South Lawn
4:17 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Please. That’s a nice crowd on a nice, cool day. (Laughter.) It’s beautiful, though. Might be hot, but it’s beautiful.
We’re here today to celebrate and expand our historic campaign to rescue American workers from job-killing regulations. Before I came into office, American workers were smothered by a merciless avalanche of wasteful and expensive and intrusive federal regulation. These oppressive, burdensome mandates were a stealth tax on our people — slashing take-home pay, suppressing innovation, surging the cost of goods, and shipping millions of American jobs overseas — millions and millions and millions. It never ended.
Nearly four years ago, we ended this regulatory assault on the American worker, and we launched the most dramatic regulatory relief campaign in American history by far. No other administration has done anywhere near. (Applause.) Thank you.
At the heart of this effort was a revolutionary promise: For every one new regulation issued, we pledged that two federal regulations would be permanently removed. We not only met that ambitious goal — which, at the time, people said was impossible — we vastly exceeded it. For every one new regulation added, nearly eight federal regulations have been terminated. (Applause.) Been an incredible achievement.
As you can see behind me, we have removed the gigantic, regulatory burden Americans have been forced to carry for decades, freeing our citizens to reach their highest potential. Our historic regulatory relief is providing the average American household an extra $3,100 every single year. And we’re going up from that number. (Applause.) We’re going up from that number. Think of that: $3,100 per household.
Joining us today is Vice President Mike Pence. Thank you, Mike. (Applause.) Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Wilbur, thank you very much. (Applause.) Labor Secretary, Eugene Scalia. Thank you. Thank you, Gene. (Applause.) Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar. Thank you, Alex. (Applause.) Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao. Thank you, Elaine. (Applause.) We had a great day in Georgia yesterday, cutting regulations like nobody has ever seen before.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you very much. (Applause.) OMB Acting Director, Russ Vought. Thank you, Russ. (Applause.) And Small Business Administrator — I love her name — Jovita Carranza. Jovita, thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) And CMS Administrator Seema Verma. Thank you, Seema. (Applause.)
Great people. Those are great people. They do an incredible job. (Applause.)
I also want to thank the many state and local, tribal leaders who join us in this great cause. Thank you very much, and thank you for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you all very much.
What we have achieved together is truly without precedent — never happened before. The previous administration added over 16,000 pages of heavy-handed regulations to the Federal Register. That’s why nothing got done.
Under my administration, we have removed nearly 25,000 pages of job-destroying regulations — more than any other President by far in the history of our country, whether it was four years, eight years, or, in one case, more than eight years.
The prior administration piled up more than 600 major new regulations — a cruel and punishing regulatory burden that cost the average American an additional $2,300 per year. Think of that: The average American, $2,300, regulation — hitting low-income Americans, by far, the hardest. These regulations also inflicted a steep economic toll on African American communities.
By contrast, our reforms are putting more money into the pockets of hardworking Americans. In addition to saving every family more than $3,000 per year, my administration has just issued another reform that my Council of Economic Advisers estimates will lower the price of new vehicles by more than $2,200 per vehicle. And I think we’re going to get that up to $3,500 per vehicle. (Applause.) It’s very exciting.
And, by the way, the vehicles will be better, they’ll be stronger, and they’ll be safer. Our regulation cuts are also delivering massive savings on broadband Internet services, and some home energy bills will be really historically cut — it’s actually amazing — as well as historically low gasoline prices. Gasoline prices — you look today — I think it was $1.99.
At the same time, we saved our oil companies — we’re now the largest since we’ve been here — the largest energy source in the world. Nobody is even close. So it’s great. But we saved them. They had a hard time a number of months ago — and, frankly, for a long time — but we’ve saved them. But $1.99, they were telling me — and, in some cases, lower than that.
We’re bringing back consumer choice in home appliances so that you can buy washers and dryers, showerheads and faucets. So showerheads — you take a shower, the water doesn’t come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair — I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect. Perfect. (Laughter and applause.)
Dishwashers — you didn’t have any water, so you — the people that do the dishes — you press it, and it goes again, and you do it again and again. So you might as well give them the water because you’ll end up using less water. So we made it so dishwashers now have a lot more water. And in many places — in most places of the country, water is not a problem. They don’t know what to do with it. It’s called “rain.” They don’t have a problem.
