THE
PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Haley said that it's
protocol not to introduce the President. Well, that shows what he knows
about protocol. (Laughter.) He just introduced me. (Laughter.) Thanks
for having me back. My first observation is, it's good to see -- to be
able to look in people's eyes and not see them all bloodshot.
(Laughter.)
I can remember coming here, the times I came, and looked hard
in people's eyes and saw a sense of desperation and worry and deep, deep
concern about the future. I'm sure there is still concern about the
future, but the eyes have cleared up. There's a sense of optimism.
There's a hope, there's a little bounce in people's step. I'm not
surprised; the people down here have showed incredible courage. And I
want to thank you for showing the rest of our country what it means to
survive an incredible hardship with high spirits. (Applause.)
Your Governor has done a magnificent job. He went up to Washington --
(applause.) You know, it's nice of him to give me the credit to sign the
bill. It's nice of him to compliment Congressman Taylor, who deserves to
be complimented, and compliment -- (applause) -- and Congressman Chip
Pickering -- (applause) -- both of whom are here, and I thank them for
coming. It's wise of him to compliment Senator Lott and Senator Cochran.
(Laughter.) And he's right to compliment them. But the truth of the
matter is, the person who deserve the biggest compliment, in my
judgment, is the man who brought the will of the Mississippi people, the
needs of the Mississippi people up to Washington and fashioned one heck
of a piece of legislation for the people of this important state --
thank you, Governor, for your hard work. (Applause.)
And I want to thank Marsha for being here, as well. I don't know how
you put up with him for all these years. (Laughter.) You must be a
patient soul. But he married well, just like me. And speaking about
that, Laura sends her best wishes to all of you all. She's looking
forward to coming back down here. She's not going to believe the
difference between the last time she was here and today.
It's hard sometimes, unless you've got a perspective. I have the
perspective of having spent some time here, but not all my time. And I
can remember what was, and now what is, and I can see what's going to
be, too. And it's going to be a better Gulf Coast of Mississippi.
(Applause.)
I want to thank Roy Bernardi, who is the Deputy Secretary of HUD.
He's going to have some stuff to do to make sure this part of the world
rebounds. I like your Mayors. They're down-to-earth people. They are
good, solid people. (Applause.) Mayor Eddie Favre. You know, one time a
buddy of mine said, when the baseball players and owners couldn't figure
out an agreement and they went on strike and quit Major League Baseball
-- he said, "I'm never going back to a baseball game for 10 years." And
I said, sure, you know. And he's a great baseball fan. And, sure enough,
last year was his 10th year and he finally went to a game. The reason I
bring that up is Eddie said, "I'm not going to wear long pants" --
(laughter) -- and I'm saying to myself, one of these days, the President
is going to show up and Eddie sure enough will put on long pants.
(Laughter.) I didn't know him very well. (Laughter.) I arrived here at
this important school and he's got short pants on. Eddie, I like a man
who sticks to his guns. (Laughter and applause.) Thanks for hosting us.
And so I'm standing in the White House at a Christmas
reception, and in walks Tommy Longo. He's the Mayor of Waveland, of
course. And he had on a fantastic suit. (Laughter.) I nearly fell out.
(Laughter.) Tommy Longo in a suit? (Laughter.) I said, "Where did you
get that thing?" He said, "It's amazing what you can find in the
rubbish." (Laughter.)
I've learned something about the Mayors up and down the Gulf Coast.
You've got some young Mayors east of here who have been in office, what,
three or four months, and the storm hit. They were incredibly tested --
Pascagoula and other places. You got some veterans who have been around
for a while, never dreamt they'd see a day like the day they saw. But
whether they're veterans or rookies, all of them have stood strong. All
of them have rallied with the first responders. All of them have shown
great compassion to the people. I am proud of your local Mayors, your
local governments, people like Rocky Pullman of the Hancock Board of
Supervisors, the people working in these counties. You got some good
folks down here. And one of the reasons why I'm confident about your
recovery is because you've elected good people to take on the job.
(Applause.)
Finally, I want to thank Brother Talbot and Brother Hingle of this
fantastic school. (Applause.) Thanks for hosting us. Tommy Longo was in
the class of '75. I hope that means you didn't lower you academic
standards in that year. (Laughter.) He and old Doc Blanchard, they told
me. Doc Blanchard went here, in case you didn't know it, the Heisman
Trophy winner who carried the leather for West Point. And one of the
things the Brother told me -- he said, we wanted to make sure we saved
the Heisman Trophy that Doc Blanchard had made sure was housed here at
this facility.
But I do want to thank you all for letting us come by. Thanks for
your -- being in education; really an important part of the future of
this state and this country, to make sure people get a good education.
