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http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-../oma.eop.gov.us/198/10/2/4.text.1
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
October 2, 1998
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
UPON DEPARTURE
The South Portico
10:00 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Today I would like to
talk to you about the steps we are taking to keep our economy growing
by keeping the world's economy growing. Less than 36 hours ago,
America closed the books on an era of exploding deficits and
diminished expectations by recording a budget surplus of $70 billion,
the largest on record and the largest as a percentage of our economy
since the 1950s. Every American should be proud of this.
Today, we received more evidence that the economy
remains solid. For fifteen months in a row now, unemployment has
stayed below five percent for the first time in 28 years. Over the
last year, wages have risen at more than twice the rate of inflation,
and now the economy has added more than 16.7 million new jobs since
1993.
Today, America enjoys a great moment of prosperity. But
we cannot remain an oasis of prosperity in a world in which so much
of our growth depends upon trade and in which so many of our trading
partners are experiencing economic turmoil. We must hold to the
economic strategy that has brought us to where we are today and move
aggressively to deal with the challenges around the world. We must
maintain our fiscal discipline. When I supported targeted tax cuts
that we paid for in this budget, I made it clear and I want to make
it clear again: I will veto any tax plan that drains the new
surplus. We simply have to set aside every penny of it, not only to
set a good financial example around the world, but to save Social
Security first.
Second, we must continue to invest in education. The
fiscal year has just ended; yet, Congress still has not found time to
send me an appropriations bill on education. Congress must put
progress ahead of partisanship and send me an education bill that
funds our investments in smaller classes, 100,000 new teachers,
better trained, and safe, more modern schools, with every class able
to be hooked to the Internet by the year 2000.
To ensure prosperity for the American economy, I say
again, however, we must continue to lead and we must move more
aggressively to lead in the global economy. Today, the world faces
the most serious financial challenge in 50 years. Our future
prosperity depends upon whether we can work with others to restore
confidence, to manage change and to stabilize the financial system.
Our chief priority is and must be economic growth -- here and around
the world.
Last month in New York, I outlined several steps we can
take immediately to address the crisis. I asked Secretary Rubin and
Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan to convene a major meeting of
their counterparts to recommend ways to adapt international financial
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institutions to the 21st Century. Yesterday, Secretary Rubin spoke
about that, and I am pleased that, on short notice, Secretary Rubin
and Chairman Greenspan have arranged a meeting of finance ministers
and central bankers from the major industrialized nations and the key
emerging markets for next Monday here in Washington. I will
personally participate in their deliberations. The following day, I
will address the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to
underscore the urgency of quick action and the need for long-term
reform of the international financial system.
But we must do more to help the international community
respond to the challenges posed by the current crisis. And today we
are taking the following steps -- steps that build on the approach I
outlined a few weeks ago at the Council on Foreign Relations.
First, we must act to strengthen the international
financial community's capacity to limit the contagion. This week,
Secretary Rubin and Chairman Greenspan will explore with the
International Monetary Fund and their G-7 colleagues whether best to
design a new mechanism, anchored in the IMF, to provide contingent
finance to help countries to ward off global financial contagion.
This step, combined with full funding for the IMF, would give the
international community a powerful new tool to help reduce the risk
posed by the current financial crisis.
Second, we must help the people who have been hurt by
this crisis. As I said in New York, multilateral development banks
like World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American
Development Bank have played a critical and positive role. Today, I
ask them to explore the following steps to develop a new emergency
capacity to lend quickly so as to help other countries reform their
financial sectors while also helping the most vulnerable citizens, to
use loan guarantees and other innovative means to leverage private
sector lending to emerging markets and to expand their own lending as
much as possible within their guidelines to countries now affected by
the crisis who desperately need an infusion of new cash.
Finally, the United States will take new steps to
encourage American businesses to continue exporting to and investing
in emerging markets hurt by the crisis. Jim Harmon, the head of our
Export-Import Bank, will travel to Brazil, Argentina and Mexico over
this month. I have asked him to establish new short-term credit
facilities to make it easier for American businesses to continue
exporting to critical Latin American markets. He will coordinate
these efforts with his counterparts in other leading industrial
nations to ensure that trade credit continues to flow during this
period of financial stress. That is very, very important to our
economy.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation, OPIC, has
developed a new instrument to help emerging economies raise money
from international capital markets. That also is very important.
