McConnell Center Distinguished Speaker Series
Speaker of the House John Boehner
2011
Gary Gregg: [00:00:05] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Gary Gregg,
and I’m the Director of the McConnell Center. It’s a pleasure to welcome you all here
today for this historic moment in the history of the University of Louisville and the
McConnell Center.
This is the McConnell Center’s twentieth anniversary. Over those years, we have
given away more $2 million in scholarship money, sent more than a hundred students to
study aboard. We’ve hosted presidents and vice presidents and senators and Supreme
Court justices, authors, you name it, but we’ve never had a Speaker of the House, so we
get to make that historic moment today.
We’ve come a long way in the last twenty years, the McConnell Center, but so
has the University of Louisville. Many of you are old friends of this institution, I know,
and if you are, you know the kind of tremendous changes that have occurred over the
years that have made this institution really such an exciting place to work, such an
exciting place to be affiliated with, and a lot of that credit goes to the people that put in
the day-to-day work and staff and faculty and, of course, the leadership of the student
body. But ultimately the leadership comes from our top, and we have the privilege here
of being led by two really terrific, dynamic leaders with vision that are transforming this
institution, in the provost, Shirley Willihnganz, and our president, James Ramsey.
[applause]
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Ladies and gentlemen, would you please now rise with me and welcome the
President of the University of Louisville, James Ramsey, our senior senator, Mitch
McConnell, and the sixty-first Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner.
[applause]
James Ramsey: [00:02:43] Good morning. Welcome to the campus of the University of
Louisville. Over the past month and month and a half, I’ve been doing my normal fall
outreach and traveling around the Commonwealth of Kentucky visiting communities and
visiting schools, and every time we go into a school, the principals, the counselors, the
teachers say, “We think we’ve got a McConnell for you this year.” And the students that
we visit, even as freshmen and sophomores, say, “I want to be a McConnell at the
University of Louisville.”
As Gary indicated, this is the twentieth year of our McConnell Center. We’re
very proud of the programming of the McConnell Center, we’re very proud of these
outstanding students, our McConnell Scholars. The person who provides that day-to-day
leadership for us is Dr. Gary Gregg. Would you join me in thanking Gary for his
leadership at the University of Louisville. [applause]
It’s now an honor for me to introduce one of our alums, one of our graduates, and
the best friend and the best supporter that the University of Louisville has, Senator Mitch
McConnell. [applause] You know Senator McConnell, longest-serving senator in
Kentucky’s history, Republican Minority Leader in the Senate, former Jefferson County
Judge Executive, and father of our prestigious McConnell Scholars and McConnell
Center. Senator McConnell has long understood the importance of education and the
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importance of higher education as a driver of quality of life and economic opportunity in
our community and state. Senator McConnell has worked tirelessly on behalf of higher
education for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, for all of the Commonwealth of
Kentucky. Over the last decade, he’s been responsible for well over $300 million in
funding to build research and research infrastructure at our colleges and universities, and
over $150 million of that for the University of Louisville, funding to help us deal with
quality-of-life issues, from heart disease to cancer to advanced manufacturing, and
helping us have a world-class library. Great universities have great libraries, and we have
a great library at the University of Louisville because of the work of Senator Mitch
McConnell.
We’re very proud of all that the senator has done for us. He continues in these
most difficult of economic times to work on behalf of higher education, currently focused
on making college degrees more affordable. We’re proud that Senator McConnell and
the Honorable Elaine Chao have given their papers to the University of Louisville.
We’re proud of the fact that Senator McConnell works to make special days like this
possible at the University of Louisville. It’s a great honor for me to introduce to you
Senator Mitch McConnell. [applause]
Senator Mitch McConnell: [00:06:26] Some of my equipment is falling off here.
Well, thank you, Jim, for an overly generous introduction. At the risk of this
sounding like a mutual admiration society, let me thank you for the extraordinary
transformation that has occurred here at UofL during your tenure. It’s been absolutely
spectacular, has it not? [applause]
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This Center started before Gary Gregg got here, but you could hardly recognize it
before and after. Gary Gregg, you have been absolutely superb. Thank you for your
leadership of the McConnell Center. [applause]
[00:07:10] Today, as Gary indicated, we celebrate a first. This is the first time in
the twenty-year history of the Center that we’ve had a sitting Speaker of the U.S. House
of Representatives. As the second in line to the presidency, right after the vice president,
and one of the few congressional offices specifically mentioned in the Constitution, the
Speaker of the House plays a uniquely important role on Capitol Hill, and our guest today
has performed that role exceptionally well.