And old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs — I brought them back. I brought them back. (Applause.) They have two nice qualities: They’re cheaper and they’re better. They look better, and they make you look so much better. That’s important to all of us. (Laughter.) But they’re better and much cheaper. And they were mandated out, legislated out. And we brought them back, and they’re selling like hotcakes.
We stopped the egregious abuse of the Clean Water Act, which extreme activists have used to shut down construction projects all across our country. When I signed that legislation, I had many farmers and construction people standing behind me — people that haven’t cried since they were a baby. Some of them never even when they were a baby, and they were crying. Many people were cry- — we gave them back their life. They took away their land. They took away their rights. They took away their life.
By reining in EPA overreach, my administration has returned the agency to its core mission of ensuring clean air, clean water, and a truly pristine natural environment. Our air now and our water is as clean as it’s been in the last four decades.
Yesterday, our country achieved yet another groundbreaking milestone by completing a sweeping overhaul of America’s badly broken infrastructure approval process. It was totally out of control. Instead of taking up to 20 years to approve a major project, we’re cutting the federal permitting timeline — it’s already been done — to a maximum of two years or less; in some cases, even less than one year. (Applause.)
And it’s possible that it won’t qualify. It’s possible that it won’t be good environmentally or safety-wise, in which case, at least in a period of a year or two, we’ll raise the hand and you won’t make it. But most projects will make it, but you won’t go for 10, 15, 18 or 20 years. There are many horror stories that we could relay.
We’re reclaiming America’s proud heritage as a nation of builders. My administration has also eliminated massive regulatory barriers in our battle against the China virus. These actions save countless lives, speeding up the production of equipment. That means ventilators like nobody has ever seen before. Probably the greatest source of manufacturing, the greatest achievements since World War Two. We’re now making ventilators for countries all over the world. And medicine — accelerating the delivery of lifesaving treatments and ensuring that we will have a vaccine in a record time. We’re doing fantastically well on that. That’ll be for another time, another meeting. But we are doing, on therapeutics and vaccines, incredibly well.
No administration in history has removed more red tape more quickly to rescue the economy and to protect the health of our people. When you think of it, we are all set up; that as we get the vaccine or therapeutic — and we’re set up, militarily — we’re going to be delivering it in record time. It’s all set to move. We put an investment upfront. And we have logistical people — generals, great people — they’re going to be delivering this all over the country as soon as we have it. And we’ve made tremendous progress. You’ve been reading about it.
In total, we’ve taken more than 740 actions to suspend regulations that would have slowed our response to the China virus. This includes lifting restrictions on manufacturers so that our great autoworkers could produce more than 100,000 ventilators. So we’ve done over 100,000 in 100 days. Think of that. And we didn’t have ventilators. We weren’t set up for ventilators. We became a country that’s making a lot of them, helping so many others — countries that are never going to be in a position to make them. They’re complex, they’re expensive, they’re big. Very, very, very tough to do. And we’ve saved a lot of lives.
And there’s never been a person in our country — even though we started with almost nothing; I say the cupboard was bare when we took over. We started with nothing. There’s never been a person in our country — even though we had just absolutely no — we were — we were going on empty — never been one person that needed a ventilator that didn’t get it. Think of that. Not one person — as complex as they are, as big, as expensive. Take a long time to get them done. Not one person has ever needed a ventilator that didn’t get it.
We made telemedicine — (applause). Thank you. Great job. Great — really, a great job. The people here, they get no credit for it. I don’t want any credit. They should get the credit, but they get no credit. But we’ve done a great job helping so many other countries now.
We made telemedicine available to all American patients and allowed doctors to work across state lines. I will tell you, the telemedicine is something that’s really gone up by thousands and thousands of percentage points of percent. Because what happened is people that wouldn’t even think of using telemedicine, all of a sudden, started using it, and it’s really turned out to be good. Really, really turned out to be good, and it solved a lot of problems. So that’s something. There’s been great advancement.
