    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [February 7, 2000]
    [Pages 191-193]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Releasing the Fiscal Year 2001 Federal Budget
    February 7, 2000

        Thank you, John. I really appreciate, in
    particular, the comment about the first draft of the State of the Union.
    [Laughter] If you look at how thick that is, you'll have some idea of
    how many people, believe it or not, are still mad that I didn't mention
    their program in the speech. [Laughter]
        I want to thank Secretary Summers,
    Secretary Slater, Jack Lew, Gene Sperling, Sylvia
    Mathews, Martin Baily, Bruce Reed, Sally
    Katzen, all the people from OMB who are here
    who have worked so hard to put together this budget. I really do
    appreciate what you've done.
        I still get made fun of from time to time as a policy wonk, and
    that's supposed to be a pejorative term. But I think if you look at the
    last 7 years, there's a fairly serious argument for the fact that it
    really does matter what you do and what the specifics are, that
    Government and public life are more than rhetoric. The reality
    eventually makes a difference. The specific decisions do count. And
    that's what this budget is all about.
        It is a balanced budget with a balanced approach to our national
    priorities. It maintains our fiscal discipline, pays down the debt,
    extends the life of Social Security and Medicare, and invests in our
    families and our future.
        Seven years ago, when I took office, we'd had 12 years of big
    deficits, a quadrupling of the national debt that had led to high
    interest rates and low growth. We changed the course with a new economic
    policy for the new economy, one focused on fiscal discipline, expanded
    trade, and investments in people and potential.
        The new economic policy, as now we all know, has helped to create a
    new economy. Almost 21 million new jobs now; a 4.0 percent unemployment
    rate last month, the lowest in 30 years; the fastest growth in 30 years;
    the lowest crime and welfare rates in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates
    in 20 years; the highest homeownership ever; and the longest economic
    expansion in our history this month.
        The growth has been driven by private sector investment, not public
    sector spending, as was the case in the previous 12 years. As a share of
    the economy, it is worth pointing out that Federal spending is now the
    smallest it has been since 1966, with the first back-to-back surpluses
    in 42 years. Federal deficits are last century's news. This year,
    according to our projections, we'll have three in a row for our
    surpluses, coming in at about $167 billion. We're on the way to an
    achievement that only a few years ago would have been inconceivable,
    making America debt-free for the first time since Andrew Jackson was
    President in 1835.
        If you look at the chart behind me, you will see the mountain of
    debt that built up during the 12 years before I took office and what has
    already been done to reverse the trend. By the end of this year, we will
    have paid down the debt by nearly $300 billion. But you can also see
    that the debt is still high, far too high.
        Now, this is the point where we have the photo op--[laughter]--and I
    attempt to show you what our budget does to the debt, eliminating it by
    2013. I have practiced this in the back. [Laughter] When I did it in the
    back,

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    the paint spilled everywhere, and I commented that in every good effort
    there are still fits and starts. So let me see if I can do it.
    [Laughter] There is no break here. [Laughter]
        There is nothing academic about that chart. Fiscal discipline
    matters to every single American. When the deficits disappear, interest
    rates fall; more Americans can then buy homes, retire student loans,
    start new businesses, create jobs and wealth. Indeed, our economists
    have estimated that lower interest rates in the last 7 years have
    already saved the average American about $2,000 a year in home mortgage
    payments and $200 a year in college loan and car payments.
        Our budget ensures that the benefits of debt reduction will
    continue, and that, among other things, they will go to strengthen two
    of the most important guarantees we make to every American, Social
    Security and Medicare. It makes a critical downpayment on Social
    Security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction
    attributable to the Social Security taxes to the Social Security Trust
    Fund. That will keep it strong, solvent, and sound for the next 50
    years, which will keep it alive beyond the life expectancy of virtually
    all of the baby boom generation.
        Today we also take in this budget significant steps to strengthen
    and modernize Medicare. Our budget dedicates about half the non-Social
    Security surplus to guarantee the soundness of Medicare and to add a
    long-overdue voluntary prescription drug benefit. When I became
    President, Medicare was projected to go broke last year, 1999. Today,
    it's secure until 2015, thanks to the changes that have already been
    made.
        This budget contains further reforms, but all the experts say, with
    all conceivable reforms, more money will still be needed, because the
    number of people over 65 will double in the next 30 years. Their life
    expectancy will increase. We'll have miraculous new developments in
    medicine which will increase the quality of life, but all these things
    will add to the costs of health care.
        Therefore, I think it is very important that we act now and say
    we're going to set aside a portion of this surplus for Medicare, so that
    when the time comes we will have already provided for the costs that we
    know are coming. We can extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund until
    at least 2025 and add the voluntary prescription drug benefit with this
    amount of dedicated funds.
        The budget also provides funds, as I said, to give not only a
    prescription drug benefit, which more than three in five American
    seniors on Medicare now lack; it also creates a reserve fund of $35
    billion to protect those who carry the heavy burden of catastrophic drug
    costs.
        This is something that I did not talk about in the State of the
    Union because I did not know for sure that we would have this money. But
    I do believe that everybody who's really analyzed this is concerned
    about two problems. One is that there are a whole lot of seniors--more
    than half--who don't have access to affordable prescription drug
    coverage, which at normal costs will lengthen their lives and improve
    its quality. And the second big problem is, some seniors have absolutely
    enormous bills that they have no way of paying. And we believe there
    ought to be some catastrophic provision, so we have set aside some funds
    to cover that, too, and will attempt to convince the Congress that we
    ought to do that as well.
        The budget also helps to meet our other pressing priorities. It
    makes historic investments in education, from Head Start to after-
    school, from school construction to more and better trained teachers. It
    provides health care coverage for the parents of children in the
    Children's Health Insurance Program and allows uninsured Americans
    between the ages of 55 and 65, the fastest growing group of uninsured,
    to buy into Medicare with a tax credit to help them afford it.
        It makes unprecedented investments to speed discoveries in science
    and technology; funds more police and tougher gun enforcement to keep
    the crime rate dropping, moving toward our goal of making America the
    safest big country in the world. It makes critical investments to keep
    our military the best trained and best equipped in the world. It gives
    many more investments to what we call America's new markets, from the
    inner cities to poor rural areas to Native American reservations.
        This budget also offers tax cuts to America's working families to
    help pay for college or save for retirement; to help care for aging or
    disabled loved ones; to reduce the marriage penalty; to reward work and
    family with an expanded earned-income tax credit, and with an expanded
    and refundable child care tax credit.

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        This budget, in short, makes really strong and significant steps
    toward achieving the great goals that I believe America should pursue in
    this new century. It helps us move toward an America where every child
    starts school ready to learn and graduates ready to succeed; where
    parents are able to succeed at home and work, and no child is raised in
    poverty; where we meet the challenge of the aging of America; where we
    provide health care to all; where we make America the safest big country
    on Earth; bring prosperity to the communities and people who have been
    left behind; pay off our national debt; reverse the course of climate
    change; keep America leading the world in science and technology and
    toward peace and prosperity; and bring our country together, at last, as
    one America.
        This budget takes the right steps toward those goals. I hope it will
    be well-received in Congress and by the American people. And I thank all
    of you who worked on it, down to the last detail. The details make the
    difference, and if we can enact them, they will make all the difference
    for America.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:22 a.m. in Presidential Hall in the
    Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. In his remarks, he
    referred to White House Chief of Staff John D. Podesta, who introduced
    the President; and Martin N. Baily, Chairman, Council of Economic
    Advisers.