Remarks to the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America in Las Vegas, Nevada

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, August 16, 2004

August 12, 2004

The President. Thank you all. Thank you all very much. Thank you all very much for coming. Thanks for the warm welcome. It's good to be back here in Nevada.

Audience member. We love you!

The President. Thank you. I want to thank Doug and the good folks here in this training facility for welcoming us. I appreciate your smart work and your hard work and your dedication to helping our fellow citizens gain the skills necessary to be able to find work.

And I just want to talk a little bit about the importance of education, but the reason I'm so grateful that the Carpenters have been so hospitable here is that this is an example of what works. That's what we're interested in in life; we're interested in finding things that work and heralding them. And I want to thank Doug for your leadership.

I'm not the only Bush who's recently been in Las Vegas. You might remember my wife was back here recently. She went on the Leno show the next night. [Laughter] She said something along the lines, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. [Laughter] I was interested in hearing her say that. [Laughter]

She's doing great, by the way. I was a lucky fellow when she said yes. And she's a wonderful First Lady and great mom. I'm going to meet up with her here in a little bit to continue our journey throughout the West.

Really what I'm doing is traveling around, letting the people know that I'm interested in earning your vote. I really believe that a person running for office--I'm also interested in letting people know I've got more to do to make this country a better place, a stronger place, and a safer place. And I appreciate the chance to come and talk about my vision for the future of this country here.

I want to thank Doug, and I also want to thank his brother Mike. I'm not sure which one of them is prettier. [Laughter] But they're both smart, and they're both good Americans.

I want to thank Dale Shoemaker for his leadership here. I want to thank Doug Banes and Andy Silins, Bill Irwin. These are all folks who make this facility work well--appreciate your hospitality. It's great to meet the workers from all around our country.

I went to the facility next door where Doug and his folks are training people how to work on these big GE engines, and there's people from Fort Smith, Arkansas, and southern Indiana, and a fellow from McAllen, Texas. People from all around the country are here to gain the skills necessary to be able to work and put food on the table. And again, that's why I'm here. This is a program that works.

I want to thank my friend the Governor, Kenny Guinn, for coming out to say hello. I appreciate him being here. Congressman Jon Porter--he's a good fellow, a really good fellow, and I appreciate him coming out. Congressman Jim Gibbons--he's from northern Nevada.

I know we got members of the Nevada National Guard, First Squadron, 221st Calvary. I appreciate you being here. Thanks for your service.

I told you one of the things I'm working on is to make the country a better country. See, I know the strength of the country is the hearts and souls of the citizens. Right here in Nevada, you've got a lot of loving citizens who are willing to help neighbors in need.

When I landed today, I met a fellow named Mike Peschl. Where are you, Mike? There he is. Thank you for coming, Mike. Here's what Mike does. Mike has now worked on his 34th home for Habitat for Humanity. It is a--he spends every Saturday at a Habitat building site. What he is doing is helping to transform America one heart and one soul at a time. He knows what I know, that there's nothing better at a Habitat site to work with the eventual homeowner. And that accomplishes two things. One, it shows somebody, somebody cares about them. That's what Mike works--Mike is loving a neighbor like he'd like to be loved himself. You know what else it does? It encourages an ownership society in America. We want more people owning things. We want more people owning their own home in this country.

We'll continue rallying the armies of compassion all across the country. See, I understand Government can hand out money, but it cannot put hope in a person's heart or sense of purpose in a person's life. That's done when people have heard a call and are willing to put an arm around somebody who is lonely or hurts or is addicted and says, "I love you, brother or sister. What can I do to help you?" America will change. America will change one soul at a time.

The stronger America is an America where people can find work. And I was obviously concerned about our country after a recession. That means people weren't working. It means we were going backwards.

Of course, we started to recover from that recession, and then we got attacked, and that hurt our economy. Make no mistake about it, the attacks of September the 11th hurt. We had some corporate scandals. That hurt. And we've got people who don't tell the truth, it begins to shake the confidence of our economy. We dealt with these situations. I'm going to talk a little bit about the war later on, but we passed laws that say to our corporate citizens, "You will be held to account if you do not tell the truth to your shareholders and your employees."