Remarks in Davenport, Iowa

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, August 9, 2004

Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

The President. No, there's a lot of big talkers in the Nation's Capital. We just like to be known as the people who can get the job done. We're living in a time of great change. And it's an exciting time--it really is--to be an American. We got to make sure Government responds to these times by standing side by side with people, side by side with our workers, and side by side with our families.

The best way to do so, in my judgment, is to encourage people to owl something, to encourage people to own their own homes. Listen, the homeownership rate in America is at an alltime high, and that's good news for our country. We want our workers to be able to own their own health care accounts so they can take them from job to job. We want younger workers to be able to own a Social Security personal retirement account that they can call their own and pass on from one generation to the next. We want people owning their own farm and their own small business. See, we understand when you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of this country.

The world is--times have changed, but some things are not going to change. Our belief in liberty will not change. Our belief in the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity will not change. Our desire to make sure opportunity, the great American experience, is spread throughout every corner of this country, will not change. The individual values we try to live by won't change, courage and compassion, reverence and integrity. The institutions that give us direction and purpose are important, our families, our schools, our religious congregation. They are so important and so fundamental; they deserve the respect of Government.

We stand for things. We stand for something. We stand for institutions like marriage and family, which are the foundations of our society. We stand for a culture of life in which every person matters and every person counts. We stand for judges who faithfully interpret the law instead of legislating from the bench.

And we stand for a culture of responsibility in America. This culture of ours is changing from one that has said, "If it feels good, do it," and "If you've got a problem, blame somebody else," to a culture in which each of us understands we're responsible for the decisions we make in life. If you're fortunate enough to be a mother or a father, you are responsible for loving your child with all your heart and all your soul. If you're worried about the quality of the education in the community in which you live, you are responsible for doing something about it. If you are a CEO in corporate America, you're responsible for telling the truth to your shareholders and your employees. And in a responsibility society, each of us is responsible for loving our neighbor just like we'd like to be loved ourself.

Listen, the strength of this country is not our military. The strength of this country is not our wallets. The strength of this country is the heart and soul of the American people.