Now, with these steps, we are acting to protect our own prosperity
and to exercise responsible economic stewardship in the world. But
we cannot act alone. Congress must take some responsibility as well.
In the few working days it has left this year, the most important
thing Congress can do to protect our farmers, our ranchers, our
businesses and our workers is to secure full funding for the
International Monetary Fund. Congress cannot afford to delay
approving IMF funding another day. Every day Congress delays,
increases our vulnerability to crisis, decreases confidence in global
markets and undermines our prospects.
Without giving the IMF the resources it needs, many
vital efforts to strengthen the international financial institutions
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simply will fall short. We can have an honest debate about the best
ways to put out the economic fires abroad, but there should be no
doubt about whether we give the fire department the resources to do
the job. If America is to continue to grow, we must support the IMF.
If America is to continue to grow, we must lead. We cannot lead if
we won't even pay our fair share to the International Monetary Fund.
I have been asking for this for nearly a year now. The crisis
overseas has continued to intensify. This is inexcusable and we need
the money now; for Americans and their interests and for the
long-term stability of the world, this is terribly, terribly
important.
We have done our best to manage this crisis, to mobilize
other countries. We want other countries to do more. We are not
going to be able to get them to do more if we won't even do what is
plainly our responsibility. No other country in the world has
benefited as much as we have in the last six years from the global
economy. We can lead back away from this financial precipice, but we
need the resources to do it.
Now, let me say to all of you: Remember where we were
six years ago. There were some people who were saying America was in
decline. Today, we have a new surplus. We have wages rising to
highest levels in over 20 years. We have the confidence in the
country soaring. We have an unprecedented opportunity to build for
the future. But with all this turmoil in the rest of the world, we
also have a heavy responsibility to the future. We know that a lot
of our growth has come because others were growing in the rest of the
world and could buy American products and American services. We know
we are going into an unprecedented time. This country has got to
lead. We've got to be aggressive. We have got to stay on the balls
of our feet. We've got to be aware that this thing is changing every
day.
We can help a great deal to modify the difficulties, to
move the world back toward growth, and to keep our own prosperity
going. But if we're going to do that, we've got to lead, we've got
to do our part. We can't talk about these things and not put up our
share of the investment. So, again, I say we're going to do what we
can. I'm looking very much forward to the IMF and the World Bank
meeting, I'm looking forward to meeting with finance leaders and
the central bankers of these 22 countries. We're going to come up
with some good ideas, but ideas have to be followed by action. And
for us to take the action we need to take, the Congress has got to
provide funds for the IMF. Thank you very much.
I How close are we to a recession? Is there a danger
of recession in this world?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the proper answer to that,
Sam, is that about a quarter of the world is and has been in
recession. About a quarter of the world is in a period of very low
growth. The rest of us are growing. But in the nature of things, if
you want growth to continue, you have to restore growth in that part
of the world that's suffering now; and it cannot be done without
aggressive action -- as I said in New York a couple of weeks ago
aggressive action to restore the stability of the world financial
system, to restore the confidence of investors, and to deal with the
legitimate problems within each country that many of those countries
have to deal with that we can't do anything about.
But there are three things we've got to do. We've got
to do what we can to restore stability of the world financial system,
we've got to restore the confidence of investors so they'll put their
money back in to markets everywhere, and we've got to work with these
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countries to solve the problems within the countries that only they
can solve. But the answer to your question is, we don't have to have
a worldwide recession if those of us that enjoy growth will take the
initiative and move now.
But we cannot afford to dally around here. If we'd had
this six months ago, we could have done more than we have. So I
think it's important that everybody recognize that we don't know --
nobody can predict the future with great certainty, but I have a lot
of confidence in the strength of the American economy and our ability
to keep doing well, but it rests in large measure on our ability to
do the right thing around the world.
But keep in mind, 30 percent of our growth in the last
six years has come from our ability to sell our goods and services
around the world. We have a personal, vested interest quite apart
from our larger ethical responsibilities to lead the world that we've
profited so much from; we've got a vested interest in averting a
global financial slowdown by taking initiatives and doing it now.
We've got to do it now.
Kosovo?