This is a moment of great challenges for our country. Too many of our neighbors
are looking for work. Here in Kentucky, it’s one out of ten. Spending and borrowing by
the federal government, which has exploded in recent years, is catching up with us, and
for the first time ever, America has suffered a downgrade of its once pristine credit rating.
But history has a way of giving America the leaders it needs in such moments, and
Speaker Boehner is one of those leaders. John Boehner knows the struggles small
businesses face because he once faced them himself. Growing up across the river in
Ohio, he worked in his dad’s tavern, a place called Andy’s Café. He mopped floors,
waited tables, tended bar. He put himself through college, working all kinds of odd jobs
and night shifts. He tarred roofs, he refereed kids’ sports teams, drove tractors, and
worked as a night janitor. Through hard work, he put himself through school and became
the first member of his family to graduate from college. After college, John became a
salesman for a Cincinnati company that represented manufacturers in the packaging and
plastic industry. Now, they had only a few clients, and the company was barely hanging
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on. When the owner passed away, John took over and suddenly found himself the
president of a struggling small business, and he turned it around.
[00:09:27] Along the way, John learned a lot of important lessons. He learned
how to meet a payroll, what it means to wrestle with government red tape, and, most of
all, what it takes to create jobs. John learned that it is the hard work of the men and
women in America’s private sector, not government spending, that drives this economy.
He learned that we must look to the private sector to grow the economy and to create
opportunity. John Boehner is a small businessman at heart, and despite ascending to the
highest congressional office in the land, I’m sure he’d tell you he’s always going to be a
small businessman at heart.
John, you know that as Speaker of the House, you work alongside the ghost of
one of my heroes, the great Kentuckian Henry Clay. Clay shaped the Speaker’s Office
more than anyone before him, and he used the office to establish the House of
Representatives as the body closest to the people and the clearest instrument of their will.
By his leadership, John embodies the same spirit of democracy today. He leads a new
House of Representatives that he pledged would reflect the will of the people, focused
and determined to put our nation’s broken fiscal house back in order. And in the ten
months he’s been at the helm, John’s made good on that promise. For the 112th
Congress, the right man has met his moment, and we’re honored to have him here today.
Ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming the Speaker of the House. [applause]
John Boehner: [00:11:20] Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Well, good morning
and Happy Halloween. I’m going to start by thanking Senator McConnell, both for his
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friendship and for the honor of being invited here today to address this impressive
institution here in the Bluegrass State. Senator McConnell and I spend an awful lot of
time together, and I really couldn’t be blessed with a better partner. He’s a man of
integrity and one of the best legislators that I’ve ever worked with, and so I’m truly
grateful for his friendship and for our partnership, and I’m deeply honored that he asked
me to come to be with all of you here today.
[00:12:12] I also want to thank our host, Dr. Ramsey, the President of the
University, and Dr. Gregg, the Director of the McConnell Center, who happened to get
his doctorate from Miami University of Ohio, which is located in my congressional
district.
Senator McConnell told you a little bit about me growing up, a big family,
working around the tavern, and what I tell people is that the lessons I learned growing up
are the lessons I need to do my job every day. Growing up in a big family, you have to
learn to get along with each other, get things done together, get things done as a family.
You grow up around a bar, mopping floors, doing dishes, waiting tables, tending bar, you
have to learn to deal with every character that walks in the door. Trust me, I need all
those skills I learned growing up to do my job. [audience laughter]
But, you know, I’m a product of the free enterprise system. I was one of those
millions of small businesspeople around the country who make our economy grow. So I
know the challenges that they face, meeting a payroll, creating jobs, and dealing with the
government every day. And I got involved with the government because I saw
politicians killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and that’s our free enterprise
system. So I decide that I would do something about it and ended up running for office.
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Trust me, I never thought I’d end up being Speaker of the House.
But the things that drive me to get into this business are the same things that drive
me today. As a small-businessperson, I thought government was too big, I thought it
spent too much, and I didn’t think anyone was holding it accountable. And I don’t see
myself today one bit different than the first day I walked into the United States Congress
almost twenty-one years ago.
