Lawrence Ari Fleischer

“ We are to establish Project Century, which is a federal/state partnership to provide funding for safe school task forces; Project Child Safe, which is a $75 million a year program for five years, matching funds with a goal of providing free trigger locks for every handgun owner in America, stronger enforcement of existing gun laws and providing funding for aggressive law enforcement programs, such as Project Exile. Support automatic detention for juveniles who commit crimes with guns. Support a ban for life on serious juvenile offenders from ever purchasing or carrying a gun. ”

“ We're at the very beginning of the process; the President is encouraged by the legislation because it addresses an important issue, which is tort reform. And there will be a variety of ideas suggested from the Hill on what the best way of enacting meaningful tort reform is, and we're going to be prepared to work with a number of people to get it done. Q You would work with the people, including the ones who put the bill forward today? Why won't you work with them? ”

“ There are other people who have different visions of how to accomplish campaign finance reform, including Senator McCain. What's important is that we are going to work with those people and not against those people, and there are ways to do that and have disagreements and keep it civil. ”

“ And the other provisions we're going to look for to make sure that consumers, health consumers have the protections they need, such as, for example, a woman's right to go see her OB/GYN without going through a gatekeeper first, the right of a patient to go to the emergency room without first having to dial an 800 number. ”

“ Congressmen decide every day about whether they want to allow the President to have time to put up his proposals first. Those are the routine decisions that get made on the Hill every day. Q Ari, why is this particular issue different? Ordinarily, the President would invite a handful of people who are involved in an issue, have them come to the White House, sit down with them, talk about his principles. In this case, he peels off one member of Congress and apparently urges him not to participate in a news conference that was scheduled to talk about the new bill. ”

“ The President is very concerned about the possibility that four major airlines may all be struck at approximately the same time. He thinks, particularly given the softness in the economy right now, we need to be very careful that that does not take place. ”

“ I can only tell you that the Congressional Affairs people work with everybody up there on a very regular basis. Q Ari, what with the tax proposal not still being officially unveiled and the public starting to digest that, would you have preferred that the people on the Hill have waited on this particular issue, one major issue at a time? MR. FLEISCHER: No, it doesn't work that way. Members of Congress every day make their proposals. Q The public's interest can only focus probably so much on some of the issues. ”

“ I think we've been working with a lot of people. The patients' bill of rights has come up in some of the meetings the President's participated in with members of Congress. It's an issue that he's talked about before, and he's going to talk about it again. He believes in it. ”

“ There are high military sources at the Pentagon and experts outside the Pentagon who say that's not nearly enough to do the job to get America's military back where it can do its proper job. It will take perhaps an additional 1 percent of the GDP and up to $100 billion more a year. ”

“ The biggest threat to the surplus is spending increases. Q Ari, how concerned is the administration about the possibility of a major airline strike later this year by three or four airlines, and what plans or how involved would the administration get in making sure that does not happen? ”

“ I think the public has the ability to focus on several important issues at one time and taxes and health care are both important issues. Q On energy, Senator Schumer has been calling for more help through LIHEEP in the Northeast and New York. ”

“ That is the purpose of having the Department of Defense engage in the strategic review, the force structure review. And I think it would be premature to comment on what we will do until that review is complete. Q The $45 billion is not locked in concrete as an absolute gap or ceiling? MR. FLEISCHER: There is a question of the funding that the President talked about during the campaign over a 10-year period. ”