I stood in Jackson Square early on in -- after the storm hit, and I
said we're not just going to survive, but thrive. By that I meant, it's
one thing to kind of ride it out; it's another thing to take out of the
harm that came, convert this into a better life. I said we're not just
going to cope, but we'll overcome. I meant what I said. I couldn't have
said that if I didn't have confidence, though, in the people in the
local area that have such a spirit to be able to do so.
I'm here to report to you some of the progress made and to let you
know that people in faraway places like Washington, D.C. still hear you
and care about you. Signing all the legislation I've signed, the federal
government has committed $85 billion so far to helping folks and to help
rebuild the Gulf Coast of -- (applause.) Of that $85 billion, about $25
billion has been spent. So $85 billion is available, $25 billion of it
is already in the pipeline -- that's $60 billion more coming your way.
Part of the strategy to make sure that the rebuilding effort after
the recovery effort worked well was to say to people like Haley, and the
Governor or Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans, you all develop a
strategy. It's your state, it's your region, you know the people better
than people in Washington -- develop the rebuilding strategy. And the
role of the federal government is to coordinate with you and to help.
I thought that was an important first statement to make, when people
began to wonder what life would be like after the storm hit. My view is,
and a lot of my political philosophy is based on, the local folks know
better than the folks in Washington, D.C. (Applause.) I remember when
Haley invited me down, and he said -- I think we were in a tent at that
time, and there wasn't a lot of electricity, it was like an old-time
daytime revival without electricity. It was hot in the tent -- it was
the first meeting, I think, at least the first called meeting of the
commission headed by Jim Barksdale. Citizens from all walks of life, all
occupations, all aimed at one thing: putting together a strategy that
will help this part of the world become even better than it was before.
I have an obligation to make sure that the federal government
responds and coordinates and stays in touch with not only the commission
and the Governor, but local folks, as well. And I picked a fellow that I
trust, a person who's had a lot of experience, a person who understands
how people think down here -- after all, he is from Texas -- he
understands urban life and he understands rural life, and he knows the
importance of county commissioners -- you call them county supervisors,
I guess. He's a guy who's a good listener and he's got my full
confidence. And that's my friend, Don Powell, who's with me today. He's
going to be the federal coordinator. (Applause.) His job is to come down
here and listen and report back.
And I recognize there are some rough spots, and I'm going to mention
some of them here in a minute -- and we're going to work to make them as
smooth as possible. The first challenge we had after the storm hit was
to take care of the people that were displaced. Millions of people, or
over a million people evacuated and scattered. It was an amazing period
in our history, when you think about it. One day people's lives are
turned upside down and they're looking for help and they're looking for
compassion -- and they found it. People found it in churches, in
synagogues, in community centers, in private homes. It's an amazing part
of our history when you think about it. It's like there's a great
capacity to absorb hurt in our country, because we've got individuals
that are so decent and honorable.
The government had a role to play, and that was to get money in
people's pockets. I mean, when you have to evacuate, you don't have time
to plan. And so one of the first things we did was we got $2,000 in
people's pockets as quickly as possible to help them. In other words, it
was a response geared toward the individual. We had a special
designation for all evacuees, so they can become available for Medicaid,
or family services, or the federal programs. The idea was to get a
response as quickly as possible to people who are scattered all over the
country so they could -- to help get their feet on the ground.
We gave waivers to states. In other words, we kind of deregulated the
system so states could respond quickly to the people who needed help. We
provided 700,000 households with rental help. In other words, the goal
is for people to be back in their homes, in a home they call their own.
That's the goal. But in the meantime, we had to deal with people
evacuated and people without homes. And so a part of the plan has been
to provide temporary housing with rental vouchers: $390 million went out
as HUD vouchers for a group of people that qualified.
I can remember people hollering for trailers. We became the largest
consumer of trailers probably in the history of mankind. (Laughter.) And
I know it was slow to begin with. The production needed to be ramped up,
and, frankly, the government crowded out other purchasers in order to
set priorities for people down in this part of the world. We've now put
out 61,000 trailers, and there are more in the pipeline. I was asking
Haley, does he have a feel for how many more we need, and he said, we're
getting close to the end, but there's still a need. And we understand
that. And the manufacturing is making -- we put cruise ships out at one
point to help people house on a temporary basis -- particularly in New
Orleans, so that we could get the police and the firefighters a place to
stay, so they could do their job.
