    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 4 (Monday, January 31, 2000)]
    [Pages 145-151]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks on the Fiscal Year 2001 Federal Budget and an Exchange With
    Reporters

    January 25, 2000

        The President. Hello.
        Q. Good morning.
        The President. I think it's just afternoon. [Laughter] I'm glad you
    all got here; I thought school was canceled today. [Laughter]
        Seven years ago, when I came to Washington, our Nation was burdened
    with a $290 billion annual deficit, and our national debt had quadrupled
    in 12 years. Interest rates were high and growth was low. Vice President
    Gore and I set our Nation on a new path of fiscal responsibility,
    opening markets, investing in our people and new technologies. We passed
    strong deficit reduction packages in both 1993 and in 1997 and made
    tough choices in each and every budget. This put the Nation on a course
    of fiscal discipline, while continuing to invest in our people and our
    future.
        Last year I asked the Congress to use every single dollar of our
    Social Security surplus to pay down the debt and to use the interest
    savings from that debt reduction to lengthen the life of Social
    Security.
        Now we see the results of the last 7 years: the first back-to-back
    budget surpluses in 42 years; last year's surplus of $124 billion, the
    largest in our history. The latest numbers from the Treasury indicate
    the surplus for this year will be even larger. In just the last 2 years,
    we've already paid down $140 billion of the national debt. Through
    unprecedented

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    debt buybacks in the last few weeks, we're able to finance the debt on
    the most favorable possible terms.
        Over the last 2 years, there have been repeated efforts to push us
    off the path of fiscal discipline, with large and irresponsible tax
    cuts. Because we've resisted these efforts, our debt is $1.7 trillion
    less this year than it was projected to be back in 1993. Now is not the
    time to let up on a strategy that is plainly working.
        Today I am announcing that because of the choices we have made, the
    budget I will submit for 2001 accelerates the date that we will be able
    to pay off our debt to 2013,
    2 years earlier than we had originally planned. We will do this by
    protecting Social Security funds and dedicating the interest savings to
    Social Security, allowing us, in addition to paying off the debt, to
    extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund to 2050.
        We will also be able to make Medicare secure now, through 2025. And
    we will be debt-free for the first time since 1835, when our Nation just
    had 24 States and fewer than 15 million people. Our children and their
    children will not inherit the crippling burden of interest payments that
    we faced 7 years ago.
        What does this mean for Americans in their daily lives? Already, the
    debt reduction means that American families pay, on average, $2,000 less
    per year on their home mortgages, $200 less on a loan for school or for
    a car. This new initiative will help even more with loans and credit
    card payments. Debt reduction helps everyone by getting the Government
    out of competition for loans, which makes interest rates lower overall.
    More investment, more jobs, higher wages for Americans result.
        It makes us much more competitive in the global economy, and less
    vulnerable to shocks elsewhere. It helps other nations which really need
    to borrow the money to get their economies going, and, in turn, they
    will be better trade partners with us.
        All of this is good news. But as I have said over and over again,
    there is no room for complacency. We got here by making hard choices and
    sticking to a strategy that works--that builds opportunity and
    reinforces responsibility.
        I remain committed to that strategy. I ask the Republican majority
    in Congress to put politics aside and join me. We've got so much work to
    do in the weeks ahead to make sure that we seize this historic
    opportunity.

    Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program

        I also, before I take your questions, and because of the remarkable
    weather you can see outside, would like to say just a word about relief
    for the thousands of families that are struggling with increased heating
    bills and cold this winter. We've been monitoring the situation daily,
    and based on the most recent data it is clear that a release of
    emergency funds from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program is
    warranted. Therefore, today I am directing the Secretary of Health and
    Human Services to expedite the release of LIHEAP funds to Alaska and
    States in the Northeast which have experienced the greatest hardship.
    These funds will help keep more American families safe and warm this
    winter, and we'll get them out there just as quickly as we possibly can.
        Q. How much?
        The President. I don't know yet. We're working on it. We'll put it
    out as quick as we know.

