He talks and talks and talks... then there are like 3 planted questions from the audience, then he says:
snip...
Q And, also, especially foreign aid. I tend to develop compassion fatigue when it comes to foreign aide, when I hear about the U.N. Oil for Food program fraud. That's a very big concern.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q Because I pay taxes, and I expect it to be spent wisely.
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. (Applause.) That's a good question. I was hoping somebody would ask that question. (Laughter.) Let me talk about budgeting and spending, and then I'll talk about accountability when it comes to spending.
Let me -- I'll start with that. I just came from a meeting with Clay Johnson, he's my close friend that -- he was my college roommate, actually, who is the "M" in OMB, Office of Management and Budget. And his job, as the "M" in OMB, is to say to agencies, we expect there to be results-oriented systems throughout your agencies. And we've actually got a scorecard, a management scorecard of how well agencies are doing with, for example, responding to taxpayers through email, how well they're doing to make sure their programs are actually delivering results. And so we're working hard to see to it that these giant bureaucracies become results-oriented. There are all kinds of ways to measure, and we've got a good measurement system in place to do so.
There is a -- look, my job is to submit budgets that will bring confidence to the marketplaces, as well as to the taxpayers. And that means setting priorities and meeting those priorities without overtaxing the American people. And we have done that. I want you to know that -- let me put in the context of the deficit.
Yes, we've got a deficit, for three reasons. One, there was a recession. And a recession costs the Treasury money, unless there's a corresponding cut in spending. And there wasn't.
Two, there is a deficit because I made the decision to go after the enemy, and we were going to spend whatever money was necessary to defend ourselves. (Applause.) And the Congress supported me, by and large. Some in the Senate didn't support the $87 billion. (Laughter.)
THE AUDIENCE: Boo.
THE PRESIDENT: But most of them did, guys like George Allen, who said, if you're going to put people in harm's way, they deserve the right pay and right equipment. (Applause.)
Thirdly, part of the reason we have this deficit is because I believed in order to get the economy moving forward, there should be tax relief. And it's working, the tax relief is working. It's going to be one of the interesting arguments in the campaign. I will make the case that it is working, and that you don't want to run up taxes. Now, when I first came into office, non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending increased at 15 percent. This year, the budget we've requested from the House and the Senate is non-defense, non-homeland spending, discretionary spending is increasing at less than 1 percent. (Applause.) And so the step one -- step one is to set priorities, and hold Congress to working with those priorities. And Congress has been very good. Speaker Hastert and Leader Frist have worked very closely with the administration to achieve good top-line budget numbers. So I can say to you that the deficit will be cut in half over the next five years, and we've just got to keep working that way.
And so there's two -- I kind of took two points from your questions. One was, the overall budget numbers, how does it relate -- are we able to contain spending to the point where we can say to the people that this deficit is beginning to decrease. Now remember, the deficit, again, was caused by recession, we're coming out of that -- we're out of it. Secondly, it was caused by the war. We're still in the war. And, thirdly, the tax relief helped us generate more revenues.
And by the way, in the mid season -- mid-session review -- I don't know if you saw this, George, or not -- but the projected deficit of last February has already been decreased fairly significantly, because the economy is getting stronger. And when the economy strengthens, more revenues come into -- (Applause.)
I've got to go back -- listen, I've got to get back to the White House and make sure we're spending money wisely. But I want to thank you for your question. I want to thank you all for coming today. (Applause.) I want to thank you for support. May God bless you, and may God continue to bless our country. (Applause.) http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040809-3.html
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