Well, that's what the Recovery Act was. Now, I am happy to report this morning that we saw another sign that our economy is moving in the right direction. The latest GDP numbers show that our economy is growing by almost 6%--that's the most since 2003.
At this point, we know that the budget surpluses of the '90s occurred in part because of the pay-as-you-go law, which said that, well, you should pay as you go and live within our means, just like families do every day. 24 Republicans voted for that, and I appreciate it. And we were able to pass it in the Senate yesterday.
But the idea of a bipartisan fiscal commission to confront the deficits in the long term died in the Senate the other day. So I'm going to establish such a commission by executive order and I hope that you participate, fully and genuinely, in that effort, because if we're going to actually deal with our deficit and debt.
Pres. OBAMA: This notion that this was a radical package is just not true. A third of them were tax cuts, and they weren't--when you say they were "boutique" tax cuts--95% of working Americans got tax cuts, small businesses got tax cuts, large businesses got help in terms of their depreciation schedules. I mean, it was a pretty conventional list of tax cuts. And the notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs--why would I resist that? I wouldn't. I am not an ideologue. The problem is, I couldn't find credible economists who would back up the claims that you just made.
Pres. OBAMA: I want to just push back a little bit on the underlying premise about us increasing spending by 84%. The fact of the matter is, is that most of the increases in this year's budget, this past year's budget, were not as a consequence of policies that we initiated but instead were built in as a consequence of the automatic stabilizers that kick in because of this enormous recession. So the increase in the budget for this past year was actually predicted before I was even sworn into office and had initiated any policies.
Rep. RYAN: I would simply say that automatic stabilizer spending is mandatory spending. The discretionary spending, the bills that Congress signs that you sign into law, that has increased 84%.
Pres. OBAMA: The reason that I'm not proposing the discretionary freeze take into effect this year is, I am just listening to the consensus among people who know the economy best. And what they will say is that if you either increase taxes or significantly lowered spending when the economy remains somewhat fragile, that that would have a destimulative effect and potentially you'd see a lot of folks losing business, more folks potentially losing jobs. We'll have a longer debate on the budget numbers, all right?
Pres. OBAMA: We didn't have earmarks in the Recovery Act. We didn't get a lot of credit for it, but there were no earmarks in that. I was confronted at the beginning of my term with an omnibus package that did have a lot of earmarks from Republicans and Democrats when we had to make a whole bunch of emergency decisions about the economy. So what I said was let's keep them to a minimum, but I couldn't excise them all. I think all of us are willing to acknowledge that some earmarks are perfectly defensible, good projects; it's just they haven't gone through the regular appropriations process in the full light of day. So one place to start is to make sure that they are at least transparent, that everybody knows what's there before we move forward.
Pres. OBAMA: When we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion, before I had passed any law. We came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade--had nothing to do with anything that we had done. It had to do with the fact that in 2000 when there was a budget surplus of $200 billion, you had a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, and we had two tax cuts that weren't paid for. Now, we increased it by a trillion dollars because of the spending that we had to make on the stimulus. The major driver of our long-term liabilities, everybody here knows, is Medicare and Medicaid and our health care spending. That's going to be what our children have to worry about.
Pres. OBAMA: I know that West Virginia struggles with unemployment. That's part of the reason why I've said that we need a comprehensive energy policy that sets us up for a long-term future. For example, nobody has been a bigger promoter of clean coal technology than I am. Testament to that, I ended up being in a whole bunch of advertisements that you guys saw all the time about investing in way for us to burn coal more cleanly. I've said that I'm a promoter of nuclear energy, something that I think over the last 3 decades has been subject to a lot of partisan wrangling & ideological wrangling. I think that that has to be part of our energy mix.
Pres. OBAMA: You're right, there are conflicts within the Democratic Party. I suspect some Republican constituencies may be pretty suspicious about new trade agreements, because the suspicion is somehow they're all one way. Part of what we've been trying to do is to make sure that we're getting the enforcement side, that if we've got a trade agreement with China or other countries, that they are abiding with it--they're not stealing our intellectual property. And my hope is, that trade is going to be reciprocal; that it's not just going to be a one-way street.
Pres. OBAMA: I think there's not a President out there that wouldn't love to have it. And I think that this is an area where we can have a serious conversation. I don't like being held up with big bills that have stuff in them that are wasteful but I've got to sign because it's a defense authorization bill. One thing that you have to acknowledge, is that the earmarks problem is not unique to one party and you end up getting a lot of pushback when you start going after specific projects of any one of you in your districts. But I am willing to have a serious conversation on the line-item veto issue.
Pres. OBAMA: I can stand here unequivocally and say that there has not been an administration who was tougher on making sure that lobbyists weren't participating in the administration than any administration that's come before us. Now, what we did was, if there were lobbyists who were on boards an commissions that were carryovers and their term hadn't been completed, we didn't kick them off. We simply said that moving forward any time a new slot opens, they're being replaced. There have been a handful of waivers where somebody is highly skilled--for example, a doctor who ran Tobacco-Free Kids technically is a registered lobbyist; on the other end, has more experience than anybody in figuring out how kids don't get hooked on cigarettes.
