At the Rochester Aviation Hangar in Rochester, Minnesota, President Bush discussed his Economic Program.
On Free Trade: "In order to make sure this economy grows, we got to keep opening up markets for Minnesota farmers and entrepreneurs and small business owners. See, the tendency in American politics is to fall prey to economic isolationism. That would be bad for our workers. It would be bad for our consumers. The Presidents before me have opened up our markets, and I'm happy to open up markets, too. It's in our consumers' interests. If you have more products to choose from you're likely to get that which you want at a better price and better quality. See, it's in your interests. And so I'm saying to places like China, you treat us the way we treat you. You open up your markets just like we've opened up our markets. And I say that with confidence because we can compete with anybody, any time, anywhere so long as the rules are fair."
On Social Security: "One other thing I want to talk about right quick, and that is Social Security. A President must solve problems, must confront problems, not pass them on to future Presidents or future generations. We have a problem in Social Security, and that is, when baby boomers like me retire, younger workers are going to have trouble paying for us, and therefore, have money available when they retire. That's just the facts. Now, first, I want to address kind of the typical old-style, stale politics, and that is the politics of scare tactics towards Social Security. When I ran in 2000, I suspect here in the state of Minnesota -- I know in other states -- they ran ads saying, if George W. gets elected, the seniors will not get their checks. I want you to remind your friends and neighbors, the seniors got their checks. Nobody's going to take away the Social Security check from our seniors. The fund has got enough money, and baby boomers like me are in good shape. But we need to worry about children and our grandchildren when it comes to Social Security. Social Security will not be there when they need it if we don't think differently.
That is why I believe younger workers ought to be able to take some of their payroll taxes and set up a personal savings account, a personal savings account that will earn a better rate of return than the current Social Security trust, an account they call their own, an account the government cannot take away."
The President closed with these words. "I'm running again because I want to make sure hope and opportunity spread throughout the land, good economic policy, to encouraging ownership for all people in our society. I'm running again because I hold certain values dear that I think are important for this country. And I'm running again because I fully understand the risks we face, and I have a strategy to protect the American people.
We're going to win on November the 2nd, with your help. May God bless you. May God bless our great country. Thank you all for coming."