Furthermore, I have ordered federal agencies to look for ways to make these healthcare reforms totally permanent. Vice President Pence is also working closely with state, local, and tribal leaders to streamline occupational licensing. Over 30 states have taken steps to reduce these barriers to unemployment and to employment, and — including a state that I love very much — I have a little history in that state — the great state of Alaska. Thank you very much, Governor, for being here. Mike Dunleavy. Mike, thank you very much. (Applause.)
In Idaho, Governor Brad Little, who is here today with us as well, set a new record for regulatory relief. Good job, Brad. (Applause.) Good. Good governor. Great governor. (Applause.) Two great governors.
The American people know best how to run their own lives. They don’t need Washington bureaucrats controlling their every move and micromanaging their every decision. With each regulation we cut, we’re not only returning the money and the power to our citizens, we are draining the Washington swamp, and they’re not happy about it — I can tell you that. I think you know that. (Applause.) The swamp was deep. I just didn’t know how deep. (Laughter.) Deeper than I thought.
Joining us today are a few of the countless Americans who are personally benefitting from our pro-worker reforms. Joe Cambria owns Cambria Truck Center in New Jersey — a good state, New Jersey — and it’s been really something that he’s seen firsthand how our regulation cuts have helped create thousands and thousands of jobs.
Joe, please come up and say a few words. Thank you, Joe. (Applause.)
MR. CAMBRIA: Thank you, Mr. President. Our company, Cambria Truck Center, has been selling and servicing heavy-duty trucks since 1969, when my grandfather, uncle, and father started the business. In the past three and a half years, the Trump administration has kept its promise to right-size regulations. I want to thank you for that, President Trump.
Regulatory reform in the energy sector creates jobs, reduces costs for our communities, and puts trucks to work. Streamlined permitting and creating an environment that allows for efficient construction and infrastructure repair and development has the same effect.
As a result of these regulatory reforms, our industry has seen record sales of heavy-duty trucks, which have — has been a boon to dealerships like ours, as well as the environment. When new trucks replace older models, there is an environmental benefit: Current power trains have near-zero emissions today — and we’re going electric — as well as increased safety, like shorter stopping distances and collision avoidance technology. Safer on the road.
It has also been nice to hear “Made in the USA” again. Bringing manufacturing back to our shores helps our industry and our entire country.
In short, when we cut red tape, we create an economy that is responsible and sensible. We, as Americans, all win. Thank you, President Trump. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thanks. Good job. Good job. That was easy, wasn’t it? Huh? (Laughs.) Thank you very much. Great job.
Dr. Amy Johnson is a nurse practitioner in rural Virginia. Amy, please come up and share with us how important expanded healthcare and telehealth has been for you and your patients. Thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
DR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Amy Johnson and I’m from Bedford, Virginia. Telehealth deregulation has been of substantial benefit to my colleagues and I over recent months during the COVID-19 crisis. Prior to COVID restrictions, our small local hospital that had limited access to specialty services used telehealth for neurological, mental health, and palliative care consults. However, telehealth was not something that was used within our primary-care setting.
Since the deregulation of telehealth restrictions and expansion of guidelines through CMS, we’ve had the opportunity to integrate video and audio visits as part of our patient care experience. During the COVID crisis, there were days when almost all of my visits were done via telehealth. This allowed me to continue to care for my patients, including those that were the most vulnerable, without risking exposure to illness by bringing them into the office setting.
Since we’ve gone back to a more traditional model, we’ve continued to offer telehealth visits, which are a valuable option for home, health, and hospice patients; patients with limited mobility; and patients that remain at high risk.
As a farm safety specialist, I can see the use of telehealth expanding to offer more services to our farming population and rural Americans, including much-needed mental health services, which are unfortunately very sparse.
In addition, access to primary care and to specialty services can be improved in medically underserved areas with deregulation and the use of telehealth services by healthcare providers, increasing the use of preventative healthcare modalities, allowing for more intensive management of patients with chronic diseases and decreasing healthcare disparities.
Thank you, Mr. President. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Great job. Thank you. So that’s been a great help to you, telehealth. It’s been an incredible — it’s been an incredible thing. Great job. Thank you very much.
Jim Chilton is a rancher from Arizona who was crushed by the Obama-Biden administration’s ridiculous Waters of the United States rule — it’s been a catastrophic rule, but it’s gone now — which gave bureaucrats power to regulate every puddle on private land as though it were a lake.