    FY 2001 Federal Budget

        Q. Mr. President, why isn't it right for the next President and the
    next Congress to put forward such a long-term plan as you're doing
    today?
        The President. Why isn't it right?
        Q. Yes, why shouldn't--Senator Lott says it ought to be for the next
    President and the next Congress to do programs like this. This is a very
    long-term initiative that you're putting forward today.
        The President. You mean the debt relief?
        Q. That's exactly right.
        The President. Well, I think they ought to follow it. But you've got
    to understand, even if we commit to this path, since every year the
    Congress will meet, they'll have to recommit to it. But it will be much
    easier--what we could do is derail them. If we had

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    adopted, for example, the tax cut last year, we would have stopped that.
        What we're doing, by taking this position, is maximizing the choices
    that the next Congress and the next President will have. Except--on the
    Social Security thing, on debt relief. On Social Security, what I
    propose will take Social Security from 2034 to 2050. That is well beyond
    the life of most baby boomers. I would like to take it out 75 years. But
    I presume, based on what happened last year, that we won't be able to
    get enough bipartisan agreement to do that. So there will be plenty for
    the next President and the next Congress to do.
        And they will have to do that, because the life expectancy is going
    to go up so exponentially. And we've already gotten Medicare out 25
    years--keep in mind, Medicare was projected to go broke last year, when
    I took office. Now we've got it out to 2025. I think that it is
    appropriate to add the voluntary prescription drug benefit, and to take
    it out a little further by taking some of the reforms that all of us
    apparently agree on, based on the Medicare Commission that had heavy
    involvement by Senate Republicans and Democrats. And the Finance
    Committee's going to take that up. So there will be plenty for America
    to do next year and the years beyond. There always will be.
        Terry [Terence Hunt, Associated Press].

    Iowa Caucuses

        Q.  Mr. President, what do you--what's your read on the results from
    Iowa? Were you surprised by the margins on both the Democratic and the
    Republican side? Can you give us your take?
        The President. Well, I think the Republican race was about as I
    thought it would be, and I think that the Vice President had a terrific
    victory last night in Iowa. And I think all the more impressive because
    he and Senator Bradley, I thought, both ran very substantive campaigns,
    very idea-oriented campaigns, and had that whole series of debates,
    which I think served the people very well. And I think he should be very
    proud of that, his strong effort. And I was very pleased to see that.
    But I don't have any real analysis of what happened in the insides of
    either one of the campaigns because I didn't follow it that closely.
        Q.  Well, you've been through this. I mean, as they go into New
    Hampshire, how does it affect the dynamic there?
        The President. I think it's a plus, but I agree with what the Vice
    President said last night, it's important not to overread it. The people
    of New Hampshire are very independent. They want to make a good choice.
    They understand that to some extent the choice they make affects the
    choices that the country has after the New Hampshire primary. And I
    think that you'll see all the candidates there really bearing down and
    trying to reach the voters, which is what they ought to do.

    Elian Gonzalez

        Q. Mr. President, are you inclined to sign or veto any possible bill
    out of Congress that would grant Elian Gonzalez U.S. citizenship? And do
    you think it was a good idea for the two grandmothers to come here to
    meet with Congress, or are you concerned that might further politicize
    the process as you--[inaudible].
        The President. Well, first, I have done my best, as all of you know,
    to handle this in a nonpolitical way and to make the judgments for which
    the law provides. The judgment that the law provides for the INS to make
    is whether the father can properly be declared the guardian of the
    child, since the mother was, unfortunately, killed.
        And the case is now in court, and I would like to see--at a minimum,
    I would like to see this court case played out before the Congress takes
    action. I think we ought to try to let the legal system take its course.
        I understand that the strong feelings that exist in this country
    about the Castro government complicates this. And I know that that
    little boy has some relatives in this country who feel very strongly
    about that. And I guess his grandmothers, in coming up here, were
    reacting to what they thought about the extent to which the case had
    already been politicized.
        More than anything else, I wish that somehow--I mean, no one can
    really know for sure, I suppose, what terrible and probably

