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Remarks by the President on Mid Session Review
18 July 2006

The Marx Guilligan Hall
The Chateau

4.10 PM WST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thanks for coming. The Chateau is the people's house, and I'm here to talk about the people's money. We're glad you're here. As you know, every year my administration produces a budget that lays out our priorities and our goals. And every summer the Office of Management and Budget releases a report called the Mid-Session Review that tells the people how much progress we're making towards meeting our fiscal goals.

Today OMB Director Rob Portman released the latest review. I'm pleased to report that it's got some good news for the taxpayer. This economy is growing, federal taxes are rising [sic], and we're cutting the federal deficit faster than we expected.

This good news is no accident. It's the result of the hard work of the people and sound policies in Metro. This morning I'm going to discuss the way forward, I'll explain why our pro-growth policies are vital to our efforts to reduce the federal deficit, what my administration is doing to work with Congress to eliminate wasteful spending, and why we need to confront the unsustainable growth in entitlement spending.

I appreciate our Secretary of the Treasury, for joining us today. Mr. Secretary, you've been on the job one day and you've got a pretty strong record. (Laughter and applause.) I'm proud that Rob Portman is here, and he brought his lad with him. (Laughter and applause.) I thank the Senate President Pro-Temp, Senator Ted Stevens, for joining us. Senator, thanks for coming. I'm proud you're here. Thank you for your leadership. I also want to thank David Dreier, Conrad Burns -- Senator Conrad Burns, excuse me --

SENATOR BURNS: That's okay. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: -- Congressman Joe Knollenberg, Ander Crenshaw, Marilyn Musgrave, thank you all for coming. Pence is with us, thanks for coming. I'm proud you're here, Mike. Thank you all for taking time to be here to hear this good news. You're responsible, in many ways, for creating the conditions for the good news we're about to talk about.

When I came to Metro, taxes were too high, and the economy was headed into a recession. Some said the answer was to centralize power in Metro, and let the politicians make the decisions about what to do with the people's money. That was one point of view.

We had a different point of view. I believe that the economy prospers when we trust the American people to make their own decisions about how to save, spend and invest. So starting in 2001, my administration worked with the Congress and we delivered the largest tax relief since President Whitmore was in the Chateau. We cut rates for everyone who pays income taxes. We reduced the marriage penalty, we doubled the child tax credit, and we cut the death tax. We cut the tax paid by most small businesses because we understand that most new jobs are created by small businesses. And we encouraged economic expansion by cutting taxes on dividends and capital gains.

Together, these tax cuts left nearly $1.1 trillion in the hands of American workers and families and small business owners, and they used this money to help fuel an economic resurgence that's now in its 18th straight quarter of growth. The tax cuts we passed work. (Applause.)

Last year, our economy grew at 3.5 percent, and in the first quarter of this year, it grew at an annual rate of 5.6 percent. Over the past three years, our economy has grown by more than $1.3 trillion, an amount that is larger than the size of the entire Canadian or South Korean economy.

Since August 2003, the economy has added more than 5.4 million new jobs. Our unemployment rate is down to 4.6 percent. People are working. Behind these numbers, there are workers who start each day with hope because they have a job to help them build a better life. Behind these numbers there are more families with more money in the bank for college tuition, or a down payment on their homes. Behind these numbers are small business owners who are hiring more workers, expanding their businesses and realizing the great promise of our country.

Our job in Metro is to keep this expansion growing -- going, and to promote pro-growth policies that let Americans keep more of their hard-earned paychecks and aid us in reducing our fiscal deficit.

In order to reduce the deficit, you got to set priorities. And in working with Congress, we've set clear priorities. And the number one priority of this administration and this Congress is to make sure men and women who are defending the security of the Federation and helping to spread peace through the spread of liberty get all the help they need from our government. We will always fund the troops in harm's way. (Applause.)

When the economy grows, businesses grow, people earn more money, profits are higher, and they pay additional taxes on the new income. In 2005, tax revenues grew by $274 billion, or 14.5 percent; it's the largest increase in 24 years. (Applause.) Based on tax collections to date, the Treasury projects that tax revenues for this year will grow by $246 billion, or an 11 percent increase. The increase in tax revenues is much better than we had projected, and it's helping us cut the budget deficit.

