Speeches by Secretary Elaine L. Chao

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Secretary Elaine L. Chao
Keynote Address
Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner
Covington, Kentucky
September 26, 2002

Thank you, Nick, for that kind introduction, and say hello to America’s heartthrob, George, for us!

I also want to say thank you to Lee Fleischel, John Yaeger, Lawson Walker and Gary Toebben… for the invitation to speak here, and for your leadership of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.

As a Kentuckian, I am particularly pleased to be with you here tonight in one of the most economically vibrant regions of our commonwealth. This region is as economically successful as it is because of you—your hard work, your vision, and your contributions to your communities!

As you can tell, I was not lucky enough to be born in Kentucky like some of you. But I wanted to be a Kentuckian so badly, that I married a Kentuckian.

So, I bring greetings from my husband, Senator Mitch McConnell, who’s in Washington right now, working hard on your behalf.

Mitch is a great supporter of mine. And, I feel so lucky to be married to him. Besides, he is a great cook and he does the laundry too!

Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about the challenges our country faces and what President George W. Bush is doing to keep our country strong and our economy vibrant.

First, let me just say that it is an incredible privilege to serve our country as a member of President George W. Bush’s Cabinet. It’s been fifty years since a Kentuckian has been in the President’s cabinet. I am proud to represent Kentucky in our government.

I’ve had the opportunity to observe the President “up close and personal” over the past year and a half, as he took command and challenged the world to face up to the forces of terrorism.

We heard earlier this week of what we are up against when Prime Minister Tony Blair made the startling revelations about Iraq to the British Parliament.

The fact that Iraq has a growing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and could deliver those weapons within forty-five minutes of an order, should alarm us all.

Iraq has admitted to producing thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly toxins for use with SCUD warheads, aerial bombs and aircraft.

We have strong evidence that Iraq is stockpiling chemical agents such as sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas. Iraq has an advanced nuclear weapons development program that continues to this day. In the last fourteen months alone, Iraq has attempted to buy the components necessary to enrich uranium, a key component in manufacturing atomic bombs.

Saddam Hussein has used these weapons against his own people and attacked two neighboring countries.

For more than a decade, Saddam Hussein has defied one United Nations resolution after another. The United Nations must not become like the ineffectual and impotent League of Nations.

As we learned recently with the arrests in Buffalo, New York of American citizens suspected of links to terrorists-there are no geographic boundaries to this war. We cannot wait for another act of massive destruction to happen before we act. We must act to prevent it from happening again.

It is imperative, that the Senate put aside the demands of special interests and pass the President’s plan for establishing the Department of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security Department employees need to be flexible to be whenever and wherever they are needed. Only then can we ensure our citizens’ safety and protection. Our government must have the ability to act and react quickly—without referring to some thousand-page government personnel manual.

Right now, there are agencies and departments within the government involved in the protection of our country that don’t talk to one another or don’t coordinate with one another and that does not make sense. Our country needs a new Department of Homeland Security to ensure that there is one, single focal point for keeping our people safe within our own borders.

The Senate must give the President the tools he needs to protect all of us.

Just as the President is focused on the security of our homeland, he’s also focused on our people’s economic security. President Bush has often said that we must help those who want to work, find a job. One person out of work is one person too many!

At the Department of Labor, we are a key part of the fight for our economic security.

I know the economy is of concern to many Americans. When the stock market peaked in March 2000, the economy began to soften by August 2000. When President Bush took office in January of 2001, the economy underwent three quarters of negative growth, which is the definition of a recession. If it were not for his tax cuts, the recession would have been deeper and more severe.

As the economy was trending upward, our country was hit by the devastating attacks of September 11^th. 1.5 million Americans lost their jobs as a direct result.

The President quickly responded with generous assistance for workers who lost their livelihood due to the attacks and formed a long-term plan for economic recovery.

To help protect jobs, the President fought for and won Trade Promotion Authority from the Congress. This finally gives him the ability to open new markets for American goods and services, which is good for our economy.

The President has proposed a comprehensive energy plan. Can anyone doubt, after the attacks of September 11^th, the importance to our country of energy independence? By their own estimation, the Teamsters believe the energy bill alone would create over 300,000 jobs.

Finally, the President has urged passage of the terror insurance bill. If passed, this bill would allow over $10 billion in new construction projects to go forward. Again, more jobs, more economic vitality.

