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Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Dana Perino
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary October 20, 2008

Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Dana Perino Aboard Air Force One En route
Alexandria, Louisiana

˙˙Press Briefings


11:00 A.M. EDT

MS. PERINO: A couple things for you. We are on our way to Alexandria,
Louisiana, where the President will meet with the Central Louisiana Chamber
of Commerce and he'll participate in a roundtable on the economy. He will
meet with local business leaders whose businesses have felt the impacts of
the problems in the credit markets and stand to benefit from the unfreezing
of these credit markets with the implementation of the financial rescue
plan. He'll make a statement to the press pool at the end of that. Onboard,
Congressman Rodney Alexander.

At 1:55 p.m., before we leave, the President is going to meet with families
of the fallen military personnel before heading back to Washington this
evening.

And then a couple of announcements, just to update you. As you know, over
the last few weeks we've worked aggressively to implement the rescue
package that Congress passed before leaving for their recess. This morning,
Secretary Paulson is giving an update on the Capital Purchase Program that
is a key component of that package that he talked about earlier last week.
Treasury will make up to $250 billion in capital available to U.S.
financial institutions in the form of preferred stock. We expect all
participating banks to continue and to strengthen their efforts to help
struggling homeowners who can afford their homes to avoid foreclosure.
Foreclosure does not only hurt the families who lose their homes, but the
entire neighborhoods, as well as the economy as a whole.

Secretary Paulson will emphasize that the needs of our economy require that
our financial institutions not just hold this capital, but put it to work
by making loans to businesses and consumers.

Secretary Paulson will announce that Treasury has finalized the application
process for the purchase program and there will be a single application
form for qualified financial institutions to use. So we consider this a
very efficient process; standardized forms with standardized review that
will encourage banks and thrifts of all sizes to participate in the program
and by so doing they will increase their capital base so that they can
provide the lending necessary to support the U.S. economy as we work
through this difficult period.

Tomorrow, President Bush will host the White House Summit on International
Development. It will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building. Let me give you
just a little bit of a preview of that, since I won't have a chance later.

As you know, throughout the administration we've greatly expanded and
strengthened our assistance efforts to help improve health and education
and raise standards of living in the poorest countries. Given the recent
economic downturn where there is concern that developing countries and
their citizens will be more vulnerable, it's more important than ever that
we and other developed countries keep our commitments and continue to fund
development assistance programs, as well as work to increase trade.

The summit will have several leaders come together, including Liberian
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, musician and activist Bob Geldof,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor Steve
Hadley, and many other public and private sector leaders.

The summit will focus on the President's core principles for development
that have transformed our approach to international development by linking
assistance with measurable results. I'm talking about the Millennium
Challenge Account program, amongst others. This approach is producing
historic life-saving results for millions of people around the globe.

And one note for you -- the administrator of US AID, Henrietta Fore, she is
going to have a briefing at the State Department today in a lead up to that
conference, so I'm sure there will be a transcript that State Department
will have for you later.

And that's it.

Q Dana, Chairman Bernanke this morning voiced support for a stimulus
program, a second stimulus. Does President Bush support that idea?

MS. PERINO: We think that there's ample opportunity when Congress gets back
to talk about lots of those ideas. What we've seen put forward so far by
the leaders in Congress, the Democrats, were elements of a package that we
did not think would actually stimulate the economy. So we would want to
take a look at anything very carefully.

Q But does he -- does the President support the idea of a second stimulus,
pending specifics?

MS. PERINO: Well, as I said, we've had an open mind about it, but what we
are focused on right now is the urgent need to get this rescue package
implemented. But we're continuing to have conversations with members of
Congress and we're open to ideas that they would put forward that would --
both Democrats and Republicans alike -- that would stimulate the economy
and help us pull out of this downturn faster.

Q Dana, does the fact that Chairman Bernanke, himself, though, has said it
could be a good idea, does that make the President more amenable to the
possibility? And does that kind of serve as a good endorsement of it?

MS. PERINO: I think that -- well, I think that, again, we'd like to see the
details of what would be proposed, because there are several programs that
have been recommended that are coming in a cloak of being stimulative, and
we don't think that those would actually stimulate the economy. So anything
that we would do, we would have to take a careful look at, and I'm sure the
Fed Chairman would want to make sure that those elements of a program would
actually stimulate the economy and meet that test.

So I think we just need to wait and see. We're open to ideas and we'll take
a look at what comes our way.

Q Do you think that there has been anything put forward so far that has
any, you know, appeal to the administration?

MS. PERINO: I don't know all the details of every single program that's
been proposed. But obviously we were open to a stimulus package last
January and one of the things that we agreed with Nancy Pelosi on was that
the program needed to be targeted, temporary, and timely. And so we worked
very closely with the Democrats and the Republicans on Capitol Hill. We
were able to get a program put forward. We do think that it will have the
effect of helping prevent what could have been even a worse downturn in our
economy.

So we're focused on getting those elements into place now both -- we
finalized the stimulus package from last January and got those checks out
the door, and now we're -- you know, and businesses continue to take
advantage of the provisions that were allowed for, like depreciation, from
last February 2008, from that legislation. Now we're working on
implementation of the rescue package, which has to happen immediately, and
then we'll continue to talk with members of Congress about what might be
put on the plate going forward.

