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11. June 2009 by admin.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_____________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 10, 2009
Statement by President Obama on Holocaust Museum Shooting
“I am shocked and saddened by today’s shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms. No American institution is more important to this effort than the Holocaust Museum, and no act of violence will diminish our determination to honor those who were lost by building a more peaceful and tolerant world.
“Today, we have lost a courageous security guard who stood watch at this place of solemn remembrance. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends in this painful time.”
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11. June 2009 by admin.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 9, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON “PAY AS YOU GO”
East Room
1:07 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you all for joining us here in the White House. Before I begin, I want to comment briefly on the announcement by the Treasury Department with regard to the financial stability plan.
As you know, through this plan and its predecessor, taxpayer dollars were used to stabilize the financial system at a time of extraordinary stress. And these funds were also meant to be an investment — and they were meant to be temporary. And that’s why this morning’s announcement is important.
Several financial institutions are set to pay back $68 billion to taxpayers. And while we know that we will not escape the worst financial crisis in decades without some losses to taxpayers, it’s worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these companies the government has actually turned a profit.
This is not a sign that our troubles are over — far from it. The financial crisis this administration inherited is still creating painful challenges for businesses and families alike. And I think everybody sees it in their own individual districts. But it is a positive sign. We’re seeing an initial return on a few of these investments. We’re restoring funds to the Treasury where they’ll be available to safeguard against continuing risks to financial stability. And as this money is returned, we’ll see our national debt lessened by $68 billion — billions of dollars that this generation will not have to borrow and future generations will not have to repay.
I’ve said repeatedly that I have no interest in managing the banking system — or, for that matter, running auto companies or other private institutions. So today’s announcement is welcome news to me. But I also want to say the return of these funds does not provide forgiveness for past excesses or permission for future misdeeds. It’s critical that as our country emerges from this period of crisis, that we learn its lessons; that those who seek reward do not take reckless risk; that short-term gains are not pursued without regard for long-term consequences.
At the same time, as we seek greater responsibility from those in the private sector, it’s my view — and the view of those who are standing behind me today, as well as those in the audience — that greater responsibility is required on the part of those who serve the public as well.
As a nation, we have several imperatives at this difficult moment in our history. We’re confronting the worst recession this country has faced in generations, and this has required extraordinary investments in the short term. Another imperative is addressing long-deferred priorities — health care, energy, education — which threaten the American economy and the well-being of American families. And we’ve begun to tackle these problems as well.
But we are also called upon to rein in deficits by addressing these and other challenges in a manner that is fiscally responsible. This, in part, requires the kind of line-by-line review of the budget that is ongoing to remove things that we don’t need and make the programs we do need work more efficiently. There are billions of dollars to be saved this way. But much of our effort will entail going after the big-ticket items that drive the deficits.
By ending unnecessary no-bid contracts and reforming the way government contracts are awarded, we can save the American people up to $40 billion every year. In addition, Secretary Robert Gates has proposed a badly needed overhaul of a defense contracting system riddled with hundreds of billions of dollars in cost overruns, and the cancelation of superfluous defense systems unnecessary to combat the threats of the 21st century.
We’re also going to eliminate unwarranted subsidies currently lavished on health insurance companies through Medicare, which will save roughly $177 billion over the next decade. And this is part of broader health reform, about which I’ll have more to say in the coming days, which will both cut costs and improve care.
So all told, in the next four years the deficit will be cut in half. Over the next decade, non-defense discretionary spending will reach its lowest level as a share of our national income since we began keeping records in 1962.
But we must go further, and one important step we can and must take is restoring the so-called “pay as you go” rule, or PAYGO. This is a rule I championed in the Senate and called for time and again on the campaign trail. Today, with the support of these legislators, including the Speaker of the House, my administration is submitting to Congress a proposal to codify this rule into law — and I hope that the House and Senate will act quickly to pass it. (Applause.)
The “pay as you go” rule is very simple. Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere. And this principle guides responsible families managing a budget. And it is no coincidence that this rule was in place when we moved from record deficits to record surpluses in the 1990s — and that when this rule was abandoned, we returned to record deficits that doubled the national debt. Entitlement increases and tax cuts need to be paid for. They’re not free, and borrowing to finance them is not a sustainable long-term policy.
Paying for what you spend is basic common sense. Perhaps that’s why, here in Washington, it’s been so elusive. Of course, there have been those in Washington leading the charge to restore PAYGO, and many of them are here today. I want to recognize Congressman George Miller, who introduced the first PAYGO bill in the House. (Applause.) I want to thank the House Blue Dogs and their leader, especially Baron Hill, who has been a driving force in favor of PAYGO. (Applause.) I want to acknowledge Senator Claire McCaskill, who’s shown real leadership on this issue in the Senate. (Applause.) And as I said, I want to acknowledge the Speaker of the House, as well as leader Steny Hoyer, who are here because they understand the importance of this principle and are fully supportive of our efforts.
In fact, two years ago, a new Democratic Congress put in place congressional rules to restore this principle, but could not pass legislation without the support of the administration. I want you all to know you now have that support. (Applause.)
The fact is there are few who aren’t distressed by deficits. It’s a concern that crosses party lines, geographic boundaries, and ideological divides. But often, in the give-and-take of the political process, the vested interests of the few overtake the broader interests of the many. The debate of the day drowns out those who speak of what we may face tomorrow. And that’s why “pay as you go” is essential. It requires Congress to navigate the ebb and flow of politics while remaining fixed on that fiscal horizon.
The reckless fiscal policies of the past have left us in a very deep hole. And digging our way out of it will take time, patience, and some tough choices. I know that in the face of this historic challenge there are many across this country who are skeptical of our collective ability to meet it. They’re not wrong to feel that way. They’re not wrong to draw this lesson after years in which we’ve put off difficult decisions; in which we’ve allowed our politics to grow smaller as our challenges grew ever more daunting.
But I think everybody understands this is an extraordinary moment, one in which we are called upon not just to restore fiscal responsibility, but to once again live up to the broader responsibilities we have to one another. And I know that we can summon that sense of shared obligation; that we have the capacity to change, and to grow, and to solve even our toughest of problems.
And that’s at the heart of why we’re here. I appreciate the work of the people in this room who’ve shown a willingness to make hard choices and do the hard work that’s essential to overcoming the challenges of the present, while leaving our nation better off in the future. So this is going to be a lift. We know it’s going to be tough. I think we can get it done, especially with the extraordinary leadership that is on display here today.
Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.)
END
1:16 P.M. EDT
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11. June 2009 by admin.
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 10, 2009
PRESS BRIEFING BY
PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS
AND SECRETARY OF COMMERCE GARY LOCKE
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
2:15 P.M. EDT
MR. GIBBS: Again, in my endeavoring pursuit to bring you special guests, today obviously we have the Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke, who is going to talk to you guys and give you a little bit of an update on the impending deadline of the transition for digital television, which takes place at the end of this week.
So, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY LOCKE: Thank you, Robert. And today I’m here to remind Americans about the impending national switch to digital television. It’s just two days away, Friday, June 12th.
In February, President Obama signed the DTV Delay Act, which set June 12th as the final deadline for television broadcasters to transition from analog to digital signals. The President acted out of concerns for the millions of Americans who would have been left in the dark if the conversion had gone on as planned.
The Commerce Department and the FCC have been spearheading efforts to ensure all Americans are ready for the switchover, and great progress has been made in just the last three months since Recovery Act funds were made available. But with the deadline fast approaching, some people are still unprepared, some 2.5 percent of American households, or 2.8 million households.
Here is what the American people need to know about the June 12th switchover: If you currently have cable, satellite, or some other paid-for television service, you have nothing to worry about. You are prepared; you don’t need to do anything, and June 12th you’ll see no change in your television reception or programming.
If you have a new television set purchased, let’s say, within the last one year, those new television sets come automatically with a digital tuner. So if you have a television set a year old or newer, you’re prepared; you don’t need to do anything, you don’t need to worry.
But if you have a television set more than a year old and you’re not on cable or satellite, and you’re relying basically on free over-the-air service, you are not ready. And you will lose your television service this Friday if you don’t act now.
So you have three options: You can subscribe to cable or satellite; you can purchase a newer television set that has these automatic digital tuners built in; or you can purchase a converter box. The Recovery Act provided Commerce with money to help consumers having trouble affording a digital converter box. Millions of households have applied for and received the $40 coupons to cover the cost of these converter boxes. And the converter boxes start at $40 and we mail out two coupons per household, requesting household. So that basically means that with the coupons you get a free converter box.
While coupons are still available for eligible households, it will take some nine days for us to process and send out, first-class mail, these coupons, and so they will not arrive in time for this Friday’s conversion. We will have these coupons available until the end of July — July 31st — or as long as supplies last. The coupons are good for 90 days each.
If you already have a coupon, please make sure to purchase the converter box immediately at a partnering retail store like Target, RadioShack, Circuit City, or Wal-Mart. Take it home, hook it up right away — in fact, you can use these converter boxes now and receive the digital signal now.
You can get more information about the transition, or apply for a coupon, or even find a nearby retailer selling these converter boxes by calling us toll-free at 1-888-DTV-2009. And for those Americans who need extra assistance, the FCC is offering free in-home installation for consumers in most cities. They can call the FCC, or if you have a technical question about how to install the converter boxes, call the FCC at 1-888-CALL-FCC. They have a robust call center that’s in operation to help Americans with the transition and the call center will be fully staffed for many days even after June 12th.
For those families already prepared for the transition, make sure to help other friends and families. If they have leftover coupons, unused coupons that are still valid, feel free to share them with other individuals so they can rush out and get a converter box.
We will continue to reach out to the most vulnerable communities to ensure as many Americans as possible are ready for this switch to digital television. We want to make sure that families are able to not only receive their favorite programming, but more importantly, to receive news broadcasts of emergency alerts, impending storms, and any other emergency situation within their community. It’s very important that communities and people throughout our nation have the information they need to respond in times of emergencies.
And I want to thank you now, and I’d be happy to take any questions you have about the transition or the progress that we’ve made in decreasing the number of families who are unprepared.
Q Can you tell us what kind of planning you have in place for the families who, come Friday or Saturday, despite your efforts, will not have gone through this and will lose their service?
SECRETARY LOCKE: Well, the television stations, even though the screens will go blue, will have telephone numbers on the bottom — either our telephone number, our toll free number, 1-888-DTV-2009, where they can continue to request the coupons; and also telephone numbers for the FCC.
Q This will come up — the TV turns on, this will come on their screen?
SECRETARY LOCKE: It’s a rolling conversion starting midnight Thursday night, 12:01 a.m. Friday. Some stations will start converting to digital throughout the day. But by the end of the day all television stations must be exclusively on digital.
Q And do you have a sense of how many people will be affected, who will not have converted by now?
SECRETARY LOCKE: Well, as of this last Sunday we had some 2.7 million households — excuse me, 2.8 million households, roughly 2.5 percent of all households in America with television sets that are not prepared. And when we say “not prepared,” we mean who don’t have at least one television set that can continue to receive news.
I mean, in our own household we have several television sets that are on cable, that are hooked up to cable, but I also have an old television set in the garage that’s not hooked up and will not be able to receive the broadcast after June 12. But we are prepared because our other television sets have cable and therefore not affected. So we’re talking about families that are completely unprepared, that have neither the converter box, don’t have a new television set, or don’t have cable or satellite. We call them “totally unprepared.” And on June 12th, if they don’t do something between now and then, they will get nothing but a blue screen.
Q Are there particular pockets of the country where families are unprepared, or are they scattered throughout the country?
SECRETARY LOCKE: It’s actually — we’re finding that it’s primarily on the West Coast and the Southwest that are more unprepared than the rest of the country. Los Angeles, while having a small percentage of families unprepared, a small percentage of a huge market is about a quarter-million households that are unprepared.
We’re also finding that it’s — ethnic groups are more unprepared than the general population: African American, Hispanic, almost twice the national average; Asian Americans just slightly above the national average. Surprisingly enough, seniors are prepared. And it’s the younger generation, households of under 30 that are also more unprepared than the national average. Maybe it’s because they rely on new forms of media for news and programming and don’t care about television anymore. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: None of the newspaper guys are — (laughter.)
SECRETARY LOCKE: So you new media people, you must be loving it.
Q Don’t watch the news tonight.
SECRETARY LOCKE: The Recovery Act provided $650 million. And we have more than enough coupons to handle all the unprepared households if they were to ask for coupons. We also have several million coupons that have not yet been redeemed, but we’ve also provided funds to the FCC for outreach call center support.
But we’ve really been pleased with the amazing interest and activity in just the last week. The last few days we’ve been receiving requests from over 100,000 households asking for coupons. So we’re seeing a dramatic drop in the number of unprepared families.
When the President took office, there were some — almost 6 million households, 6.8 — excuse me, almost 7 million households not prepared — 6.8 million, to be exact. That’s roughly 5.9 percent of the households not prepared. And that’s now down to 2.5 percent, or 2.8 million households.
Q You had said that this — there was an ethnicity — Hispanics and African Americans. Is this a language — so is this a language issue that — has there been enough done on the language front?
SECRETARY LOCKE: Well, it could be a language issue. Ethnic minorities, for whatever reason — it may be due to language — are not as prepared as others. But we’ve been reaching out using Hispanic — Telemundo, Univision; held a press conference with Mayor Villaraigosa in Los Angeles, Mayor Kevin Johnson in Sacramento.
And since those press conferences and those special events — I’ve conducted more than 50 events — interviews, on-air radio shows, television shows, working with the print media — the activity in request for coupons have really spiked. But we’re using a lot of free media as well as paid media. And I want to thank all the partners in the television industry and broadcasting industry for getting the word out.
Q Mr. Secretary, isn’t it possible that some just decided not to do it, and isn’t that okay?
SECRETARY LOCKE: That’s true. As long as — we believe that there’s almost universal understanding of it. We know that there will be some people who don’t want to make the conversion or maybe they’ll wait until they get a new television set, or maybe will just — don’t want it for now. And we do know that there are a lot of people who procrastinate, whether it’s paying taxes or, when we were in college, studying for exams — or not — (laughter) — and getting by. But, again, just in the last few days more than 100,000 households have been calling asking for coupons.
Q Mr. Secretary, can you explain how you’re getting these statistics? Like how do we know that 2.5 percent of TV households don’t have it?
SECRETARY LOCKE: It’s from Nielsen data and they collect the data almost every week or every other week. And the data that I’ve given you is the data as of Sunday, this past Sunday.
Q What about people who are prepared, hook up the converter box, but still don’t get a picture? How many of those might there be?
SECRETARY LOCKE: It could be a problem of reception because for digital it’s all or nothing. Using the old analog signals, if you had a building that was blocking the airwaves you might get ghosting, and if you were pretty far from the transmission tower the signal might be weak and you might not have a very good picture, it might be very grainy. With digital it’s all or nothing. So there may be some problems and households may need to buy a little antenna that they could attach to a converter box as well.
But if people are having some questions they should call the FCC, and it’s toll free at 1-888-CALL-FCC. And if people are having some problems with installation understanding, the FCC has free in-home consultation and installation service.
Q May I ask on a different subject, the WTO? The Russians and their two neighbors, Kazakhstan and Belarus, have indicated that they now want to join the WTO as a union other than individual nations. Have you heard about that? Do you have anything to say about that?
SECRETARY LOCKE: No, I had not heard that. I’m sorry, I had not heard that.
All right, thank you.
Q Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
MR. GIBBS: Let me make a couple of other short announcements before we get going. Earlier today the President called President Sulayman to congratulate him on Lebanon’s successful parliamentary elections; commended Lebanon’s interior ministry and security services for their hard work. President Obama reiterated his strong commitment to Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence, and indicated that he looked forward to working with the President to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Lebanon. Finally, President Obama noted that his Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, George Mitchell, would be in Lebanon on Friday and looked forward to meeting with the President.
Secondly, the President will travel on Monday, to Chicago, to address the annual meeting of the American Medical Association. He’ll start with the recognition that the health care system status quo is unsustainable and he’ll outline the case for health care reform. He’ll make clear why we can’t afford to wait another year or another administration to bring down costs that are crushing families, businesses, and government.
In the speech the President will discuss the reasons why past efforts have failed and he’ll address the consequences of failing to act again this year. He’ll lay out plainly what health care reform will mean for American families and their doctors and what it won’t.
The President will also address the importance of making sure that reform doesn’t add to our deficit, and what we can do to strengthen what works in our health care system and to fix what’s broken so that we can build — what we build provides the best care in the world at the lowest cost.
And then, finally, I would add, not too long before coming out here, probably about 1:55 p.m. or so, I had an opportunity to speak with the President about the shooting at the Holocaust Museum today, informed him of the situation, gave him the details that we had been given via that Situation Room. He asked about the condition of the security guard. So he is aware of the incident this afternoon.
And with that, Mr. Feller.
Q Two topics, Robert, thank you. First of all, following up on that, did the President have any other reaction? How would you characterize –
MR. GIBBS: I mean, obviously — I walked in and told him there had been a shooting at the museum — obviously, concerned and concerned for the security guard that appears to have been hurt. I gave him, Ben, mostly a factual briefing of the facts as we knew it, or knew them at that point, and that’s about it; obviously, saddened by what has happened.
Q And in terms of — can you just give us a little bit more detail about the White House involvement in a tragedy like this? How does coordination work? Is it through the Homeland Security Council?
MR. GIBBS: Well, we get regular updates through the Situation Room. We’re in contact with and get updates from the Homeland Security Council and other agencies like the FBI. So I assume throughout the day we’ll continue to get information about — facts and what’s happened at the museum.
Q I also want to ask you a couple of quick things on health care. Can you give us a progress report on the President’s meeting today with the senators? How does the White House think it went? Was anything accomplished today?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the President continued to discuss with important and leading members of Congress on health care reform the challenges that we have before us. Obviously, he’ll travel tomorrow to Green Bay and have a town hall meeting on this. We just announced, obviously, the speech in Chicago on Monday.
The President is pleased that what appears to be happening is making progress. I think you’ll hear him both tomorrow and Monday, as I said, lay out the strong case for health care reform to bring about some relief for families and small business from the cost that they’re seeing rise each and every year.
Q Senator Baucus said afterwards here on the driveway that everything remained an option. He said “We are all flexible on all these points — we are, the President is.” Is that an accurate statement?
MR. GIBBS: The President is anxious to let the legislative process work. I think you’ve all had a chance to cover the letter that he sent last week regarding the principles that he has for meaningful health care reform. And we’re going to continue to work that process to ensure that progress is on the right path.
Yes, sir.
Q A couple of financial questions. First, how confident is the administration that GM’s bankruptcy restructuring will proceed smoothly now that the Supreme Court decided not to intervene with Chrysler and the sale to Fiat has gone through?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I think it gives everybody confidence. Obviously, we had great confidence in the restructuring plan that had been put together as part of the deal that’s now been finalized with Chrysler and Fiat. It gives Chrysler a restructured opportunity to move forward. And it’s our strong hope that the same happens relatively quickly for GM.
I think the time frame is slightly longer. We’ve discussed a 60- to 90-day period rather than a 30- to 60-day period for Chrysler. Obviously, GM is a little bit bigger company. But we have confidence that the process that’s been put forward will work its way through the system.
We understand, as I said yesterday, that people are entitled to their day in court if they have grievances about some situations surrounding the bankruptcy. But the President and the Auto Task Force strongly believe this gives car companies, communities, workers, and investors the best opportunity — and taxpayers — the best opportunity moving forward. It’s what’s kept plants open; it’s what’s kept people on the job. And I think we are heartened by what happened at the Supreme Court and hope to see the same follow for General Motors.
Q And on executive compensation, will the administration be naming Kenneth Feinberg as the pay czar to oversee the packages — pay packages for executives and companies that are receiving bailout money? And how much of the decision on these measures was driven by the President’s desire to quell public anger about compensation news that has come out recently?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, Ken Feinberg is going to assume the role of special master that will allow him to review for soundness, appropriateness, and to limit risk relating to compensation packages for those companies that are either receiving extraordinary assistance or might in the future.
