Remarks at Truman High School in Independence, Missouri

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, August 27, 2001

And so we came together--with that philosophy in mind, we came together and passed the first tax relief in a generation. It's real; it is meaningful; it is important tax relief. It wasn't one of these old, Washington style tax relief programs, where the Congress or the President got to pick and choose who got tax relief and who didn't. This was fair tax relief. It said, "If you pay taxes, you get relief." It wasn't targeted tax relief; it was broad tax relief.

And the Congress wisely agreed to start sending money back this summer. Driving in to the high school here, I saw a sign that said, "Thanks for the $600 rebate check." But what I meant--what I should have done was stop and said, "You don't need to thank me. It's your money to begin with."

Some of them in our Nation's Capital say, $600 doesn't matter to a family. Well what they ought to do is get out of the Capital--I presume they are--and come out and talk to the working people of America and find out what $600 means. I was in the HarleyDavidson plant yesterday in Milwaukee. A lot of the workers came up and said, "Thanks for my $600." One fellow said, "I built a deck You need to come over and have a beer with me." [Laughter] I said, "I quit drinking." [Laughter] He said, "How about root beer?" [Laughter]

The other thing we did in the Tax Code, which I appreciate a lot--and this is good for farmers and ranchers in Missouri and Kansas, all across the country. It's good for people who worry about urban sprawl. It's good for entrepreneurs. It's good for those folks who had a dream to build their business, make it work, and pass it on to their children. We're getting rid of the death tax. That's an important reform for our code. The Tax Code will be more reasonable, It will encourage entrepreneurship. It will get people more of their own money, and it was needed. And I'll talk about that a little later on.

A second area where we're making great progress is in public education. There is a good, strong reform bill that passed our House of Representatives and a good strong reform bill that passed the United States Senate. And when we come back, after the so-called vacation--[laughter]--people need to get the education bill to my desk.

And let me talk to you about it right quick. First of all, lest you think I forgot where I came from, one of the key components in the education bill is to trust the local folks when it comes to running public education. I strongly believe in local control of our schools. I don't believe Washington has got all the answers on how to run the schools. I do believe we need to pass power out of Washington, to give school districts more flexibility, more authority. And both these bills do that, and that's an important component of the bill.

But secondly, these bills challenge what I call the soft bigotry of low expectations. It recognizes that too often in our public education system, we lower the bar for students. Some folks believe, I guess, some kids can't learn. That's the opposite of what I think. I think every child can learn. I think we ought to have the high expectations. We expect high standards, and we expect people to deliver on those standards. And therefore, one of the key components of reform is to say to school districts, States all across our country, that if you receive Federal money, you must measure. You must devise an accountability system to let us know whether our children are learning to read and write and add and subtract.