That's what Mother always said. She obviously said it outside the Oval Office. (Laughter.) She's right. What more are you going to do? I'll tell you what more we're going to do. We're going to make sure the entrepreneurial spirit stays strong by keeping taxes on small businesses low.

Most people -- (applause) -- most small businesses in America pay tax at the individual income tax rate -- that's a fact -- by far, the vast majority. If you're a small business, you're likely to be a sole proprietorship or a sub-chapter S corporation, which means, when your taxes -- your tax liability is due, you look at the individual tax tables. So when we reduce taxes on individuals, you're really providing extra capital for small businesses.

And since, by far, the vast majority of new jobs are created by small businesses, it makes sense to stimulate the small business sector of our economy. And that's what's happening in America today. (Applause.) People are growing.

Now, there's some things we've got to do to make sure the economy stays strong. You hear a lot of talk about jobs in America. All of us want jobs to stay here in America. The best way to keep jobs in America is for America to be the best place to do business in the world. (Applause.) Now, what does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. It means we need an energy policy to make us less dependent on foreign sources of energy. (Applause.) If we want to keep jobs here, we've got to conserve better, we've got to work on renewables, and we've got to explore for environmentally friendly ways, in particular, in places like ANWR in Alaska. You know, there's 17 million acres up there -- (applause) -- and all they're asking to do is explore on 2,000 of the 17 million, which, had we done this nearly a decade ago, we'd have an additional million barrels of oil -- of U.S. oil helping to fuel our economy. (Applause.)

In order to make sure this economy of ours is strong, we've got to reject this notion of economic isolationism. We can't isolate ourselves from the world. We've got to be confident about our abilities to produce. You know, what has happened in the past is most Presidents have said, let's open up our markets for foreign goods. And that's good for you as consumers, by the way. If you've got more goods from which you can choose, you're going to get a better price at better quality. That's how the marketplace works.

But the problem is other countries haven't treated us like we've treated them. And so the best -- the best policy is to open up their markets, not close ours. Open up their markets so Florida entrepreneurs and manufacturers and farmers can sell their products. Free and fair trade will help keep this economy growing.

You know what else we need? We need to worry about the high cost of health care. If you're a small business owner, you're worried about health care costs. We're helping in health care. We've increased the number of community health centers. Those are for low-income Americans. We want people getting their primary care at community health centers, not at emergency rooms. We've opened up SCHIP. We've strengthened Medicare.

There's some other things we need to do. Small businesses need to be able to pool risk, just like big businesses do, so they can be able to afford health insurance for their employees. (Applause.) And we need to expand health savings accounts. Health savings accounts are a tax-free policy which enables people to buy better health insurance at a lower cost and maintain the patient-doctor relationship as the core decision-making entity of health care.

And finally, in order to keep jobs here, in order to make sure our businesses are competitive places, we need medical liability reform. These junk lawsuits are driving out doctors and running up the cost of health care. (Applause.) This is a big issue in this campaign. It's a big issue in the state of Florida. It's a big issue all over the country. You cannot be pro-patient and pro-doctor and pro-trial lawyer at the same time. (Applause.) You have to choose. My opponent made his choice, and he put him on the ticket. (Laughter and applause.) I made my choice: I am strongly in favor of medical liability reform -- now. (Applause.)

We need tort reform. We need tort reform in this country if we expect people to be able to find jobs here. And we need an education system which works. And that's what we're going to talk a little bit about here. We've got some people who benefited from an interesting way they use our schools. By the way, good education first starts with starting early. And it did my heart good to drive down the highway and see, "this is an A-plus school." (Applause.) This is an A-plus school here. (Applause.) Yes, that's good. But you know what, you wouldn't have known it if you didn't measure. Yes. Otherwise you would have been guessing, right? We think it's an A-plus school. (Laughter.) It might be an A-plus school. We hope it's an A-plus school. That's not what the sign said. The sign said, "this is an A-plus school," because -- (applause.)

All right, keep it that way. You know how we know and how you know in Florida, because you got a Governor who said, let's measure. And that's the whole crux of the No Child Left Behind Act. The No Child Left Behind Act says we're going to increase federal spending for public schools -- up 49 percent, by the way, since I took office. (Applause.)

But in return for increased funding we said, now, why don't you show us whether or not the children can read. That didn't seem like that tough of a request. Some people call that an unfunded mandate. I call that an obligation of schools. To be able to teach a child to read is fundamental to learning. And so now we're measuring. And if we find out early a child can't get there, to grade-level by the third grade, that bill enables people to get extra help, early, before it's too late.

So one way to make sure we got jobs here is to start this process of making sure every child can read, no child is left behind. And then as they head into high school, is elevate our science and math -- is to make sure the high school diploma means something. And then make sure when they get out of high school there's an opportunity to go to college. I want you know that during my administration we've increased the number of children who received Pell Grants by 1 million, 1 million additional children. (Applause.) So they have a chance to go to college. The loans are up. I mean, we're trying to help people go to college. (Applause.)

But also it's important -- is to make sure our community college system is vibrant. And that's why we've had this assembly here, because I want to tell you how important I think community colleges are to a country which is hopeful and stronger and better. First, I want the community colleges to be relevant for our kids -- and they are for a lot of kids. A lot of people use the community college system as a way to gain the skills necessary to fill a job.

But we've got a lot of older Americans who need help, too, going to the community colleges. I'm going to tell you what's happening. This job base is changing, and that makes people nervous, and I can understand that. But my job isn't to be nervous, my job is to act. My job is to figure out how to solve problems. And when the job base is changing, it says we've got a problem. And the best way to solve that problem is to make funds available for the community college system so people can be trained for the jobs which actually exist. (Applause.) In other words, the job base changes, there are jobs available, but sometimes the skill set doesn't meet the jobs, the skill set required by the jobs.

And that's what we're going to talk about. Jill White is with us today. She is a -- (applause.) Where are you? Where is Jill? Stand up. Thank you, Jill. She is -- (applause) -- she brought all her second cousins over. (Laughter.) Thanks for coming, Jill. Tell us what you do.

DR. WHITE: I'm the Vice President for Instructional Services here at Okaloosa-Walton College.

THE PRESIDENT: Which means?

Baseball Info I Basketball Info I Bowling Info I Cardio Respiratory Fitness I Fitness Training I Football Info I Golf Info I Gym Training  Helmets I Hockey Info I Lacrosse Info I Lose Weight I NJCAA Colleges I Quit Smoking I Running Info I Scholarship News I Shoes Soccer Info I Sports Clothing I Sports Medicine I Sports Training I Steroids I Swimming Info I Tennis Info I Volleyball Info       Weight Training I Wrestling Info

Home I About Us I Amateur Status I Articles I Eligibility I Partners I Resources I Services I Sports History I Contact Us