Both these bills were passed by the House and are stuck in the Senate.

Nevertheless, it’s a testament to the strength and resiliency of our economy that it is on the road to recovery in such a short period of time.

Many of us wish the recovery were stronger. But, I’m optimistic.

Our economy is incredibly dynamic. Even in this anemic recovery, nearly forty percent of unemployed job seekers find a new job in five weeks or less. Our economy is churning all the time.

The fundamentals of our economy are strong. We have the most productive workforce in the entire world. Interest rates are at forty-year lows. Inflation is the lowest it’s been in decades. In July, housing sales passed the 1 million mark for the first time in history. The deficit is declining due to exports of automobile and other parts.

Our mission at the Department of Labor is to be a partner with employers and workers in job creation, job training and productivity so our country can remain competitive and economically strong in a global marketplace.

To do that, however, many of our policies, programs and regulations—and we’ve got a lot of those—need to be brought in line with the realities of the modern workplace.

By federal standards, the Department of Labor is a relatively small organization. We only have 17,500 employees and an annual budget of about $45.4 billion.

We’re responsible for administering and enforcing more than 180 federal laws that affect 10 million employers and 125 million workers.

But the Department does a lot more than regulate employment practices. It also oversees every private pension and 401(k) plan in America—ensuring the security of over $4 trillion in workers’ retirement savings.

In addition, the American people-that’s you—fund a $12 billion workforce training system that should be an engine for economic growth and career-building opportunity. We’re trying to introduce a new culture into our job training programs. We want to ensure that the $12 billion we spend annually on training prepares workers for real jobs in the real economy. We’re not just processing them through a system. I know we’ve had some great success here in northern Kentucky working with many of you in this audience. So thank you very much.

The Department also administers the nation’s over $30 billion unemployment insurance system. Yep—we invest over $30 billion in unemployment insurance!

Basically, if it has anything to do with work, the Department of Labor is somehow involved.

To me, that’s an exciting challenge—because the American workforce is undergoing a transformation more significant than anything we have seen since people left the farms for the cities and started working in factories.

The advent of technology—computers, cell phones, blackberries and the Internet—has changed the way we do business and what kind of business we are doing.

And yet wherever I go, a common refrain I hear from employers is the challenge of finding quality workers with the requisite skills to fill vacant jobs.

In health care in particular, our nation faces a critical national shortage of registered nurses. Our nation needs about l million nurses in the next eight years. That’s not counting doctors and other healthcare workers that will be needed. With the baby boomer generation graying and retiring, this is a crisis in the making!

To reflect the transition to an information-based economy powered by technology, we’re embarking on a very ambitious agenda to modernize Labor Department programs, policies and regulations.

Here are just a few of the milestones we’ve achieved:

We’ve reduced by one-third the number of regulations pending overall. We did this to ensure that the regulations we issue are meaningful and effective. You know, issuing a flood of regulations, aside from the added cost, over burdens the regulated community. The result is they cannot comply with all of them and workers are less protected.

So we’ve initiated a compliance assistance program to help employers navigate the maze of thousands of pages of workplace regulations. If the government is going to issue reams of regulations, I believe we have a responsibility to communicate and explain them so people can better understand how to comply. That’s the best way to protect employees and workers. By eliciting the cooperation of both the employers and employees to work together to achieve a safer workplace for everyone.

I need not tell you, the President is also very concerned about the financial integrity of our markets because they have a bearing on the economic recovery of our country.

Our free enterprise system rests upon the trust that investors have in the information they receive-that it is accurate and reflects reality.

The President has signed a new Corporate Responsibility Act that will help restore confidence in the governance structure of our public companies.

In addition, the President has introduced a comprehensive pension reform plan. It was passed by the House, and like many other bills, is stuck in the Senate.

We want the Department of Labor to help promote hope and opportunity for America’s workforce.

You are the job-creation engine that has brought our residents the highest living standards in the world.

The last time I spoke in Kentucky was September 11^th, at a memorial service in Louisville. When the terrorists attacked America, they thought they were attacking a “soft” and weak people. They thought all we would do is file some lawsuit. But they were wrong.

We are blessed to live in this freest and greatest country. America is still the beacon of hope for millions.

We are blessed to be Americans. May God bless America.

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