Remarks at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, June 23, 2003

June 17, 2003

Thanks for the warm welcome. It's a pleasure to be here at Northern Virginia Community College. I am not the first person named Bush to come to this place, at least not the first person from my family named Bush to come to this place. It turns out my dad was here. President Templin was describing to me that he signed an important piece of legislation here on this stage. And then the Northern Virginia Community College wised up and invited my mother--[laughter]--who gave the graduation speech here. And as I explained to the President, they're now working their way down the food chain. [Laughter] But thanks for having me.

I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk about the fantastic opportunities that people can find in our community college system across the country; about the idea of the need to have flexibility to make sure that training programs actually work to help people for jobs that exist; to thank the teachers not only here at this community college but around our country for being a part of a necessary and fine profession; to tell the students there are better days ahead when it comes for finding work.

And to thank the Congress--Congressman Tom Davis is with us--and to thank Members of the Congress for coming together to pass a piece of legislation which will encourage job growth in our economy. As Elaine said, that I am concerned when I hear that anybody who wants to work can't find a job. And therefore, it was incumbent upon us, because too many of our fellow citizens were looking for work, to figure out ways to create an environment in which people would be willing to risk capital and expand the job base.

And we did that by passing a really important piece of legislation. The jobs-and-growth bill will pass back money to the people who sent the money to Washington in the first place. And it will help with a--it helps because when people have more money in their pocket, they're going to demand an additional good or a service. And we need an increased demand in a sluggish economy. And when somebody demands an additional good or a service in our economy, somebody's going to produce that good or a service. And when that happens, someone is likely to find work.

The jobs-and-growth bill came at the right time. And I want to thank the Congress for passing that bill. And as we expand the number of jobs in our economy, we better make sure that we have retrained people or trained people to fill those jobs. And that's what I want to talk about today. And that's why I'm grateful for President Templin for opening up this hall for me to speak, because it's here at our community colleges that people are likely to find the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century.

I want to thank Elaine Chao for her service to our country. She is a member of my Cabinet. And she's doing a really fine job on behalf of the American people. And I want to thank you, Elaine, for your service.

I want to thank the attorney general of the State of Virginia for joining with us. General Jerry Kilgore is with us. I appreciate your concern; and I appreciate your interest; and thank you for coming.

I've already mentioned Tom Davis, and now I've mentioned him twice. We just had our discussion with people that--people who are either helping people find work, or people who needed to find work and have found work, or people still looking to find work.

And I want to thank those roundtable participants. Yvonne Golden is with us. She is a lady who is working, got laid off, didn't quit, and is now an independent bookkeeper. I appreciate your willingness to never give up hope and to be willing to retrain so that the skills that you have are honed to find--to find the work which exists.

Connie Mitchell is with us. She used to work at the postal service. She left, struggled for a while, went to--is now a--wants to become a nurse. It turns out, as Elaine said, there's a lot of people that are looking for nurses, a lot of institutions looking for nurses around America. Connie and Andrea Weeks, who is with us as well--that's her little squirt making some noise over there. [Laughter] She's a single mom, which means she's got the toughest job in America, being a single mom. Yet she hasn't given up hope. She's here at Northern Virginia Community College. She wants to be a nurse. To the extent possible, the community college is providing courses for would-be nurses.

The President explained to me there is a bottleneck when it comes to the training programs. We need to do something about it. We need to make sure that when there's demand for talent, people willing to acquire the skills necessary to meet that demand, that there is a smooth transition. And evidently there's a bottleneck in our community college system, which I've asked Elaine to look into and Congress must address when it comes to providing flexibility for worker trainer money--worker training money.

Ralph Orlandella is with us. He was gainfully employed. September the 11th of 2001 affected his employment picture; he was laid off shortly thereafter. He went to a One-Stop program run by Dai Nguyen who is with us; he's the program manager of the Falls Church SkillSource Center. He walked in the place; he found help from one of Dai's fellow workers. He's now a teacher at Hayfield Secondary School. He didn't give up. He went for help; help was available; the system worked. And now he's practicing a noble profession. And I want to thank you very much for doing that.