I think obviously this is an individual that has great experience in mediation in things that are — these type of things that are important. And I think — obviously this is a topic that the President has spoken about. I don’t know if the factsheets have all gone out from Treasury yet, but there’s additional legislative efforts that we will undertake, as you heard the President talk about.
Yes, sir.
Q A couple questions. The shooting today at the Holocaust Museum, combined with the shooting of Dr. Tiller, as well as the shooting of the military recruiter in Little Rock — is the White House at all concerned that there is some sort of trend of political violence or domestic terrorism going on?
MR. GIBBS: Jake, I would want to ask somebody in law enforcement if they see links such as that. I don’t think it would be wise for me to surmise something like that. I think, as the President said in a statement after the shooting of Dr. Tiller, that regardless of disagreeing or disparate viewpoints obviously in our society, this is not in any way the type of action that anybody wants to see in settling even the most vehement disputes. But it’s hard for me to surmise without having a more in-depth conversation with law enforcement.
Q This is really just out of curiosity more than anything — how do you guys decide which acts of violence prompt a White House response and which ones won’t? There was a statement that went out about Dr. Tiller. How was the decision made that that would get a presidential statement whereas the military recruiter in Arkansas shooting would not?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I believe a statement did go to many stations in Arkansas regarding that.
Q Oh, okay, it did? Okay.
And just about executive compensation, what’s the response of the White House to the pushback from business groups that the federal government should have no role in deciding how their executive compensation is delivered; whether it’s a nonbinding resolution or not, it’s not the job of the government to tell them how to run their companies?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, obviously this is split up into at least three different baskets, I’d say. You have the congressional amendment — the Dodd amendment — that passed covering for the top five corporate officers and the next highest 20 paid employees for all companies receiving some measure of TARP assistance that governs limits on bonuses. That’s one. That was congressional intent.
I think you’ll see from the fact sheets that will soon go out — my apologies that they haven’t — there’s a bit of an expansion from what is in the congressionally mandated amendment that gives for the seven current companies receiving extraordinary assistance the ability to not simply look at the top five plus 20, but indeed the top 100, in order to judge, as I said, the soundness, the appropriateness, and whether or not the risk is being taken into account in this.
Lastly, the President has supported as a member of the Senate and continues to support efforts that are nonbinding shareholder efforts to provide — so that shareholders are empowered to provide some say on the compensation for the managers for the companies for which they invest.
It’s nonbinding, but we have seen in certainly other countries that have had arrangements like this that the power of public opinion is persuasive in ensuring that compensation doesn’t become so aligned with short-term gain, rather than long-term incentive, which is why most people own stock in a company.
I think the President believes that there are steps that we can take to ensure that there are mechanisms in place, again, that bolster this notion of long-term incentive rather than short-term gain, so that that doesn’t contribute to something like we’ve seen in this economic crisis.
Q Forgoing the TARP, just on the publicly traded companies, you didn’t mention the push that Secretary Geithner mentioned today to have the compensation boards be more independent.
MR. GIBBS: That’s another legislative thing that allows — like in Sarbanes-Oxley, with the independence of the accounting committees, this provides the independence for the compensation committee not to be connected with management — again, in order to set compensation that is outside of what we believe rewards that long-term incentive.
I think the President believes, rightly, that these two legislative efforts, in addition to the regulations surrounding the congressional — around the Dodd amendment, as well as what Mr. Feinberg is going to do, are common-sense reforms that will give people confidence in publicly traded companies.
Q To follow up on that, what’s Feinberg’s jurisdiction going to be?
MR. GIBBS: I’m sorry?
Q Feinberg’s jurisdiction.
MR. GIBBS: Again, this is — these are for, again, for companies that are receiving what’s termed exceptional assistance.
Q That’s it?
MR. GIBBS: At this point — right — at this point, those are seven — it’s AIG, Citi, Bank of America, GM, GMAC, Chrysler, and Chrysler Financial. Those are the ones that are, at this point, determined to have outstanding exceptional assistance through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Obviously going forward, were somebody to fall into that category, they, too, would come into that jurisdiction.
Q But that’s just jurisdiction and that’s –
MR. GIBBS: Yes.
Yes, sir.
Q Robert, some financial institutions seem to be rushing to want to pay back some of the bailout money, which, on the one hand, that’s good because it shows they’re in a good financial position; but on the other hand, it seems that they want to get out from under the thumb of the government, the oversight, some of the restrictions. Is the administration troubled at all by that, that the oversight that has been put in place to protect consumers, they want to get out from under that?
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, as the President has said numerous times, he doesn’t want to run car companies, he doesn’t want to run banks, he doesn’t want to run insurance companies with hedge funds on top of them. There is, obviously, a robust free enterprise system that is going to determine with reasonable regulation the rules of the road.
So if banks, based on the recommendations and approval of their regulators, are deemed able to have the capital cushion that’s required that allows them to pay back that TARP money, we obviously believe — again, assuming the regulators obviously approve that — that that’s a healthy thing for our system. It gives confidence that the program was run in a way that provided temporary assistance through extraordinarily bad times.
The government, as per the announcement yesterday, recouped not just $66 billion in money that was lent, but $2 billion that was paid in interest. We’re happy to get out of the business of being any sort of creditor.
Q But what’s the thinking, though, when you hear that they want to get from under the restrictions or that oversight, when it comes to how much they can –
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, I think what the President believes is — and I think it’s why it’s extremely important the President’s effort through legislation, to gain a say on pay, which allows again a non-binding vote of shareholders to judge the compensation levels for the management structure for the company in which they’ve invested their hard-earned money. As we’ve seen in other countries, despite the fact that it’s non-binding, obviously there’s a tremendous power of public opinion and we’ve seen that that can bring about tremendous reforms.
Obviously, the President continues to believe, as I’ve said earlier to Jake’s question, that nobody finds fault with people that are doing well and are being paid well, as long as that compensation appears to be aligned with the long-term incentive for growth in a company rather than for the short-term gain of an individual, which happens to generally be, — or can be at the expense of stockholders. These are I think practical, common-sense safeguards that the President advocates, and in these regulations, has put in place that I think give people a lot of confidence.
Yes, sir.
Q Thanks, Robert. Could you tell a little bit — give us a little more information on how Ken Feinberg will actually do this, what kind of power he has? Does he just set salary and bonus figures and say, here it is? Or do they propose a package that he then denies or approves?
MR. GIBBS: He is a — he has the jurisdiction to review, for those companies receiving that exceptional assistance — the seven companies I outlined and anything if it were to be added in the future — he has the ability to review the compensation structures and determine whether or not we believe they met the criteria of being sound and appropriate, rather than excessive.
Q But can he — if he disapproves of one, can he then set his own figures? Or do they just keep coming back –
MR. GIBBS: He can set his own figures. People can — he will be able to ensure, for those companies receiving exceptional assistance, for those top 100 paid employees, a compensation structure that he believes and the government believes is sound and appropriate.
Q And for how long will these companies be under this?
MR. GIBBS: For as long as they have that exceptional assistance. So, as Dan said, if “Chip Reid Bank” is receiving exceptional assistance, you work with your appropriate regulator, whether it’s the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, come to a conclusion that the money that you’ve been given you can pay back — if that money is paid back then obviously you’re not a recipient anymore of exceptional assistance.
The Dodd amendment for the top five corporate officers and the next-highest-20 paid employees extends for all businesses, all companies that are receiving any TARP assistance. And what that law, as you know, does — doesn’t cap pay, but allows only someone to receive as a bonus one-third of what they’re paid.
Q So isn’t this a pretty extraordinary departure from the way American capitalism has — I know these are extraordinary circumstances, but, still, to have a government employee setting the salaries for hundreds of private-sector employees –
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, Chip, these are private-sector employees that, in many ways, have their job based on the extraordinary assistance that has been provided by taxpayers to ensure that they can continue to have their job.
Q — all companies have taxpayer assistance in one way or another.
MR. GIBBS: How so?
Q Well, I mean, there are all different forms of so-called corporate welfare all through the tax code.
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think that — I’m not entirely sure what you’re getting at, but –
Q I’m getting at if any company that gets any kind of government assistance can have their salary set by the federal government, where does that stop?
MR. GIBBS: Chip, that was the appropriate question if what I had outlined met that criteria. Again, I denoted there are seven companies that have received extraordinary taxpayer assistance, anywhere from — I don’t know the rankings of how much they’ve made, but obviously these seven companies have received extraordinary assistance. Congress passed the Dodd amendment that relates to any company that receives funding or money directly through the TARP program.
But again, this is not an effort to set the salaries, as you said, to the penny of every publicly owned or traded company in this country. This is a proposal that protects the taxpayer.
Q But there are many in the business community who think once you’ve set this precedent, where does it stop?
MR. GIBBS: Well, Chip, you guys have asked me any number of times about the role that the government has to play in the event that it’s providing, as I’ve said, the exceptional or extraordinary assistance that has been provided by the taxpayers. The President believes and Congress believed that that was something that was important to do to protect the taxpayers, to ensure that compensation, either through salary or bonuses, was done in a way that was consistent with sound and appropriate practices and that limited risk for taxpayers.
I think that’s what’s important here, is that these are investments that have been made through the TARP program by taxpayers through taxpayer money. This is an effort both congressionally mandated and through the Treasury Department to ensure that that investment is protected in order not to rationalize an irrationally risky compensation package.
Yes, sir.
Q Robert, just in the array of questions, there have been questions about government involvement in the auto industry, what Chip is getting at about compensation, and now you’ve got the President tackling health care. There’s concerns among some of the public — obviously Republican criticism. At what point — how do you reassure the public that says, I don’t know if the government is reaching in too much to too many things and, you know, maybe health care is one step too much? How do you respond to that criticism of government’s involvement in so many things right now, whether it’s the auto industry, financial industry, now in redoing health care?
MR. GIBBS: Well, obviously — I don’t know if you’ve asked a question this week about the budget deficit, but Medicare and Medicaid, as Peter said, take up a big chunk of our federal budget. Those costs are simply going to grow, if not dealt with, exponentially over the next few decades.
The President believes that health care reform will help on a path toward fiscal responsibility, and that millions of Americans, families and small businesses are looking for relief from the crushing costs of health care that, again, rise several times the rate of inflation each year.
I think on any number of occasions, Chuck, the President wishes that any number of problems might not be on his plate, but that’s not necessarily the set of cards that’s been dealt to him.
Q All right, let me ask it in another way, then. Are you worried that the political problem, you know, that Republicans are using as angles, saying, well, government is trying to get too involved in that — that could hurt the President’s chances, for instance, of getting a government plan, a public plan in his health care because there is this sort of rising discomfort among the populous about government involvement in everything? You know, the government’s involvement in the auto industry –
MR. GIBBS: I think if you listen to the debate on Capitol Hill about health care you’re likely to hear two very important words: choice and competition. A public option that you’re referring to is nothing more than the ability to provide more choice through competition. Those I think are values that you’ll hear throughout this debate as being held near and dear to the hearts of not just people on Capitol Hill, but throughout the country. And the President and Congress are working to design health care reform that provides more choice and more competition.
Q Is there an issue that you guys are ready to say, you know what, we can’t wait for government, we want less government involvement?
MR. GIBBS: We don’t want to own a TV company. (Laughter.)
Q Yet.
MR. GIBBS: We’ll talk about your — yes, sir, I’m sorry.
Q What’s Ken Feinberg being compensated?
MR. GIBBS: I’m sorry?
Q What is the compensation of Ken Feinberg?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t know.
Q I mean, is it a paid position? Is it a full-time position?
MR. GIBBS: I assume it is, but I don’t have his compensation.
Q You don’t know if it’s a full-time position?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t know what he’s being compensated.
Q Right, is it a full-time position?
MR. GIBBS: Yes. I don’t know what it’s — what I’m saying is I don’t know how much he’s being paid.
Q There have been reports he’s not receiving any compensation. Do you know if that’s true?
MR. GIBBS: I will check. I don’t — I don’t know if there’s a special master for him. (Laughter.)
Q When are the rules going to be released on the Dodd TARP bonus legislation?
MR. GIBBS: That’s today.
Q Is that today?
MR. GIBBS: Yes.
Q Is that going to happen — that’s going to be –
MR. GIBBS: Yes. You should get a series of factsheets at some point.
MS. PSAKI: Two are out; there’s one more to come.
Q And finally, when the President unveiled his own compensation proposals, there was a lot of fanfare, it was before the Dodd legislation passed. How would you characterize this — the new rules in relation to his original proposal? Is he walking back from his original proposal? Was it trumped by legislation?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I would say, obviously Congress passing the Dodd amendment does require, obviously — as you mentioned with wanting to see the regulations — is the law of the land for compensation relating to anybody receiving TARP funds. The President outlined a set of proposals that in many ways, because of the law of the land, were superseded. We believe that what Mr. Feinberg will do broadens the scope of what can be looked into because of just the simple number of employees that are affected in companies receiving that exceptional or extraordinary assistance.
Obviously if there — if a proposal comes to his desk that is equal to the number that we talked about earlier, that’s something that will obviously — is a safe-harbor part of this provision. But we believe that Mr. Feinberg’s role gives him the ability to better understand and better look into the soundness, the appropriateness, and ensuring that balance of risk.
Yes, sir.
Q Why stop short of giving shareholders binding say on executive pay?
MR. GIBBS: Chip thought it was a bad idea. (Laughter.)
Q Ha ha. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: I’m trying to play CBS off — against each other.
Q Won’t work.
Q — shorthand for “American people.” (Laughter.)
Q That’s what it stands for –
MR. GIBBS: Right, exactly. No, I think that the President believes that the appropriateness of giving shareholders the power of public opinion is an appropriate role. I think the President believes that — the President does not want to, just as he doesn’t want to own a bank or a car company, doesn’t want to be the person that sets pay at every single entity for every single business in this country. I think this provides the nonbinding ability for public opinion through greater transparency and empowering of stockholders who have a vested interest in the health and well-being of the company to have their say on managerial pay and compensation.
Q What kind of say is it if it’s not binding?
MR. GIBBS: Is this the opposite of the question you asked the first time?
Q No.
MR. GIBBS: Okay. We will — if you look at — for instance, this was done in Great Britain. There was a non-binding say on pay that was instituted that gave, as I’ve said, greater transparency and empowered those that owned the company to have a say. And it’s worked because public opinion is very powerful. If a compensation package is not approved by the stockholders that own that corporation, there’s a tremendous amount of public pressure that has resulted in instituting common sense pay reforms.
Yes, ma’am.
Q Robert, you hinted at it, but can you say explicitly that you are — the administration is dropping plans to limit salaries at companies receiving bailout funds?
MR. GIBBS: Receiving what type of bailout funds?
Q The TARP money.
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, as Jonathan asked, the original proposal that the President had limiting at a certain amount exceptional assistance was, and has been, superseded by implementing regulations relating to the law of the land.
Q You’re dropping it because of the Dodd amendment?
MR. GIBBS: Because, again, we believe actually that we’ve got probably a stronger proposal in terms of having somebody look into a greater number of the people that are involved.
Q Because at the time the administration did say that the two proposals would work hand in hand.
MR. GIBBS: Obviously, there has been a lot of time and energy spent on working through regulations to implement the law of the land. We believe we’ve struck the right balance.
Q If I could ask a question on another executive pay question, the issue of independent directors. Will the administration propose a tightening, a changing of the definition of what it means to be an independent member of a compensation committee? Because most companies already are required to adhere by that rule. So it looks to the people –
MR. GIBBS: Let me have you look at the fact sheet — I don’t know if that’s the one that’s not out — take a look at that and then let’s talk and see if you have questions beyond that.
Yes, sir.
Q Robert, something completely different. Mike Rogers is a member of Congress, Republican from Michigan, has come back from Afghanistan and he tells our network that while he was there he witnessed U.S. military personnel reading Miranda rights to high-value detainees at Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan. He said this — was informed by the military there that this is a common practice now to, upon their capture of these high-value targets, read them the Miranda rights. And he considers this a significant policy change, one that suggests to him, at least, that the administration has changed the orientation in Afghanistan from war fighting to law enforcement with this use of Miranda rights read to detainees. Would you care to comment on any of those observations?
MR. GIBBS: I think I’d need a little bit more information.
Q Do you know if that’s true or untrue, that the Miranda rights are read?
MR. GIBBS: I have no reason to disbelieve a member of Congress, but I don’t know any of the circumstances that are involved around it.
Q Would it come as a surprise to the White House that that’s what would be happening?
MR. GIBBS: It’s not a surprise to me, but again, I think I’d need a little bit more information to begin to surmise some of what the Congressman has — I don’t know if he spoke with commanders on the ground, I don’t know if he saw General McChrystal or –
Q In general does the White House think that’s a good idea?
MR. GIBBS: Major, let me get a little bit — I’m happy to look at whatever longer-form information and get someone at NSC also to look at it. I hate to speculate on four sentences off of a report.
Q Okay. Just so I understand what you’re saying, when you said it wouldn’t come as a surprise to you, what did you mean by that?
MR. GIBBS: I’m not surprised by a lot in this town anymore. Let me look at what you’re talking about –
Q You’re not contesting that that’s a policy that’s being used? I’m just trying to make sure I understand what you’re saying.
MR. GIBBS: I feel like you should be reading me my rights. (Laughter.) That’s why I’m hoping to get my lawyer.
Again, I’m happy to look at whatever you have and try to give you an informed opinion based on somebody who’s got greater jurisdiction over detainees at Bagram. That’s outside of my portfolio.
Q Okay. On Judge Sotomayor, Republicans have begun to complain about what they consider to be omissions from the questionnaire, gaps in it, information that they think is relevant to the confirmation process, particularly as they say, from their point of view, it’s somewhat more accelerated than they would prefer. Is the White House satisfied that the questionnaire is as complete as it needs to be, number one, and as complete as it’s ever going to be?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think, as is the case with many Supreme Court nominees, additional information based on questions that they have or going back into the record quite some time — for instance, whether it’s her work as a district attorney, obviously that was a number of years ago — those files have to be pulled. And anything that is lacked in the questionnaire will be provided in a timely manner to the committee.
The questionnaire –
Q Is that process underway, are you aware?
MR. GIBBS: Yes. Yes. I mean, again, this is similar to, I think, in the case of John Roberts there were thousands of pages that were in archives that ultimately had to be delivered after the original questionnaire was sent to Capitol Hill. So that obviously is something that seems to be fairly usual.
Q And when you say “timely basis,” what do you mean?
MR. GIBBS: As soon as the information comes from wherever files are being held, for instance, in her work as a district attorney, or other information that’s being gathered on her.
Q And just one quick on one health care. You said, flexibility on everything. Does that mean the President is –
MR. GIBBS: I think Ben said that –
Q No, Max Baucus said that and you agreed –
MR. GIBBS: We promoted Ben to chairman of the Finance Committee just a minute ago.
Q But you said that that was something that is a fair representation of what the President said and what the senator said. So I just want to make sure that that also means the President is therefore flexible on the question of taxing benefits? Because Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, said yesterday that he considers that not only a live option, but a very good option to provide financing that the White House has conceded may not exist currently. And so after having said that on –
MR. GIBBS: When –
Q — yesterday — which is a new development since the issue has been raised in this briefing room. Okay, that’s a new fact.
MR. GIBBS: Well, actually, I think he also said that a week ago and I got asked about it then, right?
Q Your memory may be better than mine on this one.
MR. GIBBS: If you give me that information, I’ll look at it and we can trade –
Q Robert, what is he inflexible on?
MR. GIBBS: I’m sorry?
Q What is he inflexible on?
MR. GIBBS: Well, Chuck, he ran for the Presidency a few years ago, and is not a member of any of the relevant committees; and he’s not a legislator and he’s not a senator. This is a process that — he, you saw, wrote a letter based on the principles that he’d like to see as part of health care reform, and he’s going to watch what happens on Capitol Hill.
Q But Senator Baucus said the President was flexible when I asked him specifically about this question. So I just want to make sure if Senator Baucus is properly interpreting the President’s position on this issue — heavily debated in the campaign you just referenced.