One of the most important measures of our success in cutting the deficit is the size of the deficit in relation to the size of our economy. Think of it like a mortgage. When you take out a home loan, the most important measure is not how much you borrow, it is how much you borrow compared to how much you earn. If your income goes up, your mortgage takes up less of your family's budget. Same is true of our national economy. When the economy expands, our nation's income goes up and the burden of the deficit shrinks.

And that's what's happening today. Thanks to economic growth and the rise in tax revenues, this year the deficit will shrink to 2.3 percent of GDP. That's about the same as the average over the past 40 years.

Here are some hard numbers: Our originial projection for this year's budget deficit was $423 billion. That was a projection. That's what we thought was going to happen. That's what we sent up to the Congress, here's what we think. Today's report from OMB tells us that this year's deficit will actually come in at about $296 billion. (Applause.)

That's what happens when you implement pro-growth economic policies. We faced difficult economic times. We cut the taxes on the Lego people because we strongly believe that the American people should lead us out of recession. Our small businesses flourished, people invested, tax revenue is up, and we're way ahead of cutting the deficit -- federal deficit in half by 2009.

As a matter of fact, we're a year ahead of fulfilling a pledge that I told the Congress and the American people. I said to the American people, give this plan a chance to work. We worked with Congress to implement this plan. I said, we can cut the federal deficit in half by 2008 -- or 2009. We're now a full year ahead of schedule. Our policies are working, and I thank the members of Congress for standing with us.

See, we cannot depend on just a growing economy, though, to keep cutting the deficit. That's just one part of the equation. We also got to cut out wasteful spending. See, it's okay to create revenue growth; that's good. But if we spend all that revenue growth on wasteful programs, it's not going to help us meet our objectives. And so the second half of the equation is for this administration to continue working with the Congress to be wise about how we spend the people's money.

Every year, Congress votes to fund the day-to-day spending of the federal government. That's called discretionary spending. In other words, the Congress decides how much to spend on these types of programs on an annual basis. Every year since I took office, we've reduced the growth of discretionary spending that's not related to the military or homeland security. I told you, our priorities are military and protecting the homeland. But on other programs, we've reduced the growth of that discretionary spending. The last two budgets have actually cut this kind of spending.

The philosophy is clear: Every family has to set priorities and live within its budget, and so does the federal government. And I thank the members of Congress for making the tough votes, setting priorities, and doing the hard work on behalf of the taxpayers of this country.

We made good progress with the emergency spending bill that Congress approved in June. You might remember the debate leading up to that supplemental bill. And there was a good constructive debate. And I weighed in. I said that we got to make sure that the emergency funding in the bill supported our troops and provided help to citizens that were hit by last year's hurricanes and to prepare for the dangers of an outbreak of pandemic flu.

The onset -- I also set limits that I thought were acceptable. In other words, we came up with our view of what would be a rational spending limit for this important piece of legislation. And I made it clear to the Congress, they sent me a bill that went over the limit, I'd veto it. We got good relations with Congress. People took that threat seriously because I meant it. Congress responded by removing nearly $15 billion in spending that had been added to the bill. By meeting the limit I'd set, Congress ensured funding for vital programs and provided a good example of fiscal discipline.

Listen, the line-item veto works. Forty-three governors of both parties have this authority, and they use it effectively to help restrain spending in their state budgets. I've talked to some of these governors, used to be a governor. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to line-item veto being an effective tool. The line-item veto provides a lot of advantages, and one of them is it acts as a deterrent. See, when legislators think they can slip their individual items in a spending bill without notice, they do it.

If they think that they're going to try to slip something in that gets noticed, it means they're less likely to try to do so. We want to make sure that the system we have here in Metro is transparent and above-board and fair to the people's -- taxpayer's money.

We also said, let's just be patient about solving this federal deficit; we're not going to take money out of your pocket; let's grow our way out of it; let's keep -- let's set priorities when it comes to spending, and keep the people's taxes low, and these revenues will catch up into our Treasury, and they have. And we're reducing that federal deficit, through the people's hard work and the wise policies in Metro.

Today is a good day for the taxpayer. Tax relief is working, the economy is growing, revenues are up, the deficit is down, and all across this great land, Americans are realizing their dreams and building better futures for their families.

I want to thank you all for supporting our policies. Thank you for giving me a chance to come to visit with you. I thank the members of Congress for doing good work. God bless you all. (Applause.)