[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 9 (Monday, March 5, 2001)]
[Pages 342-343]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

February 24, 2001

    Good morning. This coming week I will be making the trip up 
Pennsylvania Avenue to address a joint session of Congress. We have some 
business to attend to called the budget of the United States.
    The Federal budget is a document about the size of a big city phone 
book and about as hard to read from cover to cover. The blueprint I 
submit this week contains many numbers, but there is one that probably 
counts more than any other--$5.6 trillion. That is the surplus the 
Federal Government expects to collect over the next 10 years; money left 
over after we have met our obligations to Social Security, Medicare, 
health care, education, defense, and other priorities.
    The plan I submit will fund our highest national priorities. 
Education gets the biggest percentage increase of any Department in our 
Federal Government. We won't just spend more money on schools and 
education; we will spend it responsibly. We'll give States more freedom 
to decide what works. And as we give more to our schools, we're going to 
expect more in return by requiring States and local jurisdictions to 
test every year. How else can we know whether schools are teaching and 
children are learning?
    Social Security and Medicare will get every dollar they need to meet 
their commitments. And every dollar of Social Security and Medicare tax 
revenue will be reserved for Social Security and Medicare.
    My budget blueprint will restrain spending, yet meet growing needs 
with a reasonable 4 percent growth rate, which is a little more than 
inflation. After paying the bills, my plan reduces the national debt, 
and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that

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we're going to run out of debt to retire. That would be a good worry to 
have.
    Finally, along with funding our priorities and paying down debt, my 
plan returns about one out of every four dollars of the surplus to the 
American taxpayers, who created the surplus in the first place. A 
surplus in tax revenue, after all, means that taxpayers have been 
overcharged. And usually when you've been overcharged, you expect to get 
something back.
    Tax relief means real help for both American families and the 
American economy. Everybody who pays income taxes will receive a tax 
cut. Nobody will be targeted in, and nobody will be targeted out. The 
typical family will get about $1,600 in tax relief, and that's real 
money. And that's money that will help American families manage their 
own accounts, manage your own balance sheets.
    My address to Congress comes on Tuesday night at 9 o'clock eastern 
time. I hope you'll tune in and consider what I have to say. I hope 
you'll agree that my plan is good for you and for your family. But even 
more, I hope you'll agree it's good for America.
    Thank you for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 9:30 a.m. on February 23 in the 
Cabinet Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on February 
24. The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on February 23 but was embargoed for release until the 
broadcast.