Bush Urges Congress To Pass Economic Stimulus Package
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: In response to the new unemployment figures, President Bush once again is urging Congress to quickly pass an economic stimulus package. We have reports from our White House correspondent Major Garrett and our congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl. First, let's go to the White House. And Major, what's the latest over there, Major?</s>MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the White House strategy is essentially two-fold. Number one, make sure the president communicates to the country effectively that he is not indifferent to the suffering caused by the economic slowdown. So, every time there is a new set of bad economic numbers, the president comes out and makes remarks saying he understands. And here's the second part of the strategy: The White House has a plan it address the economic slowdown. The president took the opportunity today to put in a good word for $100 billion of tax cuts passed by the House and urged Senate to follow suit.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe we have the ingredients of a good package out of the House; I urge the Senate to work quickly to pass a bill, to get the bill in conference, to show the nation that we can, in fact, deal with the aftermath of this tragedy.</s>GARRETT: But Wolf, if the president is going to prove that he and Congress can deal with this tragedy and its aftermath economically, a lot of ground is going to have to be covered, because the White House and Senate Democrats have decidedly different ideas about how to stimulate economic growth. The president wants to rely almost exclusively on tax cuts. Senate Democrats want a lot more spending, especially spending to address unemployed workers who cannot pay for their health insurance and also to extend unemployment benefits, because they fear the economic slowdown could be much longer than anyone now imagines -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Major, the president, as is his custom, is off to Camp David for the weekend, but he has a busy schedule next week going on the offensive public relations-wise in trying to make his case for the war, the defense efforts here in the United States. What's the thrust of his message next week?</s>GARRETT: It's actually two-fold, Wolf. One will be a major speech the president will give. Details have not been released on venue or timing. It is a speech to the American people talking about homeland defense, homeland security, trying to reconcile these two sometimes conflicting messages from the administration to go about your normal lives, act as everything is normal, but also be very, very vigilant, more vigilant than you have ever before been as an average American citizen, to anything you might see as suspicious. The other part of the message is a more global and more international message. The president will travel at the end of next weekend to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly. He will meet with many coalition partners there. There will also be several world leaders coming through the White House here next week. Among them, French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, British Time Minister Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern from Ireland -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Major Garrett at the White House, thank you very much. Let's go over to Capitol Hill right now and our congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl is standing by. How are they feeling up there, the debate now on this so-called economic stimulus package, given all these bad numbers that are coming out?</s>JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, I'll tell you, congressional Democrats, who have been reluctant to criticize this president about anything related to the war on terrorism, have shown no such reluctance when it comes to criticizing the president over the economy and his approach to the economic stimulus question. When the economic numbers came out on unemployment this morning, Democrats were ready to pounce. They had a press conference on Capitol Hill surrounded by unemployed workers, calling for the Democratic approach to the economic stimulus, and actually the words they are using now are "economic recovery," not "economic stimulus." As you heard Major Garrett, the Democratic approach is very much more traditional government intervention, more government spending, both to help those who are unemployed with unemployment benefits and health care, but also to provide some spending, to get people back to work on government projects, infrastructure projects. John Kerry was one of those at that press conference. He said whatever happens on economic stimulus, it's got to start with the principle of helping those who have lost their jobs as a result of the downturn.</s>SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We have to guarantee that if we're prepared to bail out the airline industries for $15 billion and we're prepared to bail out the insurance industries for untold billions of dollars, we are going to help the average workers of this country to have health insurance and extended unemployment benefits.</s>KARL: Now, Wolf, what both sides are saying is that the economic numbers, the new unemployment numbers add to the urgency that Congress must act to try to stimulate the economy. But what's interesting is the economic news is also prompting both sides to dig in their heels. And they are very much, very far apart on this. And Republicans are saying that what's got to be done is we need to stimulate the economy to get people back to work. They too want to provide some aid, some extension of unemployment benefits and some help for those without health insurance. But they are saying far more important than that is to make sure that people can get back to work. And what's interesting is the moderate, moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans who usually provide the middle ground on something like this, are disgusted with the process and what they have seen so far. For example, a spokesperson for Olympia Snowe, moderate Republican of Maine, said that right now, looking at what the Democrats are proposing and the Republicans are proposing, Senator Snowe would be opposed to both plans -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill, thanks very much. And let's go back to the White House once again. We are now joined by the White House Economic Adviser Larry Lindsey. Mr. Lindsey, thanks for joining us. You heard that report, a traditional debate, Republicans want to cut taxes, Democrats want to help those who are unemployed, need some health insurance. Right away, these numbers, these unemployed numbers are going up and up and up, as you know. How are you going to split the difference?</s>LAWRENCE LINDSEY, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER: We Republicans want to do both. You know, it was a month ago that the president went out into the Rose Garden and suggested the Congress move quickly to extend unemployment benefits and to cut taxes in order to create jobs. The president has been on record for over a month for doing both. And unfortunately, the Senate is delayed. As you know, the House has passed a bill. So we hope that the Senate would move rather quickly on this.</s>BLITZER: These unemployment numbers are now at a five-year high. You heard what Senator Daschle says. He says you have to immediately get these unemployment benefits, these health insurance benefits going. Does the president have an immediate plan that can get going very, very quickly?</s>LINDSEY: The president's plan that he laid out a month ago, had the Senate acted, would be in place right now. But they have not acted.</s>BLITZER: The reason they say, the Democrats, is that at the same time you want to tie that to more tax cuts, tax cuts that are going to help major corporations, and perhaps that will trickle down to workers, but they don't see the need for these kinds of huge tax cuts right away.</s>LINDSEY: Well, I think -- you know, it is quite interesting. There was almost unanimous agreement among the bipartisan leadership before the president made his announcement on exactly what to do. We took the Democrats' idea, in fact, to go for depreciation deductions. Everyone knows that you need to do something about the alternative minimum tax, if you are going to stimulate the corporate sector, provide jobs. We agreed on that. We also agreed that we wanted to have it front-loaded, to be targeted as soon as possible to get money out there now. The president's proposal reflected the conversations he had with members of both parties. The House acted, again. It's too bad the Senate has not.</s>BLITZER: So, is it fair to say, Mr. Lindsay, that it's not even two months since September 11, it's back to business as usual, the old politics of Washington, the partisanship is now back, front and center?</s>LINDSEY: Well, again, what the president has tried to do is to hold meetings with members of both parties, and he did. And he listened to members of both parties. He heard some things were off the table as far as members of the other party were concerned, and he didn't propose those. What he proposed was something that Congress should have been able to enact quickly. The House did, the Senate did not.</s>BLITZER: As you know, there was negative economic growth in the last quarter. If there is another quarter of negative economic growth, that's officially defined as a recession. Is the economy going to get much worse before it starts to get better?</s>LINDSEY: Well, that's, again, that's looking into a very, very cloudy crystal ball. I think what is clear, from the GDP numbers, is that if we had not had the attack on 9/11, we would had a positive third quarter. In fact, the third quarter would have been better than the second quarter, and we would have been able to survive this halving of the market that occurred last year, the meltdown of the bubble, and would have escaped a recession. I think it would have proven that the fiscal policy and the monetary policy that we followed since the beginning of the year were right. Unfortunately, we can't go back, and 9/11 is there. We should follow what seemed to have worked the first time, what the textbook said would work, and provide help for both households and businesses to create jobs. That's the key here.</s>BLITZER: Larry Lindsey at the White House, thanks for joining us.</s>LINDSEY: My pleasure, thank you, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: You're welcome. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com