SAWYER: Do you have one word for the Republican Party today?
DUBYA: You will exist in the future.

Over the past seven years we have worked to strengthen the public school system. In other words, we haven't given up on public schools; quite the contrary, we've tried to help them succeed by passing the No Child Left Behind Act. In some circles it's controversial. I don't think it should be controversial, however, to demand high standards for every child. I don't think it should be controversial to insist upon accountability to see if those children are meeting those standards. And I don't think it should be viewed as controversial to say to a public school, if children are falling behind, here's supplementary services to help that individual child catch up.

The Iraqis are fully staffed, and — and they've got their team in there, but we don't. And so, what Gen. Petraeus is saying — some early signs, still dangerous, but give me — give my chance a plan to work.

I can look you in the eye and tell you I feel I've tried to solve the problem diplomatically to the max, and would have committed troops both in Afghanistan and Iraq knowing what I know today.

I based a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty, and secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.

You know, I know gas prices are high. There's no magic wand to wave.

Today we saw again that the terrorists are willing to try to define the world the way they want to see it. There was bombings today in Egypt.

I need people in Congress who understand the nature of this enemy. There are some that kind of feel like maybe these folks are just kind of angry citizens of the world who occasionally lash out. No, these folks are bound by a common ideology. They're totalitarian in nature.

They said, well, this is only good for the rich. Well, as a result of reforming health care, we now have got 3 million people who are now owners of health savings accounts, most of whom have got incomes of 50,000 dollars or less, about a third of those who signed up.

And we had an emergency and a recession, which affected the revenue growth of the U.S. Treasury. I mean, the stock market went down. Some of the pie-in-the-sky projections didn't make, and the investors said, oops. The numbers weren't real. The investors said, well, it looks like the days of everything is going up may end. And so people started selling, and the markets went down. That affected the revenues coming into the U.S. Treasury. Recession — negative growth means less revenues. And so, of course, we've got a deficit.

But this nation has got a deficit because we have been through a war.

Last year, this company paid out more than $30 million in dividends — and a lot of that went to Timken employees. So when you hear politicians say the tax cut is only for the rich, they're talking about you.

Work is not done. There's still dangers and challenges to remain.

Last year, one of the first preparations for possible war — one of the first parts of our planning for war came when General Tommy Franks — from Midland, Texas I want you to know — went to the same high school as First Lady Laura Bush did — who, by the way, sends her love, and her best — Tommy Franks asked one of the first requests in preparation for possible war was that we send 1,200 Abrams tanks to the field.

This isn't a Republican war, this isn't a Democrat war. This is an American war.

But in Afghanistan, we've shown, I believe, how to do it, in a way that's commiserate with our values — that, on the one hand, we're plenty tough, and we will be. We've got a military we're going to use, if we need to, to defend freedom. But on the other hand, we delivered a lot of medicine and a lot of food.

The farm bill needs to get done quickly so that the farmers who are out there fixing to plant know what the rules of the game is.

I want to appreciate the Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, for being here today.

If you live off the land, the people who care more about that than the people who live off the land — the reason I bring that up is because I want — a good policy understands the proper role of the federal government.

First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country.

Not all wisdom is in Washington, D.C., as witnessed by what took place up here.