[00:14:06] Today I speak to all of you at a time of great challenge for our country
and, frankly, our country’s economy. Whether you’re one of the students at the
McConnell Center or one of the thousands of students that pass through these doors every
year, the condition of our economy is something that millions of young Americans are
facing today. The unemployment rate is stuck at just over 9 percent, we have a national
debt that exceeds or nearly exceeds the entire size of our economy, and millions of
Americans are out of work. Because of government’s seeming inability to focus on these
challenges, it’s also when confidence in our nation’s governing institutions is at an alltime low. After being Speaker of the House now for nearly a year, it’s more clear to me
than ever what some of the obstacles are in Washington, and my message to you today is
simple. Faith in our government has never been high, but it doesn’t need to be this low.
The American people need to see that despite our differences, we can get things
done, and we can start by recognizing that common ground and compromise are not the
same thing. Let me explain. Common ground and compromise are commonly and
mistakenly equated with each other in our political discourse these days, and I think the
mistake is made by individuals on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Shortly after
being elected Speaker, I said I would prefer the term “common ground” to
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“compromise,” and I do believe there’s a significant difference. There’s no question that
the American people want elected leaders who will stand on principle and stick to those
principles. They want leaders who will do what they say they’ll do, who keep their
promises and fight for them. But I also believe equally that the American people expect
us to get things done. They expect us to seek common ground and to act on it. So
common ground doesn’t mean compromising on your principles; common ground means
finding places where your agenda overlaps with that of the other party, locking arms, and
getting it done without violating your principles.
[00:16:40] So too often common ground and compromise are assumed to mean
the same thing, and as a result, we sometimes see people with good intentions on both
sides of the aisle operating out of an aversion to common ground because they don’t want
to be viewed as compromising on their principles. The result of this mistake is a less
functional government, which results in further erosion of trust in our institutions of
government. I don’t think we can afford to let that happen.
The jobs crisis in America demands that we seek common ground and act on it
where it is found. We did that on the trade agreement several weeks ago. The president
signed these three trade agreements into law that had been in the works for five years.
These agreements will result in the creation of some 250,000 American jobs. They were
enacted with bipartisan support, and no one violated their principles to get them done.
The same thing occurred just last week in the House on another jobs bill by Diane Black
from Tennessee, that repeals the 3 percent withholding tax that the IRS imposes on small
business that deal with any level of our government. We scheduled it for a vote, the
president embraced it, and it passed easily.
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Now, in both of these cases, the trade bill and the IRS bill, we found common
ground and we acted on it. Nobody was compromising on their principles. We were
doing what the American people sent us to Washington to do. And they want more of it,
and I think we need to continue our focus on jobs. My colleagues and I have a plan for
jobs, and it’s been our focus for this entire year.
[00:18:32] I gave a speech last month at the Economic Club of Washington,
where I talked about the need for us to liberate our economy from the shackles of
government. As a guy who ran a small business, I certainly believe that until we get
away from a government that’s constantly meddling, manipulating, and micromanaging
our economy, we won’t see lasting job growth in our country. Now, I realize that
President Obama and Vice President Biden are probably never going to agree with that
statement. It’s probably going to take a different administration to do the things that I
truly think are needed to turn our economy around, but that does not absolve us of our
obligation to work together to do what we can do now, and while our differences are
many, there are real areas of overlap between the two parties on solutions that can make a
difference in the crisis that our economy faces.
I’m going to highlight three bipartisan bills that are opportunities to begin that
process of finding common ground to build on the bipartisan moments that we’ve
established over the past month or two. The first is a bill introduced by one of my
colleagues from Ohio, Bob Gibbs, Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act. The bill is
designed to eliminate costly and duplicative permitting requirements for pesticide
applications. A misguided 2009 court order directed the EPA to issue permits for
pesticides that are used near waterways. But pesticide use is already heavily regulated,
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and all this does is create new burdensome requirements for farmers, ranchers, and job
creators. So this bill temporarily stops it.
[00:20:24] Fifty-seven of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted for
that, so nearly one-third of the Democrat Caucus, but it’s been stuck over in the United
States Senate since March 31st. And today—yes, today—the court order goes into effect.
It should have been stopped months ago. It’s disappointing that the deadline has arrived
and that this bipartisan bill has not been enacted. But the Senate still can act, and it’s a
clear opportunity for a common ground on jobs.
On October 6th, the House passed House Resolution 2861, the Cement Sector
Regulatory [Relief] Act. I know we’ve got some strange names for these bills. Estimates
show that nearly 20 percent of our nation’s cement plants will have to shut down if these
new cement regulations go into effect, eliminating thousands of American jobs. This bill
that passed the House gives federal regulators additional time and guidelines to develop
achievable governing emissions from cement manufacturing facilities. The extended
timeline is designed to make sure that we don’t have plants shutting down and putting
people out of work.
