Lawrence Ari Fleischer

“ The President is always trying to reach members of Congress, and he does so in a variety of ways. Many of them are at the speech tonight to the joint session; others are the meetings he has, such as the one he just finished here with the leadership in the House and the Senate. Travel to the states, of course, is another way to talk to members of Congress. When he goes to Georgia, there's a Democrat Senator from Georgia who is a cosponsor of his tax cut proposal. ”

“ I think that the real issue here in Washington is whether or not we're going to squander the surplus because it gets spent. And if spending continues at the rate it did in the last Congress, it will diminish the surplus by $1.4 trillion. By that I mean in the last Congress, both parties agreed and it was signed into law to have a 6 percent increase in domestic discretionary spending. I heard this morning that actually the figure for non-defense domestic discretionary spending last year was closer to 14 percent -- I'm sorry, last year it was 8 percent. ”

“ Q Opponents of the tax proposal for the Democratic side focused much criticism on the priorities; that the President's plan doesn't set the priorities right. There's nothing wrong in itself with giving relief to the middle class or cutting the highest rate, but you don't do enough for low-income people. ”

“ They will benefit the most. One of the families that the President will have with him tonight will be a tax family, somebody who pays taxes at the lower to medium end of the scale, who is going to receive a very sizeable tax reduction. The average tax reduction per American family, under the President's plan, will be $1,600 a year, average family. That's a lot of money to a lot of people. Q Following that logic out, though, would the President consider making that credit refundable so that people could pay little to no income tax, but a fairly hefty payroll tax bill which they'll get benefits? ”

“ The President will address that tonight. Q Ari, why take the hard issue last, the Social Security issue? Why not take -- you know, getting Congress to approve a tax cut is certainly a much more popular thing to do than to propose restructuring Social -- and also simpler than restructuring Social Security. Why not tackle the hard one first, when a new President is in office, has momentum, has initiative? ”

“ Allow the President to make his case tonight. We believe that the combination of the President's speech tonight, the budget he'll submit tomorrow, the travel he'll do around the country will build a broad-based support for his budget priorities, increase in spending, paying down the debt, cutting taxes, rebuilding the military. And that will get reflected in the will of the people, and that will influence the votes on the Hill. Q Ari, on the subject of the President's travel the next couple of days, can you explain to us why some of these places were chosen? ”

“ There will be several proposals in the budget to help people who are uninsured, who are in underserved areas, and the President will highlight those in his speech tonight, as well as in the budget tomorrow -- community health centers is one of the shining examples the President talked about during the campaign, which will be a tremendous change, a big improvement in delivering health care to people across the country. ”

“ The President's plan helps people at the lowest income brackets the most. They receive the biggest percentage of the tax cuts. And it will be their point life that they get the most help, and that's because we double the child credit from $500 to $1,000. I think -- and also, we lower the bottom bracket from 15 percent to 10 percent. ”

“ The President is concerned about terrorism in this country, and he's very confident that the FBI and the other law enforcement agencies and the training for that is done throughout the nation with localities, municipalities, that the United States is ready and can address any threats that are brought our way. ”

“ I'll also remind you that the last time Social Security was successfully reformed was in 1983, in good part thanks to a commission. There have been commissions since then that did not work. But the trick to commissions in Washington, D.C. is to create the will so you can get the way. And that's what President Bush intends to do. He intends to invest the capital to get it done, and he will fight to get it done. Q Ari, as you know, there have been a lot of rich people who have been speaking out against abolition of the estate tax. ”

“ And I think logic simply dictates that if you pay $2,000 in taxes and you have one child and you just got your child credit increased from $500 to $1,000, that means so much more to somebody at the low-income end of the scale than somebody who pays $25,000 in taxes because they make $100,000 a year. ”

“ And it is a wonderfully new issue for the government to deal with because it's a sign of more good things to come. The last time the government was in such a position was one century ago. It's a good position to be in, and our budget will continue that strength for the economy. Q Ari, the President said yesterday that he would like to return fiscal sanity to Washington. Under that rubric, exactly how specific is he going to be in the speech tonight about programs that either will not grow very much, grow less than 4 percent, or be cut, in fact? ”

“ The President thinks the best plan is a bipartisan one. Q Ari, there is some talk out there that all of your talk about retiring the "eligible debt" is just a convenient ploy to carve out enough money in the Social Security surplus to use it to pay the transition costs for private accounts. ”

“ Q Ari, does the President, as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, believe in combat units like the Seals, Marine Corps Recon and Rangers should be required to accept women, by lowering female physical requirements like they do at West Point, Colorado Springs and Annapolis, or does he believe that ability alone should be the requirement, like the way he once hired baseball players in Texas? ”

“ And also tomorrow, Indian Americans are having a rally on Capitol Hill for the same reason, calling on the administration to increase more help for the earthquake victims in India. MR. FLEISCHER: I know that USAID and the State Department have responded at the President's direction to the earthquake in India, and that's an ongoing effort by the United States government, and we remain very committed to helping the Indian people to recover from that terrible earthquake. Q Ari, do you know what Cabinet Secretary is going to be traveling on this -- MR. FLEISCHER: Let me get that for you. ”

“ The economic data is continuing to come in a manner that raises worries about the strength of our economy and the President and, I remind you, Vice President Cheney accurately addressed and assessed this issue several months ago. ”

“ It is unusual in American politics for trends that long in the making to be broken. And the election of President Bush and keeping the House and Senate Republican, even with small margins, is an historic accomplishment. The first time the House and the Senate -- the last time the House and Senate stayed Republican as long as they have was in the '20s. Q Ari, there was a man in 1954 named Joe McCarthy. ”

“ The remaining debt will be approximately $800 billion, and it will mature at a time frame and will be paid off in that time frame in a manner that doesn't incur penalties to the American taxpayers. It just makes no good fiscal or economic sense to pay a penalty to retire debt that won't come due for, in some cases, 30 years. It's bad economics, it's not fiscally responsible and it need not happen. Q Ari, keeping it on the books for 30 years is going to incur a penalty as well, paying the interest. ”

“ The President has made crystal clear, and he could not make it any clearer, that he will continue to enforce the no-fly zone over Iraq, and that's what he intends to do. Q Isn't it more difficult now when many of the Arab leaders have reacted to the bombing and are not as amenable to supporting U.S. action in the future? ”

“ Well, the President supports plans to work closely with our allies on a host of issues that make for a stronger communities, and that involves trade, which is something that was discussed during the meeting with President Pastrana ”