Social Security and Energy are Next Domestic Priorities for White House; Plamann
Recounts Tax Reform Group Meeting with President Bush
Food Distributors International (FDI) Chairman Alfred A. Plamann and the association’s
president and CEO John R. Block met yesterday at the White House with President
Bush, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and other top officials to discuss key
issues and developments important to FDI members and other businesses across
the United States.
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The 90-minute meeting, held in the Roosevelt Room, included 22 other members
of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) who helped generate support for the President’s
tax cut package, signed into law June 7.
Plamann, president and CEO, Unified Western Grocers, Los Angeles, recounted
highlights of meeting in his visit to FDI headquarters afterward. Plamann said
the president’s economic advisor, Lawrence B. Lindsey, called the recent $1.3
trillion tax cut a “good step forward,” but emphasized that his next priority
would be to make them permanent.
Lindsey expressed a three-pronged approach to future tax changes: working for
a adoption of an alternative minimum tax, further reducing the capital gains
tax, and revising elements of the tax structure.
Social Security
Lindsey, O’Neill and the president concurred that while there were follow-up
tax goals to accomplish, the next major priority on the White house agenda was
Social Security. Foreign trade and energy were also major priorities, O’Neill
told the group.
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By GlobalData O’Neill felt that there was enough revenue remaining in the social security
fund in the next five to 10 years to accomplish corrective reform there. “The
social security system can be fixed,” O’Neill said.
"That’s a strong statement from a guy like that," Plamann said.
Following the presentations by Lindsey, O’Neill and staffers, the president
joined the group for about 45 minutes. He quickly expanded on some of the material
covered by his staff, and covered quite a bit of additional ground.
“He was very gracious in thanking us for our support,” Plamann said. The president
said he would work to maintain a cap on appropriations.
“The president was referring to staying within the budget in the wake of the
tax cuts,” Block added. “The president knows that Congress will try to bust
the budget.”
Energy
In reviewing his energy policy, the president told the group in strong terms
that price controls wouldn’t work.
“How can I talk to small businesses about support for your energy policies?”
Plamann asked the president. “What help can anyone offer in the short term?”
“We can’t go to price controls,” the president responded emphatically. He became
quite impassioned over this issue, Plamann and Block noted.
President Bush said that when California Governor Gray Davis suggested the president
should consider instituting energy price controls at the federal level, the
president told Davis that he could begin by capping the energy prices Los Angeles
charges other California municipalities. (Los Angeles has its own energy production
facility, and sells its excess energy to other California municipalities at
the uncapped prices.)
On new sources of energy, the president spoke of Canadian willingness to drill
for new sources of gas and oil for export to the United States, and of a similar
willingness by Mexico. Why shouldn’t we be willing to drill for our own energy
sources, the president asked?
Foreign Policy
The president, who began his first official visit to Europe hours after the
ATR meeting, also touched on foreign policy issues, Russian President Vladimir
Putin, and missile defense.
The challenge for Putin, Bush said, was for him to think more as a European.
He should realize he has nothing to fear from the West (with the hint that perhaps
Putin should be looking East for potential sources of conflict). But the president
was quick to note that he wasn’t trying to advise Putin. “He has to solve his
own problems,” the president said.
President Bush also told the group that he intends to hold his own on the Kyoto
environmental pact during his trip to Europe.
Just prior to the ATR meeting, the president addressed the subject of global
climate change in a Rose Garden news conference during which he called the Kyoto
Protocol “fatally flawed in fundamental ways.” He reaffirmed his commitment
to protecting the environment, but noted that the U.S. approach “must be based
on global participation, including that of developing countries whose net greenhouse
gas emissions now exceed those in the developed countries.”
The president’s message to the tax group paralleled his Rose Garden remarks.
He said that he is well prepared for his meetings in Europe, and that he would
not comprise the U.S. position, which includes flexibility to take advantage
of developing technologies and pursuing market-based incentives that would act
to “ensure continued economic growth and prosperity for our citizens and for
citizens throughout the world.”
Other groups represented at the meeting with FDI included: Associated General
Contractors, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Food
Marketing Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, National Federation
of Independent Business, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, and
the National Restaurant Association.
