The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

it's been i say that as someone who believes that american companies should be free to invest around the world and as a former governor who actively sought investment of foreign companies in my state but the tax code should not expressed a preference to american companies or moving somewhere else and it doesn't have the power we will seek to ensure that through infective tax enforcement foreign corporations who do make money in america simply pay the same taxes that american families by on the sign in the pope the middle class americans who have paid a great deal for the last twelve years and

from whom i asked about conditions at night i will say again as i did on monday night you're not going alone anymore youre certainly not going first and you're not going to pay more for less has to have to pass i want to emphasize the facts about this plan ninety eight point eight percent of america's families will have no increase in your income tax rates the pain let me be clear there will also be no new cuts in benefits for medicare as we move toward the fourth year with the explosion in health care costs i said projected to account for thirty percent of the growth of the deficit that we now in the year two thousand there must be a plan cuts in payments to providers doctors the hospitals labs

as a way of controlling health care costs but i see these only as a stopgap until we can reform the entire health care system if you will help me do that we believe they are the providers and the consumers of health care let me rethink this because i know it matters to a lot of you on both sides of the aisle this plan does not like a recommendation for new cuts in medicare benefits for in even officially week secondly the only change we're making and social security is one that has already been publicized the plan does as older americans with higher incomes did not rely solely on social security to get by to contribute more this plan will not affect the eighty percent of social security recipients who did not pay taxes on social security now those he did not pay taxes or security now will not be affected by this plan our plan doesn't include a broad based tax on energy

and i want to tell you why i selected this and why i think it's a good idea i recommend that we adopt abt you tax on the heat content of energy as the best way to provide us with revenue to lower the deficit because it also combat pollution for most energy efficiency for mostly independence economically of this country as well as helping to reduce that and because it does not discriminate against any air i'd like a carbon tax is not to articles that unlike a gas tax it's not too tough on people who got a long way toward a like an edible or a tax it doesn't increase just when the price of energy source goes up and it is environmentally responsible it will help us in the future as well as in the present with the deficit it's been it together these measures will cost an american family with an income of about forty thousand dollars a year less than

seventeen dollars a month it will cost american families with incomes under thirty thousand dollars not because of other problems we propose presently those raising the earned income tax credit because of our publicly state determination to reduce the deficit if we do these things we will see the continuation of what's happened just since the elections just as the election that's the secretary of the treasury the director the office of life and budget and others to begin to speak out publicly and beverly top deficit reduction plan interest rates have continued of all long term that means that for the middle class who will pay something more each month if i have a driving the demand for their increased energy costs will be more than offset by lawrence is cause for mortgages consumer loans credit cards this could be a wise investment for them and their country the

palace what the american people already know and that is because we are a big basque country where we drive long distances we have maintained follow or bargains on energy than any other advanced country we will still help or war gardens on energy than any other advanced country and easily spread affair with real attempts to make sure that now calls and calls on families with incomes under thirty thousand dollars and that the cost of very modest until you get into the higher income groups where the income taxes now i asked going to consider this where you think of the tax rome whatever you think of the spending the conservative also of not change remember the numbers that you although if we just keep on beyond what we're dealing with ian a decade will have a six hundred fifty billion dollar year

deficit we just keep on no what would do it within a decade point percent of our national income about health care every year twice as many much as any other country on the face of it will need as they ponder what we're doing over twenty cents on the dollar will have to go to services there unless we have the courage now to start building our future is now borrowing from it were condemning ourselves years of stagnation interrupted by hazel was set slower growth in jaffa know more broadly and more data more disappointing worse last unless we change unless we increase investment and that is that they're right productivity so that we can generate more jobs and then we will be condemning our children and our children's children to a lesser life that we enjoy what's american's look forward to doubling their living standards every twenty five years and president volatility right in of like a hundred years double living standards until our grandchildren's grandchildren are born i

say that is too long way it's b tonight the american people know we have to change what they're also like they'd ask me tomorrow and all of you for the weeks and months ahead whether we have the fortitude to make the changes happen in the right way they know that as soon as i leave this chamber and you go home various interest groups will be out in force lobbying against this or that piece of his wife and that the forces of conventional ways that will offer a thousand reasons why we well all the business but we just can't do it people will be watching and wondering not to say whether you disagree with me on a particular issue we just

to see whether this is going to be business as usual our real new day whether all going to conduct ourselves as if we know we are working for them and we must scale the walls of the people's campuses not with our words but with our deeds it's been years fred lokken and decisions that are so many hopeful beginning since so you're promising results the american people are going to be far from their judgments of all of us if wi fi oversees this moment this economic plan can't please everybody gets the packages that the park will be something that will enter each of us but if it is taken as a whole it will help all else