When President Obama came to a bridge over the Ohio River between Ohio and
Kentucky, he did his event at a concrete plant called Hilltop Concrete. The jobs of the
workers at that plant may end up being in jeopardy because of the rules that we intend to
stop with this bill. So twenty-five Democrats voted for it, including one of their leaders,
and I’m certain that President Obama wants to protect the jobs of those people at Hilltop
Concrete. And if there are differences, let’s work through them, because I don’t believe
there’s any reason we can’t get it done.
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Another one of these bills is the EPA Regulatory Relief Act. It’s a bipartisan bill
sponsored by a Democrat and a Republican. The bill gives federal regulators additional
time and guidelines to develop achievable governing emissions from industrial,
commercial, and institutional boilers and incinerators. I know, it’s pretty arcane. But as
the rules are being implemented, it’s pretty clear that if you operate a boiler, you’ve got
some new huge requirements that you have to meet. So we’ve got forty-one of our
Democrat colleagues voted for it. It’s a common-sense bill that will help protect millions
of Americans’ jobs. Both sides worked together on this. There was no reason to, quote,
“compromise.” We found common ground, and there’s no reason that we can’t get this
done.
[00:23:25] You know, the danger is that these areas of overlap will end up in
some big political pawn game in Washington, D.C., held hostage to a broader debate
while the two parties clash over their various philosophies. Listen, there’s too much that
we agree on to allow this to happen, and I think we owe it to you, the young people
who’ll be entering the workforce at the end of the school year, to get this work done.
And I think we also owe you action on another issue, and that’s the debt crisis that faces
our country. The current generation of students will graduate from schools like this one
at a time when our country faces questions about its role in the world. Our
competitiveness is declining while our debt is increasing. And if you’re a student here at
the University of Louisville right now or a student at another university, there’s no one
that has more at stake than you do. And as a consequence of our debt, the United States
faces the ongoing possibility of downgrades in our nation’s credit status, thereby
increasing our interest cost on the nearly $15 trillion of debt that we’ve added up.
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And we face the possibility of downgrades due to our failure to deal decisively
with the spending epidemic in our government, and specifically by our failure to deal
with entitlements that have us spending trillions more over the next decade than what we
bring in. We caught a glimpse of how disruptive this could be in response to what
happened over the summer when we were pushing up against the deadline to increase our
debt limit. The stock market plunged, and, frankly, I think it rattled many Americans.
[00:25:25] But here again is a place that we need to search for common ground,
and right now the Joint Select Committee, or as it’s known, the Super Committee, is
tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in savings that can be used to reduce the deficit,
and the committee’s deadline is rapidly approaching. Nobody thought that the
committee’s job would be easy, and clearly it hasn’t been, and I don’t think anyone is at
all surprised. But I have high hopes here in the days ahead that we can find common
ground.
Everyone knows that we can’t solve the debt crisis without making structural
changes to our entitlement programs. You know it, I know it, President Obama knows it.
If we don’t make these changes, the programs won’t be there for your generation when
you need them, and I think everybody understands that. But the fact of the matter is,
strengthening these programs will be good for our country, and nothing would send a
more reassuring message to the markets than taking bipartisan steps to fix the structural
problems in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The two co-chairs of the
committee, Jeb Hensarling from Texas, a Republican, Patty Murray, a Democrat from the
state of Washington, couldn’t be more different ideologically, but neither of them are
going to compromise on their principles, but I believe that they share a commitment to
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finding the solutions, finding those areas of overlap between the parties and getting this
job done.
[00:27:10] Common ground, without compromising on principles, is the recipe
that produced some of the greatest policy milestones in recent memory. The 1996
welfare reform law is probably the most successful domestic policy reform of the past
quarter century, and it was enacted by a Republican Congress and Democrat president,
Bill Clinton. And it happened because both sides ultimately knew it had to be done, and
they locked arms and they got it done. The same type of effort could lead to success on
jobs now and on our debt.