MR. GIBBS: And heavily answered in the preceding weeks from this very room and this very podium. The President is going to watch what happens on Capitol Hill and will have more to say as it gets closer to us.
Q Robert, just two questions, one on Ken Feinberg. I think that he’s maybe the 20th czar-type position you’ve named.
MR. GIBBS: No, I think the title is “special master.”
Q Right, special master. But in terms of naming these people, bringing them in from the outside to do these jobs, I think you have more than any other administration. I’m just wondering why –
MR. GIBBS: I don’t know have any special masters. (Laughter.)
Q Well, whatever you’re calling them. I’m just curious, why not use somebody who’s already in the administration? Why bring people in from the outside to do this?
MR. GIBBS: I mean, obviously this is — the seven companies that we’re talking about, a hundred employees for each of these seven companies is obviously something that’s going to take a great deal of time and somebody — something that we think is better focused on by the use of a special master.
Q And just another question about the public plan. As you said, the President is very flexible on all the details of health care, but he has been specific about this one. I mean, he wrote the letter to Congress saying he wants a public plan to be in there. In terms of how that plan is structured, which is the subject of a lot of debate on the Hill — how robust it is, whether there’s a trigger, is it owned by the government or is it a co-op — is he open to all possible forms of this public plan or does he have a preference?
MR. GIBBS: Mara, on this and other questions, though I appreciate the opportunity to comment on every single juncture of the legislative process –
Q These are pretty big, important junctures.
MR. GIBBS: They seem to be each day I get asked. We’re going to let the process work its way through and get a sense of where we’re going.
Q But Organizing for America, an arm of the DNC, which I would imagine is sympathetic to the overall agenda of this White House, and the White House is encouraging of its grassroots effort, is making a very strong public push for a public option in this plan, saying it is consistent with the President’s approach. Doesn’t the public have a right to know what the President’s general approach is?
MR. GIBBS: Sure. And I answered earlier that we — that’s why the President put it in his letter and that’s why the President believes increasing choice through competition is important. Now, in terms of the design for exchanges and co-ops, I’m just not going to get into doing that each and every day of the week.
Q We shouldn’t ask about those?
MR. GIBBS: You can –
Q — of the detail every day on this massive reform –
MR. GIBBS: I’m not the special master on press questions; you guys can ask what you want.
Q But, Robert, when Congress sets a schedule as –
MR. GIBBS: You seem to be here each and every day doing it, so yes.
Q Wait. When Congress sets a schedule of having bills off the floor by the end of July, that gives the public a very limited time to evaluate all the policy implications of what the health care legislation is going to mean in their lives, because every lawmaker said it’s going to affect a hundred percent of America. Doesn’t the White House at some point have an obligation to tell the public exactly what it believes should be in the bill that’s going to change their lives?
MR. GIBBS: Major, I appreciate the question. I would refer you to the multitude of times in which the President has talked about this: the campaign, the letter that was sent out last week, the fact that there’s a town hall meeting tomorrow that I would look forward to your network, for the basis by which a hundred percent of Americans that watch FOX News will be able to share with the President and those attending the meeting their feelings on health care reform. I’ll do this — I’ll watch your network tomorrow to see what percentage of that meeting is shared with a hundred percent of the public that you just appropriately asked me about.
Q Well, if you let me know how specific he’s going to be, maybe we’ll take more.
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the basis of your question seemed to be that all public information was good and –
Q I couldn’t agree more.
MR. GIBBS: Well, I can hardly wait — you can watch it in my office, we’ll watch FOX and see how much they cover tomorrow. I think I just set the bar kind of high. (Laughter.)
Yes.
Q I want to look ahead to the speech on Monday. The President has talked to the American people saying if you like the health care you have, you get to keep it under my plan. But I haven’t heard him talk that much particularly to doctors, which he’s going to do on Monday. Doctors are obviously concerned that their reimbursements will be cut. They’re worried and have worried for a long time about lawsuits and the rising cost of malpractice insurance. So what is his message to doctors, what will we be hearing from him?
MR. GIBBS: Well, whether or not there are specifics about hospital reimbursements or malpractice that you talked about, I know that’s something that has been talked about in here and talked about in some of the meetings with legislators.
Obviously, health care professionals writ large and doctors obviously are as integral as anybody in the delivery of health care and in the practice of health care. I think obviously the President will — has talked about and will talk about in the speech not just his case for reform — and you’ve heard Peter also talk about this just this week — how we improve the way health care is delivered, the steps that have been taken as part of the Recovery Act to make those steps easier and more cost-efficient. I think all of that are things that you’ll hear both tomorrow and Monday — on FOX.
Q But no word on if we’ll hear explicitly on reimbursements or liability –
MR. GIBBS: I have not seen the draft to see if those specific topics will be covered on Monday.
Yes, ma’am.
Q Back on the Holocaust incident, the President just five days ago was in Germany at a very dramatic site. Did he say at all to you or is he thinking at all that that visit could get people thinking about the Holocaust and issues, that there was some kind of perhaps backlash of this person at the Holocaust Museum?
MR. GIBBS: Let me separate the two, because I think that’s — I mean, obviously I think it was for both the President and all of those that were there an extraordinarily powerful stop and reminder of the horrors that we saw not too long ago.
But without, again, having a conversation with law enforcement about circumstances for why what happened today — I would hate to, at this point based on what I know, connect anything.
Yes, sir.
Q Is there a candidate in Iran’s elections that the White House sees as most conducive to the President’s engagement strategy? And how is the White House interpreting this outburst of campaigning and enthusiasm towards the elections?
MR. GIBBS: I’m not going to get into candidates. Obviously the President, as he talked about in Cairo, believes that free and fair elections and the robust task of democracy in picking a government for yourself is tremendously important as — just as I said and he said, it’s not just that, it’s also how that government reacts. Obviously as I’ve said here, the President was heartened by the increase in activity and turnout relating to the elections in Lebanon and we’ll certainly wait and see what happens this coming week.
David.
Q Two questions. Does the President have anything to say about the closing of the clinic that was run by George Tiller?
MR. GIBBS: I have not talked to him, so I don’t know if he has a opinion on that.
Q Okay. Second question, the other night Newt Gingrich said that the elite media has to prop up Joe Biden and pretend he actually knows what he’s doing. Any comment on that?
MR. GIBBS: Should I speak on behalf of the elite media or the — look, the Vice President is among the most trusted advisors that the President has. The role he plays is important and very significant, from his efforts to implement the recovery plan through our efforts on foreign policy. We’re lucky and grateful to have him, as I think the country is, for his continued service.
Savannah.
Q Two things on the Holocaust shooting. When you briefed the President did you have any information about the background of the suspect and were you able to convey that at that point?
MR. GIBBS: No, all I — this was I think around 1:55 p.m., almost 2:00 p.m. All I had was the detail of somebody had gone in with a gun, shot at a security guard, the security guard shot at the individual that came in. On the way out I learned that — I think the individual is 89 or 90 years old. But at that point that’s all the background — I didn’t have the age even when I went and talked to the President and see if he’s gotten — I assume he’s gotten additional updates with all the time we’ve been out here.
Yes, ma’am.
Q (Cross-talk.)
MR. GIBBS: If there is stuff that the President relays, yes.
Q That age you just — 89 or 90, was that — who was that age?
MR. GIBBS: That’s what I had seen on the way out, was the age of the gunman that entered the museum.
Q You saw that on TV, not at — you didn’t get that –
MR. GIBBS: I saw that on TV. I have not seen — I have not gotten on e-mail or BlackBerry additional updates while we’ve been in here.
Q Did you have indications in that briefing that this was a hate crime?
MR. GIBBS: No. Again, at that point I just was relaying a series of facts.
Yes.
Q One on GM actually. Ed Whitacre, the new chair of GM, told Bloomberg, “I don’t know anything about cars. A business is a business and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old and I think the business principles are the same.” I guess my question is, what would you say to anyone who might be alarmed that the new GM chair doesn’t know about cars? But secondly, I mean, is it possibly — do you look at that as a virtue because he’s –
MR. GIBBS: Well, I mean, the one company that we haven’t talked about in receiving assistance or asked for assistance from the government is Ford. Alan Mulally came from Boeing. So I think the notion that one has to come from the car industry in order to change the management mind set or to make tough decisions in restructuring a company — I think what the task force looked for and I think what the American people can be confident in is that we looked for and found somebody that exhibits that toughness, that has experience running a company of the size that GM is, and I think the praise for Mr. Whitacre has been universal since we’ve talked about — or since his name was announced yesterday.
Again, I think if you look at the experiences of the companies that we’ve talked about in here because they are receiving funds, the company that we didn’t talk about — I think prior experience in the car industry was not required. What was required was somebody with savvy, big business experience that could take a company, change its management culture, make some of those tough decisions to put it on that path toward viability.
Thanks, guys.
END 3:20 P.M. EDT
#71-06/10/2009
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
11. June 2009 by admin.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 6, 2009
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA
AND PRESIDENT SARKOZY OF FRANCE
IN PRESS AVAILABILITY
Prefecture
Caen, France
1:06 P.M. (Local)
PRESIDENT SARKOZY: (As translated.) Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon to all of you. Welcome. I would like to say to the President of the United States of America how proud France is to welcome him for the second time this year.
This afternoon we will be talking about the ceremonies and the commemoration of the D-Day landings, but I want to say in the strongest, most sincere terms that never in the history, perhaps, of our two countries, has the United States and France been so close to one another on major issues, major questions.
I said to the President that we are determined to help him in his decision to close down — shut down Guantanamo. I told President Barack Obama to what extent we support his open, outstretched hand initiative to Russia. We approve and endorse this policy.
I said to the President that we totally agreed with him on the Israeli and Palestinian issue — two states that need to live alongside one another, an Israeli state whose security we’re very attached to, and a secure Palestinian state; and to what extent we support American diplomacy when it requested that an end, a stop and a hold be put to settlements.
On the Iranian matter, I’ve said this in very frank and open terms to the Iranian Foreign Secretary how important it is that he take the hand outstretched by President Obama, that we — we, France, Europe and the United States — are totally aligned on this and we cannot in any way accept the insane statements made by President Ahmadinejad.
On North Korea, we have total convergence of views with the American President. And of course, France is delighted to have fully reintegrated NATO, as I said to the American President.
So really it is a pleasure to work with Barack Obama. We work regularly together. He knows that France is a friend of the United States. We basically coordinate on all major issues and we are determined to continue that.
Barack, welcome. Welcome to your family.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It’s wonderful to be back in France, particularly on this day, because this day marks not only the triumph of freedom, but it also marks how the transatlantic alliance has allowed for extraordinary prosperity and security on both sides of the Atlantic. The fact that France fully reintegrated into NATO this year, under President Sarkozy’s leadership, is just one further indication of the degree to which U.S.-French cooperation can help to underpin not only security in Europe, but also a more secure and prosperous world beyond Europe.
I very much appreciate President Sarkozy’s leadership on a whole range of issues — he mentioned a number of them: France’s leadership within Europe in understanding the need for us to have tough diplomacy with the Iranians, to reach out to them, but also insist that we can’t afford a nuclear arms race in the Middle East; our close collaboration on a whole host of issues with Russia; France’s willingness to accept a Guantanamo detainee, but more broadly, to help us as we want to deal with the terrorist threat, but do so in a way that is consistent with our values and our ideals; the assistance that all NATO allies, as well as others, are providing in helping to bring about a more peaceful and democratic Afghanistan.
On all of these issues, President Sarkozy has not just cooperated, he’s led. And that kind of approach I think is serving the interest of France, but it’s also serving the interest of the world. And we’re very grateful for that.
Obviously I also want to make mention of the extraordinary tragedy of the Air France plane that we believe may have gone down. We don’t know yet what exactly happened, but it is heartbreaking obviously for the families, who the American people offer thoughts and prayers. We have already authorized all of our resources to coordinate with the French in trying to discover where the plane went down and to find as much information as possible. But our deepest condolences to the people of France, as particularly to the families involved. And we are determined to find out what happened and support France in that regard.
So with that, I think that we can take a question.
Q Mr. President — (inaudible) –
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Apparently you’re speaking without a microphone, so the translator cannot hear you. Do we have a mic anywhere?
Q Yes, right here. Mr. President, you said yesterday that you hoped to see significant progress in the Middle East by the end of this year. What did you mean by that?
And, President Sarkozy, you had a meeting earlier this week with the Iranian Foreign Minister. What message was he able to give you to pass on to the President? Thank you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think all of us understand what would constitute progress when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Progress would mean that the parties involved supported by not just the United States, not just by France, but also by other Arab states, are in serious, constructive negotiations about how to achieve a two-state solution.
I don’t expect that a 60-year problem is solved overnight, but as I said before, I do expect both sides to recognize that their fates are tied together and that it is in the interests of Israel, its security interest, as well as the interest of the Palestinians, to resolve this in a peaceful way.
There are whole host of difficult questions out there. We all know what those questions are. But I believe President Sarkozy and I agree that we have to move beyond the current stalemate. Both sides are going to have obligations. I’ve discussed the importance of a cessation of settlement construction, but I also want to reemphasize, because that’s gotten more attention than what I’ve also said, which is the Palestinians have to renounce violence, end incitement, improve their governance capacity so that Israelis can be confident that the Palestinians can follow through on any commitments they make across the table.
Now, I cannot impose such negotiations or, certainly, the terms of a final settlement on the parties. That’s their task. President Sarkozy cannot impose peace in that region. But what we can do is to be friends to Israel, honest in our assessments of what it’s going to take, hold the Palestinians accountable for their end of the bargain, and move the process forward. And we are going to try to put as much energy as we can into it. My special envoy, George Mitchell, is going to be returning to the region this week and we are going to systematically work through as many of these issues as possible.
One last point I want to emphasize: The Arab states have to be a part of this process. It’s not sufficient just to point at the Palestinian problem and then say we are not going to engage, we’re not going to take responsibility. They are going to have to step up as well because the Arab states not only are important politically, they’re also important economically. And to the extent that they put their shoulder behind the wheel, that can move the process forward in a significant way.
PRESIDENT SARKOZY: It is not for me to speak for the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran. I can tell you what I told him. I said to him, number one, that he had to take the hand stretched out by Barack Obama and set a meeting so that the group of six, the six-party talks start again; secondly, that we all were aligned if Iran wants access to civilian nuclear energy, it is entitled to that. But if it wants nuclear — military nuclear, the answer is no. And you have to understand this fair and square.
I said, if your interests are peaceful, then accept controls. We cannot accept the Iranian leader to make extremely aggressive statements on the one hand, and IAEA checks and controls not be accepted by the Iranians, and at the same time, to give them access to civilian nuclear energy.
Again, France and the United States are working hand in glove on this one. Iran is a great nation, a great civilization. We want peace, we want dialogue, and we want to help them develop. But we do not want military nuclear weapons to spread, and we are clear on that.
Q Mr. President, there were a lot of comments in France and Germany recently on the fact that you stayed only briefly in these two countries and that you haven’t spent much private time aside of the official engagements here. Does that mean that Europe is not on your priority list, diplomatic list? Or what would you have to say on the subject?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: What it means is that I have a very tough schedule. I would love nothing more than to have a leisurely week in Paris, stroll down the Seine, take my wife out to a nice meal, have a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens. (Laughter.) Those days are over, for the moment.
And so I think it’s very important to understand that good friends don’t worry about the symbols and the conventions and the protocols. The United States is a critical friend and ally of France, and vice versa. I personally consider Nicolas Sarkozy a friend; I think he feels the same way. And so since I know I can always pick up the phone and talk to him, that it’s not necessary for me to spend huge amounts of time other than just getting business done when I’m here.
At some point, I will be the ex-President, and then you will find me in France, I’m sure, quite a bit, having fun. I said the same thing in Germany yesterday, where they were asking, well, you know, you didn’t have an overnight here, or this — I think you guys are reading too much into my schedule.
My main issue has to do with the fact that when I take these foreign trips, it’s to get business done, because I also have an economy where the unemployment rate is 9.4 percent. We still have to pass financial regulations that will prevent the kind of crisis that we’ve seen from happening again. That all requires a lot of work and so my travel schedule is always limited.
PRESIDENT SARKOZY: Well, in a democracy, one has to accept all criticism and all comment. And let me tell you very sincerely, do you think that we don’t have enough on our plate to do without spending time to have our pictures taken, what with the unemployment rate in France, the United States, the Western world, what with the Iranian issues? Do you think our prime concern is what glossy magazine we’ll be pictured in, or what restaurant we’re going to go and spend an evening in, or whether we spend an extra night here or not?
Well, what does friendship mean? Friendship means that when the United States say we’re going to shut down Guantanamo, we say, well, we’ll help you; we’ll have some of the detainees in France. Friendship is what? It’s coming back into NATO and taking two important command posts in the integrated structure. That is what friendship is all about. We need to work together to achieve results. We’re not here, watch in hand, saying, “How much time did you spend with so-and-so?” I understand that you should put the question, but frankly, do you think people are just waiting to see us hand-in-hand sitting here looking into one another’s eyes? Of course not.
They want us to achieve results — on Iran, on North Korea, whatever it is, but where we’re in total harmony. See, I’ll tell you one thing, it’s very easy to work with the United States of America President.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: The President speaks quite quickly so we can get even more done. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT SARKOZY: I speak first, but you understand first.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: We’ll take one last question. You got a mic over here?
Q President Obama, the ban on headscarves and veils for young girls in French schools and President Sarkozy’s position on Turkey’s entry into the European Union, is this likely to hinder the new approach to Islam that you presented in Cairo two days ago?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think that this is a process. And what I tried to do in Cairo was to open up a conversation both in Muslim communities, but also in non-Muslim communities; both in the Middle East, but also here in the West.
And as I said in the speech, I think that freedom of religious expression is critical. That is part of our liberal tradition both in France and the United States, and that we should not have two standards for freedom of religious expression, one for Muslims and one for non-Muslims.
That doesn’t mean that each country isn’t going to be working through these issues with its own history and its own sensitivities in mind. And I don’t take responsibility for how other countries are going to approach this. I will tell you that in the United States our basic attitude is, is that we’re not going to tell people what to wear. If, in their exercise of religion, they are impeding somebody else’s rights, that’s something that we would obviously be concerned about.
But my general view is, is that the most effective way to integrate people of all faiths is to not try to suppress their customs or traditions; rather to open up opportunities and give them a chance for full participation in the life of their country.
With respect to Turkey, President Sarkozy and I have discussed this before. I am not a member of the EU — the United States is not a member of the EU, and so we can’t dictate the terms of which any country enters into the EU.
I do think that Turkey is a enormously important ally in NATO. They’re helping us in Afghanistan, in that critical effort. They have a growing economy. They are interested in further integration with Europe. And I would encourage that. So I’ve said publicly that I think Turkish membership in the EU would be important.
Now, President Sarkozy, as an actual member of the EU, has a different view. But I think it’s very important to note that he strongly supports the work that Turkey is doing in NATO. I believe that he’s interested in further economic integration. And what the United States wants to do is just to continue to encourage discussions and talks and a process whereby Turkey can feel confident that it has a friendship with France, with the United States, with all of Europe, and that it — to the extent that it’s defining itself as part of Europe, that it has an opportunity to be a part. But, again, that’s something that’s going to have to move forward not based on what the United States says, but rather a dialogue between the European Union members and Turkey.
In all of this, I think Europe and France has a critical role to play, just as the United States does, in sending a message to Muslims around the world that we welcome and want their participation in a world community that is peaceful, that is prosperous, that is economically integrated, that is developing on behalf of all people and not just some people.
And in both France and in the United States, we have enormous Muslim populations. So as I said in the Cairo speech, there’s no contradiction between America and Islam because we have Muslim Americans who actually have higher education and income averages than is the average in the United States. That’s a testament to the degree to which they’ve been able to succeed, thrive, remain true to their religion, and be full-fledged, patriotic Americans. And that kind of approach I think is the one that you want, as opposed to an approach that increases tensions both within our borders and outside of our borders.
