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Skriven 2007-02-05 23:31:18 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0702052) for Mon, 2007 Feb 5
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President Bush Meets with the Cabinet
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 5, 2007

President Bush Meets with the Cabinet
The Cabinet Room

President's Remarks

˙˙˙˙˙ In Focus: Budget Management ˙˙˙˙˙ State by State Budget Information

10:48 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate my Cabinet joining me today as we discussed our
budget. Today we submit a budget to the United States Congress that shows
we can balance the budget in five years without raising taxes.

Our economy is strong because of good policy and because the
entrepreneurial spirit is strong. By keeping taxes down, we actually
generate strong revenues to the Treasury.

And I appreciate Director Portman helping us devise a plan that sets
priorities and, at the same time, emphasizes fiscal restraint. Our priority
is to protect the American people. And our priority is to make sure our
troops have what it takes to do their jobs. We also have got priorities in
national parks and education and health care. But we have proven, and I
strongly believe Congress needs to listen to a budget which has no tax
increase, and a budget, because of fiscal discipline, that can be balanced
in five years.

Secondly, I strongly believe that Congress needs to do something on
earmarks. In order to make sure that we're fiscally responsible with the
people's money, Congress needs to make sure that when they spend the
people's money, there's transparency and an up or down vote for each item.
As well, I believe the President needs to have the line-item veto. It's one
thing to get the size of the budget pie right; it's another thing to make
sure that the slices in that pie meet national priorities.

And so the budget that Director Portman is going to be talking about is
realistic, it's achievable, and it's got good reforms in it. So thank you
very much. Looking forward to working with the Congress to get this budget
passed.

I'll answer a couple of questions. Ben.

Q Mr. President, thank you. You oppose setting time lines for withdrawal in
Iraq, yet your new budget plan assumes that war spending will be down to
$50 billion by 2009 and none beyond that. Are you, in effect, sir, setting
a time line for the end of the war?

THE PRESIDENT: Ben, we've had years of projections in the past. We've said
to the Congress, here's what our anticipated expenditure is in the
short-term. And we've been able to manage our budgets with five years of
war behind us, and we'll manage the budgets in the out-years. There will be
no timetable set. And the reason why is, is because we don't want to send
mixed signals to an enemy, or to a struggling democracy, or to our troops.

Toby.

Q Mr. President, how do you respond to some criticism from the Iraqis that
the reason for the recent escalation of violence in Iraq is because the
United States has been too slow to implement its new strategy?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, General Petraeus is heading to Iraq this week, early
this -- tomorrow. And my message is, is that both of us, the Iraqis and the
U.S. and coalition forces, have got to get this plan in place as quickly as
possible. Of course, we want the plan to work, and we want to make sure
that the strategy we've implemented -- or the strategy we've outlined is
implemented properly.

I appreciate the fact that the Iraqi government is anxious to get security
inside the capital of the country. That's a good sign. It's a good sign
that there's a sense of concern and anxiety. It means that the governments
understands they have a responsibility to protect their people. And we want
to help them.

What we're trying to do with this reinforcement of our troops is to provide
enough space so that the Iraqi government can meet certain benchmarks or
certain requirements for a unity government to survive and for the country
to be strong.

I had to make a decision as to whether or not we were going to allow the
status quo to continue. And the status quo wasn't acceptable. I listened to
a lot of people in Congress as to whether or not we ought to slowly
withdraw and redeploy troops. My worry about that was that the capital
would get worse, and out of that chaos would come grave danger to the
United States. And so I listened to a lot of other folks, including our
military, and said, look, we got to take care and help these Iraqis take
care of the violence inside of Baghdad.

And that's why I made the decision I made, and we're in the process of
implementing that plan. We'd like to do it as quickly as possible. The
success of that plan is going to depend upon the capacity and willingness
of the Iraqis to do hard work, and we want to help them do that work. And
the fact that government officials are now saying that it's time to start
implementing the plan is a good sign. It shows that they understand that
now is the time to do the things necessary to protect their people.

Thank you.

END 10:53 A.M. EST

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