[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 2 (Monday, January 17, 2000)]
[Page 72]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on the United States Treasury Use of ``Debt Buybacks''

January 13, 2000

    America has come a long way in the last 7 years. We moved from the 
largest deficit in history to the largest surplus in history. We have 
put this country on a path of fiscal discipline that has led to paying 
down $140 billion in debt over the past 2 years and put us on course to 
be debt-free by 2015 for the first time since Andrew Jackson was 
President.
    The announcement that the U.S. Treasury will use ``debt buybacks'' 
is a dramatic reminder of this progress on fiscal responsibility. This 
new tool for this unprecedented era of surpluses will, in effect, help 
refinance old debt and pay it down on the best terms possible. It 
represents our commitment to pay down our Federal debt in a way that 
best serves the interests of the taxpayers.