Q Does the U.S. press have equal time –
PRESIDENT OBAMA: That was a very self-serving — (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT SARKOZY: Perhaps I could just say a few words on this. First of all, I thought that President Obama’s speech was a remarkable speech. We have long been awaiting to hear the United States of America, the world’s number one power, shouldering its full share of responsibility in avoiding the clash of cultures and civilizations between East and West. And I totally agree with what President Obama said, including on headscarves and veils.
But let me simply say two things. In France, any young girl, any girl who wishes to wear a veil or a headscarf may do so, it’s her free choice to do so. We simply set two limits because we are a secular state; that is that civil servants who are actually on duty must not have — must not show any sign of their religious belief, be they Jewish, Orthodox, Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, you name it. That’s what we call a totally impartial, secular administration. In other words, when on duty at the actual counters where they work, there must be no visible sign of whatever religion they belong to. Secondly, the fact that young girls may choose to wear a veil or a headscarf is not a problem as long as they have actually chosen to do so, as opposed to this being imposed upon them, be it by their families or by their environment.
In a country like France, where everyone can live according to their convictions and beliefs, we respect the individual, we respect women, we respect the family. I’ve also done a lot when I was home secretary, minister of the interior, to ensure that the Muslim community in France could practice their religion and their creed like any other — any other religion or creed in France.
Now, you belong to a newspaper I have a lot of respect for, which called for its readers to vote in the presidential election for my adversary and not for me. What would you say to justify this? You said, “Well, be careful, President Sarkozy is going to align us too much with the United States of America.” And two yeas later what are you telling me? You’re telling me “There’s one subject on which President Obama and President Sarkozy don’t agree,” that should reassure you — you should be happy about that now.
Of course we agree, we concur on the ultimate objective. What is President Obama’s objective? What is mine ultimately? It is that Turkey may play its full part, its essential role as a bridge between East and West. That is an essential role. Where there is a difference it’s how to go about doing this. The traditional position of the United States of America is the integration of Turkey. This was President Bush’s position, President Clinton’s position, the position of all United States Presidents. Mine you are familiar with: It is not integration into the European Union, not accession into the European Union. But I did suggest that we Europeans, together with the Russians and together with the Turks, think about having a common economic and security area. We have no divergence as to the objective we’re seeking to achieve, simply the way of going about it.
Turkey, the objective is Turkey play its role as a bridge between East and West. I said to President Obama I think it’s important that Europe has borders, have frontiers, because that is a stabilizing factor. And I cannot allow that stabilizing factor in the world to be undermined. That doesn’t mean that we have to push back Turkey into the darkness. Turkey is a strong ally. Turkey is a bridge between different worlds. The only issue is how to go about achieving this. That’s what we talked about.
So let us have at least one point on which we are not totally in agreement, and that will give us time to think about future elections.
Q A question for both Presidents, please. On Iran and North Korea, what has the current policy — which is largely the same as the ones of recent years — produced other than given time to North Korea and Iran to advance their nuclear ambitions? Thank you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think it’s important to distinguish between the two countries and what they’ve been doing of late.
North Korea’s actions over the last several months have been extraordinarily provocative and they have made no bones about the fact that they are testing nuclear weapons, testing missiles that potentially would have intercontinental capacity. And, in fact, we are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation. The parties that are involved in the six-party talks we have contacted; they issued very clear statements and are now in the process of working on a very clear resolution condemning North Korea’s actions. You haven’t seen China and Russia respond as forcefully in the past on these issues, because I think there’s an indication that they recognize how destabilizing North Korea’s actions have been.
My preference is always to use a diplomatic approach. But diplomacy has to involve the other side engaging in a serious way in trying to solve problems. And we have not seen that kind of reaction from North Korea. So we will continue to consult with our allies. We’ll continue to consult with all the parties who previously have been involved in the six-party talks. But we are going to take a very hard look at how we move forward on these issues, and I don’t think that there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways by, after they’ve done these things for a while, then we reward them.
Now, with respect to Iran, I’ve made very clear that we are not taking the same position — and I’m curious that you would suggest that we’re taking the same approach when I’m spending an awful lot of time back home answering people who are concerned that what we’re doing is too radical. We are breaking significantly from past approaches and we are saying we are willing to have direct negotiations with the Iranians on a whole range of issues without preconditions, in an atmosphere of mutual respect and resolve.
Like President Sarkozy, my view is that Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon would be profoundly dangerous — not just to the United States, not just to Israel, but to the entire region and, over time, the entire world. Because there’s no possibility that Iran gets a nuclear weapon in which you don’t see a whole host of countries in the Middle East decide “We’ve got to go for it as well.”
This is part of the reason, by the way, when it comes to North Korea and Iran that I’ve said it’s not sufficient for the United States or France or other members of the nuclear club simply to say “All of you have to stop, but we’re not going to do anything to change ourselves.”
I gave a speech in Prague in which I said all of us have responsibilities; that I am going to be traveling to Moscow for a summit to restart significant arms — nuclear arms reduction negotiation with the Russians; that I want to reinvigorate our nonproliferation treaty. I think we should create a stable consensus in which countries who want peaceful — nuclear power for peaceful civilian use are able to do so, and that our goal collectively is to eliminate proliferation, lock down loose nuclear materials that are out there, negotiate a whole series of treaties that lower the temperature, and ultimately make nuclear weapons obsolete.
Now, that’s not going to happen in my time, my lifetime; it won’t happen in President Sarkozy’s lifetime. But if we start moving on that pathway and other countries can look and say the United States is not just talking the talk, but it’s walking the walk, then I think that will indicate to the Iranians, for example, that the goal here is not to single them out per se — it’s to suggest that this is dangerous for everybody, including them. Their security interests will not be served by possession of a nuclear weapon.
The last point I’d make on Iran, the Supreme Leader has said “We don’t want nuclear weapons; that’s not what we’re pursuing.” I’m happy to hope that that’s true, but in international relations I can’t just base things on hope, especially when you see actions to the contrary.
One of my famous predecessors, Ronald Reagan, I think said it pretty well when he said, “Trust, but verify.” And we’re not even to the point yet where we’re having those conversations with the Iranians. But ultimately, if in fact Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, then it shouldn’t be that hard for us to have a series of negotiations in which the international community feels that confidence, and in which Iran then is able to enjoy a whole host of economic and political benefits and gain much greater legitimacy in all of its other endeavors.
PRESIDENT SARKOZY: Okay. Merci.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you, everybody.
END
Obama News Daily, Weekly Reports
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11. June 2009 by admin.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 9, 2009
PRESS BRIEFING BY
PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS
AND OMB DIRECTOR PETER ORSZAG
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
2:33 P.M. EDT
MR. GIBBS: It’s my never-ending pursuit to try to bring maybe a special guest once every day this week. (Laughter.) So just once a day.
Q What are you paying them?
MR. GIBBS: Top dollar.
Before we get started, if you have PAYGO questions or want to talk about that, obviously Peter Orszag, OMB Director, will talk a little bit about PAYGO and take a few of your questions on that.
Peter.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Thank you, Robert. Glad to be here.
Today the administration is putting forward a statutory “pay as you go” proposal. This is the same set of statutory rules that applied during the 1990s, an era in which we did restore fiscal discipline and move towards balanced budgets and then surpluses.
The rules are similar to rules that already exist in the House and Senate but are backed up by the power of law. And you saw today the President standing with the House leadership, including the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, along with membership of the Blue Dogs and others, in support of this legislation, which we hope will be taken up quickly not only by the House, but also by the United States Senate.
Thank you.
MR. GIBBS: You want to take a few questions? (Laughter.)
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: I don’t know what Robert means — that was easy. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: When he stands before the Budget Committee he’s not nearly as quick to want to leave as with you guys.
Major.
Q Peter, at Brookings this morning, you talked about health care being deficit-neutral and many other things. Does the deficit neutrality of health care fit in with PAYGO? Are they complementary? And do you want PAYGO before the health care legislation passes so one comes before the other and that’s the metric by which you have to fit the cost and spending into?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: First, the concepts are very similar, and we have said we need to be adopting a health care reform that is not only deficit-neutral, fully paid for, but that also moves toward a more efficient health care system and eliminates or starts to work at eliminating a lot of the variation that we see in the health care system where the higher cost areas don’t generate better health outcomes.
Q McAllen versus El Paso.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: In McAllen versus El Paso — you were paying close attention. The timing on the piece of legislation I’m going to leave to others to discuss, but I think the core thing is the principle is exactly the same, which is in health care we are saying the proposal must be deficit-neutral, and that will occur in hard, scorable savings in terms of — in CBO scoring. And I would just note I know there has been some discussion about those offsets, but CBO — which I used to run — is appropriately skeptical of many types of health care interventions. The package will be deficit-neutral based on that CBO scoring.
And then, again, I want to just emphasize if that’s all we did we would be perpetuating lots of parts of the health care system that could be made more efficient, and so we need to go beyond that and adopt some of the things that may not score but that are crucial to a health care system that embodies best practices universally.
Q Will the administration come up with the other offsets to get to the portion that is currently not covered by your set-aside in the budget you are –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Down payment.
Q Down payment.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: The President, in a letter that was released last week, indicated that there will $200 billion to $300 billion more in savings that we will be putting out in the near future. And if you put that together with the down payment you’re in the range of the packages that are under discussion on Capitol Hill. We will work with the Congress to make sure that any remaining pieces are fully financed.
Q Peter, are there any exceptions to PAYGO?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: There are four, although you could collapse them into three exceptions that reflect I think — there’s an ongoing debate about current policy versus current law. The thrust of current policy embodies, for example, an assumption that we’re not going to allow the Alternative Minimum Tax to take over the tax code. It embodies an assumption that at least a significant part of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will be extended past their scheduled expiration in 2010; and it embodies an assumption that we’re not going to reduce physician payments by 20 percent arbitrarily in the near future.
So in those three areas, what we have done is we’ve said, as long as legislation embodies sort of the thrust of current policy, it will neither count as a cost, nor as an offset in the PAYGO system.
And I think that’s just, frankly, a reflection. One of the problems that we have is we’ve built so many sunsets into the tax code and into the — so-called the sustainable growth rate formula under Medicare that there’s this awkwardness between the technical law, which is implausible — all of the tax cuts disappear, the physician payments are reduced by 20 percent, and what is commonly understood as policy as it currently stands. Our legislation says let’s take policy as it currently stands, and make sure that you have “pay as you go” off of that.
Q Are emergency supplementals covered by PAYGO?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: PAYGO only applies to the mandatory side of the budget and to revenue, so a different set of issues surrounds discretionary spending, which is where the supplemental comes up in the budget.
Q Peter, why apply it over a decade instead of year by year, as the President’s budget proposal has proposed?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, I think the reason is that when you apply it in some periods, you can easily get timing shifts and gaining that occurs, so we have not only an over 10-year period, but also a rule against shifting from the 11th year in and out of the 10th year. So this is intended to make sure that timing shifts are not allowing the letter of the law to be met but the spirit being violated.
Q Isn’t that in contradiction to what the President originally proposed?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: There are a variety of different “pay as you go” proposals that have been put forward. There are existing Senate and House rules also. And again, what we’re trying to accomplish with that is an improvement that will avoid timing shifts being gained.
Q So the original proposal just wasn’t the best one to make?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: No, we didn’t actually have a fully specific statutory PAYGO proposal that was fully laid out. There are different ways of doing PAYGO, and we think this is an improvement on some previous versions.
Q But following up on that, if you do it over 10 years, doesn’t that allow you not to pay as you go for the early years in that 10-year period?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: You have to pay on average over the 10-year window.
Q Okay, but during those early years, for example, when we’re paying for health care reform, you don’t have to pay as you go?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: There are — well, again, in addition to the statutory PAYGO, there are existing House and Senate rules that would require matching upfront costs and upfront offsets. But again, I think one of the things that’s happened in the past — and you even saw this with regard to the 2001 and 2003 tax legislation when it was adopted — is that you create gains by shifting costs in offsets across years. And what we’re trying to do is say, no more gamesmanship like that.
Q Peter, are you concerned about the fact that the House committees of jurisdiction on health care have put forward their ideas of how to spend the money but they still haven’t said how they’re going to pay for any of it? And obviously just putting those important decisions off just leaves less time for conversation about this very matter.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, I think if you saw the Finance Committees white paper, they have put forward ideas about how they could pay for it. I think many of the details will be forthcoming over the next — in the coming weeks. But I also think there is widespread agreement and recognition that the package will have to be deficit-neutral in order to be enacted.
Q Right, but I’m talking about specifically the House side at the moment. Wouldn’t it have been more responsible to come and up say, if you’re going to talk about spending money, talk about how you’re going to pay for it?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Again, I think there’s recognition that in the legislation as it emerges from the committees — and you, again, have committee jurisdictional issues with different committees being responsible for different parts of the overall legislation, it will come together with both the coverage aspect and the offsets aspect being joined. And then, again, I want to emphasize we not only have to make sure that we are expanding coverage in a fiscally responsible way, but if that’s all we did, we would be perpetuating a system that has some issues with it where we could be doing a lot better.
Q Peter, can you say just roughly — I know you can’t get real granular on this, but just roughly, what percentage of the federal budget will be subject to PAYGO rules? Because when it comes to mandatory, the three big entitlement programs really don’t fall under this; they can’t be restrained under PAYGO rules. Discretionary is another big chunk. So it seems like at least, I don’t know, 60, 70 percent of the federal budget isn’t under PAYGO rules at all.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: No, let me –- that is wrong. So the only part that’s not covered by PAYGO is the discretionary part of the budget, which is a little under 40 percent of the total. So 60 percent is conceptually subject to PAYGO. I guess you’d have to take out the interest payments, which are not.
But the exemptions that you may be hearing about have to do more with how the sequestration part of statutory PAYGO would work, in particular if, for example, the Congress adopted policies that cost more than the savings were, there would be an automatic sequestration that would apply to some programs, not all. And that’s where you would hear about the exemptions for Social Security, for Medicaid — actually, Medicare is included there.
The sequestration rules are there. They don’t typically get triggered, because everyone knows that that would be a very bad outcome. And so the very threat of that occurring means that it’s not necessary to implement them.
Q But, I mean, those entitlements are going to continue to grow.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Okay, so that’s a separate question. What this is doing is saying we can’t dig the hole any deeper. But as is well-recognized, all this does is prevent the hole from getting deeper, which, by the way, would be a significant accomplishment. If you look back over the past eight years, what has happened is through the Medicare prescription drug benefit and other steps that we did not pay for we did make the hole deeper.
Q And that would have been an example of something –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: That would have been an example of something that would have been subject to “pay as you go.”
Q Medicare Part D would have been under PAYGO?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Yes.
Q Peter, can you just elaborate a little on the sequestration? It’s my understanding that in the 1990s, those — that provision was waived. In other words, at the end of the year, CBO would score and Congress would just simply waive it. So what does your proposal do to prevent that from happening in the future? Is that how you’re addressing it, with the 10 years, or what?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: There were some questions that arose at the very end of the decade with regard to how the rules operate in an era of surpluses. So I guess all I would say is let’s hope that we quickly return to having that kind of problem. In an era of deficits –
Q Were they never waived in an era of deficits?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: There were very few exceptions. And again, waiving statutory PAYGO has a different set of rules associated with it than waiving the House and Senate rules that can be waived by a vote.
Q Senator Conrad says that PAYGO can only do so much and that one of the problems that you have is you have to address the existing deficits and the rising debt. And I’m just wondering what your reaction and what your response to that is?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, I agree with that. “Pay as you go” embodies the common-sense principle that you shouldn’t dig the hole deeper. It doesn’t deal with the underlying hole, and that underlying hole, if you look out over the long term, is being driven mostly by rising Medicare and Medicaid costs. It’s one of the reasons why we want to act so aggressively to address the variation between McAllen versus El Paso and make the health care system more efficient — because if we don’t we are on an utterly unsustainable fiscal course.
That’s why we’re trying to get health care done this year in a way that not only is deficit-neutral over the next five or 10 years, but also puts in place a lot of the structural changes that will lead to a more efficient health care system over time.
Q Some of the critics, though, say that the stimulus package and other measures show that you’re not serious about really containing the deficit.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, look, we have two deficits that we are grappling with. One is the deficit in GDP, the gap between how much the economy could produce and how much it is producing, which estimates suggest amounted to roughly a trillion dollars a year when we came into office. The very first priority was to try to start to address that, mitigate the sense of freefall in the economy, and start to boost economic growth again back up to what the potential of the economy is. That’s one issue, and that’s something that is very paramount for the next year or two.
A separate issue is the budget deficits that then go out over time, not only in the next five or 10 years, but over the very long term. And again at the heart of all that is health care.
Q Would the stimulus have fallen under PAYGO?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: No, the stimulus is in the discretionary part of the budget.
Q All part of the discretionary?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Yes.
Q You seemed to suggest in the beginning that the surpluses of the 1990s were the result of PAYGO. Do you really believe that PAYGO created — I mean, wasn’t that just the result of revenue coming in as a result of a strong economy?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: I think there were a variety of forces that came together to create surpluses during the 1990s. One of them was economic growth. Another was a set of fiscal discipline tools that contributed to overall fiscal improvement. So there were — and frankly, then, there were a variety of other things, too, including the ending of the Cold War and a whole variety of other stuff.
Q So PAYGO would be miniscule –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: No, I think — here’s the thing. I think — I do strongly believe in the broken glass — broken window theory of budgeting, which is, if you don’t have any — just like broken windows have been shown to increase crime and harm outcomes, if you don’t have important constraints, including a basic principle that if you’ve already got a hole you don’t dig it deeper, which is what PAYGO embodies — I think it leads to a sense that anything is possible in a fiscally irresponsible way, and undermines a lot of what we’re trying to do.
So was it the only thing that led to surpluses during the 1990s? No. Did it contribute to a sense of fiscal discipline that helped to generate the surpluses? Yes.
Q So how do you reply to those who say, well, you just dug the hole really deep, and now you’re announcing that we want to stop digging?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, let’s look at what that hole was. We came into office, we faced this massive GDP gap, a deficit that was already projected to be in excess of a trillion dollars, and the need to address a crisis in the financial system and a deep economic hole. All of the deficit this year relates to the severity of the economic recession and to the steps that were deemed necessary to address it.
Now, let’s look out over time. And again, we are applying this “pay as you go” principle not only to health care reform but to other things that we are doing. So it’s not only that we haven’t made anything worse on that long-term and medium-term deficit, but to the extent that we succeed in wringing more efficiencies out of the health care system, I think we will have taken the single most important step we could to address the core driver of our long-term deficits.
Q On a political level, how will this make it easier for you or for the Congress to come to an agreement about how to pay for health care? In other words, how does this contribute to the end goal of figuring that out?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: I think let’s separate the statutory PAYGO from the PAYGO principle applied to health care. I think that’s the key point.
The PAYGO principle applied to health care is not only something the President believes in strongly, but it’s also embodied in the rules that already apply in the Senate and the House. And so I don’t — I think it’s worth distinguishing between those two –
Q — under reconciliation –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Either way. So either — even not under reconciliation, you have PAYGO rules that apply in the House and Senate. But it is worth noting that under reconciliation, health care reform not only has to be deficit-neutral, it actually has to be slightly deficit-increasing in order to be consistent with reconciliation.
Q Deficit-increasing?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Decreasing.
Q But, wait, you’re saying that even without this, health care would have to be deficit-neutral because of the rules; it doesn’t need anything statutory to make that happen?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Unless the existing House and Senate rules were waived –
Q Well, I’m just — I’m wondering if politically you think this is the kind of gesture that will make it — that will help in any way to get the kind of agreement you need on the pay-for side of health care, since you guys haven’t been able to do that yet.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, I think the legislative — (laughter) — no wonder you have so much fun every day. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: Oh, yeah. (Laughter.) It’s ridiculous. (Laughter.)
Q You had a lot of Blue Dogs here — I mean, does this contribute in any way to –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: The legislative process is unfolding –
Q Changing the tone, are you –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, I think it is worth remarking upon how much agreement there is and recognition that there is that this effort must be deficit-neutral. We will get there. The legislative process is unfolding, so you will see it playing out over the coming weeks. And I think we should let that process unfold.