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    not fully conscious burdens that child has already sustained because he
    lost his mother and because now he's being competed for in a way that is
    unusual for a 6-year-old child. And I know that--maybe it's just because
    I'm not running for anything, but I just somehow wish that whatever is
    best for this child could be done. And I know there are people who
    genuinely disagree about that, because plainly he would have more
    economic opportunity in this country. But all the evidence indicates
    that his father genuinely loved him and spent a great deal of time with
    him back in Cuba.
        So I think that--you know, what I have tried to do is to set up a
    circumstance where the people who were in a position to know the most
    and be the least influenced by whatever the political considerations are
    would at least have the maximum opportunity to wind up doing what was
    right for the child. I hope that somehow we can still find a way to do
    that.
        Q. For better or worse though--if I could follow up--for better or
    worse, though, politics is a reality in this situation.
        The President. Yes, it is.
        Q. Could you possibly veto any bill that would grant Elian Gonzalez
    U.S. citizenship?
        The President. I have not decided what to do, and I wouldn't rule
    that out. I just haven't decided what to do.
        Let me just say for the moment, if you take it out of the
    combustible, emotional nature of our relationship with Cuba and
    particularly the Cuban-American community in south Florida's
    relationship with Cuba, and you think about the issue, one of the things
    that I think we all need to think about is this could happen again. I
    mean, this sort of thing could happen again because you have so many
    people coming to our shores from all these different countries, and then
    shifting governments, shifting policies within countries. And what we do
    need is an analysis of whether we have the tools to maximize the chance
    that the kids involved and the families involved will be treated fairly,
    based on the merits of, particularly, the best interests of the child.
        And I think, again--I'm happy to talk to anybody about this and
    really try to think this through. I'm just trying to minimize the
    politics of it, because I think if you take this one decision out of
    context--it's not just Cuba, and it's not just this little boy--there
    are likely to be a lot of these things in the future as immigration
    flows increases, upheavals increase elsewhere, and as we know more and
    more about what goes on in other countries.
        This is something that ought to be thought about. But in my--I
    suppose I have tended to think of this child more from a point of view
    of a parent than anything else, and I wish I knew more about the facts
    even than I do, because I just--this poor kid has already lost his
    mother, and whatever happens, I'm sure he's going to carry certain
    burdens into his early adolescence that most of us did not carry. And
    somehow, whatever happens, I just hope it turns out to be best for him.
    He's a beautiful child.
        Yes.

    2000 Election

        Q. Mr. President, in his victory statement yesterday, Governor Bush
    seemed to be throwing down the gauntlet against you. He seemed to be
    kicking off his major campaign against you. What do you have to say
    about that, and do you have a rebuttal? Are you going to do anything
    about it?
        The President. Well, I have, I guess, two responses. One is, this
    campaign is between the candidates and the American people, and they
    will evaluate all claims and charges, and they usually get it right.
    That's why we're all still around here, after 224 years. They almost
    always get it right. And so I'm going to leave most of that to them.
        Now, it is an unusual claim that we ought to somehow reject an
    approach that has given us the longest economic expansion in history and
    the lowest unemployment, welfare, and crime rolls in 30 years, not to
    mention the benefits of the family and medical leave law and the Brady
    law, which were vetoed in the previous administration. And I agree that
    the tax program he's proposed might well undo a lot of that, and he can
    make the claim that that's the basis on which the campaign ought to
    proceed. But I don't really want to get into an argument with him. He
    ought to--I think that ought to be something between him and the other
    candidates and the American people.

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        But I do think it's an unusual thing to say that what we really
    ought to do is change what has given us an unprecedented level not just
    of economic prosperity but of social progress and social cohesion,
    restored credibility of Government, proof that ideas really can matter
    to move the people forward. I think that that's a pretty hard argument
    to make.