People ended up in hotel rooms. At one time there was about 80-some
thousand people in hotel rooms. It's now down to 25,000 families in
hotel rooms. We're in the process of trying to locate every single
family and provide the rental assistance help for them, so they can move
from the hotel into rental housing -- all aimed, by the way, at
providing some kind of housing until the permanent housing market takes
off. We're trying to bridge from being an evacuee to a person in a place
until their own home gets ready to move into.
And so what can we do? Well, first thing is we can focus on repairing
homes. That's not going to do you very good down here in Waveland. I
understand that. Tommy and I and the Governor and Marsha just drove by
-- there's no homes to repair. It's just been flattened. That's what the
people of America have got to understand. Sometimes hurricanes go
through and there's a home and a structure you can maybe put a roof on,
or do something -- not here. Our fellow citizens have got to know when
this hurricane hit, it just obliterated everything, it just flattened
it.
But in parts of the hurricane zone, there's repairs that can be done.
FEMA assistance will help with that. SBA loans have gone out to about --
for about $2.1 billion to help people repair their homes. Now, the most
innovative approach, however, to getting the homes rebuilt is the CDBG
grants that Haley Barbour negotiated on behalf of the people of
Mississippi. That's government initials for direct money to help people
who weren't able to get their insurance to pay them off. (Applause.)
I remember being down in Biloxi. I think it was my first trip. And it
was hot and it was steamy. An old lady walked up to me and said to me --
I said, "How are you doing?" And she looked at me and she said, "Not
worth a darn." (Laughter.) And I said, "Well, I don't blame you." She
said, "I've been paying all my life for my insurance. Every time that
bill came I paid it. Every single month. And all of a sudden the storm
hit, Mr. President, and I came time to collect, and they told me, no."
And she was plenty unhappy and she was looking for anybody she could be
unhappy with, and I just happened to be the target. (Laughter.) I think
Gene was with me then, I might have shared the story with Gene about
that.
One way to handle the issue -- I know you got a lawsuit here; I'm not
going to talk about the lawsuit. But Haley did something innovative,
which was take the CDBG grants -- a lot of money for Mississippi, and
going to help the people do the job that many think the insurance
companies should have done in the first place. (Applause.)
Having said that, the government has paid out $12 billion in flood
insurance. For those who had flood insurance, the government is making
good on its -- on the bargain with the people. If you got an FHA loan,
your loan will be forgiven for a year. In other words, there is an
attempt to try to make sure that things are being done so that we can --
people can get back in their homes, and people can get to be rebuilding.
There's going to be a building boom down here; there just is. It's
going to be an exciting time for people. One of the real challenges is
whether or not people are going to have the skill set necessary to be
able to meet the needs of the people. Are there going to be enough
electricians, enough plumbers, enough roofers? But you're going to have
yourself a building boom, you watch. It will be work -- people are going
to be working hard here.
And Don Powell and I, to this end, met with a group of leaders in
Washington, D.C. from building trade unions and businesses, and the
whole idea was to come up with a strategy to make sure people have got
the skills necessary to fill the jobs which are going to exist. See, our
goal, and I know it's the Governor's goal, is to make sure the jobs
first go to Mississippi people when it comes to rebuilding this --
(applause.) And Mississippi businesses. And we want this opportunity to
be an opportunity where minority-owned businesses and women-owned
businesses have a chance to flourish. An ownership society has got to be
a part of a new vision, where people from all walks of life can say, I'm
owning my own business, I'm operating my own business, I'm owning my own
home.
It's a fantastic opportunity. And -- but it's not going to work
unless people have the skill set necessary to be able to fill those jobs
and to be able to provide for the -- to meet the consumer demand. And so
the idea is -- and Powell is going to work on this strategy -- is to
work with your community college system, or the building trades, and
have centers where people can go to learn how to get the skills
necessary to fill the jobs which are coming. They're coming. It's going
to be an exciting time down here, just so long as you're able to get
enough material and enough labor.
One of the important -- and by the way, speaking about jobs, not only
we got to make sure people have the skills necessary to fill the jobs,
the federal government has got a lot of facilities down here, and
there's a lot of federal employees in this part of the world. We're
going to rebuild the federal facilities so that the people will be able
to work. (Applause.)
This recovery is going to be led by the private sector, however; the
federal government is going to help. And $85 billion is a good -- I
would call that "help" -- so far. But the truth of the matter is, the
jobs and the quality of life, the recovery, is going to be led by the
private sector. I was asking Haley about some of the industries down
here, and he told me, for example, at the year end, a casino opened. I
mean, it's remarkable. If you'd have seen what I -- I'm sure you saw
what it looked like up and down this coast, and all of the sudden,
there's businesses and people are thriving, people are beginning to
work. It's happening. It's the private sector that's going to carry much
of the recovery.