Q Before you go, you mentioned a moment ago the additional proposing of $200 billion to $300 billion in additional cost savings. Does that mean the administration does not foresee the need for either it to propose or Congress to enact tax increases beyond the down payment outlined in the budget submission?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: No, what we’ve said is that we will be coming forward with additional Medicare and Medicaid savings. There may well be additional revenue that’s necessary; we’ll have to see how the revenue — how the process plays out.
Q How the scoring goes.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: How the scoring goes. There are a lot –
Q — and political reaction.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: There are lots of moving pieces. So I think the point is, if you put together our down payment and what was in the President’s letter, on which there will be more details forthcoming in the near future, you are getting in the range. There may be additional Medicare and Medicaid savings that are necessary; there may be some additional revenue that’s necessary. It will depend on what the scoring is like and how the final package congeals.
Q Peter, just one last question. If this is just stopping the hole from getting any bigger, when are you guys going to take on the serious program of entitlement reform so that you’re no longer digging a hole at all? When is that going to happen?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, what I’m trying to say is –
Q — and health care is part of that.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: No — and actually, just pause for a second, because I think it’s easy — I’ve come from a world where Social Security reform was the sort of test of manhood, in terms of entitlement reform.
Q That’s what I’m saying.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Yes, I know that. (Laughter.) Let’s just focus –
MR. GIBBS: Despite the fact that you’re outlining hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Exactly.
MR. GIBBS: — Jake would like to fast-forward from that to some other programs. (Laughter.)
Q But he’s the one that said the hole is still there.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: But let me just highlight –
MR. GIBBS: Right, and made bigger by the fact we added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare that he just said would be covered –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: But let me make –
Q So take it away.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Jake, let me make the point this way.
MR. GIBBS: Are you proposing that as a –
Q I’m not the one that has legislative power.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: This is fun. (Laughter.)
Q You’re saying Medicare Part B is a major deficit problem. Where’s the proposal to take it away?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Can I make this point –
MR. GIBBS: Peter outlines that.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Over the next two months, two to three months, we will be in the midst of a legislative process on the core fiscal problem facing the United States. If we succeed — I mean, for example, here’s a calculation for you: If we succeed in reducing the growth rate of health care spending by 15 basis points, 0.15 percent points per year, that has a larger impact on the nation’s fiscal imbalance than eliminating the Social Security deficit.
And so what I’m trying to say is we need to be focusing on whether we are doing as much as we can to get that number down 15 basis points, 30 basis points, 100 basis points, 150 basis points. And then in addition, as the President has said, once we get — once we address the biggest problem that we face over the long term, we do need to turn to other parts of our long-term fiscal imbalance, including Social Security. But it strikes me as making sense to focus on the thing that is the core driver first, and we’re going to have plenty of discussion over the next two months about ways of trying to obtain a more efficient health care system.
Q So health care first, then entitlement reform?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, health care –
Q Health care includes some entitlement reform.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: It includes a lot. I mean, again — look, if health care costs grow at the same rate over the next four decades as they did over the past four decades, Medicare and Medicaid go from 5 percent of the economy today to 20 percent of the economy by 2050. That is the core driver of our entitlement problem. If we succeed in bending that curve we will have done more to improve the long-term fiscal health of the nation than any other single thing we could do — which is not to say other things aren’t important, but what I’m saying is over the next two months we have an opportunity, our best shot at addressing that problem and that’s what we want to do.
Q Peter, on that point, how could the stimulus not apply? How could PAYGO not apply to stimulus? Even if you save hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare, then you turn around and spend $787 billion on the stimulus, doesn’t that wipe out a lot of our savings?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: No. Again, the present value of the Medicare and Medicaid imbalance is many, many orders of magnitude larger. But remember what the Recovery Act was intended to do. As I said before, we have these two deficits. We needed to address the GDP gap — the gap between how much we could produce and how much we are producing — and there is widespread agreement that the key driver of that is that there is not adequate demand for how much firms could produce with their existing plants and equipment. What we’re trying to do through the Recovery Act is get the economy back on its feet.
PAYGO does not apply to that part of the budget which is the discretionary part of the budget. And furthermore, even if it did, it would be viewed as the kind of short-term economic situation in which the rules would typically be waived. But I think the more important thing is there is widespread mainstream economic agreement that in the midst of a severe economic downturn, temporarily running larger budget deficits is not only something that you should accept, it is actually desirable because it helps to get the economy back on its feet.
As the economy recovers, deficits become a problem. And that is why we are trying to act to address — coming back to Jake’s question — what we see as the key driver of our long-term deficits even while we’re fighting the short-term economic problem in which temporarily elevated deficits are unfortunately necessary.
Q Since we’re educating the public here on PAYGO, why shouldn’t discretionary spending be under PAYGO rules?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: There’s a wonky reason, which is that discretionary spending is just addressed year by year by the Congress, and so the rules are different. What happened in the 1990s was a separate set of constraints were applied to discretionary spending called discretionary caps. They just — I guess the short answer is it just — the legislative process is different for mandatory spending and revenue than it is the appropriation bills.
Q Why shouldn’t the cynical watcher out here sit there and say, okay, it’s “pay as you go,” unless it’s not? You know, it’s like you have this discretionary pot here; well, we don’t have to follow budgetary “pay as you go” rules, but over here we do. You see what I’m saying? How do you reconcile –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, let’s come back to things like the prescription drug benefit. That is a mandatory program. You can’t decide upon that year by year. And “pay as you go” would have applied to it.
Q So year-by-year pay-as-you-go budgeting?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: I’m sorry?
Q So year-by-year pay-as-you-go budgeting just doesn’t –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: The appropriations process goes through the discretionary part of the budget each year. And it’s just a different system than is used for Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and revenue.
MR. GIBBS: And what’s set up this time is very analogous to what was set up in the 1990s –
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Correct.
MR. GIBBS: — where, as Peter has talked about, we went from earlier in that time period much larger deficits to –
Q If you were doing Medicare entitlement reform on its own, not as part of expanding access, but you were just doing Medicare entitlement reform, you would be surely looking at a lot of things you’re looking at now — all of these scorable savings in addition to these long-term changes to the system. And in this case, you’re doing it as part of comprehensive health care reform, so all the savings that you’re getting you’re immediately spending on new subsidies.
So isn’t it, in terms of looking at it from a point of view how big the hole is — obviously, the hope is that long term you’re going to change the system to slow the spending, but you’re getting lots of savings that are immediately being re-spent. So how would you just address that from the point of view of a pure budget?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Well, what I would say is that we’re doing two things. One, is we are addressing the moral imperative of addressing the ranks of the uninsured, and we are making sure we are doing so in a fiscally responsible way by fully off-setting that cost.
And then, in addition to that, we are not just doing that, but moving beyond that to put in place health information technology, comparative effectiveness research, changes in financial incentives, the MedPAC proposal that we are open to in terms of changing the way Medicare policy is set that will lead to a more efficient health care system over time and that offer the best hope and the most auspicious approach to reducing the growth rate over time.
And I’ve said before, I’ll say it again here, I’ve attended innumerable Institute of Medicine meetings, Congressional Budget Office meetings, Brookings Institution forums, what have you; I think we’ve put together the most aggressive set of proposals in that latter category to lead to best practices in health care and produce a more efficient health care system. But we are open to other ideas. We are trying to dial that up as much as possible.
Q Just one more thing, and just to follow up on Laura’s question.
MR. GIBBS: This is the last one.
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: We’re having so much fun.
Q When does the curve get bent in the — in other words, after you finish paying — after you finish taking the savings and paying for the expansion of coverage, when do you get a net savings — a net reduction in health care costs? In like 10 years from now?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: We are going to be deficit-neutral even over five or 10 years. And to the extent — the difficulty about the game changers, the things that are intended to transform the way — to lead to a more efficient health care system, — is it’s very difficult to quantify — even though they’re the most auspicious list of changes, it’s difficult to quantify exactly how they will evolve over time, almost by design.
We have never changed our health care system towards a best practices one. So quantifying exactly what their impact is, is very difficult. But what I want to be very clear about is at worst this will be deficit-neutral. And then to the extent that these changes succeed in altering the practice of medicine in a way that experts have long believed that they will, the result will be much better than that.
Q Peter, you talked about another $200 billion to $300 billion. Will the President be talking to the House Ways and Means Democrats about details of that today?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Yes, in fact, I believe that I was here instead of attending that meeting right now.
Q You’re welcome. (Laughter.)
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Not so sure about that. Thank you.
Q He will be talking to them about that today?
DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Yes.
MR. GIBBS: But you can’t — Peter won’t leak it because he was in here.
Q Thanks, Peter.
Q Thank you.
Q This is turning into a health care –
Q How come you never bring Larry Summers out?
MR. GIBBS: You never know? I mean, what is it — Tuesday? Two guests? You never know who the special guest for Wednesday will be.
Ms. Loven.
Q Thank you. Can you talk about the President’s personal reaction to the setting of the hearing date for Judge Sotomayor? And is this — does this track with his timing of where he wants this to be and her getting confirmed by October?
MR. GIBBS: Well, obviously the President is pleased that the Senate has set a hearing date of July 13th. We have talked in this room before about the time period that normally happens as you go from nomination to hearing and then ultimately what we hope to be confirmation. From nomination to hearing will be about 48 days, which is consistent with the range of 51 days that I had mentioned in here a few days ago, that the past nine nominees — the average for the past nine nominees.
We sent the questionnaire to the Senate in record time and believe that this continues on a track that would have Judge Sotomayor confirmed and in place for the very important work that happens in the month before the term opens in September where the Court decides the cases that it’s going to take, which, as you know, is a very important period of time. So the President is pleased with the developments today in the Senate.
Yes.
Q Secretary Geithner said today that the President will be making an announcement next week on financial regulation. I’m just wondering if you can talk about how sweeping that announcement is going to be, and how involved is he going to be in the debate over what shape this plan should take, or is he going to mostly let Congress take the lead on that?
MR. GIBBS: No, I think he’ll — without getting into the specifics, the President and his economic team will outline a series of specific proposals as it relates to ensuring that we put in place a system of regulation that makes sure what happened previously to lead to this economic downturn doesn’t happen again. That’s been a priority that the President has talked about for a long time, many months before he got here, and something that he and the economic team are very focused on.
Q Some of the ideas that are being talked about within the administration, such as combining agencies like the SEC and the FTC, are controversial on Congress. Is he willing to –
MR. GIBBS: Well, let me — I’m not going to get into commenting on what is or is not accurate in the media about a proposal that will be made next week. I think it is safe to say that there will be some streamlining and some reorganization. But I hesitate to get involved in leaks tit-for-tat.
Q What day?
MR. GIBBS: I believe that is Wednesday of next week, if I’m not mistaken.
Jake.
Q Two questions about developments today, one regarding Ghailani’s trial, him being flown to the United States. If any of the detainees who are brought to trial through the U.S. criminal courts, or even through military commissions, if any of them are found not guilty, will the administration let them free?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about –
Q Well, forget the military commissions –
MR. GIBBS: I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about the court cases, either.
Q Well, this is an important part of the — you’re talking about a credible justice system, bringing these people to justice. You’ve spoken at great length about this, the President has. If they are found not guilty, will they be found –
MR. GIBBS: Well, let’s discuss that if it ever comes to fruition.
Q But isn’t that what is underlying a credible justice system, the idea that if you’re found not guilty you’ll be free?
MR. GIBBS: Sure.
Q So –
MR. GIBBS: But I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about how certain cases may or may not play out.
Q So you’re not willing to commit to freeing people if they’re found not guilty?
MR. GIBBS: I’m not willing to get into playing hypothetical games.
Q It’s not a game, Robert. It’s a question about the credibility of the justice system.
Q It’s the principle of it –
MR. GIBBS: No, it’s — I’m not debating legal principles. I’m just not getting into the hypothetical back-and-forth of what happens on a case.
Q Okay. So the Obama administration is refusing to say that if somebody is found not guilty they will be set free?
MR. GIBBS: Jake, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about specific outcomes of cases.
Q I’m not asking you to talk about a specific case. I’m talking about in general –
Q And for all the detainees brought into this system of justice, which the administration said can and has in the past handled adequately — more than adequately, according to your talking points this morning — the terrorism cases brought before it in whatever venue — if that justice system, which the administration says should be trusted, renders a verdict of not guilty, is that person released?
MR. GIBBS: We will talk about what happens about a verdict when a verdict comes.
Q Well, then how is the world supposed to have any confidence that this new system of justice that you guys are ensuring is going to be the case with the detainees is actually credible?
MR. GIBBS: We think the Southern District of New York has a very good record as it relates to trying and convicting terror suspects.
Q I believe what you’re — the fact sheet said this morning was that it has a 90-percent success rate.
MR. GIBBS: I think 90 is pretty good.
Q I’m not questioning whether 90 is pretty good; I’m asking about the 10 percent.
MR. GIBBS: And I’m, in this specific case, not going to get into those hypotheticals.
Q The other question I have has to do with the $68 billion that’s going to be paid back in TARP money. Herb Allison, your nominee to be Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, told the Senate Banking Committee that that money might be used to provide more assistance to troubled firms. Is that right?
MR. GIBBS: Well, the money goes back into general revenue. I think the way the statute for TARP is written is that the amount obligated can’t exceed the amount of $700 billion. But again, this money goes back into general revenue. It’s our obvious hope that additional money is not going to have to be used to stabilize banks. I think the result in the past several weeks at the conclusion of the most recent round of stress tests denoted that banks have been very capable at raising private capital in order to ensure that they meet regulator requirements for capital cushions.
Q But it could be used?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out, but I also wouldn’t rule it in.
Yes, Helen.
Q In terms of Afghanistan and Iraq, can you cite the difference between your administration and the Bush administration’s foreign policy?
MR. GIBBS: On Iraq and Afghanistan? Yes, there are approximately 21,000 additional troops in Afghanistan and a plan to remove all combat brigades from Iraq, unlike the previous administration.
Q That’s the difference?
MR. GIBBS: I would say that’s two of the bigger differences, yes.
Q The Bush administration never planned to increase the troops in Afghanistan?
MR. GIBBS: I think the request for additional troops had been sitting on the desk of somebody either in this building or in a certain five-sided building for quite some time without additional — without that additional request being met.
Q And you’re bragging about that? The President bragged about not — (laughter) –
MR. GIBBS: Now, come on, Helen, you asked me what the difference was. I said more troops, and then you said, well, so you — my answer means I’m bragging. (Laughter.) I mean, you asked me to outline the factual differences between –
Q The President bragged about being against Iraq.
MR. GIBBS: Pardon me?
Q The President bragged about being against Iraq — about the invasion.
MR. GIBBS: The President denoted that he spoke out in opposition to that war. We’re not bragging –
Q Well, why –
MR. GIBBS: Let me finish my answer, Helen. We’re not bragging — I’m not bragging — I don’t know why we would brag that we’ve put 21,000 people — I think what the President did, and he said throughout the campaign and he’s done as Commander-in-Chief in the four or so months that we’ve been here is resource the war in Afghanistan in a way that meets the seriousness of that effort, that for quite some time we saw –
Q Do you think people were not serious?
MR. GIBBS: We think that additional troops were required in order to stabilize a security situation that was deteriorating greatly. I think that has been largely proven by the fact that everybody on the ground said that situation was deteriorating. The President said he would meet that deteriorating situation with a greater commitment of resources — not just military but also — as well and through the use of civil society in ensuring that we’re doing stuff to stabilize and increase and grow the economy there; and that we’re undertaking significant gestures of aid to ensure stabilization there as well as in Pakistan.
Q Many people are dying and many people are being killed, and we’re killing people there. And you haven’t explained why.
MR. GIBBS: I think we’ve discussed the severe tragedy involved in civilian casualties. I think you’ve seen some remarkable gestures recently in our new ambassador there accompanying the leadership of Afghanistan to the site of some of those horrible and tragic mistakes — none of which anybody wants to see. But, Helen, there are people in Afghanistan and in the border region that are planning to do this country harm, just as they planned to do this country harm in the lead-up to September 11. The President said –
Q What proof do you have of that?
MR. GIBBS: Helen, you and I should just go in the Situation Room and we can have somebody explain it to you.
Q Can we go, too? (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: No. (Laughter.) One-person invitation. I’m sorry, Mark — she’ll pool it for you.
Q On Chrysler, the Supreme Court review, any concern here that maybe the President overstepped his authority, didn’t hear out the bondholders? What’s your response to this review?
MR. GIBBS: No, because I — one of the interesting things is some of the bondholders involved in the very case were some of the bondholders that accepted the offer just a few weeks ago.
Look, we understand this is part of the process. People are entitled to press their case. But I think it’s important — we’re certainly hopeful that the outcome will be handed down fairly quickly. Obviously I think there is a sense of urgency here. I understand that our options outside of what we’ve proposed are extremely limited. The actions that this administration has taken now have kept plants opened, have saved jobs in those communities, and has kept the vast majority of dealerships open. We believe that the best chance for these jobs to be maintained and for this company to survive is through the restructuring process that the Auto Task Force has admirably done.
We’ve talked about in here concern that people have had about dealerships, decisions that were made by Chrysler. The decision made by Chrysler maintains 75 percent in the sheer number of dealerships, representing 87 percent of the cars that are sold by Chrysler. Understand — and I think it’s important for people to understand — that’s 75 percent more than would be operating if a sale were to fall through and liquidation was to happen; that the effects of liquidation would be severe and profound.
We believe, as I said, that the structure that we have put Chrysler on when it comes out of the sale represents the best chance to ensure viability for Chrysler, to see the investment that has previously been made by taxpayers to have a chance to recoup some of that money. That’s the best opportunity going forward. And understand that delay in this situation means that it already costs the taxpayers additional financing during this time.
Q A quick follow on something else, the CIA interrogation tapes. Why is the administration trying to block the release of the Bush-era documents on the CIA interrogation tapes, when previously you released Bush-era memos and said you didn’t really have a national security concern about it because these methods were already out there, the media had reported on it?
MR. GIBBS: Well, but understand — I think if you look at particularly at some of the memos that were released, you see that there was some redaction taken to ensure highly sensitive information. Obviously a great amount of the information contained in those memos were known by your network and others, and have been for quite some time. They’ve been in the media, they’ve been in books; the people in the previous administration have written communications back and forth involved in some of these cables. You can’t redact that information. That’s what it is. The President believes, the administration believes that that material is highly sensitive.
Q But the CIA is saying that this could be a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. Haven’t you said previously the President has been removing recruiting tools by ending torture to begin with?
MR. GIBBS: Yes, and that was one of the reasons that the larger framework of those memos — again, those tactics were — I’ve used this example with you before — the graphic that you all had about waterboarding wasn’t a graphic that was created after the release and the reading of these memos. It’s been something that’s been discussed, my guess is, for many, many hours on your network.
Chip.
Q Thank you, Robert. Following up on Jennifer’s question, you’re already getting pushback or you or Pat Leahy is already getting pushback on that July 13th date. Jon Kyl said that she has 10 times as many cases as Roberts had. Now there’s a statement from the Republicans in the Senate saying that it would take 76 — you’d have to read 76 cases per day of her record, compared to six cases per day of the Roberts record. They’re also noting that Alito took 70 days, Robert then but 48 days. So they’re just pulling out everything they can here, it looks like, to make the argument that this date is not going to work. What can the President do to keep this on track? Is he going to get involved or is this just up to Pat Leahy?
MR. GIBBS: Well, the date — the hearing date has been set.
Q Yes, but they can drag their feet. There are plenty of things Republicans can do.
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I don’t think — I honestly don’t think that’s the course that many would want to go down. She seems to — my hunch is that the average isn’t actually 76, because it appears, based on some of the questions from in here, some people in the Republican Party have read some of those cases. That might decrease the average by a few.
There were suggestions that this hearing should take place after Labor Day. I’ll pull out another statistic to go — you can e-mail them then. The statistic — if we wait until after Labor Day to have a hearing, that would actually be the longest amount of time ever for a Supreme Court nominee, from the announcement of the nomination to the beginning of the hearing. I don’t think anybody thinks that’s a good idea. The information that — the cases that she’s been involved with, the opinions that she’s written are publicly available. She’s been confirmed by the Senate on two occasions, most recently in 1998.
