Remarks to African-American Community Leaders - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 6, 2000

Number one, we've got to keep this prosperity going. And my view is, that means we ought to say--that means, first, we've got to keep paying down the debt until we get out of debt, and that will keep interest rates down. We'll figure out what it costs to do that. Then what's left, we can spend. And we'll spend some of it with a tax cut, but a good deal of it to invest in education and health care, in the environment, in our national security, and in our future.

Now, that's basically the program that our party and our nominees have laid out. Pay the debt down; keep interest rates down. Take what's left; have a tax cut we can afford; focus it on the needs of middle-class people for college education, for child care, for long-term care for elderly and disabled people, for retirement savings, and for lower income working people with a bunch of kids that need more help than we're giving them. But then invest, continue to invest in these other areas. Now, one virtue of that is that if the money doesn't come in, you don't have to spend it. But if you give it all away in a tax cut on the front end, it's not there, whether it comes in or not.

But I just want to say, I believe that the progressive party in America ought to be for getting America out of debt for the first time since 1835, when Andrew Jackson was President. Why? Because it gets the interest rates down. We believe it will keep interest rates about a percent lower than if you take the alternative course, which is a $1.3 trillion tax cut, which gives you a $300 billion extra interest bill--because you cut interest payments if you cut the debt--and a $1 trillion Social Security privatization program and a $500 billion spending package. If you have $2 trillion in projected surpluses--and that's really bigger than it's going to be, but let's just assume that--and you spend 1.3 on a tax cut and 300 billion on interest and 500 billion on spending--with me so far? That's 2.1--and a trillion dollars on privatizing Social Security, this is--forget about all the zeros. Three-point-one is bigger than 2. You're in deficit.

You know, life has been good to a lot of you in this room. And you've worked hard, and some of you in this room would be better off the day after with that program--people like lawyer Latham there, you know? [Laughter] But look, we've tried it that way, and all I can tell you is, if you keep interest rates lower, that's better for everybody, including the well-off. And it keeps this economy going, and it makes everything else possible.

One percent lower interest rates, which is what you get if you stay out of deficit and keep paying that debt down, one percent a year, over 10 years, is worth the following: $390 billion in lower home mortgage payments; $30 billion in lower car payments; $15 billion in lower college loan payments. Never mind--now, that's a $435 billion tax cut in the form of lower mortgages. Never mind the lower interest rates on credit cards and the lower business loan rate, which means easier to start a small business, more business expansion, more jobs, higher income, and a better stock market.