[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 6 (Monday, February 12, 2001)]
[Page 257]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

February 3, 2001

    Good morning. This coming week I will send to Congress my tax relief 
plan. It is broad and responsible. It will help our economy, and it is 
the right thing to do.
    Today, many Americans are feeling squeezed. They work 40, 50, 60 
hours a week and still have trouble paying the electric bill and the 
grocery bill at the same time. At the end of a long week, they collect 
their paycheck, and what the Federal Government takes is often unfair.
    Picture a diner in one of our cities. At the table is a lawyer with 
two children. She earns $250,000 a year. Carrying her coffee and toast 
is a waitress who has two children of her own. She earns $25,000 a year. 
If both the lawyer and the waitress get a raise, it is the waitress who 
winds up paying a higher marginal tax rate. She will give back almost 
half of every extra dollar she earns to the Government.
    Both of these women, the lawyer and the waitress, deserve a tax cut. 
Under my plan, both of these women and all Americans who pay taxes will 
get one. For the waitress, our plan will wipe out her income tax bill 
entirely.
    My plan does some important things for America. It reduces taxes for 
everyone who pays taxes. It lowers the lowest income tax rate from 15 
percent to 10 percent. It cuts the highest rate to 33 percent, because I 
believe no one should pay more than a third of their income to the 
Federal Government. The average family of four will get about $1,600 of 
their own money returned back to them.
    There's a lot of talk in Washington about paying down the national 
debt, and that's good, and that's important. And my budget will do that. 
But American families have debts to pay, as well. A tax cut now will 
stimulate our economy and create jobs.
    The economic news these days is troubling--rising energy prices, 
layoffs, falling consumer confidence. This is not a time for Government 
to be taking more money than it needs away from the people who buy goods 
and create jobs.
    My plan will keep all Social Security money in the Social Security 
System, where it belongs. We will eliminate the death tax, saving family 
farms and family-owned businesses. We'll reduce the maximum rate on 
small business income to 33 percent, so they can help create the jobs we 
need. Above all, my plan unlocks the door to the middle class for 
millions of hard-working Americans.
    The country has prospered mightily over the past 20 years. But a lot 
of people feel as if they have been looking through the window at 
somebody else's party. It is time to fling those doors and windows open 
and invite everybody in. It is time to reward the work of people trying 
to enter the middle class and put some more money in their pockets at a 
time when they need it.
    My tax reduction plan does all these things, and I hope you'll 
support it.
    Thank you for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 8:30 a.m. on February 2 in the Oval 
Office at the White House, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on February 3. 
The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary 
on February 2 but was embargoed for release until the broadcast.