Press Briefing by Dana Perino

WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

12:38 P.M. EST

MS. PERINO: Good morning. Two schedule updates for you. The
President, this morning at 10:00 a.m., met with his economic advisors,
including Secretary Paulson, to discuss the global financial markets
and the economic growth package that Secretary Paulson is negotiating
with Capitol Hill on behalf of the President.

Also, on Friday, the President is going to travel to White Silver
Springs, West Virginia, where he will make remarks at the 2008
Congress of Tomorrow Luncheon. This will be open for correspondents
and pool for cameras. More details on that from our team later. This
is organized by the House leaders. The President will be the final
speaker and he will likely talk about the economic growth package
there, as well as FISA and other legislative items that he thinks we
can accomplish this final year of the administration.

Q Is the President open to the idea of giving some type of relief
to people who don't pay income taxes? And also, what about the idea of
extending -- coming up with more unemployment benefits and food
stamps?

MS. PERINO: Those are some of the details that are going to be
worked out in the negotiations that Secretary Paulson is handling for
the President. The President set out his principles last Friday and a
package needs to meet those principles, meaning that it needs to be
swift, robust, broad-based, temporary and simple, among some other
adjectives. But the President has those principles that he's laid out,
and then there's lots of details that are going to go into this
negotiation. And there are going to be some members on Capitol Hill
that want to add in the items that you mentioned, and there's going to
be a back-and-forth and a give-and-take, as there is in any
negotiation.

But those discussions are going to be handled on Capitol Hill and
in the privacy of those meetings, so I'm not going to comment on what
will be in or out.

Q Does he not have an opinion and it's just completely up to
Paulson, or can you just not --

MS. PERINO: Well, I wouldn't say the President doesn't have an
opinion, but I would say that the President respects the process
enough to give Secretary Paulson the leeway he needs so that people
aren't negotiating outside of his process.

Q And is it possible that the package will grow larger than the 1
percent of GDP that the President was talking about?

MS. PERINO: Well, I should clarify from what I said earlier this
morning that we would be open to that. Now, it is true that we're not
closing any doors, but it's also true that when the President says
that he's looking for a package of about 1 percent of GDP, that's
about the largest package that's being talked about out there. So
while the President is waiting to talk about more of the details, the
size of the package is going to have to be worked out. But he does
believe it has to be around 1 percent GDP in order to have an impact.

Q Does he remain open to some of these ideas which have been
floated, which you say are going to be the subject of negotiation --
fine -- but is he open to them?

MS. PERINO: He's going to listen to members of Congress. He'll
have a chance here in a couple of hours when the leaders, bicameral,
bipartisan leaders, come and visit with him, where he's going to talk
about his Middle East trip, as well as the economy. And I expect that
they will bring up some of these issues. But the details will be
negotiated, and yes, the President remains open and he is not going to
close out any doors. What he did do on Friday was set out his
principles and those are some of his red lines. One red line that the
President set out, for example, is he will not accept tax increases in
this proposal.

Q Well, what about ideas -- will he have any new ideas to present
to the congressional negotiators?

MS. PERINO: Well, remember, Secretary Paulson has been talking
with members of Congress over the past several weeks, as the President
directed him to do. So I think they have a lot -- I think they have a
pretty good idea of what the President thinks would be necessary for
an economic package to have some impact. What the President wants is
to make sure that we do something quickly enough so that we can have
an impact this year. So that's going to include tax relief for
consumers and incentives for businesses. At the end of the day, what
all that looks like, we're going to have to just wait and see.

Q How soon does it have to be done to be effective?

MS. PERINO: Well, we need to finish the discussions about this
quickly, and I think that the thing that the President will hear today
is a chance for the members of Congress and for the President to
recommit this bipartisanship that they started early on in the month
when it became clear that the economic advisors were saying that we
need to try to do something to avoid a potential downturn. And members
of Congress and the White House agree, and so there's consensus that
there needs to be a package and that it needs to be done swiftly. I
don't have an exact time frame for you, but certainly we're talking
about just a matter of a few weeks that it needs to be finalized and
sent to the President so that it has an impact this year.

Q Since the President laid out his ideas there's been a lot of
turmoil in global markets. Does that intensify the effort to get this
done quickly? And does it make you even more open to consider a larger
package?

MS. PERINO: Well, we don't comment on the daily fluctuation of the
markets. And there's lots of reasons for those investments. And the
purpose of the President's plan is to help Americans, not to just help
the markets. But certainly the President is being made aware of the
developments in the global markets; I'm sure members on Capitol Hill
are. And that's certainly going to be on their minds as they meet
today, so I would expect that they would talk about it, sure.

Q Does he have any reaction to Harry Reid's comment that Harry
Reid thinks that the economy is sliding into recession?