    FY 2001 Federal Budget

        Q. Mr. President, what's your projected surplus for the new budget,
    and doesn't that allow room for at least a modest tax cut?
        The President. Well, yes. First of all, I'm not--you will see--I
    think the Congressional Budget Office, I believe, when they're going to
    propose what they think, I think they will show you what the difficulty
    here is, because my understanding is, they're going to give you options.
    They will show you--that is, they'll show you--like every projected
    surplus, it depends on what you think the so-called baseline is.
        We believe that there has been greater growth, and there will be a
    larger surplus than we thought. But we believe--and I intend to propose,
    as I did last time, a set of tax cuts that I think are targeted to the
    middle class, targeted to sustain our economic growth, targeted to help
    lower income people and areas move into the middle class, that will keep
    America's economic expansion going.
        But I think the most important thing--I will say again, the most
    important thing is to keep our fiscal discipline--to keep paying down
    the debt, to get the country out of debt, to keep the interest rates
    down. Keep in mind, this is saving the average family $2,000 a year on
    home mortgage costs. We're--next month, we'll have the longest economic
    expansion in history, and long-term interest rates are lower now than
    they were in the bad economy of 1991--I mean, 1992. They're lower.
        So, yes we can have tax cuts. And yes, every year, and including
    next year, when I'm not here, and the years ahead, we can evaluate what
    the situation is. But I do not believe we should have very big tax cuts
    that will explode in the second 5 years of a 10-year period, and that
    ignore what the real investment needs of the country will be.
        And that's what I mean by this so-called baseline. You know, to use
    the '97 baseline and spending caps, when they were totally shredded last
    year, as a basis for estimating how you should spend everything else on
    a tax cut, means you're going to get back in deficit problems--just for
    example.
        So yes, we can have a tax cut. It ought to be modest; it ought to be
    targeted; it ought to be in the context of fiscal discipline. It ought
    not to explode in the second 5 years in a much bigger trajectory than it
    takes in the first 5 years.
        And again I say--one of you mentioned about decisions that could be
    made in the years ahead--you can always make those decisions--if things
    keep getting better, then you can do more. But you should always do it
    with an eye, in my judgment, toward conservative economic policies and
    toward always understanding that those things are easy to do, but
    they're difficult to undo if times get tough.
        Yes.

    Indian Airlines Flight 814 Hijacking

        Q. Mr. President, do you now have reason to believe that the
    Pakistani Government may have been involved in that airplane hijacking?
        The President. No, we don't. We do not, no. I guess the simplest
    thing I can tell you is that we do not have evidence that the Pakistani
    Government was in any way involved in that hijacking; we don't.

    State of the Union Address

        Q. Mr. President, on the State of the Union, we know how pumped up
    you get for the State of the Union, and I was wondering, considering
    that this is your last one, whether there's also a sense of bittersweet,
    that it's a bittersweet moment, too.
        The President. No, it's not bittersweet; it's nostalgic. One of the
    wonderful Navy stewards who works for me said this morning, he said, ``I
    can't believe we've been doing this for 7 years.'' [Laughter] And the
    time flies when it's a busy time, and you're absorbed--excuse me--
    absorbed in what you're doing.

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        I don't feel bittersweet; I do feel some nostalgia. And I think it's
    something I'm very much trying to fight off, because I think the
    important thing is to keep the attention of the country focused on the
    future, and to keep my attention and the attention of the administration
    focused on the future, and the energy level very high. So I am working
    with that in mind, and I've worked very hard on the speech, and I'm
    still working on it.

    Bipartisanship on the Legislative Agenda

        Q. Mr. President, you have a long list of things that you'd like to
    do. You've been rolling them out for the last couple weeks. There are
    things that weren't done last year. Realistically, what are the chances
    of any real bipartisan agreements with the Republican Congress?
        The President. I think that we have some significant chance of
    getting some of the substantive issues through--the Patients' Bill of
    Rights, the minimum wage, the gun reforms, the Brady background checks
    at the gun shows. I think that there is a better than 50-50 chance that
    a lot of the investments I have recommended will eventually prevail. And
    I am immensely hopeful about the new markets initiative, which is more
    than twice as big in this budget as it was last time, largely because
    there is a lot of bipartisan support for it, beginning with the Speaker
    of the House. So I'm very, very hopeful.
        You know, there's a part of that that has a special initiative for
    the Mississippi Delta, I believe, Senator Lott will support. So I'm
    hopeful. I'm going to do everything I can to get as much done as I can
    for the American people, and I'm quite hopeful.

