Healthy rural America essential to economy

Northwestern Financial Review, May 1-May 14, 2004 by Bush, George W

A message from the President

These excerpts represent approximately one-tenth of the speech President Bush delivered April 15 in Des Moines at the Federal Home Loan Bank symposium on rural development.

If we can make the economy strong, rural America will benefit. It's hard to talk about the health of rural America unless the overall economy is growing. It's nice to have visions about how to bring development to your community, but if the economy is stagnant, it's hard to get there.

The role of the federal government is to create an environment in which the farmer and rancher can make a living, in which the small business person can realize their dreams. Rural America's vitality depends upon the health of the agricultural sector. The economy of our rural America depends upon the vitality of small businesses.

The tax relief we passed is helping to drive the economy forward and it came at just the right time because we're emerging from a period of incredible economic challenges. Rural America has been challenged economically, just like the rest of America has been challenged economically. We went through a recession. It hurt in all sectors of our country. And yet, we overcame that recession. I will argue that the tax relief made the recession one of the most shallow in American economic history.

Rural America has overcome a lot of economic challenges. In three short years, we've been through a recession and a stock market correction. That affected people in rural America. We've been through an attack on our country, a national emergency. We've been through corporate scandals. We're making the world more peaceful and secure. Those are challenges that are hard for any economy to overcome. But this is America. This is a country that's full of vibrant people. The entrepreneurial spirit is strong, and I intend to keep it that way. Tax relief helped. Here on tax day, we can say that by cutting taxes, we helped the entrepreneurial spirit of both urban and rural America.

And the facts bear me out. Economic growth in the second half of 2003 was the best in nearly 20 years. Things are improving. More manufacturers are seeing rising activity than at any point in about two decades. Inflation is low. That's good for rural America. Interest rates are low. That's good if you want to buy a house. Home ownership is at the highest rate ever. That's a proud statistic for America to hold up because we want more people owning their own home. An ownership society is a positive society. When people own something, they have a vital stake in the future of our country, whether it be in rural America or urban America.

There was good confirmation last month about the strengthening economy: We created 308,000 new jobs in March, 750,000 since August. That's positive. People are getting hired. People are going back to work. My job is to make sure that the environment is such that you can continue to do well. Fm interested in lasting prosperity. We need to make sure, though, that this is the best place in the world to do business. If you're really interested in making sure that people can find work at home, America has got to be the best place to do business. The environment has got to be a good place for people to make a living.

We need less regulation. We're working on regulatory relief at the administrative branch. Congress needs to work on regulatory relief, too, in the laws they pass. I wish I could say that every single form that people are required to fill out was read in Washington but I don't think so. We need to streamline these regulations. We don't need our small business people spending enormous amounts of time filling out forms that don't get read.

We need to make sure we maintain spending discipline in Washington. One way to make sure the economy grows is to be wise about the expenditure of people's money. It's always a battle, of course. Every idea is a good idea. Every idea requires more money. I've submitted my budget, which reduces the deficit in half by five years without raising taxes on the American people.

Another thing that's important for rural America is to be confident in our trade policy. There's a lot of talk about economic isolationism in Washington right now. That means throwing up barriers to trade. That will be bad for rural America. It's not going to happen on my watch. I believe that when you're good at something, you ought to promote it. We're really good at growing things, and we ought to be selling things that we grow, everywhere around the world. We're 5 percent of the world's population. Why don't we sell to the other 95 percent, as opposed to walling ourselves off? Good economic development policy in rural America depends upon our ability to open up markets for products made in rural America, products grown in rural America.

We've overcome a lot in America. The reason we have is because the good people of this country are fabulous people - strong hearts, good souls, and hopeful characters. God bless you all.