MS. PERINO: Well, the President's advisors are advising him that
they are not forecasting a recession. But certainly there's been a
slowdown in the economy. And I'll remind you -- and we've had 52
months of consecutive job growth. That's the longest stretch of job
growth in the history of our country, and we want to be able to keep
that going. And the President believes that a short-term stimulus
package like the one we're talking about will be able to give that
shot in the arm, that boost to the economy, so that we can keep the
economy and jobs growing.

And that's also another thing that we can do in order to help
lower-income people who are facing higher energy prices and possible
foreclosure. There's different measures that we're doing on parallel
tracks. This particular measure is narrow in order to help continue to
spur job creation. So that's what the President will talk about with
him.

Q Dana, does the President regret not backing or officially
backing an economic stimulus package sooner?

MS. PERINO: Well, the President's advisors advised him along the
way. They get all sorts of incoming economic data. And at the
appropriate time, they told the President they thought that was when
action needed to be taken, and the President wasted no time in saying,
well, then, let's move forward. And he empowered Secretary Paulson to
make those -- to have those discussions with members of Capitol Hill.
Now what we need to see, and thankfully there's consensus on it, is
that we need to move quickly within a matter of just a few weeks, I
would say, to get something finished and to the President's desk so
that it has an impact this year.

Q I'm wondering what the response is to some folks out there who
are concerned, or say that this may be too late by the time, for
instance, tax rebate checks are rolled out.

MS. PERINO: Well, I'm sure there's a lot of people that have
opinions out there from all different perspectives, but the
distribution of the stimulus is going to be something that's discussed
within the negotiation, as well. So we'll let you know on that.

Helen.

Q I don't have an economic --

MS. PERINO: Okay, can I come back to you then, if there's any more
economics?

April, welcome back.

Q Thank you. Dana, how can the President give a great financial
boost to help the ailing economy when it's being held down by $9
billion a month to pay for the Iraq war? How is he going to really
bring that together?

MS. PERINO: You know, we've been at war, as you know, since
September 11th -- the day after September 11th, when the President
decided we were going to take the fight to the enemy. And during the
past several years, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, during all -- during
those years that we've been at war, this economy has been very strong.
We've had 52 consecutive months of job growth, and the fighting -- the
war and making sure our troops have what they need is going to be
imperative to the safety of this nation. The President does not
apologize for spending money on national security. Going forward, what
the President wants to do in this short-term package is to make sure
that we get enough money moving in the economy so that we can avoid
the potential risks of a downturn.

Q I'm not saying apologize, but that is a fact, that on your
books, if you're saying -- you have a checkbook, you're writing out
your checks for the $9 billion a month -- I mean, you still have other
things -- when you say you want to give incentives to businesses,
financially I guess, and tax relief to consumers -- how do you balance
those books out to get this shot in the arm?

MS. PERINO: I think I would flip it around and say, I think that
members of Congress might be able to find some of their pet projects
and their earmarks that they could eliminate that could help with this
package. We're talking about 1 percent of GDP that's going to be
robust enough to be able to have an impact. But the President is
certainly not going to short-change our troops. One of the most
important things he can do is make sure that the economy stays strong.

That supports all Americans, and it certainly supports the troops,
and it supports these economies overseas, as well, in terms -- if you
look at places like Iraq, we've been able to help them over the past
several years as they're getting their democracy underway, but their
economy is starting to improve, as well. And so we can start
transferring over to the Iraqis more of that responsibility. And the
Iraqis right now, at this -- I think today are talking through their
budget for 2009, and they're moving forward in a way that we would
want them to. And they are going to take up a lot more responsibility,
to pay for their own security and their roads and bridges and their
schools, all the things that we pay for here.

Q In terms of the meeting this morning, was there any discussion
about fixed income, Social Security, people on disability, and what
might add to that stimulus for them?

MS. PERINO: There wasn't a discussion in that level of detail in
this morning's meeting, no.

Q Has there been any discussion about that?

MS. PERINO: Certainly they are looking at all aspects of a
package.

Go ahead, Bret.

Q The description, Dana -- about this economy, is again what from
the economic advisors?

MS. PERINO: The economic advisors believe that the fundamentals of
the economy are healthy, but that in the short run we were facing a
potential downturn. And so in order to avoid that potential downturn
in the short-term, this is why the President wants to do a growth
economic package, or an economic growth package. And the members of
Capitol Hill are certainly hearing the same from their advisors, which
is why I believe there's consensus to get something done.

Q What's the White House thought on the Fed move today?

MS. PERINO: We don't comment on the Fed's moves.

Q I know, I thought I'd try.

MS. PERINO: Nice try, though.

Go ahead, Steve.

Q Dana, can you talk a little bit more about this meeting this
morning? Was it regularly scheduled? What was the purpose of the
meeting today?