So my sense is there are a number of people on that committee and a number of people that continue to serve in the Senate that have a pretty firm understanding and relationship with a lot that she’s written in the past. We think this is eminently doable, though we appreciate the notion that she represents a justice that has experience unlike anybody that’s been nominated in a hundred years.
Q But since this time schedule is so important to the President, is it in his interest to reach out to these Republicans and talk to them personally about why –
MR. GIBBS: I think that members of the Senate have talked to — Democratic members have talked to Republican members. Our belief is that this hearing can be done in this time frame. We talked about the very important work that happens in September as the Court decides the exact nature of the cases that it’s going to take up in the coming term, how important that work is. We think that whether it’s 48 or 51, it’s certainly eminently doable in that time frame, and the President looks forward to that hearing.
Yes, sir.
Q Do you guys have any additional information on the bombing in Pakistan?
MR. GIBBS: Not that I — I saw it before I came out there, but I don’t have anything from NSC.
Q Second, let’s go to our friend Joe in Kansas City; reconcile –
MR. GIBBS: Will you bring Joe? (Laughter.)
Q — reconcile yesterday and the $800 billion you guys were talking about ramping up spending in the deficit, and today “pay as you go.” I mean, how do you close that gap? This is a similar question to what I asked Peter, and he was technical. But how do you –
MR. GIBBS: The $800 billion, are you referring to the stimulus?
Q Yes. How do you keep your credibility on spending money, and spending a lot of money, between bailouts, GM, bank bailouts –
MR. GIBBS: Who does Joe work for?
Q What’s that?
MR. GIBBS: Who does Joe work for?
Q He works for the American people, apparently. I don’t know who Joe works for. He’s employed.
MR. GIBBS: I’m asking what Joe might do.
Q Plumber. (Laughter.)
Q Mark is on a roll. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: Mark, you tried to help him out and it took him for God knows how long to finally –
Q He’s a manager of a good steak restaurant.
MR. GIBBS: I assume you’ve eaten there. (Laughter.)
Q Reconcile today, the “pay as you go,” but then there’s all these exceptions about where “pay as you go” doesn’t affect, and then you’re talking about spending all this money on the side. I mean, why — how is it that the public should have — should feel like you guys are credibly trying to control spending?
MR. GIBBS: Several different things. One, and I think we did talk about this yesterday — I don’t know if Joe was watching — but in order to get this economy moving again, exactly what Peter talked about, the decrease in demand of what this economy could be producing. If Joe works at a — if Joe is the manager at a good steak restaurant, my sense is that people are eating out fewer days in the week, because this economy has slowed down. Increasing the demand for this economy, putting money back into people’s pockets through a tax cut that 95 percent of working families are going to do, my sense is they may just spend it at some of that at Joe’s steakhouse. But in order to get this economy moving again, we’re going to have to spur that demand. I think –
Q So yesterday it was about deficits; today it’s not. I mean, I’m just saying, how is it –
MR. GIBBS: I’m sorry, today is not about deficits?
Q Today is not about — today is about how you’re not going to have deficits, you’re going to pay as you go. And yesterday was about how –
MR. GIBBS: I don’t know if Joe is confused, but I think I am.
Q Well, that’s the — how do you deal with that confusion of, yesterday you’re talking about how much money you’re going to spend and all of this deficit spending that you’re forced to do, and Peter just described it as a second deficit, which –
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, let’s get — I mean, again, let’s use the example of somebody that works in Kansas City at a restaurant, or owns a restaurant or manages a restaurant. Again, likely that they’ve seen fewer and fewer people decide they want to eat out because the economy is bad, right? So we want to increase demand. We want to spur the economy.
Just like Joe probably — let’s say Joe is going to send a kid to college. Joe is going to make an investment in the long-term future through the education of Joe Jr. So we’re making investments that will create a foundation for long-term economic growth so that the economy improves, that people have more money to spend and go to Joe’s restaurant.
Q So you feel like you’re not going to lose any credibility — with the fact that — everything goes under “pay as you go”?
MR. GIBBS: No, but, again, I think the examples that Peter used about “pay as you go” in the ’90s — I think the example that Peter used — we had economics representing conservative and liberal viewpoints that understood that we needed an economic recovery plan to get this economy moving. I think Joe probably understands that better than anybody because he’s likely felt the downturn in that economy. Is that good enough for Joe?
Q Well –
MR. GIBBS: Call him and see.
Q Why are a majority of people disapproving of the fact of your handling of the spending?
MR. GIBBS: You can ask Joe. But I think the President has decided that there are things that have to be done to get this economy moving again; that we have to address the long-term costs of health care, making it affordable for small businesses and for families, laying the predicate for and the foundation for long-term economic growth. Those are the things that have to be done.
Again, a recovery plan is a temporary stimulus plan to increase the demand in our economy.
Yes, ma’am.
Q Two questions. The first is, following up on our conversation with Peter, could you address the central question that kept coming back, which is that all the exceptions that are involved with PAYGO, including for discretionary spending, there aren’t the same caps that existed in the ’90s, and there are a lot of exceptions to things that would apply, and there is already a lot of criticism of that — so could you just sort of address how this is to be taken as a truly serious proposal?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I don’t think — I think I’d leave most of that to what Peter said. It’s a serious proposal because we don’t have it now; we’re digging that — we’ve dug that hole deeper. We need to take steps to put ourselves back on a path toward fiscal responsibility. The President has a budget that cuts the deficit in half in four years, and, as Peter tried in his answers to discuss, quite clearly what needs to be done in order to ensure that our long-term and medium-term Medicare costs don’t swamp the economy, and that we do something about families that are facing the rising costs of health care each day.
Q Did I hear him right, that the President will be outlining the $200 billion to $300 billion in additional Medicare savings in this meeting?
MR. GIBBS: I think he’s going to discuss it. I think larger and more detail will come in, as he said, in the near future.
Q And is he discussing the general idea of it or is he giving specifics of –
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think when we’re ready to give the full detail we’ll do it as part of an event, rather than through some group. We’ll do it just –
Q That’s what I’m trying to clarify, whether you’re –
MR. GIBBS: Whether you need to follow the Ways and Means members when you get out of here or whether you can just go write your story?
Q Might it be Thursday in Green Bay?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t believe it will be, no.
Q The answer to that is that he’s not detailing it or he may be –
MR. GIBBS: They’re going to discuss some of it, but full details will be done, as Peter said, in the near future.
Q Robert, in answer to Jake you said the $68 billion in payback might be used again. The President made it sound like it’s coming off the national debt and it’s not going to be used again — at least that’s how it sounds to me.
MR. GIBBS: Again, I think this goes into general — this goes back into a general revenue fund.
Q Well, then it doesn’t come off the debt.
MR. GIBBS: Let me double-check with the Treasury guys on this.
Q Just to clarify that. It goes into general revenue — by general revenue, that’s more general than the TARP. So basically if it were to be used for TARP again it has to be reallocated or reappropriated.
MR. GIBBS: Let me check. I think the notion that there’s a separate TARP account — I know there’s certainly an authorization and an appropriation, but I think it’s not necessarily like a savings account-type thing.
Q Treasury officials have said that it could be used again for another bank that needed help. And you’re going to check on that?
MR. GIBBS: Yes, sir.
Q Related to that, would the administration, since it’s in a position the previous administration was not, where some of this money is coming back, be open to — I don’t want to get into all the budget terminology of the 1990s — but a lockbox or something that would be transparent — (laughter) — and visible to taxpayers –
MR. GIBBS: They groaned, not me, Major. I just — let the transcript reflect –
Q I prefaced it by saying I didn’t want to revisit all the budget talks of the ’90s.
MR. GIBBS: — want to play now? (Laughter)
Q That was your shot. (Laughter.)
MR. BURTON: I’m emailing him now.
MR. GIBBS: He probably saw it. (Laughter.)
Q Would the White House be open to that, doing something legislatively now where the public could see where repayments have gone, and –
MR. GIBBS: I can certainly check on this. I think –
Q — where it wouldn’t automatically go back to general revenue, but it would be appraised — as the President said, there would –
MR. GIBBS: I think — let me get a — I think there is a far more technical answer regarding –
Q I’m sure there is.
MR. GIBBS: — and I heard parts of this about score ability, and it’s innumerably more complicated than that. I do think what’s important — let me tell you this, Major, I do think what’s important and in part of this is that this money — one, I think it’s important that people understand and — just understand the concept — Washington tends to want to know what you’re going to do with the money next. I think — I do think it’s important to underscore for people that the program has been run in a way that the money has been paid back. The money has been paid back with some interest. And I think that is something that the American people can be happy about.
Q Do you have any reaction to the congressional assessment the stress tests were too light?
MR. GIBBS: That didn’t seem to be the prevailing opinion in the months leading up to it. Again, I think the regulators set out a series of tests that they believed adequately outlined the possible deteriorating conditions in the economy, and I think there’s a certain amount of confidence that can be gained in the notion that — or by the concept that these banks raised that money in a private way in order to make up the cushions that regulators believed they needed.
Q Right, but the conditions outlined are in some cases worse now than they were asked to apply themselves to –
MR. GIBBS: I think certainly — I think the administration is confident in the tests that were conducted.
Q Just to follow up on Chip’s question, we talked yesterday about Judge Sotomayor’s repeated use of this term “better” and you said, well, you really need to evaluate the entire judicial record to understand the context and the way she would approach cases. Taking your comments yesterday, that would include, I would imagine, all 13,000 opinions, would it not?
MR. GIBBS: Yes.
Q And the White House believes that the time allotted between now and July 13th gives all interested parties adequate time at whatever rate — 76, 70, 50 cases a day — to review that record, and there’s nothing inconsistent with asking them to evaluate the whole record, not her speeches, and doing all that by July 13th?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I don’t think it’s inconsistent. In fact, in the questionnaire that was sent to the Senate in 1997, upon her nomination for the judgeship that she has now contains one of the speeches that you all in this room have alluded to. That nomination sat — that questionnaire was sent up in 1997. And as you all know in your reporting of it, that nomination sat in the Senate for a year. And do you know how many questions were asked about that?
Q I don’t remember any — having been at the Senate around that time, I don’t remember any.
MR. GIBBS: Rhymes with “none.”
Q Yes, but my question wasn’t about that.
MR. GIBBS: No, I understand. I was walking you through a totally different point. (Laughter.)
Q Why don’t you answer my question instead of answering the one you’ve been paid to answer?
MR. GIBBS: It’s called “comment as you go.”
Q Why don’t you answer my question –
MR. GIBBS: Well, I did in saying I think that — I think that, again, I think there are many members that have been there — were there for her most recent confirmation in 1998. I think she — as I said, she’s been confirmed twice by the Senate. And we believe that adequate time — there is adequate time between her nomination and the beginning of her hearing to go through her legal opinions, her statements. And that’s why the questionnaire was sent to the Senate in a record time.
Q Robert, how much did the government make on this $68 billion –
MR. GIBBS: I believe it’s — it’s either $1.8 billion or $1.9 billion.
Q That was profit?
MR. GIBBS: Yes. I mean, obviously money is loaned at an interest rate and paid back with that accrued interest.
Q In regards to Ghailani, some critics have said that the administration is essentially bypassing Congress by approving this transfer because of the theory about having people come from Guantanamo. What’s your response to that?
MR. GIBBS: Look, the President outlined in January, in signing the executive order, that he would seek swift and certain justice for those at Guantanamo Bay that we could try either in military commissions, through Article III or federal courts, and outlined this specific example in the speech that he gave a couple weeks ago at the Archives relating to our policy in closing Guantanamo Bay.
This is somebody, to keep in mind, who’s been indicted with 286 separate counts relating to the death of 224 people, 12 Americans, in a crime that was committed 11 years ago.
I think that the victims — the families of the victims that were involved have waited far too long for justice to be served. The President outlined a plan to bring justice, and that’s what he is doing in this case.
And I saw somebody say — I saw somebody say this was a hasty decision. This crime occurred in 1998, not during the last administration but the administration before that. I think the notion of getting on with this case is far from hasty.
Q Robert, just a follow-up on Chuck’s question. The President has very high approval ratings, but the only two areas where he doesn’t have a majority are the areas of the spending and the deficit. Do you think an event like the one he did today can change that perception?
MR. GIBBS: I think the President is going to make decisions about the course of our economy and fiscal responsibility not based on the number in some public poll, but instead by what he thinks is important to get our economy moving again, to lay that foundation for long term economic growth and to ensure that we’re taking the steps that are necessary to put ourselves back on a path toward fiscal responsibility. Today’s event was not about some number that popped up in some poll.
Q I’m not saying that was the purpose of it; I’m just saying people seem to not agree that he is being fiscally responsible, and wondering if this kind of thing that you did today could correct their misimpression, if you think –
MR. GIBBS: I think the President again, is going to make decisions based on what’s best for the economy. We’ll let polls say what polls say.
Q Thank you, Robert.
MR. GIBBS: Thanks, guys.
END 3:34 P.M. EDT
#70-06/09/2009
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11. June 2009 by admin.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 8, 2009
PRESS BRIEFING BY
PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS AND THE VICE PRESIDENT’S
CHIEF ECONOMIST, JARED BERNSTEIN
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
2:28 P.M. EDT
MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon. Before we do our regularly scheduled programming — I’ll do this after Jared — I’ve got an announcement before we do our regular questions. But before we get started Jared Bernstein, the Vice President’s chief economist, will walk us through the roadmap to recovery that the President and the Vice President spoke about today.
He’ll take a few of your questions and then back to me. Jared.
MR. BERNSTEIN: Thank you, Robert. This is different, I usually face you one at a time.
The President and the Vice President today outlined the roadmap to recovery, which spotlights some of the ways we’re going to accelerate the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act during its second 100 days.
While there are some hopeful signs that the pace of the downturn has diminished, the nation’s economy has yet to recover. You heard the President this morning acknowledge that we remain in the midst of a deep recession. Most importantly from the perspective of working families, the nation’s employers are still shedding jobs on net.
As we’ve said many times, when the private sector economy is under-performing there’s a critical role for the government to play in temporarily picking up the slack. The Recovery Act does that through a uniquely broad set of provisions designed to create or save millions of jobs over the life of the bill. We’ve talked about that extensively over the first hundred days. Now, thus far over that period we’ve created or saved over 150,000 jobs, cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, increased unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, provided fiscal stabilization relief — that’s particularly important, given states’ fiscal conditions — to 26 states, made funds available for over 4,000 transportation projects, projects that put people back to work.
In fact, we’ve obligated an average of over a billion dollars per day in Recovery Act funds, and we’ve done so with a level of oversight and accountability I don’t believe any of us have ever seen before at any level of government.
In the second 100 days we plan to accelerate these activities in ways I’ll describe in a moment. Our goal is to create or save 600,000 jobs over this next period. And now that we have laid the groundwork over the first 100 days, we could accelerate the implementation over the second.
It’s important to remember while the Recovery Act is an integral part of our plan — one that spurs new demand and puts people back to work during these hardest hit times — it is but one part of our plan. It’s one pillar. The financial stabilization plan, the housing plan, financial regulatory reform, a budget that makes historical investments in energy, health care and education, while cutting the deficit in half over our first term, remain other central pillars of our economic plan.
Now, at this point I’d like to briefly run through 10 new major projects that will define the next three months of the Recovery Act underway across the United States. This also reveals how we’re addressing the economic downturns throughout all regions of the country in every state and all the territories. It’s a pervasive recession geographically, and the Recovery Act is equally pervasive geographically.
Now is a test whether the system is truly idiot-proof. And there we go — I don’t think we’ve ever used this here before, so making history.
Q Was that paper a stimulus — (laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: We cut newspapers. (Laughter.)
Q Ooh.
Q Harsh.
Q Robert, in all seriousness, isn’t there one behind there that we could have popped open –
MR. GIBBS: You want to move over here so you can see that?
Q I mean, I have a print-out version of it.
MR. GIBBS: I was going to say, you can use my –
Q That’ll be great.
MR. BERNSTEIN: The first line, actually combines all of the activity from the next 10 slides, the 10 programs I’m going to articulate, and you get a sense I think from all those little dots across the nation how geographically extensive this is. The act — so now we’re going to go one through one by these 10 different pieces of — parts of the plan we’ll be ramping up and implementing over the next hundred days.
The act enabled over 1,100 health centers in 50 states and eight territories to provide extended, expanded service to approximately 300,000 patients of these health centers. The Health and Human Services program will create jobs and support health center efforts to improve access to quality, comprehensive, and affordable care. I view this as particularly important in a climate where job loss also means the loss of health insurance coverage through the job for so many hundreds of thousands of workers.
We’ll begin work on rehabilitation and improvement projects at 98 airports and over 1,500 highway locations throughout the country. These projects include runway construction at selected airports to increase capacity, interstate repaving projects to reduce bottlenecks and congestion.
And by the way, I think this aspect of the plan is important in the sense that the plan ramps up, as you’re seeing, as we’re discussing, over the summer and then towards the end of next year the plan ramps down; it’s a two-year plan. And in order to maintain the fiscal responsibility that’s so important to this President and to our budget, the plan needs to get into and out of the system. But investments like these will continue to boost the quality of the nation’s infrastructure and promote productive activity throughout our economy after the plan is over.
Over the second hundred days we’ll fund 135,000 education jobs, including teachers, principals and support staff. The recovery funds will help to keep outstanding teachers in America’s schools and help address several reforms to ensure that every child can receive a complete and competitive education.
Now, this, by the way, is one dimension of the — we talk a lot about jobs created or saved — this is an area where you see jobs saved, in many cases because of very tight and constrained state fiscal budgets, the help that the plan provides enables states and municipalities to avoid layoffs of workers, be they teachers, firefighters, police, and saving those jobs is critical to the provision of these essential services.
The plan over the next hundred days begins improvement at 90 veterans’ medical centers across 38 states. It’s going to help upgrade existing veterans’ medical centers to increase the quality of the facilities to deliver the kind of care our soldiers deserve.
This is one that is particularly dear to my boss, the Vice President. The plan will hire or keep over the next 100 days on the job approximately 5,000 law enforcement officers. These funds are going to be used to hire new officers while also retaining our veteran force.
Start 200 new waste and water systems in rural America. Another dimension of this plan is to go beyond simply urban and suburban localities and to reach into rural America. These projects will replace outdated water mains and build waste-water treatment facilities for small communities.
This one I thought was particularly germane given summer vacation season: Begin work on 107 national parks. Through these projects we’ll preserve the national park system, a true American treasure, and launch long overdue projects.
Begin or accelerate cleanup work at 20 super-fund sites from the national priority list. Super-fund work will boost local economies by creating and maintaining jobs, while also protecting human health and the environment.
Critical piece here: to create 125,000 summer youth jobs, very much part of the summer agenda here. Empowering our young people through meaningful summer employment, keep them off the streets, provide them with valuable work experience. Many of these plans have a very good track record in setting folks up for better careers when they become adults in the labor force.
Initiate 2,300 construction and rehabilitation projects at 359 military facilities across the nation. Department of Defense projects will improve personnel living quarters and install green technologies throughout the country for the United States military.
Today we also launched whitehouse.gov/recovery, a new Web page that allows the public to follow the progress on the road to recovery in their communities, and hear from folks whose lives are being influenced by the Recovery Act.
Thank you all. I’ll turn things back to Mr. Gibbs.
MR. GIBBS: Jake, do you have a –
Q Yes. In January you and Dr. Romer issued your recommendation for the stimulus. It turned out to be rather optimistic, I think it’s fair to say. You said without the stimulus, the unemployment rate would be just over 8 percent. Obviously it’s 9.4 percent. How do you explain that, and have you factored in whatever overly optimistic view you had then when you talk about 600,000 jobs now?
MR. BERNSTEIN: The answer to the second part of your question is yes, and I’ll elaborate then in a second. On the first part of the question, when we made our initial estimates, that was before we had fourth-quarter results on GDP, which we later found out was contracting on an annual rate of 6 percent, far worse than we expected at that time.
