[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,

[[Page 192]]

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.