Excerpt
Press Conference by the President
Indian Treaty Room -- 10 am EST -- December 20, 2006
[...]
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You said this week that your microphone has never been louder on some of the key domestic priorities you've talked about, particularly Social Security and immigration. Your use of the presidential microphone hasn't yielded the results that you wanted. So I'm wondering -- the Democratic Congress, at this point, Republicans no longer controlling things on Capitol Hill -- why you think your microphone is any louder, and how you plan to use it differently to get the results that you're looking for?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, microphone being loud means -- is that I'm able to help focus people's attentions on important issues. That's what I was referring to. In other words, the President is in a position to speak about priorities. Whether or not we can get those priorities done is going to take bipartisan cooperation, which I believe was one of the lessons of the campaigns.
I will tell you, I felt like we had a pretty successful couple of years when it comes to legislation. After all, we reformed Medicare; we put tax policy in place that encouraged economic growth and vitality; we passed trade initiatives; passed a comprehensive energy bill. I'm signing an important piece of legislation today that continues a comprehensive approach to energy exploration, plus extenders on R&D, for example, tax credits. It's been a pretty substantial legislative record if you carefully scrutinize it.
However, that doesn't mean necessarily that we are able to achieve the same kind of results without a different kind of approach. After all, you're right, the Democrats now control the House and the Senate. And, therefore, I will continue to work with their leadership -- and our own leaders, our own members -- to see if we can't find common ground on key issues like Social Security or immigration.
I strongly believe that we can, and must, get a comprehensive immigration plan on my desk this year. It's important for us because, in order to enforce our border, in order for those Border Patrol agents who we've increased down there and given them more equipment and better border security, they've got to have help and a plan that says, if you're coming into America to do a job, you can come legally for a temporary basis to do so. [There's nothing 'temporary' about Bush's destructive scheme.]
I don't know if you've paid attention to the enforcement measures that were taken recently where in some of these packing plants they found people working that had been here illegally, but all of them had documents that said they were here legally -- they were using forged documents, which just reminded me that the system we have in place has caused people to rely upon smugglers and forgers in order to do work Americans aren't doing. [Bush acts like invaders are doing us a favor while at the same time continuing to insult American workers.]
In other words, it is a system that is all aimed to bypass no matter what measures we take to protect this country. It is a system that, frankly, leads to inhumane treatment of people. And therefore, the best way to deal with an issue that Americans agree on -- that is, that we ought to enforce our borders in a humane way -- is we've got to have a comprehensive bill.
And I have made a proposal. I have spoken about this to the nation from the Oval Office. I continue to believe that the microphone is necessary to call people to action. And I want to work with both Republicans and Democrats to get a comprehensive bill to my desk. It's in our interest that we do this.
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