Before I talk about the solutions, I do want people to understand that if you are concerned about the endangered species, then you need to be concerned about catastrophic fire. Fires destroy the animals which, obviously, live amidst the raging fire. If you're concerned about old growth, large stands of timber, then you better be worried about the conditions that create devastating fires. The worst thing that can happen to old stands of timber is these fires. They destroy the big trees. They're so explosive in nature that hardly any tree can survive. We saw that with our own eyes, choppering in here. Thinning underbrush makes sense, makes sense to save our species, it makes sense — of animals — it makes sense to save the big stands of trees.

The government has got to do more than just spend money. We'll spend it, but we've got to effect wise policy, it seems like to me. I mean, how often — we write checks a lot on fire- fighting, and we'll continue to do that. But it seems like to me we ought to put a strategy in place to reduce the amount of money that we have to spend on emergency basis by managing our forests in a better, more commonsensical way.

People ask me how can they help in the war against terror. My answer is, love a neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself.

You can't measure progress by which hedge row we've taken.

And speaking about hauling them in, the United States and our coalition and friends have pulled in over a couple of thousand of them. And there's another couple of thousand that weren't quite so lucky.

I appreciate Congressman Greg Walden being here, as well. I don't know if —All I can see is a hand and an shining head. But Walden is a good man; he's doing a fabulous job as a congressman.

Here's the theory behind that. If you let a person keep their own money — and by the way, we're not talking about the government's money, when we're spending money, we're talking about the people's money. You let somebody keep their own money, they're likely to demand a good or a service. And if they demand a good or a service, somebody is likely to produce that good or service. And when somebody produces a good and service, somebody is more likely to find work.

We've got some challenges that face our economy, there's no question about it. I mean, the first three quarters of my presidency we were in recession. That means the economy was going backwards, it was negative growth. The next three quarters we've had positive growth. But about halfway through that time, the enemy hit us, and it affected our economy.

I remember telling people that where I came from, at least the economic book that I believe in say, if you've got tough times in your economy, you got to let people keep more of their own money.

If you have good forest policy, it will yield to a better economy.

People understand being a patriot is more than simply putting your heart and saying the Pledge of Allegiance to one nation under God.

We need to thin. We need to make our forests healthy by using some common sense ... We need to understand, if you let kindling build up and there's a lightning strike, you're going to get yourself a big fire.

People are beginning to get the message. I mean, Americans who have no idea what good forest policy means are beginning to see the fires on TV. It's a sad way for people to learn, but it's happening, and we're beginning to make some progress.

I was in Mississippi during my so called vacation. I traveled to Mississippi. And the — I met a fellow who had — is a religious man, and he heard the call of taking his practice, his medical practice, into the Mississippi Delta, which is a poor, poor region of America. It's a significant percentage of the population there is African American. These poor folks need health care.

We'll make sure that people have their voice, but aren't able to tie it all up.

FIREFIGHTER ED HALL: Mr. President, it really is an honor to meet you, but you don't have to drill for oil in the Arctic.
DUBYA: Yeah, then we'll run out of energy.

They said, you know, this issue doesn't seem to resignate with the people. And I said, you know something? Whether it resignates or not doesn't matter to me, because I stand for doing what's the right thing, and what the right thing is hearing the voices of people who work.