so i ask you all began by resisting the temptation to focus only on a particular spending cut you don't like or some particular investment that was indicted nobody likes the tax increases but less displaced sites for twenty years the distractions of both parties and concerts stalled that has exploded productivity is not run as it should we cannot deny the reality of our condition we've got to play the hand we were dealt and played it as best we can fb my fellow americans the test of this plant cannot be what is in it really it has got to be what is in it the pain if we worked hard and if we work together if we rededicate ourselves to

creating jobs to rewarding work to strengthen our families to reinventing our government we can lead the country's fortunes again not i asked everyone in this chamber and every american the look settling into your own heart to spark your own homes afar your own imagination there's so much good so much possibility so much excitement in this country now but if we are only an honest leadership our legacy will be one of prosperity and progress this must be america's new direction let us some encourage season thank you listen in

on one one hour in one second word and more informal now and mineral and in the last fourteen plants and another forty nine fifth seeded who now make the provisional walk out and there have been more money for the other members of the country or step in july trade representative and the movement for fifteen more than a half of the ability now senator alan simpson called mama lived in the opposition i can only do that in a republican from mississippi and there's a vote on the president's love senator david dreier their

markets operate rather than permanent fund a lot of mississippi as senator arce of events and now the secretary of veteran affairs larry burns <unk> house minority leader bob michel a lot more i will deliver the official republican party response to the president you'll hear that there are at the capitol the earth moved in some analysis role was a lumberman and you never heard their mark their own speaking as our view of course i'm getting doms name thirteen of the us and world order includes the line from los angeles to almost thirty outdoor

flea market he got off it that it was not a modest i don't think it was a great speech but i think it may turn out to be his works the man they call the slick willy put it bluntly said to us and to the congress that then the free lunch is over you can walk the challenge if you want but there are challenges the nation and i think it fit in american politics it's a huge change as a result of the speech ended gm it was the most ambitious of the most sweeping and the most expensive plans that any president has presented to congress and almost thirty years i don't think we've heard anything like this with this kind of scope and scope and sweep about what he wanted to accomplish and for years says leonard johnson came back and offers atlanta nineteen sixty four and then for those great society program i think many

americans will find it extremely appealing they want much of what he's said that was in the price tag and when they do that they may have little sticker shock what about mark's point just about the fact of how strange it was the language of their egos the president is now is now out of the air out of the chamber and now the chamber will impede what you think about mark on that david is that men spoke on a straightaway leading way you like it or not they seem to be a kind of straight me i approach to it i thought much of it was a demo it should be praised for that he in particular has been honest about its budget assumptions and they're looking forward to the future i think he deserved credit for that he's been courageous instead of them in these issues i was tell you at the same time that many republicans do not believe this plan has been presented illustrate way and they will disagree on the notion that they're the vampire is true for about and walk away when jimmy talk tonight an amber i think the claim that the

spending cuts he's going to cut a hundred fifty programs and saved to earn forty six billion dollars over the next four years that is true under his program about the same time he is increasing spending by hundred and sixty billion dollars plus over the next four years so the net reduction in the shrinkage in government is much much more than what has been advertised mark but i think i think a bit of number i get challenged in those numbers they haven't looked at it closely enough at the argument that was made that the he says in the revenue or greater than the spending cuts themselves but de leon panetta argues the head the budget director and one of the real fears deficit hawks come out to congress and respect for them on both sides acknowledge that on both sides of the aisle that the cuts will even out i did in the had in the us in the fourth year the third fourth year that they're at the outset as david describes of the the greater increase will be enough in the revenue around the spending cuts but by the spending cuts will accelerate what year so that they will

be hit even with the revenue increases one of the arguments was made that lloyd bentsen the secretary of treasury went to great lengths today to emphasize that this was not the biggest tax increase in american political history that the biggest tax increase was made by ronald reagan in nineteen eighty two in the original proposal to get out of the budget deficit which we just cast at that point and i guess what i say is that these changed the terms of the debate that's what bill clinton did it and you and i wouldn't tie when no one can say it yeah i didn't realize was that there really isn't they are our is a percentage of the gross national product of its fifty point one it's going to be seventy eight percent is what he said is look you know it's they are folks it's real ii if we don't do it now i then our kids' futures not be diminished and i think that's i think that's a serious challenge and one that hasn't been issued by any president said to the congress and in weld

well the three day what about that david that you know republicans buy and disagree on that and whatever that he really has laid it out there that the problem is their take utterly that we they're solvent through your way are my way we saw or in ten years all these awful things will happen as he laid out the percentage of the gross national product goes to health care cost and all the other things that he said that is the reality and you cannot deny that ibm i think he's been very realistic about the size of the problem and what he had he deserve credit for that id be more realistic frankly some of his recent pro republican predecessors even very square about the size of the problem allam arguing is this if you come back to it that when leon panetta was first morning and he said we would like to have a plan that would cut two dollars spending for every one dollar tax increases the plan they're putting ford cuts spending by one dollar for every three dollars of tax increases it's a radically different and the