Creating a high-risk pool for uninsured folks with preexisting conditions, that wasn't my idea, it was Senator McCain's. And I supported it, and it got incorporated into our approach. Allowing insurance companies to sell coverage across state lines to add choice and competition--that's a [GOP] idea that was incorporated into our package. And I support it, provided that we do it hand in hand with broader reforms. So when you say I ought to be willing to accept Republican ideas on health care, let's be clear: I have.
Pres. OBAMA: If you look at the health care process--overwhelmingly the majority of it actually was on C-SPAN, because it was taking place in congressional hearings in which you guys were participating. Now, I kicked it off, by the way, with a meeting with many of you, including your key leadership. I take responsibility for not having structured it in a way where it was all taking place in one place that could be filmed. How to do that logistically would not have been as easy as it sounds, because you're shuttling back and forth between the House, different offices, different legislators. But I think it's a legitimate criticism. So on that one, I take responsibility.
Pres. OBAMA: Actually, I've gotten many of your ideas. Some of the ideas we have embraced in our package Some of them are embraced with caveats. So let me give you an example. One of the proposals that has been focused on by the Republicans as a way to reduce costs is allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines. We actually include that as part of our approach. But the caveat is, we've got to do so with some minimum standards, because otherwise what happens is that you could have insurance companies circumvent a whole bunch of state regulations--mammograms as part of preventive care, for example. Part of what could happen is insurance companies could go into states and cherry-pick and just get those who are healthiest and leave behind those who are least healthy, which would raise everybody's premiums who weren't healthy.
Pres. OBAMA: I don't think I said that. What I said was, within the context of health care, I welcome ideas that you might provide. I didn't say that you haven't provided ideas.
Rep. PRICE: Mr. President, multiple times, from your administration, there have come statements that Republicans have no ideas and no solutions. In spite of the fact that we've offered positive solutions to all of the challenges we face.
Pres. OBAMA: If you say, "We can offer coverage for all Americans, and it won't cost a penny," that's just not true. So I am absolutely committed to working with you on these issues, but it can't just be political assertions that aren't substantiated when it comes to the actual details of policy. So there's got to be some test of realism in any of these proposals, mine included.
Pres. OBAMA: I am willing to work with you tort reform, but the CBO says, at best, this could reduce health care costs relative to where they're growing by a couple of percent, or save $5 billion a year, and it will not bend the cost curve long term or reduce premiums significantly. If we're going to do multi-state insurance so that people can go across state lines, I've got to be able to go to an independent health care expert, who can tell me that this won't result in cherry-picking and the least healthy being worse off. I've read your legislation, and the good ideas we take.
Rep. RYAN: No.
Pres. OBAMA: No?
Rep. RYAN: People 55 and above are grandfathered in.
Pres. OBAMA: But just for future beneficiaries, the basic idea would be that at some point we hold Medicare cost per recipient constant as a way of making sure that that doesn't go way out of whack, right?
Rep. RYAN: We drew it as a blend of inflation and health inflation. Medicare is a $38 trillion unfunded liability-- it has to be reformed for younger generations because it's going bankrupt. And the premise of our idea is, why not give people the same kind of health care plan we here have in Congress?
Pres. OBAMA: You're absolutely right that when I was sworn in the hope was that unemployment would remain around 8%. What ended up happening was that the job losses from this recession proved to be much more severe than anybody anticipated. We underestimated how severe the job losses were going to be. But those job losses took place before any stimulus, whether it was the ones that you guys have proposed or the ones that we proposed, could have ever taken into effect. Now, that's just the fact, Mike, and I don't think anybody would dispute that. You could not find an economist who would dispute that.
I'm a big believer not just in the value of a loyal opposition, but in its necessity. Having differences of opinion, having a real debate about matters of domestic policy and national security--and that's not something that's only good for our country, it's absolutely essential. It's only through the process of disagreement and debate that bad ideas get tossed out and good ideas get refined and made better. And that kind of vigorous back and forth is at the heart of our democracy.
Pres. OBAMA: I'm going to take a look at what you guys are proposing. What you may consider across-the-board tax cuts could be, for example, greater tax cuts for people who are makin a billion dollars. I may not agree to a tax cut for Warren Buffett. You may be calling for an across-the-board tax cut for the banking industry right now. I may not agree to that. If you're calling for just across-the-board tax cuts, and then on the other hand saying that we're somehow going to balance our budget, I'm going to want to take a look at your math and see how that works, because the issue of deficit and debt is another area where there has been a tendency for some inconsistent statements.
|
The above quotations are from Obama Q+A at the 2010 House Republican retreat.
Click here for other excerpts from Obama Q+A at the 2010 House Republican retreat. Click here for other excerpts by Barack Obama. Click here for a profile of Barack Obama.
Please consider a donation to OnTheIssues.org!
| Click for details -- or send donations to: 1770 Mass Ave. #630, Cambridge MA 02140 E-mail: submit@OnTheIssues.org (We rely on your support!) |