MS. PERINO: Well, it was not regularly scheduled, but the
President does meet with his advisors often. As I mentioned yesterday,
the President talked by phone with Secretary Paulson at about 3:15
p.m., so that he could get an update from Secretary Paulson's
considerable experience and expertise in the area of global markets.
So the President got an update then, and then the President is going
to be meeting with members of Congress in just a couple of hours, so
he got -- continues to get an update, and to talk about how we move
forward, so that we can achieve the goal of getting something done
quickly.

Keith.

Q Can you talk a little bit more about this afternoon's meeting?
Will it amount to a negotiating session at this point? We're not very
far along in the process.

MS. PERINO: No. No, this will not be a negotiating session. First
of all, remember that this meeting has two purposes. Its original
purpose was for the President to be able to talk to members of
Congress about his trip to the Middle East. It was planned long ago,
and today is the first day that we could have that meeting, because
it's the first day that both the House and the Senate are back in
session and you have members here in town. So the President will talk
to them about his trip, including the issues of foreign investment
that came up while he was there.

But in addition, the President will take the opportunity, since we
have bicameral, bipartisan leaders in this meeting in addition to the
foreign policy chairmen, to talk about the economic growth package.
And I don't expect this to be a negotiation. I do expect the President
to be open to hearing their ideas. But he's been very clear that
Secretary Paulson is the one that he has designated and empowered to
negotiate the details on his behalf.

Q And also -- I'm sorry -- one criticism that's being leveled is
that -- or question at least, that's being leveled is that Americans
may just end up saving this money rather than spending it. There's
some that say that in the past that that's what happened. How does the
President know that that's not what's going to happen?

MS. PERINO: Well, I'd refer you to the briefing that Secretary
Paulson and the CEA Chairman Eddie Lazear did from this podium on
Friday, in which they said that we have a lot of experience in this
area. We know that in 2001, for instance, that that money was spent
and it was spent over time -- some of it spent relatively quickly. And
so that's why they've proposed this idea to the President.

I will assure you that these economic advisors would not assure --
would not tell the President that they thought this was the best
course of action if they didn't think it would be effective.

Ann.

Q This morning Americans woke up to hear the news about the
foreign markets reeling. By breakfast time, the Fed had made a very
dramatic cut in interest rates. By the end of the day, will Americans
see any progress on the kind of stimulus package that the President is
talking about?

MS. PERINO: Well, I don't know how you will see that reflected in
the markets, or not, because we don't comment on market fluctuations.
There's lots of ways that that's decided. I understand your question
is whether or not there will be movement. And that could be; I don't
know. I think we have to see what the -- how the meeting goes. I don't
expect that they will walk out and say, we have a deal on all these
final issues, because, as mentioned before, there's issues that we're
going to want to talk about and they're going to want to talk about,
and in a negotiation, there is a back-and-forth. And that's what
Secretary Paulson will be doing when he's meeting with members of
Capitol Hill and of Congress in those private sessions.

So I don't expect at the end of the day today they'll have a final
package, but I do expect there to be a chance for the members and the
President to recommit to one another to getting something done quickly
and in a bipartisan fashion. And I think that should give people
encouragement that Washington, D.C. is listening and being responsive.

Q Are you confident the Democrats are committed to working in a
bipartisan fashion on this and are serious about getting this done
quickly?

MS. PERINO: I heard nothing that would indicate otherwise.

Roger.

Q Dana, do the negotiations really begin in earnest after this
afternoon's meeting -- that is, with Secretary Paulson?

MS. PERINO: I'll have to refer you to the Treasury Department and
Secretary Paulson on how he wants to characterize it, but he's
certainly been in contact and in communication with those members, as
he talked to the President today about.

Okay, anyone else on this? John.

Q Dana, this has already been asked, but do the events in the
markets around the world over the last few days -- do they add to the
urgency of getting something done quickly? Do they add to your sense
of --

MS. PERINO: Well, the President was already there, in terms of he
had already made the decision that something needed to be done and
needed to be done quickly, and there was consensus by members of
Congress on that very issue, as well. I think everybody is agreed that
we need to get something done and we need to get it done quickly.
Whether or not the events of the past couple of days in the markets
has an impact, we'll have to see. But I think that the most important
thing is that for the first time since the middle of December, members
of Congress are finally back in town and can actually get some
business done.

Q Dana, is there any talk of speeding up the IRS process of this?
If you get an economic stimulus package passed and signed in the next
few weeks, particularly, it usually takes the IRS two to three months
to get those checks out. Has there been any discussion --

MS. PERINO: Disbursement of how we get the money out, in which
form it's -- in whichever form it's going to take will be a part of
the negotiation. But I think that people are mindful that the money
has to get to the consumers and the businesses quickly.

