Remarks to Independent Insurance Agents of America's National Legislative Conference - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 8, 2000

We already have the longest economic expansion in history--y far, the longest without any kind of war involved, but including all the ones which mobilized the country for wartime. So how do we propose to keep this going?

I personally believe it's very important that we continue to pay down this debt. Why? Because Americans finance a lot of their purchases through personal debt. We finance a lot of new equipment and business expansion through business debt. The personal savings rate in America is too low, and I would like to see it go up, and I would support initiatives in the Congress to try to help it increase. But meanwhile, when we pay down the national debt, it increases the overall savings rate of America; it keeps interest rates down; it makes money more available--the Government is putting money back into the economy instead of taking money out--and it works as an effective tax cut when you pay the debt down.

The fact that we have gotten rid of the deficit and paid down the debt, according to the latest economic analysis I saw, saves the average homeowner about $2,000 a year in lower mortgage payments and interest rates being lower than they otherwise would, and a couple hundred dollars a year on car payments and a couple hundred dollars a year on college loan payments. And of course, the availability of capital for business expansion is profoundly important. So I hope in the midst of all this debate this year, you will try to sort through whether, when it's all said and done, whether the commitments made by various people all add up and we can continue to do that.

Secondly, I think it's important, when we ask ourselves, how are we going to keep this economy going, that we continue to expand the base of America's customers. A nation in that sense is not much different than your enterprise. If you want to keep expanding, you've got to have somebody buying what you're selling. We have 4 percent of the world's population and 22 percent of the world's income. So it should be obvious. You don't have to be an Einstein to figure out you've got to have more markets all the time in that sort of environment.

In that regard, there are two initiatives before the Congress today that have bipartisan support, and at least one-maybe both, but certainly one-that have bipartisan opposition. The first is the proposal to bring China into the World Trade Organization. That may not be something that you think is of immediate concern to insurance agents, but since you care so much about the economy, it's very important.

China's going to get into the World Trade Organization whether we vote to give them normal trading relations every year or not. And the deal we negotiated with them does not give them one bit of increased access to our markets but gives us huge increased access to their markets.

If you saw the deal, you would ask why they signed it. The reason they signed it is, you can t get into the World Trade Organization unless you're willing to trade. So they have a more closed economy; they sell a lot of stuff to us; our biggest trade deficit now usually is with them. And they have to open their markets. And we negotiated a very strong deal that will mean more jobs, more businesses, more investments for America. And from a national security point of view, it would, in my view, be a very, very unwise and precarious move to say that the United States doesn't care whether they're a part of the world community or not. You don't have to agree with another country on everything to say you prefer to trade with them than have an arms face-off with them and constant conflict with them.