I
On Kosovo, should the world be surprised that the
Serbs believed that they could possibly get away with massive
bloodletting once again in the region without fearing action from the
United States and in particular its European allies?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that's the argument I've been
making for months, that we have seen, we saw in Bosnia what works in
dealing with Mr. Milosevic. And the Kosovo situation is somewhat
situation in that Kosovo is actually a part of Serbia, although by
law, it's supposed to be autonomous. But let me tell you what we're
doing. Let's focus on what we're doing. We have been working for
months and months -- I have personally been working for months, first
of all, to get NATO and then to get the U.N. to send a message to Mr.
Milosevic to stop the violence.
We have NATO working, we have the U.N. resolution. I
believe that our allies in Europe are with us, and I think that we
all understand and we hope he got the message. I think it is very
important. We have to be very, very strong here. We need to stop
the violence, get a negotiated settlement and work our way through
this. We don't want thousands upon thousands of people to be caught
up in a war or to starve or freeze this winter because they have been
displaced, and we are working very, very hard on it and we're
briefing on the Hill as well.
I want to say a special word of appreciation to Senator
Dole, who has been very outspoken about this, very supportive about
an aggressive role for the United States, very understanding that we
cannot allow this conflict to spread again and risk what we stopped
in Bosnia, starting again in Kosovo. So we're working on it very
hard and I'm quite hopeful that we'll have a positive resolution of
it. Thank you.
END
10:15 A.M. EDT
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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
September 30, 1998
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON THE SURPLUS
Room 450
Old Executive Office Building
11:21 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Let me begin by saying to
Kay McClure, we thank you for being here. All of us who have been a
part of this effort to tame the deficit and to turn our economy around,
we did it for people like you. And I think you made everybody here
proud to be an American, and everybody who was part of that project
proud of that.
I'd like to thank the members of the Cabinet and administration
who are here, and the former Cabinet members. I would also like to say
that we invited Henry Fowler, who was President Johnson's Treasury
Secretary the last time the budget was balanced, to come here, but he
couldn't come because of hip surgery. Our thoughts are with him and his
thoughts are with us today.
I want to thank Senator Moynihan and Senator Robb, Senator
Rockefeller, Senator Breaux, Senator Conrad, Senator Dorgan. Mr. Sabo,
who was our chair, along with Senator Moynihan back in '93; and
Congressmen Boyd, Brown, Edwards, Filner, Congresswoman Furse,
Congressman Hastings, Hinojosa, Markey, Vento, Wise, and Congressman
Thurmond for being here.
The Vice President also noted that there were several former
members of Congress here who voted for the budget in 1993. There are
quite a number here, and since they -- most of them who are here paid
quite a high price for doing what makes it possible for us to be here
today, I'd like to ask them to stand. Would every member of Congress
who is no longer a member of Congress, who was here and voted for that
budget in '93 please stand. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Thank
you.
Mark Twain once said that two things nobody should ever have to
watch being made are laws and sausages. And the aftermath sometimes is
not very pretty. They and many others had to endure being accused of
raising taxes on people they didn't, being accused of not lowering taxes
for people they did, and all manner of other perfidy to try to bring us
to this moment -- to break the spell that had gripped America and led to
a quadrupling of the debt of this country in the previous 12 years. And
a lot of the people who are still here took very significant risks, as
well, and set the stage for what has been done since.
Let me ask you to begin by just thinking about what 29 years
means. Twenty-nine years ago Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Bonanza
was one of our top-rated TV shows, and Sammy Sosa was one year old.
(Laughter.) We have waited a long time for this -- not quite as long as
we waited for Roger Maris' record to be broken, but nearly.
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For 29 years, the last day of the fiscal year was not a day of
celebration, but a day we were handed a powerful reminder of our
government's inability to live within its means. In the 12 years
before this administration took office the debt quadrupled, partisan
gridlock intensified and a crushing debt was being imposed on our
children. These deficits hobbled economic growth, spiked interest
rates, robbed too many people of their chance at the American Dream.
The end of this fiscal year, obviously, is different as the
flashing sign behind me shows. Tonight at midnight, America puts an end
to three decades of deficits and launches a new era of balance budgets
and surpluses. While the numbers will not be official until the end of
the month, we expect the 1998 surplus to be about $70 billion.
(Applause.) Thank you.
This is the largest surplus on record and, as a percentage of our
economy, the largest one since the 1950s. Our economy is the strongest
in a generation. That's why we see the deficit clock has become a
surplus clock. It will tally the growing opportunities of the 21st
century. It is a landmark achievement not just for those in the room
who have played a role in it, but indeed for all the American people.
