Radio Address by the President to the Nation 6-15-02

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Owning a home lies at the heart of the American dream. A home is a foundation for families and a source of stability for communities. It serves as the foundation of many Americans' financial security. Yet today, while nearly three-quarters of all white Americans own their homes, less than half of all African Americans and Hispanic Americans are homeowners. We must begin to close this homeownership gap by dismantling the barriers that prevent minorities from owning a piece of the American dream.

The single greatest hurdle to first time homeownership is a high down payment requirement that can put a home out of reach. So my administration is proposing the American Dream Down Payment Fund. When a low-income family is qualified to buy a home, but comes up short on the down payment, the American Dream Down Payment Fund will help provide the needed funds. We estimate that this fund will open the door to homeownership for 40,000 low-income families annually.

A second obstacle to minority homeownership is a lack of affordable housing. To encourage the production of single-family homes for sale in neighborhoods where affordable housing is scarce, my administration is proposing a single-family affordable housing credit. Over the next five years, this will provide developers nearly $2.4 billion in tax credits for building affordable single-family housing in distressed areas. These credits will make 200,000 new homes available over its first five years to low-income purchasers.

A third major obstacle to minority homeownership is the complexity and difficulty of the purchasing process. So we're stepping up our efforts to better educate first-time home buyers. Consumers need to know their rights and responsibilities as home buyers. Education is the best protection for families against abusive and unscrupulous lenders. Financial education and housing counseling can help protect home buyers against abuses, greatly improve the loan terms they are offered, and help families get through tough times with their homes intact.

Through these important initiatives, we can help thousands of American families live the kinds of lives they had once only dreamed about. But government action isn't enough. We need to energize and engage the private sector, as well. That is why I have challenged the real estate industry leaders to join with the government, with non-profit organizations, and with private sector financial institutions in a major nationwide effort to increase minority homeownership.

My approach to broadening homeownership focuses on empowering people to help themselves, and to help one another. These important initiatives will accomplish their purpose because Americans, working together and taking responsibility for one another, will make this great country even greater.

The strength of America lies in the honor and the character and goodwill of its people. When we tap into that strength, we discover there is no problem that cannot be solved in this wonderful land of liberty.

A Time for Choosing

I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."

This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate.

Ronald Reagan

It's BUSH BIG!

The government has never been so big as it is now under Bush. So they have a new saying. It's called "BUSH BIG". How big is that pimple on your nose, Jeb? "It's BUSH BIG", Tex. Wow, Jeb, then that's as big as dah' gova'mint. And that's big. It's BUSH BIG, Jeb.

Yeah, with Bush, it's ALL MEXICAN ALL THE TIME, now. Today we have "big government conservatives" - they're even using this term in Newsweek, Time, US News and World Report, and other publications. We sure live in strange times, just look at the Bushies cheer left-wing policy.

As Bush said, (how shocking!), nearly three-quarters of all white Americans own their homes, less than half of all African Americans and Hispanic Americans are homeowners. And we all know what he means by this. The Hispanics, illegals and all, don't have homes because of those racist Americans. He means, he want's the Hispanic Vote, yadda, and what he is saying is "yep, the white folks they all got nice big houses but blacks don't and Mexicans don't - they hate illegals and stuff, but I'm a Mexican, too, and America's SECOND black president. We got government on your side, to get you guys a house. The reason you don't have a house and 'they' do, is because of 'them' - but we're BUSH BIG, so put on your sombrero and we got a Big Government Republican answer to home hand-outs, illegals and all"…

So Bush gets on the radio today with his weekly address to the nation to tell us in good liberal spin how Hispanics proportionately own less homes than other folks, so we got to have some program so that under privileged families, distressed areas, low-income families (hmmm… sounds like the exact, familiar terms - used a lot by Clinton and Hillary) can get easy loans, eventually hand-outs and the whole socialist agenda, so that they can get homes. The trick is to use words like under privileged, "distressed areas", stuff like "low-income family " to make it sound like even the poor folks who happen to be, you know, white or something, maybe will get some help. But they won't get some help, 'cause they're not going to know about it. The Big Government Republicans like it BUSH BIG, and one of the important agendas to Republican victory is to sell out the conservatives in order to get the Hispanic vote. That's called the Bush Doctrine. So, you start up all these Big Bush programs to get the Hispanic vote, then you print up a bunch of flyers and stuff in Hispanic language (Spanish) about how you can get a house with the government's help because you're a Mexican. White folks can't read Hispanic, so they don't know about it (wink, wink). One of the best places to get the word out about Home hand-outs for Mexicans is at those "immigration centers", you know, the ones with those "get a green card" places with lawyers and stuff. You got your flyers right there, in Hispanic, with Bush's face on it. Don't worry if you're a citizen or not, the point is, maybe you'll vote Republican or something.

I know. Maybe you're like, 30 plus or something and you're not Hispanic, and you're not a home owner, either. It's tough. Real tough to become a home owner. Maybe you can go to Mexico, then run back over the border from Mexico into the United States, tell the Big Bush folks you're an Hispanic, and you want a house. Then maybe you'll get some help. And if you worked all your life busting your donkey to get into home ownership, just feel proud that maybe your taxes are going to now help a Mexican get a house, too, with the food stamps, SSI, and stuff. It makes your heart feel Big. Bush Big.

Bush's address is followed by the Democratic response. They Democrats want more big government, too, just like Bush. So, if you're one of those conservatives, verses big government conservatives which is where it's at today, then you're totally screwed, and basically everyone wants big government, including the Republicans who are on one of the biggest spending sprees in the entire United States History (with a capital H). You got to get with the Bushies, conservatives, or just commit suicide or something. Because, if you're not a Bushie, you're not Big. Because it's got to be Big. Bush Big.

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