Interview with Ron Insana of CNBC's ''Business Center'' in Clarksdale
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Administration of William J. Clinton, 1999 / July 7 1293 Interview With Ron Insana of kill the recovery, so everybody's been trying CNBC's ``Business Center'' in to avoid it. Clarksdale, Mississippi Well, I think about that all the time. And it seems to me that the way to keep America's July 6, 1999 economy growing without inflation is to sell more products overseas and find more con- New Markets Initiative sumers and workers at the same time here Mr. Insana. Mr. President, this trip and at home. And there are onlyÐthere are a your new markets initiative in some ways couple of options. You can bring more people have already been compared to Lyndon from welfare or from the ranks of the dis- Johnson's War on Poverty, Bobby Kennedy's abled into the work force, or you can go to swing through Appalachia. How will this pro- these areas where you invest in them and gram work where some of the other Govern- you get more consumers and more workers ment programs on poverty have failed in the at the same time. And I think this is terribly past? important. The President. Well, first of all, I think Mr. Insana. What specific items will be it's important to recognize that this is dif- included in the legislation to advance those ferent because we don't say the Government goals? What kind of tax credits? can solve all these problems, but we do say The President. Well, the big ideas in the the Government can no longer ignore them. legislation are a tax credit of up to 25 percent And, in fact, we've been working on them for people who invest in vehicles that will for 61¤2 years, ever since I took office. be creating businesses or expanding busi- This is a classic example, this approach to nesses in high-unemployment, under- new markets, of the New Democratic or developed areas. In addition to that, once you Third Way philosophy that I articulated back get into those vehicles, then you would be in 1991 and 1992. That is, Government's role eligible to borrow $2 for every $1 invested is to create the conditions for success, give and have the money borrowed be subject to people the tools they need to succeed, and a Government loan guarantee, which would then, in effect, empower people to make the mean the interest rates would be much, most of it. much lower. So by those two things, you But we recognize if you look atÐgo back lower the relative risk of investing in these to the War on Poverty, it did a lot of good new markets. in terms of giving children preschool and But we've seenÐyou heard the person feeding hungry children and giving them ac- from Bank of America say today, we heard cess to health care. But in the end, if you the gentleman from a local bank in Kentucky want these communities to be self-sustaining, yesterday, or the people from Aetna or these they have to get private-sector capital with other companies say, ``These are good invest- private-sector jobs, and they have to prove ments; we can make money here.'' So if you that they can compete for it, they can win lower the relative risk of getting in in the it, and that people can actually make a profit first place and, in effect, try to provide for investing in these places and that it will be the whole Nation what now you can find in profitable to put people to work. the empowerment zones that the Vice Presi- And because I believe that very passion- dent's worked so hard to manage over the ately, especially nowÐyou know, there was last 6 years, I think we can get a lot more all this big discussion in business circles and growth here. the people that watch your program, there was all this big discussion over the last few Republican Proposal weeks about would the Fed raise interest Mr. Insana. Now, House Speaker Dennis rates or not. And it was like the fifth reincar- Hastert sent you a letter over the weekend nation of how much can we grow and how attacking poverty from a slightly different ap- low can unemployment get before we have proach with respect to more tax-cut-type in- this big explosion of inflation which then centives. Do you have common ground with we'll have to clamp down, which will then him where you can fashion someÐÐ VerDate 18-JUN-99 09:58 Jul 14, 1999 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 1244 Sfmt 1244 W:\DISC\P27JY4.008 txed02 PsN: txed02 1294 July 7 / Administration of William J. Clinton, 1999 The President. Well, I want to have a more high productivity-driven growth with- chance to evaluate it. It would seem to me, out inflation than anyone dreamed. though, that we would haveÐthis is some- The trick is ifÐto go back to what Barney thing that Democrats and Republicans all Frank saidÐwhat he wants is to keep the agree on. I mean, our approach is a com- economy going, to keep the growth going pletely private-sector approach. We do have, until middle and lower middle income work- in addition to the big tax cuts I talked about, ing people can get their wages up to over- we have a venture capital approach where come the stagnation of 20 previous years and we want to try to do a little more to get real until we can get more people caught up in venture capital out there. You heard the lady the areas where the recovery hasn't occurred. testify today that she went from being an em- That's why, it seems to me, the most impor- ployer to a business owner, and she had no tant thing to do is to have initiatives like this equity so she had to have venture capital to which give you concrete examples of how you start. So we do that. And we have a little can have growth without inflation. bit of technical assistance to help commu- nities and businesses that don't have any way Tax Cuts of getting the information they need. Mr. Insana. Now, Republicans would But apart from that, I think we ought to argue that one other way to extend the recov- be able to find common ground. I can't imag- ery here would be to cut taxes even further. ine that Republicans wouldn't want to do And you hinted last week in USA Today that this. This has got to be good for Republican if you got what you wanted on Medicare re- businesspeople, to have a better chance to form and prescription drug benefit subsidies, invest in areas where you can have more that you might go along with an expanded growth without inflation. list of tax breaks. Can you elaborate on that? What would you accept in exchange for a Medicare deal? Interest Rates The President. Let me make it clear. Mr. Insana. Now, last week, some con- What I said was that, obviously, we would gressional Democrats led by Barney Frank be working together on all the appropriations came out and suggested that if the Fed raised issues and expenditure of money, if we did interest rates, something you mentioned a first things first. But I think that it's quite minute ago, that it would hurt the poor, peo- important that the Republicans say how ple you've been visiting here over the last they're going to pay for all these things. You couple of days. Is that what the Fed's doing, know, they say they want even larger in- or is the Fed extending a noninflationary eco- creases for defense than I do, and I've pro- nomic environment by tapping on the brakes posed substantial increases. Then they want a little bit? huge increases in tax cuts. Do they propose The President. Well, I think that plainly to keep us in debt? Do they propose to basi- that's what the Fed is trying to do. And I've cally eviscerate the education and health and made a real practice of trying not to com- environment budgets of the country? What ment on interest rate changes and trying to is their proposal? let Chairman Greenspan and the Fed do Of course, we will negotiate, but we ought their work, and I would do mine. to think about first things first. Let me just But again I say, lookÐlook at what we've say this: I think we proved in '93, when we done here. I think if you just look at Chair- didn't have a single Republican vote and the man Greenspan's own testimony, we've all Vice President had to break the tie in the been somewhat surprised that we could grow Senate, that we were right and they were not as much as we have, have unemployment as right about what would be the best econom- low as we've had, and have virtually no infla- ics for their constituents. That is, when we tion. And it's a tribute to the productivity of passed that '93 economic plan, there is no the American businesspeople and the explo- question that it sparked a huge drop in inter- sion of technology, and it's rifling through est rates, a huge increase in investment, and every sector of the economy and giving us an explosion in economic activity.