And it will be a gift-giving achievement for generations to come.
I want you to think about what this means for our democracy and
also what it means for our obligations now. First and foremost, as our
previous speaker so eloquently noted, balancing the budget has brought
tangible economic benefits to the American people.
In the 1980s, high interest rates kept entrepreneurs from starting
new businesses. Tight money made it harder for people to buy a new
home. When I came to Washington six years ago nearly everybody felt our
economy was drifting. College graduates were having a hard time finding
jobs; factory workers were seeing their industries fall behind foreign
competition. The deficit then was $290 billion and projected to be over
$350 billion this year alone.
But even more than the economic problems, the deficit seemed to be
Exhibit A for those who claimed that America was in decline. The notion
seems preposterous today. But it's worth remembering that just a decade
ago the idea of America in decline was widely accepted in some circles,
not only here, but around the world. There were works of scholarship
suggesting we were bound to go the way of other powers who had risen and
then fallen. There was a little defeatism that became part of the
conventional wisdom here in Washington, symbolized by this national
government that was inefficient, ineffectual and insolvent. And,
therefore, the government became the poster child for what people said
was happening to America. The two political parties seemed inevitably
locked in a series of false choices between old ideas competing in a
very new time.
But a funny thing happened on the road to American decline. The
American people stepped in. Just as we have at every critical juncture
in our history, the people came together once again to become the
captains of our fate, the commanders of our destiny. That is really
what we celebrate here today. (Applause.)
The American people simply demanded a new direction. They
demanded that our government put its house in order. They demanded that
America's greatness be reasserted, that opportunity be provided again to
all who are willing to work for it. They demanded that we be able to
say with confidence that the greatest days of this country still lie
before us.
And so, in 1993, the members of our party in Congress, some at the
cost of their careers, took the courageous action which began the road
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we celebrate today -- a new economic strategy that reduced the deficit
by more than 90 percent. Then four years later, Congress put progress
over partisanship and passed a bipartisan balanced budget agreement that
closed the rest of the deficit gap and will keep us in balance
structurally for many years to come.
The deficit reduction has saved the American people more than a
trillion dollars on the national debt. The new strategy has helped lead
to lower interest rates, higher investments, unprecedented prosperity.
We have already heard about that. The unemployment rate is the lowest
in 28 years, the percentage of Americans on welfare the lowest in 29
years, the inflation rate the lowest in 33 years. More than 6 million
American families have realized their dreams of owning a first home;
another 10 million have refinanced the homes they had. Today, home
ownership is the highest in history. And for millions of Americans,
these lower interest rates have amounted to an unofficial tax cut of
tens of billions of dollars -- making a college education, a new car, a
family vacation more affordable.
Now, balancing the budget and increasing our investment in our
people is the core of a new vision of government, one that lives within
its means; one that is the smallest in 35 years, but with the Vice
President's leadership, has been redesigned to meet the challenges of
this new era; one that cuts wasteful spending, but also makes
significant investments in education, health and the environment. We
have done a lot to make this new economy. But we now have to do more to
see that all of our people can participate in it fully.
Our success has helped to inspire confidence here and around the
world. Six years ago, when I went to my first G-7 meeting in Tokyo,
every leader told me that America was holding the rest of the world back
and that unless we were willing to get our deficit down we would always
be a drag on the world -- we were taking money away, we were keeping
interest high, that it was unfair.
Well, what we have done in the last six years has also helped to
spark economic growth elsewhere. But now that there is so much
turbulence for other reasons in other parts of the world, it is
important to remember that our growing economy is today serving as a
bulwark of stability in the rest of the world and that without it the
rest of the world would be in much worse shape, indeed.
Now, let me just ask you very briefly before we close in this
celebration, what are we going to do with this moment of celebration of
the balanced budget and unprecedented prosperity? What exactly are we
going to do with it? That really is before the American people today.
We see from troubled economies around the world, in my view, that
this is not a time to simply celebrate and rest. It is not a time to be
distracted from our mission of strengthening our country for the new
century, of leading the world toward prosperity, peace and freedom, of
bringing our people together.
