WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2001
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| AP |
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(AP) President Bush gave anxious Republican leaders an emergency Oval Office audience on Friday and then sought to reassure the nation about the rising unemployment rate.
"We've got a plan to get our economy moving so Americans can find work," the president said. Privately he considered calling for across-the-board budget cuts next year if the economy worsens and spending starts eating into Social Security reserves.
The president spoke from outside the Oval Office, where he and Vice President Dick Cheney had just finished meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., to discuss the economy, rising unemployment and the Republicans' political predicament over Social Security.
GOP leaders, with an eye on next year's midterm elections, see trouble if the economy worsens.
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"The slowdown is real and it's affecting too many lives and we're concerned about it," said Mr. Bush.
He stopped short of announcing any agreement on spending cuts and abruptly turned away from news cameras as reporters tried to ask him about the developing deal.
Hastert, as he headed to the White House, had told reporters: "We said we wouldn't dip into Social Security, and we want to make sure it happens."
Congressional and White House aides said Hastert asked for the last-minute huddle after the Labor Department reported Friday morning that the nation's unemployment rate soared to 4.9 percent in August, the biggest one-month jump in six years. The four men were looking for a way to reassure Americans that Republicans have a plan to revive the economy and work within a balanced budget that shelters the Social Security trust fund.
"Any American out of work is too many Americans out of work and that's why it's absolutely essential that we work together to put a growth plan in place to create jobs for hardworking Americans," Bush said.
"It starts by having a responsible budget that meets our nation's obligations without affecting Social Security or dipping into Social Security."
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Already, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle had seized on the unemployment figures as fresh ammunition against Mr. Bush. "Today's news confirms our worst fears about the president's budget and its impact on the economy and on working families," Daschle, D-S.D., said in a statement.
Mr. Bush countered that such critics of the tax cut he signed earlier this year must want now to raise taxes, something he ruled out. Flanked by Cheney, Lott and Hastert, Mr. Bush said: "I can assure you the four of us on this stage are not going to let anybody pick the pockets of the American taxpayers."
Democrats said they had said nothing about raising taxes and that the president was the only one bringing up the subject.
Advisers said Mr. Bush was seriously considering the GOP proposal to create a new mechanism in the law for triggering automatic across-the-board government spending cuts should a worsening economy force lawmakers to turn to Social Security surpluses to meet the general federal budget. Officials looking to blunt the unemployment news had hoped for an agreement to be announced Friday, but said details were still being worked out and an agreement was uncertain.
The officials, in Congress and the administration, spoke about the developing deal on condition of anonymity.
Historically, automatic, broadly applied spending cut proposals have received scant support from many Democrats and some Republicans because they would affect so many areas of government.
Also, such plans have usually been riddled with exceptions.
Earlier Friday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush was open to the across-the-board spending cuts proposed by Hastert and other GOP lawmakers concerned about threats to Social Security.
House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri emerged from a morning meeting with Bush pleased by the president's assurances.
The two met one day after Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee for the past two decades, said that with the economy slowing and overall federal surpluses dipping, it might be time to use some of the Social Security funds to pay for other programs.
Gephardt told reporters after speaking with the president: "I'm happy to note that he doesn't seem to agree with Mr. Domenici and (Rep.) Tom Davis, who today were quoted as saying they we needed to go in and start spending Social Security and Medicare trust funds."
Gephardt also disputed the White House formulation, spoken several times by Bush and his aides in recent days, that Democrats critical of his tax cut really mean to raise taxes.
"I don't know where he gets that. He's — best I can figure out — making it up," Gephardt said. "I haven't said that, and I don't know of other Democrats who have said that. What we are for is a more balanced budget."
Analysts say that using a small part of Social Security's surplus — which is expected to exceed $170 billion next year — would not damage the program's solvency or have any effect on its ability to pay benefits.
But politicians of both parties have repeatedly promised to use Social Security surpluses only to reduce the national debt.
The latest official projections are that for the next few years, almost all that remains of projected federal surpluses would come from Social Security.
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