Jim, please come up and tell us of your experience, which I know wasn’t a good one, but it’s a good one now. Please. (Applause.)
MR. CHILTON: I appreciate the invitation, President Trump, to be here. And I appreciate the opportunity to thank you for the deregulation in every area, including the Waters of the United States, cutting the red tape, setting us free as private property owners. Thank you.
Our ranch has approximately 100 dry washes flowing across it. These are little washes with no water. The Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, who wrote the Obama 2015 regulations, ruled that any dry wash that had more than 12 inches of sand in the bottom became a water of the United States. Hence, we were subject to regulations and oversight from Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. It was outrageous.
I believe that the 2015 rules and regulations were overreaching, caused red tape, and threatened me and other farmers, ranchers, businessmen, and landowners with the possibility of going to jail and facing huge fines.
Thank you, Mr. President, for the Navigable Water Protection Rule that you promulgated. It has set us free. The heavy hand of government is no longer on our shoulders. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Jim. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jim. That was my honor, Jim, and thank you very much. It’s terrible. It was — that you had to suffer so long. They took your property away from you. And you want to take care of your property better than any government is going to tell you to take care of your property. You’ll take care of it better, so we don’t have to worry about that. Thank you very much. Beautifully said. Thank you.
I want to just, as President, say that I will always fight to defend your rights and your freedoms. We’ll fight very hard for your rights and your freedoms. The hard left wants to reverse these extraordinary gains and re-impose these disastrous regulations. They want to take what we’ve taken off, Jim, and they want to — they want to put them back on. And I guess they can do that. You’ll fight them for a little while, but eventually you’ll lose.
And they want to bury our economy under suffocating, relentless landslides of Washington red tape like we had before I got here. We must never return to the days of soul-crushing regulation that ravaged our cities, devastated our workers, drained our vitality — and right out of our people — and thoroughly crippled our nation’s prized competitive edge. It’s what we have: We have great, great people. The greatest people in the world.
Our entire economy and our very way of life are threatened by Biden’s plans to transform our nation and subjugate our communities through the blunt-force instrument of federal regulation at a level that you haven’t even seen yet. You think that was bad? You haven’t even seen it yet. They want to go many times what they put you under in the past.
Under the “unity” platform Joe Biden published with socialist Bernie Sanders, they are proposing — and this is all in writing; it’s done; they agreed — they are proposing to reenter the job-killing, unfair Paris Climate Accord, which will cost our country trillions of dollars — trillions and trillions of dollars — and put us in a very, very bad competitive position relative to the world.
Not surprising to you, China will be greatly advanced under this ridiculous agreement, and so will Russia, so will many other countries. They propose to mandate net-zero emissions from all new homes and buildings, skyrocketing the cost of construction and putting the goal of homeownership out of reach for millions — destroying the look of the home, the beauty of the home.
I’m somebody that’s built many homes, many buildings. If you take a look at this, it doesn’t look good. You still have to sell, right? You still have to sell. But they’ve put it out of reach, from a cost standpoint. Totally out of reach. It’s not practical, it’s not good, and it doesn’t work.
They want to eliminate carbon from the U.S. energy industry, which means abolishing all American oil, clean coal, and natural gas. No coal, no gas, no oil, nothing to fire our massive plants.
The result of this federally mandated shutdown would be the wholesale destruction of the entire energy industry and many other industries, the economic evisceration of entire communities, and the unfettered offshoring of millions of our best jobs to foreign countries and foreign polluters. Millions and millions of jobs would go. Thousands and thousands of countries would be at a level that you’ve never seen. Companies would be disappearing left and right, just like they did with NAFTA, which we terminated for the USMCA, which was another beauty that we’ve done — not for now, but another great beauty.
But thousands of companies, plants, factories would be closed. Under this dismal future, energy would be unaffordable for the vast majority of Americans, and the American Dream would be sniffed out so quickly and replaced with a socialist disaster.
The Democrats in D.C. have been and want to, at a much higher level, abolish our beautiful and successful suburbs by placing far-left Washington bureaucrats in charge of local zoning decisions. They are absolutely determined to eliminate single-family zoning, destroy the value of houses and communities already built, just as they have in Minneapolis and other locations that you read about today. Your home will go down in value and crime rates will rapidly rise.