For the sake of our children, now that we've balanced the budget,
I think the first thing we ought to do is commit ourselves to save
Social Security for the 21st century. (Applause.) The system is in
very good shape now, but everyone knows in its present terms it is not
sustainable when the baby boomers retire, and that if we do not act now,
when the baby boomers do retire, we will be confronted with two very
unpleasant choices. One is to lower the standard of living of the baby
boomers so that their children can continue on with their business. The
other is to lower the standard of living of their children and their
ability to raise our grandchildren so that we can live in the same
manner that seniors today are living. Neither choice need be made if we
act now with discipline and use the fact that we're going to have this
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surplus to make a down payment and to begin with deliberation to save
Social Security. It is a huge issue.
Now I am well aware that it is a popular thing, particularly right
here, just four weeks and change before an election day, to serve up a
tax cut -- to say, well, we've got a surplus, we're going to give you
some of your money back. But all of us know this surplus was run up
over the years -- or the deficit over the years was made smaller because
we actually were taking in more money in Social Security taxes than we
were paying out. And all of us know that this problem is looming out
there and will need money to fix. And so I think the American people
have waited 29 years, and I think most Americans would like to see the
ink change from red to black and then just dry a little before we put it
at risk. (Applause.)
But if you think about this issue, there is hardly anything that
goes to the core of what we are as a people more than our sense that we
owe an obligation to both our parents and our children. And if we
squander this surplus and start spending a little here, a little there,
a little yonder on the tax cuts just because we're a few weeks before an
election, before we take care of this, what are we going to do when
times get tough and we still have to take care of it?
So I say to all of you again, I think that's the first thing that
we ought to do. We are not against tax cuts. There are tax cuts in
this budget, as has already been said, for education, for child care, to
help small businesses provide pensions for their employees. There are
tax cuts for environmental investments that help to cut energy bills.
But we don't take any money out of the surplus. We adopted a
disciplined framework for the future in 1997; we ought not to depart
from it. We had a bipartisan commitment to that framework in 1997, and
we ought not to depart from it. (Applause.)
The second thing we ought to do is to recognize that we have money
set aside in the budget to invest in education and we're still a long
way from having the ability to say that every American child can get a
world-class education. We ought to fund smaller classes. We ought to
fund the initiative to revitalize, repair or build 5,000 schools; to
hook up all our classrooms to the Internet; to give kids in troubled
communities mentoring programs, that guarantees they can go on to
college; after-school programs, summer schools programs, the kind of
things that don't treat them as failures just because the system they've
been in has failed.
We ought to pass the patients' bill of rights for the 160 million
Americans that are in managed care to put health care first and make
sure you're managing for a healthier America, not the other way around.
We ought to keep the economy going and maintain our leadership in the
global economy by funding our fair share of the International Monetary
Fund because, as Alan Greenspan said the other day, we cannot forever
maintain our position as an island of prosperity in a sea of distress.
Now, that's what we ought to be doing. So we're here to
celebrate. But this country is here now, after 220 years, still again
at the top of its game, having totally debunked all the defeatists who
said we were in decline. But let's not forget why it happened. Don't
you ever forget that these seven people back here stood up, and a lot
like them, and laid their jobs on the line for ac's future.
Now, when no one has that kind of risk, nobody is being asked to
cut their throat and give up a job they love and work they believe in to
do the right thing, no one is being asked to do that, how can we
possibly walk away from this session of Congress -- when there is no
pain in doing the right thing, not the kind of pain they had to endure
without saying we're going to save Social Security first, put
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education as our first investment priority, pass a patients' bill of
rights, and keep America and the world's economy growing? How can we do
that? We owe it to the people who made the sacrifice that brought us to
this day to build for another day. We should not sit on or celebrate
this balanced budget, we should build on it.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
END
11:40 A.M. EDT
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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
August 1, 1997
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT ON THE ECONOMY
Rose Garden
11:12 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Today Congress will send to me for
my signature the first balanced budget in a generation. This budget
will help millions of families to raise their children, educate them,
and provide health care for them. It is an investment in the hopes
and dreams of the American middle class, and I look forward to signing
it.
This morning we have further evidence that the strategy of balancing
the budget while investing in our people and selling more American
products around the world has helped to produce sustained prosperity
for Americans. The new figures indicate 4.8 percent unemployment in
July and 316,000 new jobs. Our economy is growing with the lowest
unemployment in 20 years.