In addition to that, we also have this other track running, which is on
preparing for the summits that the President announced on Saturday. So we
have lots of different things moving forward.

Q On that summit, has there been any determination for a date or a venue
yet --

MS. PERINO: We're working towards it and we're trying to consult with a lot
of other countries to make sure that those details would work for them. So
we're not ready to announce anything yet, but we're getting closer.

Q And has the President -- one of the things the statement said was the
leaders should reach out to other leaders. Has the President reached out to
anybody today on this?

MS. PERINO: I'll have an update for you a little bit later today. We're
trying to get a lot of those things scheduled and organized, just trying to
work out getting people on the phone.

Q I'm sorry, go ahead.

Q Actually, I'm going to go on to a different topic.

Q Okay, I just want to go back to the stimulus. Beyond being open to
discussing things, does the President think a second stimulus is needed?

MS. PERINO: I haven't spoken to him about that in particular. I think what
he would look to is -- all of his advisors -- obviously Ben Bernanke is a
key one, Secretary Paulson, Keith Hennessey, and others to advise him best
as to whether or not they think, collectively, that there is a need for a
stimulus package right now. I don't know if that conversation has taken
place yet, but I know that they talk regularly and so we'll remain open to
the idea and then we'll just have to see when Congress gets back, if they
decide to move forward, what sort of package they want to draft into
legislation -- whether it be principles or actual legislation -- and then
see if it actually would stimulate the economy.

Q On another issue, there were reports over the weekend that there was
going to be some announcement out of North Korea on Monday, and there's
been a lot of speculation on the health of the leader, Kim Jong-il. Have
you heard anything about --

MS. PERINO: I have not. I have not.

Q -- a sense of him or anything?

MS. PERINO: I have not heard anything, no.

Q Dana, does the President have any reaction to Secretary Powell endorsing
Senator Obama?

MS. PERINO: No, no, and I didn't talk to him about it on the way over, but
what I would say is that in America the great thing is everybody is able to
think about their -- who they're going to endorse in a election, weigh all
the issues and come to their own conclusion, and then have the freedom to
be able to express them. And that's the great thing about our country.

Q Well how would you -- sorry, how would you characterize the relationship
these days between Secretary Powell and President Bush?

MS. PERINO: It's very good. Yes. Last thing I knew -- I think that the
President was just over at his house for dinner not too long ago. Maybe it
was a little while; it may have been more than a year ago. But I think they
have a good relationship. The President greatly respects General Powell, as
we all do.

Q Is it possible that the U.S. would host more than one of these summits
before the President --

MS. PERINO: I guess that's possible. I don't know. I know that they said
there would be -- we would host the first one, I know for sure. But where
the others would take place I'm not positive. And hopefully, we'll have
more details on that for you. I don't anticipate them today. But maybe the
next couple or three days.

Q Does the President support Ed Lazear's comments yesterday on "Late
Edition," that parts of the country are in a recession?

MS. PERINO: I think from the federal government's perspective, we give the
federal number -- we do it every six months out of OMB -- in terms of the
outlook. I think what the chairman was saying is that there are parts of
our country that are hurting right now.

And the Bureau of Economic Statistics -- whatever it's called; I can't
remember the acronym -- they do a lot of number crunching as to how the
housing industry is affecting different parts of the country: different
states, different neighborhoods even. They break it down into that type of
granularity.

So the press is welcome to look at all of those. And from our perspective,
our concern is about the people who are hurting, and what can we do about
it. So the first thing we do is the stimulus package last January and
February, when we recognized we were heading into a downturn. Economic
cycles always have -- someone is on the up and someone is on the down, even
when you have a country that experienced, as we did, 52 consecutive months
of job growth, you end up with some regions of the country not doing as
well as others. And our concern is about those individuals.

One of the things we've done over the past week was increase Social
Security benefits, as well as LIHEAP money for people that might be hurting
this winter. Our main focus is to try to get people back to work if they
are looking for a job, if they've been laid off or if they've been looking
for a while, to try to help those regions.

Another thing that we're concerned about in the housing market is this
whole issue of supply and demand that we've talked about. We have a glut of
housing supply, and that cuts down on the amount of houses that are being
built, that cuts down on construction jobs, and it has a downward,
spiraling effect. So that's what we're concerned about.

Q So is this the first time that someone in the administration has used the
word "recession" in the recent --

MS. PERINO: I think he was just talking about reality, and that there are
some regions of the country that are hurting more than others, and our
focus has to be on trying to help them.

Q So were you thinking about something specifically, to sort of put a floor
in the housing market?

MS. PERINO: No. I'm just talking about the -- well, look at the
announcement that I had today, in terms of what Secretary Paulson is doing,
where he's talking to the banks and encouraging them to make sure that
people who can actually afford their home, if they need a work-out, that
the banks have an obligation to try to make that happen, so that we can
keep people in their homes.

Q Is there anything to be done about what you describe as the glut of
housing?

MS. PERINO: Well, that's just something that has to work its way through,
and the market has a way of doing that.

Okay. All right, see you there.

Q Thanks, Dana.

END 11:12 A.M. EDT

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