[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[July 17, 1999]
[Pages 1241-1243]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
July 17, 1999

    Good morning. I want to talk to you today about a great debate now 
underway in Washington, the debate over how best to use America's 
recordbreaking budget surpluses. That we can even have this debate is 
remarkable. Just remember, 6\1/2\ years ago, when I first became 
President, we faced budget deficits that were $290 billion and rising. 
In the previous 12 years,

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those deficits had quadrupled the total debt of America.
    But beginning in 1993, we put in place a new economic strategy of 
fiscal discipline, coupled with greater investments in areas like 
education, training, and technology. That strategy has helped to produce 
a private sector-led economic expansion of historic proportions. It's 
also produced not only a balanced budget but budget surpluses of $99 
billion this year and a projected surplus over the next 10 years of 
about $2.9 trillion, including Social Security taxes.
    Now, America must decide how best to use the fruits of our hard 
work. I believe we should stay with the fiscal discipline that got us 
here and invest the surplus to meet our long-term challenges. That's why 
I've proposed that we set aside the vast bulk of this surplus to protect 
and secure Social Security and Medicare and to modernize Medicare by 
adding a long-overdue prescription drug benefit.
    By saving most of the surplus for Medicare and Social Security, we 
can also pay off all our publicly held debt by the year 2015. That would 
make America debt-free for the first time since 1835. What would that 
mean? It would mean lower interest rates, more business investments, 
more jobs, higher wages, lower car payments, lower house payments, lower 
credit card payments, lower student loan payments.
    Now, my balanced budget would do this, while increasing investments 
in areas like education, technology, the environment, and defense. It 
would also offer a quarter of a trillion dollars in targeted tax cuts to 
help middle income families meet the crucial needs for child care, for 
long-term care for aging relatives, for saving for their own retirement, 
and tax cuts for inducing people to invest in building modern schools or 
rehabilitating those that exist now, and for investing in the areas of 
our country which have not yet fully participated in our recovery.
    But my plan puts first things first. It says, first strengthen 
Social Security and Medicare and pay down the debt, take care of the 
baby boom retirement, take care of our families and our children, take 
care of the long-term challenges to America. Then, we can allocate the 
rest of the surplus for other spending priorities like education and for 
tax cuts.
    Unfortunately, the plan the Republican leadership put forward this 
week does not do that. Their plan would devote virtually all the non-
Social Security surplus, nearly $1 trillion, to a tax cut, while failing 
to extend the solvency of Social Security and Medicare even by a single 
day. The plan also doesn't go far enough in paying down the debt, which 
will mean higher interest rates and a weaker economy down the road, and 
it would force drastic cuts in areas where we should be investing more.
    In education, for instance, I've proposed an education and 
children's trust fund that will, among other things, guarantee our 
ability to hire 100,000 new highly trained teachers to lower class size 
in the early grades. Yet early next week, the House Republicans will 
offer legislation that would go back on the bipartisan commitment both 
Republicans and Democrats made just last year to the American people to 
hire those 100,000 new teachers. We've hired 30,000 now, or we've given 
the States and school districts the money to do that. We shouldn't go 
back on a commitment that we made last year; that's the wrong way to go. 
But that isn't the worst of it.
    Republican leaders have estimated their tax plan would cost more 
than three-quarters of a trillion dollars between now and the year 2010. 
What they haven't said is what it would cost after 2010 when the baby 
boomers retire and the need for revenues for Social Security and 
Medicare will be most acute. Earlier this week, I asked the Treasury 
Department to analyze the Republican plan's long-term impact. And the 
answer I've received is quite disturbing.
    According to the Treasury Department's preliminary estimate, the 
costs of the Republican plan will explode between the year 2010 and 2019 
from $1 trillion a decade to an unimaginable $3 trillion. At the very 
time the Nation will be confronting the demographic challenge of the 
baby boom, the Republican plan will blow a $3 trillion hole in the 
Federal budget, threatening our ability to secure Social Security and 
Medicare for the next generation and risking return to the era of 
deficits with high interest rates and economic stagnation.
    Tax cuts that size quite simply are bad economic policy. It's bad 
not to save Social Security and Medicare; it's bad not to pay the debt 
off. It is certainly bad to cut education at a time when it's more 
important to our children's future than ever.
    So I say to Congress: Put first things first. Set aside most of the 
surplus for Social Security and Medicare. Make sure we invest enough in

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education. Then, together, we can budget for the kind of tax cuts we 
need and can afford while we pay off the debt and guarantee a strong 
America in the 21st century.
    This is a very good time for our country. We're on the right path; 
let's stay on it, use our surplus wisely, think about our children's 
future. Then the 21st century will be America's best days.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 3:30 p.m. on July 16 in Room 136 at 
Amos Hiatt Middle School in Des Moines, IA, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. 
on July 17. The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on July 16 but was embargoed for release until the broadcast.