This economic rebirth is due to many things: first and foremost the
hard work and productivity of American businesses and American workers,
the spirit of American entrepreneurs, the diligence of the Federal
Reserve. But there is no doubt that the economic strategy we put in
place in 1993 created the conditions for the extraordinary private
sector growth we have all witnessed.
The day I took office, the deficit was $290 billion; today, even
before the budget agreement, it had been reduced by 80 percent. Four
straight years of deficit cuts have begun to put our fiscal house in
order. The low interest rates that have resulted have produced the
economic expansion as well as real benefits for ordinary Americans:
lower car payments, lower mortgage rates, lower credit card rates.
It also made possible -- that 1993 did -- this budget agreement that
has spending cuts and tax cuts and very large increases in investments
in education and health care.
This year we had a choice -- whether to succumb to gridlock and
undercut confidence in our economy, or continue our successful strategy
into the 21st century. I am pleased that very large bipartisan
majorities in both chambers, including over 75 percent of the Democrats
on all the votes, have voted to continue our economic approach and keep
our prosperity going. There are many reasons why I believe it will
strengthen America, but let me just mention one of them as I close.
For years, as our economy has gathered momentum, we've looked for
ways to make sure all Americans reap the rewards of that prosperity.
The tax cuts in this balanced budget will directly and immediately
improve the standard of living of millions of middle class families.
For a typical middle class family with two children, the child tax
credit alone amounts to a thousand-dollar raise in take-home pay.
The college tax cuts will help families even more. And by encouraging
more Americans to get the education they need, these education tax cuts
will boost the long-term earning potential of all Americans who use
them and therefore the long-term strength and wealth of the American
economy.
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Let me make one other point. This balanced budget will close
a chapter in American history: years -- decades, in fact -- when our
people doubted whether government could work for them and questioned
whether our nation could set and meet goals. Over the past four years,
through tough, persistent, patient effort, we have made unparalleled
progress, rolling back the crime rate, reducing welfare rolls by
historic numbers, and now finishing the job of balancing the budget.
All Americans can be proud of what has been accomplished.
But let me say, too, that we know there are still challenges
we have to meet to fully prepare our people for the 21st century.
We must move ahead now to set national education standards and test
our children on whether they're meeting them; to make further progress
in the work of racial reconciliation; to open more foreign markets to
American products; to move on our environmental problems; and finally,
to address the very real challenges of long-term entitlement reform.
I look forward to dealing with all these issues.
If we follow the path that has proven SO successful in this
balanced budget process, working to find common ground on common
challenges, then I have no doubt that we will move forward together
into the 21st century.
Thank you very much.
I Is there a connection between -- and the New York arrests?
Is there a connection there?
I Mr. President, there seems to be some confusion about
whether or not you think this is a good time to send Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright on her first trip to the Middle East.
Could you tell us where that possibility stands, and the level of
cooperation between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority? And
if you could, what, if any, connection to the Middle East, to the
Jerusalem bombing occurred in New York yesterday with this foiled
bombing plot?
THE PRESIDENT: Let me -- Mr. Plante asked that question, and
you asked that. Let me try to answer both of them. I have to go
meet with President Aliyev of Azerbaijan, but I will try to answer
them both quickly.
First of all, when the period of mourning is over, I will send
Dennis Ross to the Middle East to meet with the leaders there with
our latest ideas. I think it was appropriate to delay that in view
of the terrible loss of life from the bombing. And then we will see
where we are. I have said all along that I would send the Secretary
of State to the Middle East at the appropriate time. But I want
Mr. Ross to go there to do the work I am sending him to do to get the
reaction of the leaders and then make a decision.
Secondly, with regard to the arrests in New York yesterday,
first of all I'd like to commend the law enforcement officials
both the New York City officials and the federal officials who were
participating in it; and secondly say that I cannot comment and
cannot reach a final conclusion yet because I haven't received a
report of the direct investigation done, including the interrogation
of the people who were arrested.
But I will say that we have worked very hard in this country
to increase our capacity to deal with terrorism. It is something
we take very seriously, and we will continue to do that. We will
work very hard. But I think it's important not to reach conclusions
before we have iron-clad evidence to support them. The main thing
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we need to do is to thank the law enforcement officials for what
they did and to continue to heighten our vigilance and our capacity
to deal with such matters.
Thank you very much.
END
11:19 A.M. EDT
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