decision-making process. I'll give you one example. The Customs
agents should be wearing radio detection devices -- radiological
detection devices on their belt so that, if when they're looking for
weapons of mass destruction and they come close to one, it -- this
device will send a signal. It ought to be -- it ought to be a part
of their job. But the thick book of rules says, well, that's up for
collective bargaining before you can make a person do that. See,
we've got -- that violates a rule and, therefore, we got to
negotiate that out.
Folks, we don't have time to negotiate a lot of these issues.
(Applause.) We've got time to negotiate some issues. We've got time
to negotiate some issues, of course. But we don't have time to sit
around and negotiate the work rules necessary to protect you. The
enemy doesn't sit around worrying about a thick book of regulations.
And so, for the sake of our national security interests, the
Congress, the Senate ought to give this President and future
Presidents the ability to put the right people at the right place
with the right equipment at the right time to protect America.
(Applause.)
Click
here to read full remarks.
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