Remarks on Departure From Moline, Illinois

I want to thank you all for coming out here and for waiting on the Fourth of July. What a wonderful gift it was for me to come back and see all of you here. I couldn't believe it. As you know, I've been here reviewing the flood damage, meeting the families from both Illinois and Iowa. And I just wanted to tell you first of all, as someone who had grown up in a farming area and has seen this kind of flooding before, I know what it means. I know how hard it is. And we're determined to do everything we possible can to help the farmers in this area and the communities get through it. And when I get back from my trip to Asia, we'll be pursuing further legislation in the Congress to get some more aid to your farmers and your communities so that we can recover from this and go on. And I'm really appreciative of all the time that the people in this area gave me today to make sure that I understood what was going on.

The second thing I'd like to say to you is that for all the problems this Nation has on the Fourth of July, and we've still got a lot of them—there are an awful lot of people who are worried about their jobs, the security of their health care, the education of their children, the safety of their streets—I'm about to leave to go to a meeting of the world's richest countries where they think we're doing pretty well because our unemployment rate is lower than every country in Europe, we had a million more jobs coming into our economy since the first of the year, and we're finally doing something to bring our terrible Government deficit down and to prepare for our future. And I want you to know that tomorrow when I leave and get on that plane to go to Japan, I'm going to be over there working for things that I think will help to provide jobs and incomes and opportunity and hope for the American people.

These are very difficult and challenging times for our country. A lot of the problems we face are very complicated, and we could argue all day about what the right decisions are. But I promise you this: Every day when I go to work and I fight for our economic plan, which I think is fair and which I know will work, every decision I make I ask myself, is it going to help Americans to have more jobs, better incomes, more security, and a brighter future for their children? And if we could at least ask that question —we can have all of the debates in the world we'll keep our country going on the right track.

Don't forget this is still the greatest country in the world. And the next 20 years can be the best we ever had, if we have the courage to make the changes we've got to make to deal with all these challenges before us. I think we do. And after spending some time sitting on a bale of hay with a bunch of Iowa farm families tonight, I feel a lot better than I did when I got up this morning on this wonderful Independence Day.

Thank you all, and God bless you. And thank you for coming out.