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Skriven 2005-02-07 23:33:30 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0502073) for Mon, 2005 Feb 7
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President Meets with Cabinet, Discusses Budget
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 7, 2005

President Meets with Cabinet, Discusses Budget
The Cabinet Room

President's Remarks
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11:15 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: This is my first Cabinet meeting of the year 2005. I
welcomed new members of our Cabinet to the table and congratulated them on
their confirmations. Today we discussed a lot of issues. I reminded them
that the war on terror goes on, but mainly discussed the issue of the
budget.

We're submitting our budget today. OMB Director Josh Bolten will be
presenting the budget at noon. It is a budget that sets priorities. Our
priorities are winning the war on terror, protecting our homeland, growing
our economy. It's a budget that focuses on results. Taxpayers in America
don't want us spending their money on something that's not achieving
results.

It's a budget that reduces and eliminates redundancy. It's a budget that is
a lean budget. People on both sides of the aisle have called upon the
administration to submit a budget that helps meet our obligations of -- our
goal of reducing the deficit in half over a five-year period, and this
budget does just that. Discretionary spending is -- will increase at a rate
less than inflation. Plus, we've begun some reforms on the mandatory side.
Congress needs to look at this budget and Congress needs to act on this
budget in a fiscally responsible way.

I'll be glad to answer some questions. Terry.

Q Mr. President, what do you hope to accomplish by inviting Prime Minister
Sharon and President Abbas to Washington separately? And why do you think
there's a better chance of success now, than early effort -- earlier
efforts, like the Red Sea summit?

THE PRESIDENT: First of all, Prime Minister Abbas comes to the table with a
mandate from a lot of Palestinians. He has been through an election; he was
endorsed by the Palestinian people.

Secondly, any meeting is part of a process, because in order to achieve the
objective of two states living side-by-side in peace, there needs to be a
-- there needs to be a level of trust between all parties -- "all parties"
being, obviously, Israel and the Palestinians, but trust with the United
States, trust with the United Nations, trust with Europe, trust with the
parties who are going to be investing in a Palestinian state, for example.
And so what you're watching is a process unfolding, where people are
becoming more trustworthy.

I have been impressed by Prime Minister Abbas's commitment to fighting off
terror. I've been impressed by what he is -- his public statements. I've
also been impressed by the fact that Israel helped the Palestinians have an
election, went out of their way to make sure that people were allowed to go
to the polls. And the meetings just indicate that there's more work to be
done, and I look forward to meeting with them.

Steve.

Q Thank you, sir. How hard is it going to be to get Congress to go along
with your budget when it cuts some popular programs that Congress has
refused to go along with in the past?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that's a great question. I look forward to explaining
to the American people why we made some of the requests that we made in our
budget. I fully understand that sometimes it's hard to eliminate a program
that sounds good. But by getting people to focus on results -- I was saying
to members of Congress, show us the results as to whether or not this
program is working. I think we'll get a pretty good response.

I will tell you, we go into this process upbeat because we've worked
closely with the Congress the last four budget cycles. And the Congress
appropriators -- Congress and the appropriators met our budget requests. I
mean, there's a collaborative effort. We've had a history of being
successful in terms of passing good, strong budgets. And so I'm very
optimistic that we can do so again this year. Josh Bolten will be up,
outlining the budget, our Cabinet Secretaries will be talking about certain
aspects of their respective budgets, and I think people will see that it's
a common sense approach to the budgets.

April.

Q Yes, Mr. President. I'm ready, too. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Did somebody tip you off that I might call upon you, or is
it just -- Q -- I've been watching you lately. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: All right. (Laughter.)

Q First of all, you're talking about equality and keeping everything on a
level playing field for everyone. Many people are saying that this budget
proposal is not even. You're cutting out many programs for the
disadvantaged. And, also, what was one of the main programs that you cut
that you really had a hard time in cutting as you looked at things that
were copies of another?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm going to let Josh answer the degree of difficulty
question because we've -- we're asking for Congress to cut and/or reduce
150 different programs. The important question that needs to be asked for
all constituencies is whether or not the programs achieve a certain result.
Have you set goals, and are those goals being met? And the poor and
disadvantaged absolutely ought to be asking that question, too. In other
words, what is the goal of a particular program? And if that goal isn't
being met, the question ought to be asked, why isn't the goal being met?

And that's the questions we've been asking. And after a while, we get tired
of asking that question. So, finally, it is to take resources and direct
them to programs that are working. And that's what you'll find in the
education budgets and the health budgets, for example. And those are very
legitimate questions, and the people deserve -- deserve to have them
answered, which this administration will answer in a forthright fashion.

Thank you all for coming.

END 11:22 A.M. EST
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