Joe Biden and his bosses from the radical left want to significantly multiply what they’re doing now. And what will be the end result is you will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs. Suburbia will be no longer as we know it. So they wanted to defund and abolish your police and law enforcement while at the same time destroying our great suburbs.
The suburb destruction will end with us. Next week, I will be discussing the AFFH rule — AFFH rule, a disaster — and our plans to protect the suburbs from being obliterated by Washington Democrats, by people on the far left that want to see the suburbs destroyed, that don’t care. People have worked all their lives to get into a community, and now they’re going to watch it go to hell. Not going to happen, not while I’m here.
The Biden-Bernie plan would also use the weapon of federal regulation to tie the hands of our police departments by abolishing cash bail — think of that. Think of that: bail. “No problem. They killed somebody? Let them out.” Take a look at what’s happening: Crime in New York City up 368 percent from just a short while ago. They got rid of a lot of police, and they’re in the process of doing it a billion dollars. They probably want to abolish. It’s not even believable.
When I first heard about it, when you first heard about it, you didn’t think it was real. You didn’t think it was believable. Just like the Green New Deal. How crazy is that? But they’re actually trying to put it into play. It’ll mean the end of this country.
So by getting rid of bail, they are incentivizing jail and prison closures — they want to get rid of prisons; they don’t think anybody should go to prison — setting loose violent criminals; appointing left-wing social justice prosecutors, like you have in Philadelphia, where people creating and doing the most criminal of acts are let go, in many cases immediately, and making our wonderful cops — our great, great police, cops — subordinate to distant bureaucrats who have never spent a day in their lives fighting crime.
Unlike the socialists, we believe in the rule of the people, not the rule of the unelected bureaucrats that don’t know what they’re doing. We believe in the dignity of the individual, not the iron grip of the state. Our regulatory reforms are vital not only to the success of our economy, but the strength of our democracy and the survival of liberty itself.
My administration will continue pressing forward until we have made every last vestige of Washington fully, completely, and totally accountable to the citizens of the United States. We are putting our faith in the workers who power our country: the doctors who care for our country, the truckers who sustain our country, and the farmers and ranchers who preserve our country in all of its majestic beauty.
The American people are the ones who made our nation great, and together, we will make it greater, by far, than ever before. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you very much for being with us. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Thank you.
We must’ve said something right. I guess we said it absolutely right. It’s about our country. It’s about our country. We want to be strong, we want to respect everybody, but we have to have strong law enforcement. And that’s taking place in the areas that we’re responsible for.
We want others to call us for help. There’s nothing wrong. Let Chicago call. Let Seattle call. We were going into Seattle, all set to go, and then they did it themselves. They heard we were coming in, and the hands went up; they gave up. It’s so terrible when you see what’s happening. Minneapolis — we said, “Get the guard in there.” Three nights: “Get the guard in. Get the Guard.” We got the Guard in. The National Guard. They’ve done a fantastic job. As soon as they showed up, it was like a knife cutting through butter. (Applause.) You saw that, right? After four days of horror.
It wasn’t the police’s fault in — in any of these places. They were told to leave. The police are, generally speaking, they do a great job. They were told to leave. But you saw what happened.
Minneapolis — “Grab — grab your gun and run.” That’s not what they wanted to do. But the National Guard came in, and we did a great job. No problem after that, do you notice?
We just passed a statues and monument executive order. And they were going wild. They — see that beautiful — look at it right there. It’s so beautiful — the Washington Monument. If they had the choice, they’d take it down. And I guarantee you they’d rename it. They want to rename it. They want George Washington out. They want Thomas Jefferson out. They want Abraham Lincoln out. They want abolitionists out.
They don’t know what they want. They just want to destroy our country. We’re not going to let it happen. We’re not letting it happen. (Applause.)
So I’d now like to ask Vice President Mike Pence to say a few words. Thank you, Mike. (Applause.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a privilege to be with you today. Thank you for bringing together all these great, hardworking Americans to be able to hear their stories and to be able to reflect on the fact that, before the coronavirus hit our country, thanks to your leadership, we built the strongest economy in the history of the world. (Applause.)
