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Message #113424 posted by forged registration (Info) March 18, 2008 17:00:59 ET
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/11/AR2006071100621.html
"The White House 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 American people how much progress we're making toward 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 American taxpayer: This economy's growing, federal taxes are rising and we're cutting the federal deficit faster than we expected.
And this good news is no accident. It's the result of the hard work of the American people and sound policies in Washington, D.C.
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 Washington, taxes were too high and the economy was headed into a recession. Some said the answer was to centralize power in Washington 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.
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.
Our job in Washington is to keep this expansion 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've got to set priorities.
BUSH: And 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 United States 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.
Fighting a war on terror and defending the homeland imposes great costs, and those costs have helped create budget deficits. Our responsibility is to win this war on terror and to keep the economy growing. And those are the kind of policies we have in place.
You know, some in Washington say we had to choose between cutting taxes and cutting the deficit. You might remember those debates. You endured that rhetoric hour after hour on the floor of the Senate and the House. Today's numbers show that that was a false choice.
The economic growth fueled by tax relief has helped send our tax revenues soaring. That's what has happened.
When the economy grows businesses grow, people earn more money, profits are higher, and they pay additional taxes on the new income.
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.
The 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. And that's about the same as the average over the past 40 years.
Here's some hard numbers. Our original projection for this year's budget deficit was $423 billion. That was our 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)
We faced difficult economic times. We cut the taxes on the American people because we strongly believed that the American people should lead us out of recession.
Our small businesses flourished. People invested; tax revenues up. And we're way ahead of cutting the 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."
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 OK to create the 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 on 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 priority is our military and protecting the homeland. But on other programs, we've reduced the growth of that discretionary spending.
We've got great faith in the people's ability to spend their money wiser than the federal government can do. And our faith in the people has been proven by the numbers we're talking about today.
And we said, "We've got an economic issue, and we're going to let you have more of your money to help us recover from recession and stock market correction and terrorist attacks and war and natural disasters." And the people haven't let us down, have they? This economy is strong.
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 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 wise policies in Washington, D.C."
- Professor George Bush, Wreckonomics 101, 2006 lecture series
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