[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 28, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1696-S1697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




REPORT ENTITLED ``A BLUE PRINT FOR NEW BEGINNINGS: A RESPONSIBLE BUDGET 
      FOR AMERICA'S PRIORITIES''--MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT--PM 8

  The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message 
from the President of the United States, together with an accompanying 
report; which was referred jointly to the Committees on Appropriations 
and the Budget.

To the Congress of the United States:
  With a great sense of purpose, I present to the Congress my budget. 
It offers more than a plan for funding the Government for the next 
year; it offers a new vision for governing the Nation for a new 
generation.
  For too long, politics in Washington has been divided between those 
who wanted big Government without regard to cost and those who wanted 
small Government without regard to need. Too often the result has been 
too few needs met at too high a cost. This budget offers a new 
approach--a different approach for an era that expects a Federal 
Government that is both active to promote opportunity and limited to 
preserve freedom.
  Our new approach is compassionate:
  It will revitalize our public schools by testing for achievement, 
rewarding schools that succeed, and giving more flexibility to parents 
of children in schools that persistently fail.
  It will reinvigorate our civil society by putting Government on the 
side of faith-based and other local initiatives that work--that 
actually help Americans escape drugs, lives of crime, poverty, and 
despair.
  It will meet our Nation's commitments to seniors. We will strengthen 
Social Security, modernize Medicare, and provide prescription drugs to 
low-income seniors.
  This new approach is also responsible:
  It will retire nearly $1 trillion in debt over the next four years. 
This will be the largest debt reduction ever achieved by any nation at 
any time. It achieves the maximum amount of debt reduction possible 
without payment of wasteful premiums. It will reduce the indebtedness 
of the United States, relative to our national income, to the lowest 
level since early in the 20th Century and to the lowest level of any of 
the largest industrial economies.
  It will provide reasonable spending increases to meet needs while 
slowing the recent explosive growth that could threaten future 
prosperity. It moderates the growth of discretionary spending from the 
recent trend of more than six percent to four percent, while allowing 
Medicare and Social Security to grow to meet the Nation's commitments 
to its retirees.
  It will deliver tax relief to everyone who pays income taxes, giving 
the most dramatic reductions to the least affluent taxpayers. It will 
also give our economy a timely second wind and reduce the tax burden--
now at the highest level as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product 
since World War II.
  Finally, this new approach begins to confront great challenges from 
which Government has too long flinched. Social Security as it now 
exists will provide future beneficiaries with the equivalent of a 
dismal two percent real rate of return on their investment, yet the 
system is headed for insolvency. Our new approach honors our commitment 
to Social Security by reserving every dollar of the Social Security 
payroll tax for Social Security, strengthening the system by making 
further necessary reform feasible.
  Medicare as it exists does not adequately care for our seniors in 
many ways, including the lack of prescription drug coverage. Yet 
Medicare spending already exceeds Medicare taxes and premiums by $66 
billion this year, and Medicare will spend $900 billion more than it 
takes in over the next 10 years. Reform is urgently needed. Our new 
approach will safeguard Medicare by ensuring that the resources for 
reform will be available.

[[Page S1697]]

  New threats to our national security are proliferating. They demand a 
rethinking of our defense priorities, our force structure, and our 
military technology. This new approach begins the work of restoring our 
military, putting investments in our people first to recognize their 
importance to the military of the future.
  It is not hard to see the difficulties that may lie ahead if we fail 
to act promptly. The economic outlook is uncertain. Unemployment is 
rising, and consumer confidence is falling. Excessive taxation is 
corroding our prosperity. Government spending has risen too quickly, 
while essential reforms, especially for our schools, have been 
neglected. And we have little time before the demographic challenge of 
Social Security and Medicare becomes a crisis.
  We cannot afford to delay action to meet these challenges. And we 
will not. It will demand political courage to face these problems now, 
but I am convinced that we are prepared to work together to begin a new 
era of shared purposes and common principles. This budget begins the 
work of refining those purposes and those principles into policy--a 
compassionate, responsible, and courageous policy worthy of a 
compassionate, responsible, and courageous Nation.
                                                      George W. Bush.  
The White House, February 28, 2001.

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