In three short years, Mr. President, you kept your promise to the American people. We cut taxes across the board. You fought for free and fair trade, you unleashed American energy, and you rolled back regulations to help all Americans. And after 40 years of over-regulation, Mr. President, you delivered four years of regulatory freedom. (Applause.)
And in our first three years, the results were extraordinary. Businesses large and small created 7 million new jobs, wages rose at their fastest pace in more than 10 years, 2 million Americans were lifted out of poverty, 7 million Americans lifted off of food stamps, and the highest median income in the history of our country.
And, Mr. President, as you just reflected, a centerpiece of that was lifting red tape off the American people and American free enterprise. I remember those days in the campaign four years ago when you promised that for every new regulation, we’d eliminate two rules off the Federal Register. But, as you just said, Mr. President, for every new regulation put on the books, you actually repealed nearly eight regulations off of the American people and the American economy. (Applause.)
And this President has already signed more bills rolling back federal red tape than any President in American history. (Applause.)
They tell us that we’ve saved $220 billion in our economy and, as you said, more than $3,100 for every American household. And beyond all of that, the regulatory reform now has America as the largest supplier of oil and natural gas in the world, and a net-exporter of energy for the first time in 75 years. (Applause.) That’s what your deregulation agenda delivered.
And today, Mr. President, as we continue to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, at your direction, we’re ensuring that our states, our hospitals, and our extraordinary healthcare workers have not only the supplies they need, but the freedom and the flexibility to give every American the same level of care that each one of us would want a family member to have.
And as we meet this moment in this pandemic, we’re also opening up America again. It’s extraordinary to think, Mr. President, at the height of this pandemic, our economy had lost 22 million jobs. But because of the strong foundation that you laid of less taxes and less regulation, in two short months, May and June saw record-breaking job creation. We’ve already added 7 million jobs back to the American economy, and we’re just getting started. (Applause.)
And this record job growth, Mr. President, is a tribute to the resilience of the American people, the strength of their character. It’s a resilience to [of] your leadership, to the agenda that you advanced in our first three years.
But as you said, Mr. President, it’s also a tribute to governors across the country who not only supported your agenda but also, in more than 30 states, governors actually delivered on that same agenda of less taxes and less regulation. And while I’ve been leading the White House Coronavirus Task Force, it’s also been my honor, Mr. President, to lead the Governors’ Initiative on Regulatory Innovation and to work with these extraordinary governors.
The truth is, because of your leadership and example, governors across the country have been reducing the burden of regulations at the state level. And that’s what’s contributed to the strong foundation on which we are standing, and the American recovery has already begun.
Fortunately, as you mentioned, we have two of those great governors with us today. The first is a governor who, in his very first year in office, cut or simplified more than 75 percent of his state’s regulations and cut the Administrative Code by 20 percent. Would you all join me in welcoming Idaho’s great governor, Brad Little, to tell us Idaho’s story of deregulation? (Applause.)
GOVERNOR LITTLE: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Mr. President, it’s a great honor to be here. As the Vice President alluded to, our route to rebound is dependent upon the red truck, not the blue truck. (Laughter.) What we did in — what we did in Idaho, where we had the third lowest unemployment, the third fastest income growth of any of the states, particularly for those at the lower end of the income, was to match up with your regulatory reform and make more opportunities available. Whether it be the spouse of a military veteran that came there that wanted to have their license and their home state transferred, which today I can probably say takes us one half day to get that done so that those people can be there.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
GOVERNOR LITTLE: Whether it’s a small business that wants to break through and remove the regulatory friction that existed there before. But as this economy changes as a result of what’s taking place, you have to free up all Americans to have that freedom to create a new opportunity.
One of the things that we did that we heard about from the good doctor was telehealth. Between CMS, the department, and what we did in Idaho, we increased telehealth availability in Idaho by 4,000 percent.
Idaho is a rural state. Idaho is a state where accessibility and the cost of healthcare is always an issue. It’s the combination and the teamwork of your administration and what we’ve done made that available to where we will rebound in Idaho.
And thank you very much, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you very much, Brad. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, Brad.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Governor Little.