Now, listen, I know it’s personal for me and it’s personal for Senator McConnell
as well. We want these things to happen. I didn’t take this job to preside over some
partisan screaming match. I took this job to be Speaker of the whole House so that we
could truly listen to the people of our country, those who truly hold power in this country,
listen to their priorities, and get stuff done. So I think we owe it to you, the current
generation, the future generation. And as I said earlier, faith in government has never
been high. It doesn’t have to be this low, though. And I think it’s natural to have doubts
about the government. Americans have had healthy skepticism of our government since
our founding, but we should never lose faith in our country or in the system that our
founding fathers designed for us. It has worked and kept our nation strong for two
centuries, and I believe it will do so for centuries in the future.
So I’m going to thank all of you for the honor of being here with you today, and I
look forward to your questions. Thank you. [applause]
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Gregg: [00:29:16] Thank you, Speaker Boehner. In the same spirit of common ground, I
should note that we have a number of dignitaries in the audience today, and I can’t name
them all but at least we should acknowledge that our congressman, John Yarmuth, is with
us here today. [applause] And our mayor, Greg Fischer, is with us. So thank you both
for being with us today. [applause]
I know you saw the cards coming down with questions, and so let’s begin our
questions. I’ll call on John Weber to ask the first question from the audience. John.
John Weber: [00:29:56] Thank you, Speaker Boehner. The first question that I received
deals with the president’s jobs bill and his recent action with executive orders. I was
wondering if you would like to comment on how he’s doing that and how Congress
would respond, as well as how you might pass some of the legislation in pieces.
Boehner: [00:30:18] Well, as I made clear in my speech, I think it’s our job to find
common ground. About a month ago, the Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, and I sent a
letter to President Obama outlining areas between our jobs bill and his jobs bill where I
thought there was common ground, half a dozen areas that I thought we could work
together on, and I expect that we’re going to continue to work in a bipartisan manner to
address those issues where you can find common ground.
Now, with regard to the president’s activities here over the last week where he’s
decided that maybe the Constitution doesn’t matter, it’s the president who taught
constitutional law, if I’m correct, so he understands that Article 1, Section 1 of the
Constitution gives the Congress the power of the purse. So we’re going to make sure that
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we’re not violating the Constitution while we’re trying to find common ground to try to
get our economy going again and get the American people back to work.
Gregg: [00:31:27] Katherine [phonetic].
Katherine _____: [00:31:28] Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a question from a young
lady in the audience wanting to know what your favorite part about being a Speaker is.
Boehner: [00:31:35] Well, probably doing events like this. [audience laughter]
Anything outside of Washington is a lot more fun than being in Washington, and I think
Mitch will probably agree with this. It’s where America has its big debate, and
regardless of where people are on the ideological spectrum, their representatives come to
Washington, 535 of us, and we have the battle of ideas. Yes, we argue. Yes, we fight.
But I’ll tell you that 95 percent of my colleagues, I think, are doing exactly what their
constituents want, Democrats or Republicans. Now, you know, the other 5 percent, we’ll
not talk about them. All right?
But, listen, most of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are honest, sincere,
and fighting for what they believe in, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be real pretty
every day. So being outside of Washington, you’re not in the middle of the pressure
cooker, it’s a lot more fun. I can tell you that it’s a lot more fun than sitting in my office
looking at Mitch, trying to figure out how we’re going to solve the problem of the day
when nobody wants to agree to do anything.
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Gregg: [00:33:04] Mary Rose.
Mary Rose _____: [00:33:07] Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A member of our audience asks
what is your opinion on the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
Boehner: [00:33:12] Well, listen, I understand people’s frustrations. The economy is not
producing jobs like they want, and there’s a lot of erosion of confidence in our
government, and, frankly, under the First Amendment people have the right to speak out
and to protest, but that doesn’t mean that they have permission to violate the law. So
beyond that, you know, I lived through the riots over the Vietnam War in the late sixties
and early seventies, and you can see how some of those activities got out of control. A
lot of us lived through the race riots of 1968 that clearly was out of control. And I’m
hopeful that these demonstrations will continue to be peaceful.
Gregg: [00:34:07] Tyler Bosley.
Tyler Bosley: [00:34:09] Thank you. Mr. Speaker, thank you again for being with us
today. It means a lot to all of us and everybody in the room. My question is simple.
What do you think is the future of the healthcare bill?