To elaborate a bit on the second part of your question, the important thing to realize is that our estimate, whether it’s 600,000 jobs over the second hundred days or 3.5 million over the life of the plan, that’s the difference between what we believe would occur in the job market in the absence of this plan and what we actually observe in the job market. In the absence of the — were this plan not to be implemented as I’ve described and as Dr. Romer and I articulated back then, in the absence of the plan, job losses would have been deeper from whatever level they started. Job losses would have been deeper, the unemployment rate would have been, by our estimate, by the end of next year would have been 1.5 and 2 points higher than it otherwise will be.
So those estimates that we are touting today and the estimates that you hear us talk about, that’s the difference between what would have happened to the job market, the unemployment rate were this plan not in effect, and the actual outcomes of jobs. And that gap, that difference between actual and the expectation, absent the plan, that’s where the estimates come from.
Q Jared, can you give us a little better accounting on the 150,000 jobs that have been created or saved? And you guys — it’s a number I now have heard a couple of times. What is the accounting on that?
MR. BERNSTEIN: Just as I described. We know how fast the plan is spending out. We know which sectors — and it’s actually — if you go back to the Romer-Bernstein report, you’ll see that we actually have estimates by sector, by industry, but also by energy, construction, and infrastructure, tax cuts –
Q So the 150,000 are just based on these estimates so far on what you guys projected out of how this money would be spent?
MR. BERNSTEIN: Correct.
Q So we don’t know exactly — so you guys –
MR. BERNSTEIN: The 150,000 jobs is — it comes precisely out of the methodology I was just describing; that is, we have — we know spend-out, we know the types of spend-out, so therefore we can assign multipliers to different parts of the plan. For example, tax cuts generate a smaller multiplier than direct government spending. Once you know the spend-out and the type of spending that you’re engaged in, then you can derive an estimate of how many jobs you believe you created relative to what would have occurred in the job market were you not doing that spending.
And let me just make one other point about this. This is — I want to be very clear about this — this is a absolute tried and true economic methodology. In fact, there’s simply no other way to make this kind of estimate. You have to have an estimate of what would have occurred in the absence of your stimulus plan in order to come up with the jobs that you’ve created or saved. Every macro model, whether it’s Federal Reserve or private forecasters, engages in these kinds of exercises.
Q Can a estimate also — you said that you’ve spent about a billion dollars a day, so obviously — minus $800 billion, there’s about $700 billion left to be spent of the stimulus. Is that a fair — assume that it’s –
MR. BERNSTEIN: Just to be precise, it’s actually a matter of obligating about a billion dollars per day and we’re up to about $135 billion in terms of obligations.
Q Obligated, not necessarily spent yet.
MR. BERNSTEIN: Correct. Spend-out is closer to $44 billion.
Q How much this summer are you obligating now for this specific 600,000 –
MR. BERNSTEIN: We’re unable to make that estimate at this point.
Q Those summer jobs, that 125,000, are you counting that towards the 600,000 jobs that you’re going to be saving or creating?
MR. BERNSTEIN: Yes.
Q Okay. Are you also going to be counting that towards the 3.5 total goal?
MR. BERNSTEIN: That is — yes, the 3.5 is an estimate of jobs created or saved by the end of next year.
Q What you’re obviously acknowledging are temporary jobs over the summer, which will last three months of the summer –
MR. BERNSTEIN: Oh, it’s a good question, you’re right.
Q — how that’s getting counted in the 3.5.
MR. BERNSTEIN: Thank you. That’s a good question. The 3.5 million jobs are what economists call full-time equivalent jobs. So those 125,000 would not count as a full 125. Two part-time jobs count as one full-time equivalent job.
Q Okay, but you are including that in the 600,000 number that you’re saying that this accelerated spending will –
MR. BERNSTEIN: But not as 125. They would have — it’s 600,000 FTEs — full-time equivalent — so they would be in there, but they would be part of that.
Q Jared, when you say “accelerated,” are you talking — are you saying accelerated from the pace of the first hundred days, or accelerated from your expected pace when the recovery plan was passed?
MR. BERNSTEIN: The former, accelerated from the first hundred days. We had a — our plan was to get the foundation in place over the first hundred days in terms of getting contracts in the door, evaluating those contracts, putting in the kinds of oversight and accountability conditions that are so critical, getting the Web site up and running, starting to receive and approve state applications for fiscal stabilization. We’ve laid that foundation and our expectation is we would ramp the plan up during the second hundred days, but first we have to make sure we have the first hundred days in place and that’s gone well from our perspective.
Q I want to make sure I understand this. So you’re actually on schedule. You’re not changing the schedule spend-out?
MR. BERNSTEIN: The schedule, I would say we’re slightly ahead of schedule, that we are — that the acceleration that we’re seeing in the second hundred days is a little better than we expected when we first sat down. But we certainly were expecting a ramp-up.
Q So there was always supposed to be an acceleration; this isn’t new –
MR. BERNSTEIN: Yes.
Q On the unemployment rate, you said that without the stimulus package you would expect it to be 1.5 to 2 percentage points higher by the end of next year. What is it that — I mean, what is your forecast for the unemployment rate by the end of next year, and what would it have been without the stimulus package?
MR. BERNSTEIN: That’s a fair question, but I’m not going to get ahead of — we actually have a process in the White House wherein we release our next forecast I think sometime by the end of the summer.
Q Jared, getting back to Jake’s question. When you put together the report in January you projected with the stimulus an unemployment rate of about 8 percent right now. It’s a percentage and a half point higher than that. Why did that happen, and what should the country conclude from the inability to be able to properly calculate in January, whatever it is that happened in the economy that made you miss the mark by 1.5 percentage points?
MR. BERNESTEIN: Well, first of all, let’s be very clear about this point. Our forecast at that time was right in the middle of every other forecast, and in fact, if we had had a forecast that was much worse than that, we would have been an outlier. We also would have been correct, it turned out. But the point is that the contraction of the economy in the fourth quarter — you should recall back then that was — the magnitude of that contraction was far larger than was expected. And so at the time our forecast seemed reasonable. Now, looking back, it was clearly too optimistic.
What I will say, though, and I don’t want to lose sight of this, is that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in our view, according to our analysis, will lead to an unemployment rate by the end of next year of 1.5 to 2 points lower than would otherwise be the case. And that is the direct result of the kinds of programs and projects we’re talking about today, putting literally millions of people back to work who in the absence of this program would not be getting fully employed.
Q Do you think the unemployment rate has peaked already?
MR. BERNSTEIN: No, I don’t.
Q When do you think it will peak and at what level?
MR. BERNSTEIN: I’m not going to speculate on that. I think that’s better to wait for the –
Q You speculated in January.
Q Yes, you speculated before.
MR. BERNSTEIN: We have a process by which we release these forecasts. It would be disruptive to the process for me to get out here and just sort of share my speculation. The budget director will be releasing those in late summer.
MR. GIBBS: But let’s understand — I know I’m not an economist, but we have said and I think I’ve said each and every month that we’ve been here that we expected many, many months of continued job loss in the hundreds of thousands. The reason that this wasn’t a $787 billion hundred-day economic recovery plan, why it’s a two-year recovery plan is because we never expected this all to be solved in a hundred days. Right?
That’s why the spend-out is over a two-year plan. The obligation that we all talked about, that Jared talked about in terms of over $135 billion — I’ve seen some of the reporting today — this notion that we thought somehow a hundred and some days into the stimulus plan being law that our economy would be completely turned around is certainly not predicated on anything that we’ve talked about in here each and every day since the administration began.
Q Jared, you guys said that at end of the 3rd quarter, I mean in that report, that that was –
MR. GIBBS: But again, I think it’s important to understand — and remember the type of questions that I got the day that the growth number came out that showed economic contraction that quarter, as Jared said, down negative-6 percent. Remember the rate of job decline in December and January changed dramatically. Something was happening in the economy in that time period and in those months that caused it to — in a sense, caused the acceleration of the deterioration.
But I think the point that Jared is trying to make here is understand regardless of where that curve in the downturn was, or differently the curve in where the job percentage number was –
MR. BERNSTEIN: The unemployment –
MR. GIBBS: — right — you’re still talking about — as Jared said, you can shift that curve up to assume where we are now, but the plan was always predicated to have that number be, as Jared said, 1.5 to 2 percentage points less than in the absence of a recovery plan.
Q So you’re saying the 3.5 — that is just not going to change. This plan, no matter what, because of the way you’re statistically modeling this, it will be a minimum of 3.5 million, because there have been estimates that say 2.2 million.
MR. BERNSTEIN: Let me be clear. No, no, let me be clear. Every economic estimate has a confidence interval around it. And one of the things we’re doing, as time goes on, and you’ll see quarterly reports from the Council of Economic Advisors on this, we have real-time data that we add and factor into our estimates where recipients of Recovery Act dollars report job creation to us. Now, let me just say –
Q The 150,000 jobs –
MR. BERNSTEIN: The response to that is often, well, why don’t you just count those and stop there? But of course that’s just one piece of the job creation pie. That’s the jobs created directly through government spending through contracts — we like to fix roads and repair bridges and so on. You don’t get those jobs through — you’re not counting the tax cuts, the jobs created through the tax cuts. You’re not counting the multiplier-effect jobs for people who, on those direct spending, go out to the lunch counter and create extra demand that would not have otherwise have been there.
MR. GIBBS: And I think you — look, the Vice President had a good example today: window makers. This is a fairly, I think, good example, because there is a tax credit for energy-efficient windows that a taxpayer would use and apply for in next year’s taxes. So there are going to be — window makers are producing in anticipation of the tax credit causing, as Jared talked about, an economic multiplier effect. Window producers are making more windows. Somebody decides they’re going to change the windows in their house to take advantage of the tax credit that will show up on next year’s taxes. So there’s a whole host of changes –
Q Jared, can you give us a split –
Q — most of the jobs, the 150, were saved or most were created in that first hundred days?
MR. BERNSTEIN: I can’t give you a split on that.
Q A rough split at all? I mean, is there any way — it’s your accounting, it’s your number, you came up with it through modeling or through some other mechanism. Clearly, some states have received money and that’s patched up their budget deficits. That’s helped them keep some people on –
MR. BERNSTEIN: I just don’t want to try to — you know, pretend to be able to give you a level of accuracy on that split that we simply consider –
Q When are you going to be able to go beyond saying there’s a mathematical formula or a tested methodology that gets this number, and actually go back and look and say, we were right, it was that number of jobs; or, we were grossly wrong?
MR. BERNSTEIN: I think I should refer — to answer that question, let me refer you to two papers that I think, I believe — I hope — take you through this kind of methodology, this sort of an estimate in what’s supposed to be reader-friendly language. They’re both on recoveryact.gov and one of them is a more recent, and I think perhaps the more helpful one is the more recent one by the Council of Economic Advisers, precisely on how we’re counting jobs.
Q But at some point you’re going to be able to actually add them up and actually look at them, right? When will you get to that point, you can get beyond just using a mathematical model?
MR. BERNSTEIN: Well, every quarter, and you’re going to see these –
Q When will it be?
MR. BERNSTEIN: — every quarter and you’re going to see actually under the act, the Council of Economic Advisors has the obligation to report job growth quarterly. And as I was just explaining, part of that calculation involves contract recipients telling us the jobs they created. But part of it is also going to be jobs saved. I mentioned the 150,000 schoolteachers across the land as part of the second hundred days — teachers, principals, and support staff — those are jobs saved.
So that’s not something you’re going to get from a contractor who says, I just added five people. That’s something you’re going to get by comparing the actual outcome relative to an expected outcome in the absence of your investments.
Q Go to that split, to follow up on Chip’s question, how much in the estimate of the 3.5 million is going to be direct government contract jobs, and how much is going to be –
MR. BERNSTEIN: That I know the answer to but I don’t have it with me. It’s actually in the Romer-Bernstein report, precisely that question.
Q Is that where the 2.2 — because I’ve seen that number –
MR. BERNSTEIN: I want to say it’s something like 60/40 direct-indirect, but don’t — go to the report; it’s right there.
MR. GIBBS: Thanks, Jared.
Q Can I just ask one other question. On the Web site, on the new Web site, is this going to be a cheerleader rah-rah thing or do you get a whole slew of people — you said you’re going to hear from people. If you get a lot of people calling in and saying, hey, I’m not getting the job that I thought I was going to get out of this — will they be on there too, or is it only going to be positive assessments?
MR. GIBBS: Chip, I assume as soon as you file that story they’ll upload it up onto the Web site. (Laughter.)
Thank you.
All right, let me do one quick announcement before we start. President Obama will meet President Lee of South Korea at the White House on Tuesday, June 16. President Obama extended at the invitation at their last meeting on London on April 2 during the G20 summit. The Republic of Korea is a close friend and a key ally of the United States and the President looks forward to exploring ways in which the two countries can strengthen cooperation on the regional and global challenges of the 21st century. The two leaders will confer on North Korea and will consult on a range of bilateral and other issues.
Yes, sir.
Q Thanks, Robert. Having listened to all that, I’m still trying to figure out one key point here. We knew from the White House weeks ago that the White House thought the stimulus would create or save 600,000 jobs this summer. We knew there was going to be a ramp up, an acceleration, and Jared just confirmed that, too. So what is the point of this big splash today with the President and the Vice President, and we just had that detailed briefing. Does the White House think that — do you think that you’re off message? Do you think that people are losing confidence in the stimulus? Why are you doing this?
MR. GIBBS: No, I think part of it, Ben, is to outline the exact details with which Jared just walked you through the 10 slides to talk about the projects that we are going to see created and what’s going to be taking part in the next hundred days and the history of the Recovery Act. But I think it’s a little incongruent to say — it’s hard to ask if we planned this. If all this stuff was planned, how can it be in response to criticism?
Q No, I’m not suggesting –
MR. GIBBS: Are you inferring that on the 136th day or so we would have inferred criticism and then — I don’t know if it’s 136; my pardons to Mark, I just guessed.
Q No, there was no part in my question that talked about criticism. I’m just trying to figure out what the –
MR. GIBBS: I think the latter part of that question –
Q No, what the strategy is when you talk about –
MR. GIBBS: Well, the strategy is to outline — the President always talked about ensuring that people understood where we were on the road to economic recovery and the steps that this administration was going to take in order to improve the economic outlook of this country. And I think you heard the President talk about today, and others in the administration talk about on Friday, that we have seen the fewest number of lost jobs in about an eight-month period.
And while the number was less than what was estimated, the Vice President said on Friday and the President said again today that less bad is not good enough. These are the steps that the administration is outlining to ensure that the steps to recovery are taking place.
And some of the figures that Jared talked about, in the bill there’s about $499 billion in spending, and as he talked about over $135 billion of that has been obligated. What’s not included in the obligation number is some of the tax stuff. And this is part of the President’s continuing to discuss the steps that we’re taking with the American people.
Q I have a follow on. As you know, part of the effort is not just to implement the Recovery Act successfully but to show the American people that it’s working. You do have critics who are saying that either the money isn’t being spent well or that today’s event is a repackaging. My question is, do you feel that the White House is winning that battle, the battle for the message with the American people?
MR. GIBBS: I think the American people are not worried about the message battle that’s going on in Washington; they’re worried about whether or not we’re taking concrete steps to fix our economy, to improve it for the future, to save and create jobs now. I can assure you they’re not worried about a bunch of back and forth spin. They’re concerned rightly about the steps that we’re taking to improve it. And I think that’s exactly what the President outlined today.
Yes, sir.
Q I had two questions related to North Korea. First, about the journalists that have been imprisoned, is there any indication that North Korea intends to use these women as a bargaining chip in the nuclear standoff issue –
MR. GIBBS: This is not — I think their detainment is not something that we’ve linked to other issues and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that either. I think this is a humanitarian issue and these women are innocent and should be released to their family. And the administration is working to see that happen.
Q So there’s been no sign so far that they’ve been trying to link the two issues?
MR. GIBBS: Not that I’m aware of.
Q Anything on — the second question has to do with Secretary Clinton’s statement that the U.S. was considering putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. I just wondered where are things in that process?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think it’s important to look at the question that Secretary Clinton got, which was — was asked about a letter from senators about this topic, and obviously she’s received the letter. We are working and continue to work with Congress to consider any and all ideas related to dealing with the situation with North Korea.
Obviously, the statute is clear and lays out a series of requirements, as she noted in the interview. And I think obviously the main focus for us is on what steps internationally can be taken and that we’re working on in response to the North Koreans.
And I would say, lastly, this is also a very big issue about their actions. There are, and I’ve said this, I think, probably each and every day in here that we’ve done this, the actions that they’ve taken have further isolated themselves from the world. They’re the ones that are stepping away from their own rights and responsibilities. I would also underscore that the responsibilities and the accountability that they have do not necessarily — don’t fall under necessarily the provisions of the law that she was talking about. We were talking about U.N. Security Council resolutions and agreements that they’ve made as part of the negotiating team.
Yes, sir.
Q A couple questions. One, last week — I assume you weren’t here in D.C. for this –
MR. GIBBS: I think I saw you in France.
Q Yes. (Laughter.) It was lovely. The Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics testified before Congress, and he was asked about the 450,000 claim. Can you substantiate –
MR. GIBBS: The 450?
Q One-hundred-fifty.
Q The 150,000 job claim.
MR. GIBBS: Okay.
Q And he was asked if he could substantiate the claim, and he called the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner, who said, no, that will be a very difficult thing for anybody to substantiate. He was asked again, “So you’re saying you can’t verify that these administration’s policies have created an additional 150,000 jobs?” They said, no, we’re busy just counting jobs. Is it fair for the administration to use this statistic like 150,000 jobs saved or created when the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not stand by the number?
MR. GIBBS: I would point you to what Jared talked about in the two reports that are on the Internet. I do think it’s fair. And I haven’t seen the report, having been overseas, but yes, we continue to think it’s fair.
Q Okay, and the other question I had is, ABC interviewed Lakhdar Boumediene, the former Guantanamo detainee who is now free in France. He spent seven and a half years in Guantanamo, or almost all of them at that time in Guantanamo, and he is considering suing the United States government for that time. Does the Obama administration think that people who have been freed from Guantanamo deserve any compensation?
MR. GIBBS: I would have to ask somebody at NSC what that involves. I don’t think that’s been part of any of the discussions that have taken place here as it relates to the many issues around the closure of Guantanamo.
Yes, ma’am.
Q Back on North Korea, has President Obama or anybody in the administration been in touch with former Vice President Gore about possibly taking a role in helping to try to secure the release of –
MR. GIBBS: I can check. I’ve seen, certainly, discussion about — news reports, I should say, about different people that may or may not go, but I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve seen in the news.
Q Has President Obama talked to — on a different topic now — Judge Sotomayor? How is she doing?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t think he has talked to her. I know that she, as a result of, I think, a trip — a tripping at LaGuardia, broke a small bone in her ankle. She flew to D.C. I think it was looked at when she got here and she was advised to go get x-rays, which she did. I think she spent a couple of hours getting a cast and is, the last time I saw video up on Capitol Hill, continuing to meet with senators as part of her meetings surrounding her nomination. I think she has six meetings scheduled today and she’ll make all six of those meetings.
Q You’re not going to sign the cast? (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: I’m sorry?
Q You’re not going to sign the cast?
MR. GIBBS: If she comes by maybe we will.
Q She gets 70 signatures on the cast. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: Maybe we should get senators to sign the — (laughter.)
Yes, ma’am. He’s reading the –
Q Now that the President’s speech — his definitive speech on the Middle East, what’s his follow-up to it?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, Helen, I think we said this throughout the past several days, I don’t look at the President’s outreach as having started in the speech and it’s not going to end as part of that speech. I think going all the way back to the very beginning of the administration and ensuring that this administration was involved early on in the Middle East peace process, the President talked about that as being a high priority — interviews that he’s done, his speech to the parliament in Turkey and a town hall meeting there, as well as that speech. And I think he outlined a series of things that the administration will focus on in terms of democracy. I think –
Q I’m not talking about speeches. What’s his next step?
