[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 30 (Monday, July 31, 2000)]
[Pages 1700-1702]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Democratic Legislative Agenda

July 27, 2000

    The President.  Well, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on behalf 
of all of us, I want to apologize--please be seated--for keeping you 
waiting. But these are the closing hours of the congressional session, 
before the August recess. And Senator Daschle and Leader Gephardt and 
the other Members of Congress have come here today to speak with one 
voice about our position. But Congress is packing up and preparing to 
adjourn for the summer recess and the two conventions. And I only wish 
we were late because they'd been out there passing our bills. [Laughter]
    Let me say, we're here because we believe the congressional 
Republican leadership is leaving town with a trunk full of unfinished 
business vital to the health of our economy and the well-being of our 
people. We spent the last 7 years charting a course of fiscal discipline 
and investment in our people, and it has paid off, with the longest 
economic expansion in history, over 22 million new jobs, the lowest 
minority unemployment rate in our history, the lowest unemployment rate 
in 30 years.
    Instead of continuing on that path in the last few weeks, indeed, 
for the last year, the Republican majority has risked squandering our 
progress. They have passed reckless tax cut after reckless tax cut after 
reckless tax cut, to drain away our hard-earned surplus and put us back 
in the red. When you add them all up, this Congress has passed tax bills 
that would cost nearly $2 trillion over 10 years. Even by the most 
optimistic estimates, this wouldn't leave a dime for lengthening the 
life of Social Security or Medicare--not one dime; not a dime for 
voluntary and affordable Medicare prescription drug benefits or for 
education and school construction. And it would make it impossible for 
us to get America out of debt by 2012.
    There is a better way. We can do all the things I just mentioned and 
still give the American people needed, targeted tax relief. Let me be 
clear. We do support the right kind of tax cuts for working Americans. I 
have proposed a program of cuts that will give a middle class American 
family substantially more benefits than the Republican plan at less than 
half the cost; two-thirds of the relief going to the middle 60 percent 
of our people, including our carefully targeted marriage penalty relief.
    The tax cuts will also help families save up to $2,800 a year on the 
cost of college by making tuition tax deductible; a $3,000 long-term 
care tax credit to help millions of Americans shoulder the enormous 
financial burden of caring for chronically ill family members; and a tax 
cut that will help millions of families pay up to $2,400 a year for 
child care; to expand the EITC, providing up to $1,100 of tax relief for 
millions of hard-working families.
    Today, we have more evidence that our plan will help more of the 
people who really need it. We're releasing a State-by-State analysis, 
showing that the estate tax repeal, recently passed by the Republican 
majority, would benefit only about 2 percent of America's families--the 
wealthiest 2 percent, of course--providing them of an average tax cut of 
$800,000. And fully half those benefits would go to just one-tenth of 
one percent of all Americans.
    Let me hasten to say the Democrats offered an alternative which 
would have taken two-thirds of the people subject to the estate tax out 
from under it but would have left

[[Page 1701]]

its progressive character, not repealed it entirely, and not cost the 
budget $100 billion over the first 10 years and $750 billion thereafter.
    In contrast to these proposals, our Medicare prescription drug 
benefit would provide affordable coverage for 39 million seniors and 
people with disabilities, with average incomes of about $20,000 a year. 
This report clearly shows that our approach put the interest of American 
families first and ensures that the Nation's unprecedented prosperity 
benefits everyone.
    Let me just mention one other thing. I never want to talk about this 
without mentioning--we also have a report from the Council of Economic 
Advisers estimating that if our economic proposals are followed, as 
opposed to theirs, giving all this money away with the tax cuts, 
interest rates will be one percent lower over the next decade. That is 
the equivalent of a $250 billion tax cut for home mortgages. It's the 
equivalent of a $30 billion tax cut for lower car payments and college 
loan payments.
    There is a huge difference here that the American people have to 
understand. I think the Republican majority ought to go to work in the 
time we have left this year on the people's business.
    So when they go off on vacation, the congressional majority should 
take a long list of required summer reading, a list of what we need to 
get done when they come back to Washington: to strengthen and modernize 
Social Security and Medicare and add that prescription drug benefit; to 
stand up to special interest and pass a strong and enforceable Patients' 
Bill of Rights; to pass commonsense gun legislation to close the gun 
show loophole, require child safety locks for all handguns, ban the 
importation of large capacity ammunition clips; to raise the minimum 
wage by $1 over 2 years; to continue hiring those 100,000 teachers; to 
reduce class sizes in the early grades; to improve teacher quality; to 
modernize 6,000 of our schools that are literally falling apart and 
repair another 5,000 a year; and to provide after-school programs and 
summer school programs for all the kids in this country who need it so 
that we can turn around those failing schools; and we need to stop the 
delay and pass strong hate crimes legislation.
    This is not a list to be read; it's a list to be acted upon. 
[Applause] Thank you. I hope when Congress comes back, they'll do it. 
Again, I want to thank all the Members that are here, and another 40 or 
50 or so that wanted to come, but because of the way the timetable and 
the voting is unfolding, they can't.
    I'm going to modify the program just a little bit and ask Senator 
Daschle to come forward, because he's got to get back to make sure we 
don't lose any more votes. Senator Daschle.

[At this point, Senator Thomas A. Daschle and Represenative Richard A. 
Gephardt made brief remarks.]

    The President.  Debbie, I want to ask your parents and all your 
siblings and family members to stand. Everybody that is here from 
Debbie's family, stand up. Isn't that great? [Applause] Bless you.
    I just want to make a couple of points in closing. If the Congress 
passed only our college opportunity tax cut, it would be worth 10 times 
as much to families like Debbie's as the entire Republican tax cut.
    The second thing I want to say is, if interest rates rise one 
percent higher than they otherwise would be because we spend the entire 
surplus on tax cuts, it will cost the average family $270 a year, which 
is more than they'll get in a tax cut.
    The final thing I want to say is this. Even if you don't think 
you'll get any benefits out of any of these tax cuts we've proposed--
keep in mind, all this proposed surplus that they want to spend is just 
that; it's estimated. We don't have a dollar of it yet.
    Now, if you got one of those letters in the mail from Ed McMahon--
[laughter]--that said, you may have won $10 million, would you go out 
and spend $10 million the next day? If you would, you should support 
their plan. [Laughter] But if you wouldn't, you better stick with us and 
keep the prosperity going and help people like Debbie.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 3:10 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House. In his remarks,

[[Page 1702]]

he referred to George Washington University student Debbie Boudoulvas, 
who described how proposed tax legislation would benefit her family; and 
Ed McMahon, spokesperson, Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. The 
President also referred to EITC, the earned-income tax credit. The 
transcript released by the Office of the Press Secretary also included 
the remarks of Senator Daschle and Representative Gephardt.