Paula.

Q I know you can't disclose specific measures, but Secretary
Paulson this morning said that he was confident that Congress agrees
that this package, any terms of -- long-term issues, such a making the
tax cuts permanent, entitlement reform -- he's confident the Congress
agrees that that will be taken separately. So is it -- are you
confirming that that already has been settled? He has been, as he
said, in contact with Congress, and this morning he said he's
confident that Congress agrees to take up those issues separately.

MS. PERINO: I have no reason to contradict Secretary Paulson.

Okay, Goyal.

Q Two questions, please, one on the economy. Dana, what message do
you think President will have for especially for small investors and
small businesses, because they are the one who are really fearing what
will happen to the economy, and especially people who want to sell and
buy homes? So what -- where do you stand?

MS. PERINO: Well, the President said that part of his package,
when he says "broad-based," it has to include consumers as well as
businesses, and he wants the businesses to be able to have these
investments, especially small businesses because they really do create
most of the jobs in our economy. They are the backbone of the economy,
as the President said. So he will encourage them that they will be a
part of the package that he will sign, and he'll encourage them to
continue to invest because America -- as I said, the long-term
fundamental health of our economy is very strong.

Q And second, yesterday, the President also spoke about Dr. Martin
Luther King. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King both stood for
nonviolence throughout their life, and today we see violence and
violence everywhere. So where do we go? What President think today on
the world here today?

MS. PERINO: Well, I would refer you to the President's comments
yesterday. He said the best thing we can do is to follow in their
footsteps and to love your neighbor.

Helen, did you want to go?

Q Yes. On Saturday, I read in the Post that Canadians have a
training manual which lists the United States as a torture nation.

MS. PERINO: Actually, I think that article said that they were --
I think that article said that Canada had just changed their manual
and had removed the United States from the list.

Q -- they said they were not talking about policy, but it's in the
manual.

MS. PERINO: But they had just revised their manual. That's what
that article was about.

Q Because of our pressure?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think -- I'm sure we had discussions with
them.

Q Well, what does the President think of that?

MS. PERINO: Well, the President thinks that it's a matter that's
been solved because the Canadians changed their manual.

Olivier.

Q Dana, the ongoing discussion of the situation in Gaza at the
U.N. Security Council today -- it looks like there's a resolution
being floated that condemns Israel for collective punishment of the
Palestinians who live in Gaza. This morning you said that the
Israelis' blockade was actually a self-defense move. What would you
like to see come out of the Security Council today?

MS. PERINO: Well, these Security Council resolutions come up
regularly, and I'm not going to comment as to what they may or may not
say. But what I will say is that certainly when 150 rockets -- upwards
of 150 rockets a day are landing on your territory and injuring or
potentially injuring your citizens, you have a right to defend
yourself. Imagine if that was happening here. We would certainly
defend ourselves.

And what the Palestinians and the Israelis need to do at the
leadership level is to continue to push forward to try to reach a
peace agreement, as they have pledged to do, to try to define what a
Palestinian state would look like by the end of 2008. And then the
Palestinians and those currently living under Hamas rule in Gaza will
see that they have a choice to make: They can either live in a state
that's democratic and secure, that can sustain and defend itself, or
they could live in this near chaos that they are living in in Gaza.
And that's the contrast, that's the decision that they're going to
have to make.

Q What choice do Palestinians living under Hamas rule in Gaza
have?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that they'll have to decide what they
want to support. And President Abbas, who represents all Palestinians,
is the one who has said that he supports the peace process, and he is
committed, along with Prime Minister Olmert, to try to reach an
agreement on what that Palestinian state would look like before the
President leaves office.

Q He didn't seem to represent them all.

MS. PERINO: He was elected by all of them.

Q Not in Gaza.

MS. PERINO: Go ahead, Les.

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. As our nation's elected leader,
the President believes he should speak out against any nationally
reported expression of racism or anti-Semitism, doesn't he?

MS. PERINO: Nice try. What's the follow-up?

Q Well, don't you want to answer that question? He does believe
that, doesn't he?

MS. PERINO: Go ahead, what's your second question?

Q The Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes that in view of
Senator Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, widely reported
and extensive praise of anti-Semitic demagogue Louis Farrakhan, the
obligation for candidate Obama to speak out is all the greater. Does
the President agree or disagree, or not care about this?

MS. PERINO: See, that's why I didn't answer the first one, because
you're trying to get me to comment on 2008 politics, and I'm not going
to do it.

Q No, no, he certainly does oppose what this man has said, doesn't
he?

MS. PERINO: I'm just not going to comment on 2008 politics.

Q No comment -- in other words, he doesn't care?

MS. PERINO: No, that's not true.

Q Thank you.

MS. PERINO: Thank you.

END 1:00 P.M. EST

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