MR. GIBBS: Well, let me finish and I’ll give you some action. Obviously the President is continuing to work on the peace process — and we’ll have some readouts probably a little bit later for you today on some of that. The President, again as I’ve said, will be engaged in dealing with the parties there, obviously working on the Iranian issue as it relates to their nuclear program.
So I think there are a number of things that are ongoing, and I think the President is also, I think it is safe to say, heartened by the turnout in Lebanon and the results that demonstrate a win for democracy and a win for a sovereign and independent Lebanon.
Chip.
Q If I could get back to something Jared was asked about, the idea that you’re accelerating the pace now. I think that just gives the people — it automatically implied that, well, it must be bogged down. Can you verify that this is not in response to this program bogging down?
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, I’d go back to the — if the acceleration was planned, then how can it be bogged down?
Q But when was it planned? I mean, was this –
MR. GIBBS: Chip, obviously spending $787 billion over a two-year period of time takes some groundwork to be laid in order to begin to move that money from individual departments — obviously it took some time to get the legislation passed. But we don’t feel that in any way the recovery is bogged down. I think you heard — or the recovery efforts are bogged down. I think you heard Jared say that by his estimation he believed we were slightly ahead of where we were going to be; $135 billion of $499 billion in spending has been obligated. Beginning April 1, 95 percent of working Americans saw an increase in their paycheck. They’ll see that at a sustained level as part of the Make Work Pay tax cut happen over the course of two years.
So this is a sustained effort over the course of two years to jumpstart the economy, to make critical investments in many of the projects that Jared pointed out, and to create — to both spur short-term job savings and job creation as well as to begin to lay the foundation for long-term economic growth.
Q In the session in there today the President said, knock on wood, there haven’t been the kind of scandals here that some predicted.
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, and I think in many ways that’s because you want to lay the foundation for how this money is going to move out; ensure that you have steps in place, protocols in place to deal with an evaluation of contracts and moving this money to the places that need them. I think this is — the notion that the first day of the bill passage we were going to move $787 billion out certainly wasn’t ever the case. In fact, you guys asked me about the spend-out rate as part of the lead-up to the debate. So the notion that this is going to be done as a phase certainly wasn’t a surprise to you several months ago.
Q Is there a sense that the effort to make sure there isn’t fraud, waste, scandals — is there a sense that that is slowing down getting money out the door and how –
MR. GIBBS: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think we see it as slowing it down, but I think it’s important — and the President underscored this well back into December in meetings with the economic team, which was it was important to ensure that — and you saw this throughout the debate on the bill and the early implementation of the bill that the President was very concerned and rightly concerned that we do this in a way that gives the American people confidence about the way this money is being spent.
It’s crucially important that we lay in, like I said, the steps and the protocols that are necessary to happen in order to ensure that this is done both as quickly as possible, but is done without the waste and abuse that sometimes can be associated with these types of deals.
Q Just a few follow-ups. The 150,000 job figure, should we be identifying that as a projection, since it seems like Jared himself — there is no hard evidence yet of this number, correct?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think, again, I would point you back to his answer about the reports and the economic formulation –
Q But he said it was based on multipliers and an economic formula and that we don’t have the facts yet of how many hard jobs.
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, Chuck, I think — and I hate to paraphrase what Jared said, but again, if I move you money because you have a window business, just like the example I was using, or some economic stimulus, you are going to — you’re going to buy supplies from somebody else who is going to create –
Q But you don’t know if that’s going to create one job or two jobs –
MR. GIBBS: No, but –
Q You don’t know that it’s going to — so it’s a projection.
MR. GIBBS: Based on a tried and true, as he said, economic formula on how to do that. Projections are –
Q Jobs trickling down the window pane — I mean, why is that not trickle-down economics when you guys are talking about tax cuts and how –
MR. GIBBS: Are you suggesting that the multiplier effect of job creation is part of trickle-down economics?
Q I’m suggesting that you guys are saying –
Q Sure, they’re jobs –
MR. GIBBS: Point out for me how, if somebody builds a windmill — right — and needs –
Q You guys are saying that unmeasured jobs — and they’re out there — and you’re saying it’s a result of tax cuts.
MR. GIBBS: No — in the example of window panes, absolutely. But what I’m talking about — you don’t make window panes out of papier-mâché, right? You’re going to have to buy aluminum; you’re going to have to buy glass. Does the production of aluminum and glass for the purchase of making windows in order to increase the production so that the tax credit can be fully taken advantage of — are window producers doing that? Yes. Is the sale of aluminum for windows and glass creating jobs? Ask some of the readers of Bloomberg when they make investments in resources –
Q But you’re not going to provide numbers on total jobs that have been created or saved through this window pane example.
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, there’s multipliers and there are formulas, as Jared talked about, in order to make determinations as to what that number is.
Q Well, it did sound like you are going to provide a hard number on direct government contracts. Every quarter we will get a hard number.
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think that’s what Jared talked about as part of the obligation of those reports.
Q So far we have none, because there hasn’t been any –
MR. GIBBS: Right. But again, just to build off your examples, Hans, you can’t build a window out of nothing. You can’t build a wind turbine out of nothing. The purchase of resources to build a wind turbine so that a wind company can take advantage of a tax credit is a multiplier effect that creates jobs based on the purchase of resources to construct that turbine — right?
Q Will you concede that the wind is free? (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: I will concede that the wind is free. And some of it is blowing hot in my direction.
Q Ooh! (Laughter.)
Q There are a lot of numbers being thrown around here, and you guys are claiming credit for — earlier you were claiming credit for summer jobs that won’t be there in three years –
MR. GIBBS: No, no, no –
Q — and that will be –
MR. GIBBS: Hans, I appreciate you asking — you should ask as many questions as you want, but if Jared gives you an answer about how two part-time jobs equals one full-time employment job, don’t act like the question didn’t get answered, because –
Q I’m not.
MR. GIBBS: — and he’s not trying to say that — he didn’t tell you that 125,000 was immediately being factored in. He gave you the formula for part-time and full-time jobs.
Q I’m not saying — I’m just — I guess what you — would you then concede that that job won’t be there in three years when the stimulus –
MR. GIBBS: Will I concede that a summer job won’t be there in the fall? Yes, I will concede that.
Q You guys are counting this towards the 3.5.
MR. GIBBS: I think Jared answered your question. Send a transcript to –
Q Following up on the North Korea question, you said, we hope that North Korea doesn’t use — attempt to use the journalists as leverage in the nuclear situation. Does that mean that’s a red line, if they attempt to do this, then — I mean –
MR. GIBBS: I think it’s important not for me to get into — I’m not part of the negotiating team up here.
Q Lebanon, you said you were heartened by turnout. I’ve heard some whispers that some believe that maybe the President’s speech on Thursday could help things. Is that the way you guys see it, that the President’s speech might have had some influence in Lebanon?
MR. GIBBS: I will say this, I think the President was pretty clear in Cairo about the importance of elections. I think people can be heartened that turnout far exceeded the last election; again, that those — there was a shared commitment to democracy and a sovereign and independent Lebanon. I think that’s certainly important.
I think if you look at most predictions about the election, leading up to the actual election having taken place, most people believed that the March 14 coalition was not going to be successful. I would say that I don’t think the President was one of those people. And I think just as the President talked about in Cairo, the Lebanese people are more interested in a government that builds things up rather than one whose main job is to tear things down.
Q Should Iran’s elections this week be viewed in that same prism? If so, do you think that the speech will have some influence there?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t — I think it’s hard to — let me also say this. As I said, the President talked about the importance of elections. The importance of elections can’t simply be measured by the fact that you have an election. The importance is not simply on the fact that you have an election; the importance is on what — of the actions of which that government takes. So let’s not get ahead of where we are.
Q Well, we had it with Hamas. They had a fair election and you cut off the relations immediately.
MR. GIBBS: As I believe the government said they were going to do if Hamas was elected.
Q No, that isn’t true. They didn’t say that; they did it.
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, I think pretty clearly the previous — I mean, again, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of being the Bush administration spokesperson. I think it was pretty clear that if you go back and look at what was going to happen to U.S. aid were Hamas to win in those elections –
Q So we don’t believe in fair elections?
MR. GIBBS: No, no, no, again, Helen, I think you — before I can even answer, you continue to ratchet the bar up. I think if you look at exactly what was said prior to the election and what was implemented as a direct relationship to that result, you’ll see that that was –
Q But isn’t that blackmail, really? What did we do on Lebanon? Did we — the Vice President went there and sort of said, if you vote this way then it won’t –
MR. GIBBS: Well, I can’t say that people around the world don’t listen to news.
Yes, sir.
Q The most concrete achievement that came out of the London summit or the G20 was greatly increased lending authority by the International Monetary Fund. The U.S. portion of that is now hung up in Congress because Republicans are calling it a global bailout and won’t vote on a war spending bill that has that IMF money in it. What does the White House want to do to unstick this? And are you willing to have the IMF money separated from the war spending and see if you can get it passed that way?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the administration believes that we can work with Congress to ensure the necessary and important funding is there for our missions in Afghanistan and Iraq; that money and funding will be there for the important and critical needs of what is being done in Pakistan, as well as the commitments that were made internationally relating to the IMF. I think this is a process that is ongoing and we’re going to work with Congress to ensure that we get all of those priorities passed.
Q And are you confident that when the President goes to the G8 summit in just four weeks, he’s going to be able to have that money in hand?
MR. GIBBS: That’s what we’re working on right now.
Yes, sir.
Q Robert, does the President believe his health care — the health care plan he wants from Congress is in trouble?
MR. GIBBS: No.
Q Is he stepping up his efforts to get it done by August?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think the President is going to spend a decent amount of time over the next few weeks and months working on the priorities that he laid out, one of the most important of which is health care. I think that is definitely very true.
Q Is that the subject of the town meeting on Thursday?
MR. GIBBS: Yes.
Q I have two questions. Jared –
MR. GIBBS: Two more? (Laughter.) Speaking of the multiplier effect — (laughter.) Go ahead.
Q Jared — Kenneth Bernstein [sic] for pay czar, do you have anything on that?
MR. GIBBS: No.
Q Okay. So we’re in the second phase of the stimulus now, the first phase was the 100 day. How many more phases do we have and will the burn rate continue to accelerate or increase, or will it decrease?
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, we — I think we talked about over the course of two fiscal years, so through roughly September 30, 2010 — about 70 percent of the money, I think, was the final figure. About 70 percent of that $787 billion will be spent through that two-year fiscal period.
Q All right, I’ll just come back to it.
Q When?
Q I’ll get back to you, Robert.
Q While you’re asking.
Q Why does the government need a compensation czar?
MR. GIBBS: I’m not going to get ahead of personnel announcements.
Q So at this point it doesn’t, until we’re told it does.
MR. GIBBS: Something like that, yes.
Q Very good. You mentioned the saved jobs relate to states in budget crisis that have been at least temporarily rescued by recovery dollars. According to estimates put together by the state budget officers, for the next two years, states are already booking $230 billion in projected deficits. The Recovery Act is going to provide for them, if I understand the estimates, about $100 billion, leaving a $130 billion gap. How concerned is the administration about this gap that’s already on the books in whatever jobs it has been able to temporarily save, not being able to save in the future? And what policy response is made after that –
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I think, Major, the most important policy response we can have is the one that we’re in the midst of implementing now, and that is to get the economy moving again. Obviously tax receipts for states are going to be determined by the health and well-being of the economy that we have today. The President is working to ensure that we get it moving as quickly as we can, and hopefully we can put a different trajectory on some of those numbers.
Q So that’ll be the principal response, not a third or second — depending on how people count it — stimulus?
MR. GIBBS: A third?
Q Well, people — some people count the first — there was a Bush stimulus, and then you guys came along — that would be the second — in the course of the recession.
MR. GIBBS: Oh, I see, in terms of economic –
Q I’m not subscribing to you two — one that you didn’t already know about.
MR. GIBBS: — in terms of — I was going to say, you’ve — I know I was out last week, but I had no idea. (Laughter.) Again, at this point, our focus far and away is ensuring that the implementation of this legislation is done in both a timely fashion but also one that ensures that it is done in a way that is not wasteful.
Q Speaking of while you were away, the Senate questionnaire revealed that at least four times, possibly five times, Judge Sotomayor used a variation of the idea that a Latina could come to a better or more informed conclusion than a white male about some various aspect. The White House has said that was a poor choice of words in one instance. I’m wondering if it’s willing to say it’s a poor choice of words in multiple incidents. And if so, does that poor choice of words denote a pattern of her thinking that is somehow troubling to the White House, as it is to the critics?
MR. GIBBS: I think if you — as we have said here many times, the overall theme of her comments were that her experiences matter, just as they did for and just as they have for, in the quotes of Judge Sandra Day O’Connor — Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Alito. I think Judge Sotomayor has said in her visits that the speech that you’re referring to was a poor choice of words. But that –
Q He’s actually referring to five or six different speeches.
Q Four or five.
MR. GIBBS: Right, but I –
Q And I’m wondering, if it was poor choice of words, it would suggest, if it was said once, it might have been an error. If it was said multiple times, it was part of a — an approach or a pattern.
MR. GIBBS: I think if you go back and look at each of the instances, I think the overall theme is that experiences and background matter, and that what we’ve talked about in 2001 was a poor choice of words.
Q The confirmation is not about the overall but it’s about the specific meaning of specific words and specific utterances. And since we have a pattern here now, I’m just wondering why critics would not be valid in saying there appears to be a pattern here that may be inconsistent with application –
MR. GIBBS: Except, Major, what people — what your unnamed critics don’t seem to subscribe to is any pattern that is in the hundreds of opinions that she’s written.
Q So the pattern there trumps the pattern of the words, is that –
MR. GIBBS: I think if you want to know what a — how a judge is going to rule, I’m under the impression that how they’ve ruled is a good indication of how they’re going to do, and what they’re going to — the notion that she’s talked about, the impartiality of how she looks at these issues, and I think that’s been borne out by much news reporting over the past many days of the way in which she –
Q So study the opinions, not the speeches.
MR. GIBBS: I think we would expect friend and foe alike to judge here on her full body of work.
Q Robert, can I follow on that?
Q How much of this back-and-forth about Sotomayor’s words do you think is really a question about the value of diversity and sort of the debate about affirmative action sort of cloaked in something else?
MR. GIBBS: You know, look, I think it would be not a good thing for me to infer what or why certain people who are seemingly opposed to her nomination characterize it different ways. I’ve said I think it’s important that we watch the use of what we say, but other than that, I can’t — and I wouldn’t begin to peer into the motivations.
Q Robert, the President said today that he would suggest people who don’t believe the Recovery Act is working talk to some of the company who have hired back workers that they would have laid off. Is the White House keeping a list of those companies somewhere? Are you going to post that on recovery.gov?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t know if the news articles that denote people saying that are going to be put up on the Web site or not.
Q But I guess what I’m wondering is, do we know what — how many such companies there are, and –
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, I’ve read in a number of publications, some of whom occupy seats in this room, that people have hired some people back –
Q You’re not keeping a list?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t have a list with me, no. I don’t — I assume there are people who are writing down what they see in the newspaper — because we said there are quarterly reports on the direct impacts of this, but again, I think if you read a fair number of articles, as I’m sure most people here do, they understand and see clean energy companies talk about their increased investment. I think you see — there was an article over the weekend of tax incentives on clean-energy buses that have allowed companies to keep the employees that they had on to ensure that they can meet the growing demand.
Q And just a matter of housekeeping. I don’t think I’ve seen a week ahead. Maybe I missed it. Can you talk to us –
MR. GIBBS: You haven’t, and I don’t have it, and –
Q — about what else the President is doing this week, besides going to Green Bay?
Q Particularly tomorrow?
MR. GIBBS: I will endeavor to get a week ahead. We did not do it before I came out here today.
Q And any more detail on the Green Bay visit? Will he be — he’s talked a lot in the past about people who need health care, but he seems to be now trying to make an economic case and a case that some hospitals have delivered health care, say, more efficiently and in a low-cost way. Will that be the emphasis in Green Bay?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t know that that will be the specific emphasis, but I think the President has always talked about health care as a very concrete matter of economics. The rising cost of health care certainly is for families and small businesses.
But I think also think, in order to — well, to go back to the Recovery Act, certainly the delivery of health care in a more economical and efficient way through investments in health IT and computer technology as a delivery is something that the President I think will at least touch upon. Whether or not it’s the focus, I’m not sure. But again, I think when we’re talking about health care writ large, there are — there isn’t one thing or only one thing that you can focus on. Obviously there are the incredible proliferation of costs, as I’ve said, for families and small businesses, but also, how are we going to change the way and make the delivery of health care more efficient so that a country that spends more per capita on health care doesn’t find itself lagging in the ways that it does.
Q Do we know what the venue is in Green Bay?
MR. GIBBS: I don’t have it. I think the advisory, if it hasn’t gone out, is in the process of getting out.
Q Town hall?
MR. GIBBS: Yes. But I don’t know which building.
Q Robert, when you and the President said that Sotomayor used a poor choice of words, were you aware of the other times she had similar utterances, or only that one, the Berkeley speech?
MR. GIBBS: Mara, I got to tell you, a lot of life in here blurs together, so I don’t entirely recall what — all that I have been briefed on.
Q At the time, people were focusing on one speech, but I’m just wondering if you were aware that she’d said it more than once.
MR. GIBBS: In all honesty, I honestly don’t remember.
Q Just to follow up on that, now that you’re aware that she said it more than once, do you think they all were poor choices of words?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think I answered that question just a few minutes ago.
Q Well, no, you said that we should look at the whole context. I’m wondering, just in terms of these statements, do you think they were all — she regrets saying them in that way?
MR. GIBBS: Again, I think I’ve — I think I’ve said, I think the President said, and I think she said this was a poor choice of words.
Yes, sir.
Q I wanted to get your response to Republicans who say that with a trillion-dollar deficit and $11 trillion debt, that we should — if the economy is beginning to show green sprouts, we should take some of the stimulus money and not spend it and reduce the deficit.
But I also wanted to go back to what Ben and Chip were getting at about the momentum thing, I guess. Regardless of the reason for why you did this event today, do you feel like with the too-optimistic projection, the disputes about these –
MR. GIBBS: Well, let me take these one at a time. Understand that –
Q Which one are you going to take, then?
MR. GIBBS: The one you — the one I just interrupted you on.
Q Well, I’m not done.
MR. GIBBS: Well, I know you’re not. (Laughter.) But I want to do these one by one. The notion that a report was prepared based on the best available economic data that was had, and that a severe downturn in fourth-quarter growth and a job loss that was far greater than anybody had expected, both in December and January, I don’t find surprising that the overall number is different than it was when we sat here in December. It certainly wasn’t when you all asked me in January and February about those statistics.
Again, these numbers change, just as you all ask me if we think — if you think we’re all on the recovery, just as you all ask me if the economy has bottomed out, right? So I think it’s — if you’re asking me if in December you can make all the accurate projections in terms of what the numbers are going to look like in February without having the data for January, I’d say that’s pretty hard to do.
Q Okay, but you’re taking questions from us and heat from critics about the jobs that are being created or saved, and there’s a new Gallup poll I don’t think which has been mentioned yet today about — they say that the President’s numbers on the economy are slipping. I think the disapproval rating on the economy has gone up 12 points since February. Do you think that there’s a danger here of a credibility deficit developing on the issue of the economy in particular?
MR. GIBBS: Again, this is — we’re focused on the implementation of the recovery plan. We’re not focused on the latest polling.
Q Can you just respond to Republicans who say that we should take some of the stimulus money and not spend it if the economy is starting to show signs of progress?
MR. GIBBS: Well, is that what they’re saying? Do they think the economy is showing signs of progress?
Q Jim DeMint said that if there is recovery happening, if we’re coming out of the worst of things, as the President said I think two weeks ago, then –
MR. GIBBS: I’ll do this. I’ll answer that tomorrow if you’ll get me the answer as to whether you think Senator DeMint is seeing an improvement in the economy.
Thanks, guys.
END
3:34 P.M. EDT
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