Congress did a smart thing, in my judgment -- was to provide tax
incentives for businesses who are in this part of the world. They
provide tax incentives for small businesses to expense up to $200,000 of
investment and private -- and incentive for all businesses to provide a
50-percent bonus depreciation for investment made. What I'm telling you
is, it's kind of economic talk for saying, if somebody spends money in
an investment in this part of the world, they get a tax incentive to do
so. In other words, if you're able to make the tax code attract capital
so people invest, it means you're more likely to be able to find work
here. It goes on -- and again, I want to thank the members of Congress
for working on that. I think it's going to make a big difference.
If you're a small business owner -- we just met today, by the way,
with some small business owners in New Orleans. And one of the things
that became loud and clear to me there was that because a lot of people
haven't moved back into the area, and if you're a small business owner,
there's no customers, so you have no cash flow, which makes it awfully
difficult to survive. There are SBA loans for this. And I understand for
some the word "SBA" means "slow bureaucratic paperwork." (Laughter.) I
hear it loud and clear. I will tell you that SBA has put out about $470
million worth of SBA loans. In other words, the loans are going out.
But this small agency has been overwhelmed. And so Don Powell is
working on an interesting idea, and that is to work with the local
bankers, people who understand the local customer, as to how to become
the agent for the SBA to get money out the door to help small businesses
manage their cash flow needs until the customer base comes back.
(Applause.)
The other thing that happened quickly -- and I'm real proud of your
folks down here -- was that the energy sector rebounded unbelievably
fast. This part of the world is really important for national security
and economic security of the United States of America. Remember when the
storms hit, a lot of folks were really worried about the price of crude
oil and gasoline. We, fortunately -- we just did two things I thought
were wise.
One, we suspended reformulated gasoline rules, which enabled us to
import gasoline from Europe, which helped to take the pressure off the
market. And the price of gasoline, although it went up, didn't go up
nearly as high as a lot of people thought, and is now heading back down,
thank goodness, for people who are working for a living. And the price
of crude oil stayed reasonable because we opened up the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. I was confident in being able to do that because I
knew how fast this industry could move if just given a chance. The
suspension of some regulations to help these refineries and these gas
processing plants get up on their feet was important. In other words, if
you can get government out of the way, amazing things can happen
sometimes in the private -- (applause.)
And so I want to thank those of you working in the energy industry
for doing what you're doing. I remember going to the plant -- I think
Haley was with me -- went to the plant in Pascagoula. And we had people
there camped out there working as hard as they could to get the
refineries up, so that our citizens from all around the country would be
able to have gasoline at a reasonable price. And these people worked
hour after hour after hour, and did the nation a great service. In the
meantime, we did our part -- tried to do our part, to make sure that we
cleaned out the waterways so that the ships could move better. Our Coast
Guard, by the way, provided invaluable service here in this part of the
country. (Applause.)
Part of the recovery of this part of the world is going to be when
you get your infrastructure up and running. And I can remember first
choppering over here and seeing the incredible devastation done to the
bridges and highways. First of all, there has been some incredible
construction done. The Slidell Bridge there, to the west of you, got up
in record time. It's amazing what happens when you provide a completion
bonus for people doing work. (Laughter.)
And I know you're concerned about the I-90 bridge. But they're
getting ready to start on it, as I understand. And the bills I've signed
provide $2.3 billion for repair of highways and bridges in this part of
the world. That's going to provide not only jobs, but it's going to make
the quality of life come back to what it was. You're dependent upon good
highways and good bridges in this part of the world. The government
recognized that and put the money out there available for reimbursing
the states when they get these highway projects moving.
One of the really interesting things that happened was education, how
the country responded for the kids who have been moved around. And
school districts all over America took children from Louisiana and
Mississippi and helped educate them. It was really remarkable to watch
the education system rise to the challenge. In the bill there is $1.6
billion worth of operating money. It was money to help these schools
stay afloat; it was to reimburse school districts for taking in the
children who had evacuated to their part of the world. That's in
addition to the federal commitment to replace every school. In other
words, part of the commitment is that if your school got destroyed, the
federal government will help rebuild the school, or will rebuild the
school.
Plus we understood that there was a lot of kids that were going to
higher education and these -- higher education institutions were
affected by the storm, obviously, and they were allowed to retain their
federal aid, even though children weren't going to school. In other
words, we made a concerted effort to help these schools to cope with the
crisis. We're going to make a concerted effort to help the schools deal
with the long-term reconstruction as a result of the crisis.
Ninety-three percent of the schools here in Mississippi are up and
running, and it's an amazing feat in four months' time. It's a great
credit, again, to your Governor and your education institution; but,
more importantly, it's a great credit to the teachers and
superintendents and principals of your local schools. (Applause.)