Boehner: [00:34:18] Well, the Affordable Healthcare Act—at least I think that’s what
the title was; I call it ObamaCare, and now, apparently, the president wants to call it
ObamaCare—in my view, I think it will ruin the best healthcare delivery system in the
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world, and I believe it’ll bankrupt our country. Obviously, that opinion isn’t shared by
the president. But I think it’s doomed. It think it’s doomed for three reasons. It could be
the courts that decide that the individual mandate for every American to buy health
insurance, they may rule it unconstitutional. Secondly, there’s going to be an election
coming up in a year, and it’s pretty clear that Republicans and some number of
Democrats want it to go. Then, thirdly, it may just fall of its own weight.
[00:35:07] Over the course of this last year, you’ve seen various parts of this bill
kind of fall away because it wasn’t thought out very well or it cost a lot more than people
think it should have. But there was one provision in the class act, the long-term care
provisions in ObamaCare, that the administration’s decided they’re not going to go
forward on, and the provision in there was an amendment offered by a Republican
senator during the debate. It said that they could not proceed with the long-term-care
program unless it was actuarially sound for the next seventy-five years. That’s kind of
the basis for how we look at big entitlement programs. And because of that one
provision, they could never see where this was going to be viable. Frankly, I think we
ought to take the same provision and apply it to the rest of ObamaCare. If it’s not
economically viable and affordable over the long term of the program, then we probably
should not proceed. [applause]
Gregg: [00:36:25] John.
John _____: [00:36:27] Mr. Speaker, another member of the audience refers to the tax
policy under both Presidents Clinton and Bush and the respective economic boom and
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recession and wondered what the GOP’s evidence for tax cuts as an economic stimulus
would be.
Boehner: [00:36:46] Well, I believe that the more money we allow the American people
to hold, whether they be families or small businesses, is money that will either be spent,
saved, or invested, all of which is good for the economy. And while there is a role for
government to play, that money goes to the government does not have the kind of
multiplier effect than if it’s left in the private sector. So I’m a big believer that the
government should only take what it needs.
The problem we have in Washington is we have a spending problem. I’ve
watched it for twenty years. Mitch has watched it. We’ve got spending that’s been out
of control and needs to be brought under control. When I was a first-time candidate in
1990, I said this: I said the sooner we tackle our entitlement spending, the easier it will be
to make changes necessary to ensure that those programs are around for the long term.
That was about twenty-one years ago, and what have we done in the last twenty-one
years? At best, nipped around the edges. Now what’s happening is that we’re chasing a
runaway train. There are ten thousand baby boomers retiring every single day. People
like me, ten thousand a day, ten thousand new people on Social Security, ten thousand
new people on Medicare. People are living longer, accessing Medicaid benefits. This is
not sustainable, not in any way, shape, or form. And the changes that need to be made,
we’re not talking about horrendous changes in the system, but small changes that will
have a big impact over the next ten, twenty, thirty years. That’s where Senator
McConnell and I are focused as we look at this debt commission, the super committee,
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and the job that it has to do. But we have a spending problem, big one.
Gregg: [00:38:56] Katherine.
Katherine _____: [00:38:57] Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have another question from
the audience. Someone wants to know about what your plans are for educational reform.
Boehner: [00:39:06] Well, when it comes to education reform, the secretary has been in
conversations with both Democrats and Republicans trying to find a way forward, and
just like any big job that you might have around the house, breaking it down into smaller
pieces really gives you a chance to get the job done. So on the House side, the Chairman
of the Educational Workforce Committee, John Kline from Minnesota, has taken the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act and broken it down into about five pieces, and
I think we’ve passed about four of the pieces. Frankly, all four of them passed with
broad bipartisan support.
Now, when we get into the fifth piece, it’s going to be a little more difficult
because we’re into the accountability parts of the law. But I think it’s time that we take a
very serious look at our education system. And the facts are this: about half of America’s
kids get an education, maybe a little more than half will get a diploma, but only about
half of them actually get an education. And I don’t think that we can compete long term
only educating half of America’s kids. The current educational system, the structure that
we have was designed over a hundred years ago when most families had two parents
there, that the kind of distractions in the evening weren’t as prevalent, and people did
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their homework. We have different needs today and bigger challenges in trying to find
ways to educate today’s children, and regardless of what kind of a household a child
might be born in, I think our society owes every child a chance at a decent education.
That’s not happening today, and it should happen.
Gregg: [00:41:10] Mary Rose.
Mary Rose_____: [00:41:13] Mr. Speaker, how do you feel about the president’s
promise to withdraw our troops from Iraq by Christmas?
