Remarks in Hershey, Pennsylvania

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 25, 2004

Now he's promising not to raise taxes for anyone who earns less than $200,000 a year. He said that with a straight face. [Laughter] The problem is, to keep that promise he'd have to break all his other promises. He has promised $2.2 trillion in new Federal spending. That's trillion with a "T." And so they said, "How are you going to pay for it?" And he said, fine, he's just going to raise taxes on the rich. Now, you've heard that before. When you try to raise taxes on the rich, that raises between 600 billion and 800 billion. There's a gap between what he's promised and how he says he's going to pay for it. And guess who usually gets to fill the gap?

Audience members. Boo-o-o!

The President. There's something else wrong with the "tax the rich" slogan. The rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason: to slip the bill and pass it to you. We are not going to let him tax you; we will carry Pennsylvania and win on November the 2d.

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

The President. When I came into office, our public schools had been waiting decades for hopeful reform. Too many of our children were being shuffled through school without learning the basics. I pledged to restore accountability in the school and to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations. I kept my word. We passed the No Child Left Behind Act, and we're seeing results. Our children are making sustained gains in reading and math. We're closing achievement gaps all around this country, and we're not going to go back the days of low standards and accepted mediocrity.

When I came into office, we had a problem in Medicare. Medicine was changing, but Medicare was not. For example, we'd pay hundreds--tens of thousands of dollars for heart surgery but not one dime for the prescription drugs that could prevent the heart surgery from being needed in the first place. That did not make any sense to our seniors. It wasn't right. I pledged to bring Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen and modernize Medicare. I kept my word. Seniors are getting discounts on medicine. And beginning in 2006, all seniors will be able to get prescription drug coverage under Medicare.

We got more to do on health care. We've got to make sure health care is available and affordable. We'll have a safety net for those with the greatest needs. That's why I believe in community health centers for the poor and the indigent. We'll do more to make sure poor children are fully subscribed in our programs for low-income families.

Most of the uninsured in America work for small businesses. Small businesses are having trouble affording health care. To enable small businesses to afford health care, we must allow them to pool together so they can buy insurance at the same discount big companies get to do. We will expand health savings accounts so workers and small businesses are able to pay lower premiums and people can save tax-free in a health care account they manage and call their own.

To make sure health care is available and affordable, we have to do something about the frivolous lawsuits that are running up the cost of medicine and running good doctors out of practice. You have a problem here in the State of Pennsylvania because of these junk lawsuits. You're losing too many good docs. Too many ob-gyns are leaving the practice. Too many pregnant women are wondering whether or not they're going to get the health care they need in order to bring their child into this world. The system is broken. You cannot be pro-doctor, pro-patient, and pro-personal-injury-lawyer at the same time. You have to make a choice. My opponent put a personal injury lawyer on the ticket.