Documents / Official release
This release contains White House Exchange Mail records dated January 1998 to October 1999. Most of it is a transcript of a January 29, 1998 press briefing by Press Secretary Mike McCurry covering Iraq, Iran, the budget and the Lewinsky inquiry, plus a 1998 presidential speech. An October 19, 1999 email among Transnational Threats staff forwards a Florida Today article on how scientists expect alien contact would spark a media frenzy rather than a cover-up, describing the 1989 SETI detection protocol.
“Gray”6 pages
3512B34B.FIN Page 4 of 11 http://classified/email/data_source/exchange/record/cd008/feb 1998/3512b34b.html 1/5/2010 First of all, it's important to keep the economy growing. It may be that technology with good economic conditions will permit a higher level of growth for a longer period of time at lower levels of inflation than previously we h< thought. That may be true. It will only be true if we are responsible. Am just like to mention three or four things tonight that I think are terribly important. of the things that to me has been most gratifying has been the public response to my insistence that we not start spending the surplus before it materialize We've had a deficit for 30 years and, you know, as soon as the new year came around everybody had great ideas for how to spend the projected surplu; Now, I do believe we have eliminated the structural deficit and I believe we'll get a balanced budget this year — if not this year, certainly next year. Ar then it's projected that we'll have surpluses for several years thereafter, r than a decade. And I hope that happens. And because there's no structur deficit in the budget — that is, even if the economy slows down, and yot know when the economy slows down you get less tax money and you have to more out because there are more people unemployed — but over time, if there's nc structural deficit we'll still have a balanced budget to a large surplus, depending on how much growing. Now, what my goal is, is to spend this year having a non-partisan natior process by which we discuss all the alternatives that are out there availa and then early next year we pass legislation which will basically take care ol long-term stability of the system. Simultaneously, no matter what optioi choose, by 2029 when the present trust fund is expected to run out of m< and start costing more money than the people are paying in every year in tax we will have to do some significant things. But no matter what we do, not r There are a lot of people who want to start spending that right now in ta cuts or spending programs, and we should do neither. We certainly shouldn't it, A, until it materializes - the bird is not in hand yet. And, B, we should not it until we have dealt with the long-term financial problems with the So< Security system. We have some significant decisions to make. And I thi it's very important. (Applause.)
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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 88 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.