Boehner: [00:41:18] Well, listen, we all want our soldiers to come home. We have
sacrificed hundreds of billions of dollars in treasure and thousands of American lives to
try to help free the Iraqi people from the grips of Saddam Hussein and to help those
people fighting for freedom and democracy. So we’ve got all this nearly ten years’ worth
of effort, all these lives and all this money, and my concern is that if we just walk out of
Iraq, we’re risking everything that we’ve spent.
The Iraqis clearly are not capable of defending their borders. They [unclear]
building to secure their airspace. They don’t have the type of logistical systems they
need in place for their military. They don’t have the kind of intelligence infrastructure
that’s needed for a country their size. And right next door, you’ve got the Iranian regime
just continuing to foment a discord throughout the entire Middle East. Nothing would
make them happier than to see us go, because the Iranians would attempt to fill that void
quicker than you could blink your eyes.
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So I’m concerned about it. Now, there’s some discussion about the State
Department fulfilling a lot of these missions rather than our military. I’m not sure the
State Department’s capable of this, because they’ve never done it, but we’re going to
continue to monitor this very closely. [applause]
Gregg: [00:43:04] Tyler.
Tyler Bosley: [00:43:05] Mr. Speaker, a member of the audience today tells us that she
has historically associated herself with the Republican Party, but being fiscally
conservative and socially liberal, she feels more and more alienated from the party every
day. How does the Republican Party, especially with the upcoming election, reconcile
those differences and bring her back into the party, and members like her?
Boehner: [00:43:24] Well, there’s no question that we have differences in our party.
You get division in the Democrat Party. Neither party is what I’ll call pure. You’re not
going to get pure when you’ve got basically a two-party system in a country. But what I
try to do is focus on those things that united us as a party, as opposed to those things that
divide us. There are always going to be differences, but, again, by focusing on what unite
us, I think that helps. Secondly, I would say this. If we’re listening to the American
people and following their will, it will bring our party closer together, and I think both
parties closer together if we’ll listen to the American people and act on their desires, not
our own. [applause]
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Gregg: [00:44:18] We have time for one more question. John.
John _____: [00:44:22] Mr. Speaker, the last question that we have for you today—thank
you again for coming on behalf of the McConnell Scholars and the rest of the University
of Louisville community. The last question that I have for you today revolves around the
Bridges Project that is central here in Louisville and in northern Kentucky and Cincinnati.
How do you feel about infrastructure spending and some of those specifics in areas?
Boehner: [00:44:47] Well, it’s one of those areas that was contained in the letter that the
Majority Leader and I sent to President Obama about a month ago, because there is an
area of common ground. Everybody believes that we have infrastructure deficiencies and
more needs to be spent to repair, replace, and in some cases build new infrastructure.
The problem is nobody wants to pay for it, and as a result, we’ve been limping through
the last three or four years with most of this contained in a highway bill and reauthorizing
this for three months, four months. So I’ve spent the last ten weeks focused in on where
do we find the revenue to really do something significant for our infrastructure.
The second part of this is if we’re going to find a new source of revenue for our
infrastructure, then we need to look at what we’re doing with it. It might not surprise
some of you that there are 116 federal programs financed out of the highway bill. Oh,
and if I rattled some of them off, your head would be spinning. If you look back over the
years what we’ve done with highway funds, we’ve built some highways and we’ve built
some bridges, and we’ve built some sports stadiums, and we’ve beautified everything
under the sun, and we have frittered away more highway tax dollars than you could ever
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imagine.
So if we’re going to find the revenue, we’re going to clean up this mess so the
money truly does get to the kind of projects that we all expect. And why do we need to
spend five, ten years going through all the regulatory nightmare that it takes to build a
new bridge, as an example? Why can’t we streamline this process? [applause] We’ve
got to streamline this process so that we can get the projects started and done, because
lengthening all this, all it does is drive up the cost more and allows us to do that much
less when it comes to rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure.
[00:47:01] I just want to say thanks for the opportunity to be here. As you can
well tell, Senator McConnell and I are great friends, great partners, and we work at this. I
mean, this doesn’t happen by accident, I’ll tell you that. I said it earlier, I couldn’t have a
better partner, and I really do appreciate the opportunity to be here today with all of you.
I’m just a regular guy with a big job. Thank you. [applause]
Gregg: [00:47:44] Mr. Speaker, this has been a great honor for us. We’d like to present
you with a small token of our appreciation for you being on the campus of the University
of Louisville.
Join me one more time in thanking Speaker of the House John Boehner.
[applause]
[End of presentation]
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