question that scary ways the night by the business by others to miss yes we would love to do all this isn't present but if you raise taxes this much is it going to suppress economic growth and will not prevent us from doing the kind of things are very things you wanted well it's really in fact create jobs so i think that's the hard argument here i think the president was very ambitious very bold i think is a dramatically different path than what the one we've been on i think americans need to think through is this the path we want to give them can we afford all these things at this time given affect our taxes are going up that's a hard argument i think he's presenting a very appealing vision of what kind of society we should come quickly market who want to go to you about michael in a moment of the greatest art that the prayer that the thing going in was that the president had to appeal to fairness and everybody had to look around see okay i'm captain of that so people will it do tone wise on that i thought i thought that was a good that the fact that he was really take the heat himself week was probably the most effective weapon that would be a combat will come back to

that moment because what governor republican response and a congressman bob michel illinois the house minority leader he's speaking from a role in the capital tonight you and i witnessed a colorful ritual a new president of the united states addressing a joint session of the congress for the very first time the great chamber of the house right now with cheers for the president any number of times and it wasn't always a throwing spectacle but now the last heckle of the final cheer is faded away ceremony is over time to put aside the pomp and circumstance it's really time to get to work for america that's what i'd like to briefly visit with you about how your government can work better for you don't worry i have no props no flip chart no porn or no electronic gimmicks i don't even have a one eight hundred number for unocal all i just like good to talk with you as though we were having a cup of coffee back in my hometown of peoria

it's a chance to ask him questions about where our nation is that the kinds of questions you might ask if you were here we americans are questioning people that's part of our national character in fact we may be the only nation whose national anthem the gales and m's with a question so in questioning the direction of the administration we're acting in a great american tradition all of us democrats republicans pro supporters independence what our new president to succeed we want to help him do the right thing but the only way we can help them is by candidly letting him know how we feel about his announced policies are new president has an excellent chance to be successful because of the leadership of president reagan and bush our nation does not face a nuclear threat president bush handed over to the president an economy that is growing not shrinking at a rate of worker productivity that is rising not falling

as a matter of fact the past twelve years of republican leadership had built a strong foundation for progress we agree with the president that we have to put more people to work with religious eighty to eighty five percent of the new jobs in this country are created by small businesses so the climate for starting an expanding businesses must be enhanced with tax incentives and deregulation rather than imposing higher taxes and more government will mandate the president speaks of the half million new jobs will be created by his economic stimulus program but there are estimates that doing it his way will cost taxpayers some fifty five thousand dollars per job it should be noted that last year all the private sector created a million and a half new jobs on a toll we have to make certain the government action to help not hinder a growing economy

after listening to the president tonight i wonder if you really know what the president's long range economic strategy is i don't and i must say i wonder if he that's all we're certain of is that the administration is engaged in a media blitz to sell his program the president offers us what he calls a new direction but where he seems to be going back to the future back to the failed big government schemes of a generation ago and that's not the direction we should be going the clinton spin doctors have even given us a new political vocabulary if you will investment now means big government spending your tax dollars change now means reviving old discredited big government tax and spend ski patriotism now means agreeing with the clinton program the powerful

evocative word sacrifice has been reduced to the level of a bumper sticker slogan of my favorite contribution is now the new word for taxes on april fifteenth just tried telling the irs you don't feel like i'm treated this year the administration is about to launch the british propaganda campaign in recent political history the white house and he says even now becoming one big partisan political metaphor but public relations campaigns are no substitute for sound public policy tonight the president mentioned a number of new programs than an evidently will cost considerable sums of money and laudable as they might be how do we pay for the president's answer is no taxes on everyone the nineteen ninety two chemical into action only the super rich and in nineteen ninety three president clinton now says

if you earn more than thirty thousand dollars your taxes are going up so much or not taxing the middle class american people would do well to remember when you hear a democrat call for taxes do not ask for whom the tax rises it will rise for you there are those who say some taxes are a necessary evil differences the democrats stressed the word necessary and we republicans stress the word evil the president was short on specifics again tonight the takeaway as it relates to cutting spending that's probably because he keeps juggling those figures all the time it offers no benchmarks no quarter of economic principles by which to judge what it is that he is hoping to achieve these fragmented alcohol proposals of the kind of thing that might be excused in the heat of a campaign but mr president the campaign is over you want the time has come to part the bus and

start the hard work of governing and one of the hardest parts of that work is as vital question of health care reform which the president mentioned time and again will there be rationing of care will there be job destroying mandates on employers republicans believe in your right to select the doctor of your choice and you're right to immediate care without waiting wall lines and preserving the best of what our health care system has to offer as the administration show these principles as i said these are some of the questions we have to ask and then the answers we get will determine the kind of future we will have and we republicans are here to ask the tough questions cut through the rhetoric and get the job done but we do need your help my father a french immigrant used to tell him that it's better to listen ninety percent of the time for that the july temperatures are talking and throughout my life in public service i've tried to take