Finally, the first issue I was confronted with as the President was
debris. I remember the meeting very well when the Mayor showed up and
said, we can't possibly say to our people things are going to get
better, so long as we got piles of debris lying around. It was not only
a practical issue, but it was a psychological issue. And I can
understand -- I mean, I understood right off the bat what they were
talking about. And we had a slow start, because we had a little bit of a
-- we had an issue of how to get debris off of private property. And,
thankfully, there was some creative work done here at the local and
state level, with the federal government -- it really was -- as to how
to deal with the liability issue.
I don't want to go into the law; I'm not even a lawyer. Got too many
of them up there in Washington, anyway. (Applause.) But my point is, is
that by listening to the local folks, and by being flexible about how to
deal with an important issue like debris, we're making pretty good
progress. Out of 42 million cubic yards of debris, 27 million have been
removed.
Now, there's still debris. It's estimated about 15 million cubic foot
-- cubic yards of debris left. But there's a certain momentum that's
gathering. Haley believes that by the end of March, we can get most of
the debris off of the public property. In other words, they're making
progress.
Don Powell's job is, to the extent that the federal government is
contracting out, we want to make sure that they just don't hustle when
the President shows up, that they're hustling all the time, because the
rebuilding and rebirth of this area is really going to depend in large
measure to getting these lots clean, to getting your public access roads
cleaned up, getting that debris out of people's sight. There's something
-- there's a certain confidence to be gained when you see this beautiful
countryside cleared of the damage of Katrina. Things have changed a lot
when it comes to debris. It looks a lot different, a whole lot
different. And we got more work to be done and we're going to stay on it
until it gets done.
And so we've done a lot and there's a lot more to do, but there's a
certain optimism and hope that's coming. I hope you feel that.
(Applause.) You've come a long way in four months. Seems like an
eternity to you, I know. Seems like a lot of time for a lot of people to
have gone through what you went through. Four months is not all that
long and a lot has happened in that four-month period. And a lot more is
going to happen in the next four months, and then the next four months.
I can't wait to come back, and keep coming back and seeing the progress
that's being made.
We've learned some lessons about Katrina, and we're going to analyze
every lesson learned. Obviously, the federal response in parts of this
devastated area could have been a lot better. We want to know how to
make them better. We want to make sure that when there's a catastrophe
of any kind, this government, at the federal government level, is
capable of dealing with it, in conjunction with the state and local
governments.
There's going to be some lessons learned about having agencies that
get overwhelmed by the size of a storm, agencies whose job it is to help
people get on their feet and maybe aren't able to do it quite as
efficiently as some would like. Those are the lessons we're going to
continually analyze. That's what you ought to expect of those of us who
have been given the high honor of serving you -- to constantly look for
ways to do things better. And I just want to assure you, we are. We are.
(Applause.)
But there's some other lessons learned where we don't need to change:
the lesson of courage. We saw great courage. I'll never forget going to
the hangar to see those Coast Guard kids that were flying those
choppers. I think it's something like 30,000 citizens were saved by
rescue efforts by Coast Guard men and local responders. And the people
here on the front lines of saving lives showed great courage during
Katrina. (Applause.)
I remember seeing the determination of our citizens. One of the
lessons learned is when people are determined, they can get things done.
At the Pass Christian school system, for example: This is a place where
they consolidated all the schools at the elementary school. It was kind
of inconvenient, when you think about it, but the inconvenience didn't
bother the people in charge of that school system. As a matter of fact,
they viewed it as a fantastic opportunity to be able to come together
and share -- and that school was up and running, with broken windows,
and -- but there wasn't a broken heart, and their spirit wasn't broken.
One of the lessons, of course, as I mentioned, is the compassion of
our fellow citizens. Think about lonely folks being sent out, having all
their property, their material goods destroyed, wondering what the
future meant for them, and there's a loving family saying, I love you,
brother; I love you, sister. Think about a country where the compassion
is so strong that a neighbor in need can find a stranger that wants to
help them get their feet back on the ground. (Applause.)
One of the lessons of this storm is the decency of people, the
decency of men and women who care a lot about their fellow citizens,
whether they be elected officials or just folks on the ground here just
trying to make somebody else's life even better than it was before. So
we learned some lessons about how to respond, and we're going to change.
But some of the lessons shouldn't change, and that is the decency and
character of the American people.
It's been an amazing experience for you. You just got to know,
though, that a lot of people in this country, many of whom have never
been down here, care for you, they pray for you, and they're pulling for
you. God bless. (Applause.)