[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: GEORGE W. BUSH (2001, Book I)]
[March 7, 2001]
[Pages 205-207]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Treasury Secretary Paul H.
O'Neill and an Exchange With Reporters
March 7, 2001
The President. Maybe everybody ought to try to move over.
Assistant Press Secretary Gordon Johndroe. You all heard the President--scoot over. [Laughter]
Q. Thank you, Mr. President.
The President. I'm trying to get you in the picture.
I'm pleased to be here with Secretary O'Neill and the OMB Director,
Mitch Daniels, who are reviewing the
cashflow numbers of our country. I think the American people will be
interested to know that in the first quarter of the fiscal year, we
received $74 billion more than we spent. In spite of the fact that the
economy is slowing down, our cashflow coming into the Treasury is
significant, which means our taxpayers are being overcharged. That's
what that means. And if somebody is overcharged, they ought to get a
refund. And I'm calling upon the Congress to give the taxpayers a
refund.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for letting me be here. I appreciate you
reviewing the numbers with me. You might want to review them with the
people here.
Secretary Paul H. O'Neill. Mr. President, it's a wonderful pleasure
to have you in the Treasury Department. The numbers so far this year
compare to last year, when we had $42 billion worth of surplus at this
point in the annual cycle. Today we have $74 billion, as the President
said. So we've basically got $32 billion more cash surplus this year
than we did last year at this same time.
And I think it clearly makes the case that we've got a structural
tax system that is producing these enormous surpluses now that the
President has talked about. And I'm very hopeful tomorrow the House of
Representatives is going to deal squarely with the first set of issues
of marginal rate returns--marginal tax rates, and we'll be well on our
way to getting the Senate to accomplish the same purpose.
The President. I think the point of the meeting and the point the
American people need to know is that we've set priorities
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and funded the priorities, and there's ample cash to not only fund
Government, pay down debt, set aside money for contingencies, but
there's ample cash to let people have their own money so that they can
spend it and they can decide what to do with it.
It's a fundamental debate taking place here in Washington, DC, is
whether or not we increase the size of the Federal Government beyond the
basic priorities or whether we trust people with their own money.
I'm hopeful and confident that the House will do the right thing
tomorrow, Mr. Secretary. I look forward to taking our message to the
people. The people need to hear that we've got a commonsense approach to
the budget. And the people need to hear these kind of numbers, Mr.
Secretary, that you're talking about--that their hard work is producing
more cash for Government than Government needs.
We'll be glad to answer a few questions.
National Economy
Q. Mr. President, does this suggest that the economy is not slowing
down? Why is the surplus larger than at this time last year?
The President. It suggests that--first of all, the data shows the
economy is sputtering. Secondly, it suggests strongly that the taxpayer
is being overcharged. And one of the things this administration is going
to do is going to go to the Congress and say, ``Here are the priorities:
Our priorities are public education, the military, Social Security and
Medicare, health care for the working uninsured.'' But by having
commonsense budgeting, we're going to also show the people that there is
ample money for them to be able to spend. And that's going to be very
important to make sure the sputtering economy recovers.
Tax Relief Legislation
Q. Mr. President, how many Democrats are in your pocket?
The President. What?
Q. How many Democrats do you have with you right now?
The President. He's a Republican. [Laughter] As many as we can get.
This is a long process. And what I look for is the final result. That's
what we're focused on. We're focused on this marginal rate cut package
that's now in front of the House of Representatives. We feel good about
our chances of passing this bill. It would be viewed as a major step
toward tax relief and tax reform.
We'll worry about the next package when it comes out of the House,
which may be the elimination of the death tax or the marriage penalty.
But it's a long process. We've got to get it over to the Senate and get
to conference. And we'll be working Members all the way through the
process.
Tomorrow I'll be traveling to North Dakota and South Dakota and
Louisiana. I'm looking forward to taking this message to the people. The
people have got to hear what the Secretary just briefed me on--is that
there's cashflow coming into our Treasury, enough cashflow to meet
priorities and to fund crucial parts of Government, and at the same
time, have meaningful, real tax relief.
Vice President Cheney/Tax Relief Legislation
Q. Are you comfortable, sir, the process is going on in the
bipartisan spirit that you called for? And as a second question, did you
talk to the Vice President today, and how is he doing? I know he was at
the meeting earlier.
The President. He was doing jumping jacks today. [Laughter] No, he's
doing great. He is feeling healthy. I talked to him on the way back
from--right after I got on the ground from Chicago last night. He felt
great. He told me he'd see me first thing in the morning for our
national security briefing, and he was there. He looks good, feels good,
and that's good news.
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Secondly, I am comfortable that we're making good progress on tax
relief. Those of you who covered my campaign might remember there was a
period of time in which members of the media were saying, ``Well, are
you ready to abandon your plan?'' And I said, ``No, I don't think so. I
think this is the right thing for America.'' And all of a sudden, now
it's exciting for this administration to know that the Congress will be
voting on a crucial element, a meaningful tax relief.
As I understand, there's going to be a--people will have a chance to
vote for another version of it, as well, on the floor of the House. And
that's fine. That's good and dandy. We're confident and feel good about
the chances of our view of how tax relief ought to take place. And we're
confident that will be positively received.
I know it's going to be positively received by the American people
when they hear that we've got ample cashflow coming into our Treasury to
meet important priorities and, at the same time, with fiscal discipline,
with setting priorities and funding them, and not letting the size of
Government grow like it has in the past, that we can make the case that
someone's mom is going to get their Medicare check, someone is going to
get their Social Security check, and at the same time, people are going
to get their own money back so they can make the decisions on how to
spend--what's best for their families, how to spend their own money.
And that's the fundamental crux of this debate. The crux of this
debate is, do we want to explode the size of the Federal Government, do
we want to increase these baselines of the Federal Government, or do we
want to have fiscal responsibility, commonsense approach to the
budgeting, and trust people with their own money? And tomorrow is going
to be an important step toward trusting people with their own money.
Q. Thank you.
The President. See you in Fargo.
Note: The exchange began at 1:53 p.m. in Secretary O'Neill's office at
the Department of the Treasury. A tape was not available for
verification of the content of these remarks.