his advice and i know my party is listening to your voice because we share your basic principles our republican governors are state legislators are elected officials and of course those of us in the us house and senate are all part of the same tree and we ought to have a clear the idea is a part of our policy and here are just a few will republicans then and i think it's fair to say great a great body of the pro supporters insist on cutting spending as the best way to real deficit reduction we'd like to support the president on an honest line item veto that applies not only the pork barrel spending but the special interest tax loopholes as well and will continue to press for a balanced budget amendment we want to help the president in his efforts to spur savings and investments we hope you will strive to maintain the current low rates of interest and

inflation but he inherited from george bush and let's not first forget we still live in an often brutal world our nation's destiny is linked to our ability to compete in a global economy and to defend our interests and our values around the world that's why we need to maintain a strong defense and staying on the cutting edge of high technology i'd like to address a few thousand comments directly to the president himself mr president we wish you well at reagan and president bush have given you a solid foundation of peace and a growing economy on which the bill you have a wonderful opportunity to succeed and when your domestic programs and policies are based on sound economic principles common sense and traditional american values we republicans will be with you and when her foreign policy is based on defending american interests and american values first and foremost we'll be with you

but when those great venues are missing from their proposals we republicans will be there to ask the tough questions and to provide perfect adventures and to all of you thanks for listening as the designated republican questioner tonight i know i speak for all elected republicans among our governor's within the state legislatures and in the house and senate when i say in the months ahead we'll be visiting with you whether the issue is healthcare crime education or the economy will be listening and ready to react to your concern don't make your voice heard you can make a difference like you and you have a good evening and they inhabit the republican response from congressman bob michel of illinois the house minority leader back again to political us analysis from david gergen of us has more importance of dictated columnist mark shields mark as we look ahead now what are the

keys to this visit gonna be viewed as the next step away the cards and letters from the people out in the country presents going out his cab was gone out of the us army over the next few days i think i think first of all week we have we'll hear from the organized groups tomorrow and i think that that the president is going to carry the bag the country and stay out i mentioned i really until a bob michaels the rebuttal i was the name of ross perot ross perot were actually put the deficit which was the center of the american political agenda and that both parties had to had to confront i have to but not as willing to bill bill clinton ran a no campaign emphasizes social deficit there was that it was the fiscal deficit there that he faced one set to become president like that he really confronted it and i think in a bold and dramatic fashion but i think that they're where pro goes it is is going to

have some affect on me i think that's not an important but the battle is in the house ways and means committee i we saw the chairman of that committee the veteran dan rostenkowski of the chicago thirty four years in the house rival it and they're under siege and self right now of allegations that are still were no charges but doubt that that'll be that there will be the first test get it through the ways and means committee in fashion that is that i think if i just wanna make one point that leon panetta today emphasize the david as the question earlier about that with the money they said the omb director said two out of every three dollars of the new revenue would go back to a debt reduction only one of three toward new programs but i just think it is your point because in effect that's the skepticism that the doubt that americans have about the tax increase with david what was the key in this thing now a genetic markers

that's where a good part of the band red radio what the responses from american people are i think is kind of the pandas well among people like danny rostenkowski was one or one a couple of players or think ought to be brought in this picture what we hear from business community and from the financial community in the next few days could also have very important impacts of the stock market were to drop and after supper spaces are going out over several days a number of financial analysts and economic analysts say this is going to destroy jobs not create jobs i think that would clearly unfair that the program a formula and they salute a play they think is the best invest in the future that that will greatly enhance the prospects for the program i must tell you have bob michel you know their body for a friend of the fact that that was a surprisingly tough response tonight from bob michel effects indication of whether republicans are adding were looking for the brutal fights so you expect then that the republicans would carry the fight to the bread other words they're not they're not they will try to lead opposition rather than to wait to see whether the son worked or didn't work in

terrible poverty is often than reactive think they will go out and try to get a n train organize opposition within the public and elsewhere i do my duty in about michael's be cured and call for people sending their cards letters and so it will be less and they're clearly trying to generate that that that that opposition and i think they feel they have an issue but i must say bill clinton prior to his credit said look if you have a better plan if you have a lot more specifics a way to cut the spending you come up with a plan i think republicans are to be under a lot of pressure and rightly so from a democrat to come up with their own plans to say if you can do it better let's see i do ok we have to limit their job and then the death i could remember the phone from los angeles and mark thank you from four veterans from here and we will be back in our regular newshour time tomorrow night with full reaction to an analysis of what the president has proposed on jim lehrer thank you and could not these teens

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