And finally, Mr. President, allow me to introduce the governor who told us in December, when you kicked off the Governors’ Initiative on Regulatory Innovation, that in his first year in office, his administration modified or rolled back 239 different regulations in over 100 professions. He is making sure that Alaska is open for business and prospering with less taxes and less regulation. Join me in welcoming Alaska’s great governor, Mike Dunleavy. (Applause.)
GOVERNOR DUNLEAVY: Thank you, Mr. Vice President, and thank you, Mr. President, for having us here today. What you’ve done here for us — for governors and the people of this great country and Alaska — we are part of the great country, by the way, Mr. President; you know that. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: You are.
GOVERNOR DUNLEAVY: The President has been up in our state. We’ve met at least eight times. And when he stops over in Anchorage, Alaska, on his trips, he always wants to meet, and the first thing he says is, “Can we meet the troops?” and “What do you need in the state of Alaska?”
This is a small state, population wise, way up north, but this President sees the importance of that state and its people. This is really about hope, Mr. President — restoring hope and opportunity, and this is what you’ve done. This is really about the art of the possibility. The — as before — as previous, Governor Little said, this — this is — what you’ve done is historic, and it’s going to continue to be historic.
In Alaska, for example, we have communities that are 500, 600 miles off the road system. The telehealth regulations that have been put in place now are not only going to be good for medicine, but they’re going to save lives as a result of the work that you and your team have done.
We look at — we look at our resource development, we look at businesses small and big, and you’ve restored, you’ve renewed hope that it is possible to achieve the American Dream. These regulations over the past 40 years have really, in many respects, killed the American Dream — as you said, “strangle” the American Dream.
And in the end, really, what this comes down to is how does it impact the individual American; the individual Alaskan, in my case. And I want to tell you: What you’ve done is — when the land owner goes and decides that they want to do a little landscaping on their property, do they have to look over their shoulder and wonder if big government is watching them? Can they do what they need to do on their private property? You’ve restored the hope that they can — that they can realize the American Dream. And this goes for our corporations; this goes for our entities, our nonprofit entities; this goes for our native corporations in Alaska. What you’ve done is restore hope and opportunity, and we’re looking forward to more years of this opportunity, Mr. President.
So, thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mike. Thank you. (Applause.)
So we have many exciting things that we’ll be announcing over the next eight weeks, I would say. Things that nobody has even contemplated, thought about, thought possible, and things that we’re going to get done and we have gotten done — and we’ve started in most cases. But it’s going to be a very exciting eight weeks, a eight weeks, like I prob- — I think, Mike, we can honestly say nobody has ever going to see eight weeks like we’re going to have. Because we really have — we have — we’re taking on immigration, taking on education, we’re taking on so many aspects of things that people were hopelessly tied up in knots in Congress. They can’t — they’ve been working on some of these things for 25, 30 years. It wasn’t happening.
But you’ll see levels of detail, and you’ll see levels of thought that a lot of people believed very strongly we didn’t have in this country. We’re going to get things done. We’re going to get things done that they’ve wanted to see done for a long, long time.
So I think we’ll start sometime on Tuesday. We’ll be discussing our one plan on suburbia, but that’s one of many, many different plans. Then we’re going into the immigration — the world of immigration, the world of education. We’re going into the world of healthcare — very complete healthcare.
And we have a lot of very exciting things to discuss. But cutting of regulation has been really something that I felt we could do, and we could do fairly easily. Nothing is easy in this country. We had statutory requirements where we’d do phase one, and then we’d have to wait 90 days. We’d do phase two, and we’d have to wait 60 days. You’d do phase three, and we’re set — “Let’s do phase four, sir.” “I’m sorry you have to wait one year.”
But we were able to do things that nobody has ever been able to do, or even close, on deregulation.
And these trucks — this really is a great — a great little example. I don’t know who thought of this idea, but it’s actually quite, quite simple and quite good. Is that Brooke? Quite simple and quite good. I don’t love having that big sucker hanging over my head. (Laughter.) I want to get out of here as fast as possible.
But I do want to thank you all. Incredible people. You’ve done an incredible job. And to the speakers, please, thank you very much. Great job. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Brad.
END
5:01 P.M. EDT