    Super Bowl XXXIV

        Q. Mr. President, we think we know how the Vice President feels, but
    what's your pick for the Super Bowl and why? [Laughter]
        The President. He can say and get in no trouble, can't he, because
    he's from Tennessee. I'm not going to pick one. But I'll tell you this--
    I've followed it this year very closely. There were two great games last
    Sunday. And what I thought was going to happen 2 weeks ago I'm no longer
    so sure will.
        Q. Can you say what?
        The President. I don't think you can tell which one of them will
    win. You've got one that's a very powerful defensive team, Tennessee,
    with a capacity for real offense. And then you've got the most powerful
    offensive team playing against them, that was stymied last Sunday and
    played better defense than I thought they could. So I don't think you
    can predict which one of them is going to win this race.
        Q. Will you send a play to one of the coaches? [Laughter]
        The President. Would I what?
        Q. Send a play to one of the coaches?
        The President. No, I think they're perfectly capable of doing that
    without me. That's kind of like this campaign, you all want to get me
    involved in it, but I think the Vice President, Senator Bradley,
    Governor Bush, and Senator McCain, they can all do this without me.
    They're doing fine.

    Hillary Clinton's Senate Campaign

        Q. Is your wife going to win?
        The President. I think so. I think she's done a good job with this,
    and she's getting into it. I certainly hope she does. I think it will be
    a good thing for New York and a good thing for our country.

    Colombia

        Q. Mr. President, in regards to the Colombian aid package, are you
    worried at all about sending arms down to a country who is now in a
    civil war and there's no real guarantee about who will be in power even
    in the next 3, 4 years?
        The President. Well, I wouldn't go that far. I think, for one thing,
    we want to try to preserve and strengthen democracy in Colombia. It's a
    very old democracy that's under the greatest stress perhaps in its
    history. And there's always a risk when you go out on a limb to try to
    save a neighbor and help people to help themselves that it won't work.
        But I think that--I believe the risks and the investment is
    something that we ought to do. And again, I believe that there will be
    significant bipartisan support here. I'd be surprised if we don't have
    large numbers of Republicans and Democrats supporting this. And I think
    we're going into this with our eyes wide open.

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        One of the things that we have to do is to try to help them gain
    some measure of control over their own country again. And if you look at
    Colombia, in the sort of the intersection of the narcotraffickers and
    the political rebels, you see a picture of what you might see much more
    of in the 21st century world, with sort of the enemies of nation-states
    forming networks of support across national borders and across otherwise
    discrete interests, like narcotraffickers, organized criminals, and
    political terrorists, weapons dealers.
        So this will be an interesting test run for what I predict to you
    not only our Nation but others in our position will have to face over
    the next two decades. And it is something, again, I'm going to work very
    hard to build a bipartisan consensus on this and take this out of
    politics, because I believe that this is not only something we should do
    for our friend and neighbor in the country that is either the production
    or transit point for about 80 percent of the cocaine that gets dumped in
    this country; but also, if you will, a test run for the kind of
    challenges that my successors and our people will face in the years
    ahead.
        Thank you.

    Iowa Caucuses

        Q.  Did you miss being in Iowa? I'll bet you did.
        The President. A little bit. I did. I love it there. They've been
    good to me. But I was interested in it. It's interesting to me to watch
    it unfold and watch how the decisions they make--which is why I don't
    want you guys to get me into it. This should be their campaigns, and
    they should make the decisions. And we should trust the people. They'll
    get it right. They always do.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:10 p.m. in the Briefing Room at the
    White House. In his remarks, he referred to former Senator Bill Bradley;
    Elian Gonzalez, rescued off the coast of Florida on November 25, 1999;
    Juan Gonzalez, Mariela Gonzalez, and Raquel Rodriquez, Elian's father
    and grandmothers; and Gov. George W. Bush of Texas. Indian Airlines
    Flight 814, from Kathmandu to New Delhi, was hijacked on December 24,
    1999.