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Press Briefing by Dana Perino
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary July 24, 2008

Press Briefing by Dana Perino James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

˙ /news/releases/2008/07/20080724-11.wm.v.html ˙˙Press Briefings
˙˙Audio


12:43 P.M. EDT

MS. PERINO: A special welcome to the Frattos. A couple of announcements, so
bear with me here.

In his speech on the freedom agenda earlier this morning you heard the
President discuss PEPFAR, which is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS
Relief. He noted the importance of continuing our commitment to fight
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases in the poorest countries. He
emphasized that "nations afflicted with debilitating public health crises
cannot build strong and prosperous societies for their citizens." And today
the House is set to vote on final passage for the legislation to
reauthorize PEPFAR and other diseases, the treatment for them. The
President looks forward to passage of one of his highest priorities, and
commends the many members from both sides of the aisle who worked to get it
done. The bill will ensure that we are able to keep our commitments to
replace disease and despair with healing and hope.

Also, it's come to light that Congressional Democrats plan a maneuver today
to turn off what's called the "Medicare trigger." It was passed in 2003 and
created a warning system whenever Medicare spending began to take a larger
percentage of federal spending. Basically it required that when Medicare
spending from general revenue exceeds 45 percent in two consecutive
trustees' reports, the President would be required to propose a plan to
Congress to reduce spending. Congress -- the Democratic leaders in Congress
have decided not to take action, and would have the responsibility for
acting on the proposals under expedited procedures.

Because they haven't acted and they ignored the warning, they have not
fulfilled their obligations. Well, today, apparently Speaker Pelosi intends
to do away with the trigger altogether for the remainder of the Congress,
not only abandoning any responsibility to deal with runaway entitlement
spending now, but to even get rid of the warning system altogether. This is
the legislative equivalent of pulling out the fuse lights in your car, or
the fuse in your car, when the "check engine" light is flashing.

The growth in entitlement spending, as you have heard the President say, is
coming decades to -- in the coming decades will pose a tremendous risk to
the United States economy. He has proposed ways in his budgets to deal with
it, both on Medicare and also on Social Security. And we know that the
Congress is reluctant to act on that as well.

There's another troubling aspect to all of this, and that is that actions
by Democratic leaders to change the rules of the game when it gets to be
uncomfortable, and we saw this with the Colombia free trade agreement. So
instead of playing by their own rules, they just decided to change the
rules altogether. And we're quite disappointed by this, and we'll be
watching for further action.

That's it. Go ahead.

Q I wanted to ask about the housing bill. You all obviously decided to
support it. I'm curious, though, what the White House estimates are of how
much this will help, especially given the magnitude of the problem. We're
talking about possibly getting new mortgages -- new, more attractive
mortgages for about 400,000 people when some estimates put the number of
foreclosures coming at about 6 million. How has the White House calculated
that this will help? Is it because it would have a broader domino effect,
or is 400,000 enough people to get help to? What's the calculation there?

MS. PERINO: There's several different aspects of the bill. You've mentioned
a couple of them, but one of the things that we thought was most important,
and the reason that the President decided that it was too important to have
a prolonged veto fight -- that we were sure we would win and we proved that
we would win yesterday -- is because Secretary Paulson has said that we
need to have the GSE reform for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in order for us
to be able to help stabilize the markets and provide confidence to the
markets, which would not only help homeowners, but would help the overall
economy. So that was the largest part of the bill.

Certainly, there are going to be some people that we are not going to be
able to help that are going to have foreclosures. But we have been able,
through HOPE NOW and through FHA Secure, two programs where we worked with
the private sector and with HUD, to try to make sure that people could
rework their loans. That will help, and this bill will provide some more
help.

One of the things that we did not like about that $4 billion that the
Democrats wanted to include in the bill is that it's an incentive for
lenders to foreclose. Without that money -- if they think -- if the lenders
think that they're going to get bailed out by the federal government,
they're more incentivized then to foreclose on a property. What we would
prefer is to not have that type of a bailout and to have the lenders be
incentivized to try to work with the current homeowner to rework the loan
in a way that the lender -- or that the homeowner can pay. So that -- those
are the broad parameters of the bill.

Kathleen.

Q Dana, is the President concerned about the new unemployment numbers that
came out today -- 406,000, the worst since September of 2005 after Katrina?

MS. PERINO: Well, we've had certainly a slowdown in our economy, and we
want everybody in America who wants to have a job to be able to find a job
-- and we've been working to do that. We've said for a while that it was
going to take some time for the stimulus package that we passed in
February, for it to have an effect on job numbers. We also realize that the
headwinds that were caused by rising gas prices and also the housing crisis
that we just talked about are all having an impact. But we do think that
towards the end of the year we'll be able to see some better growth, and
that means jobs, too.

I would say that our unemployment rate in this country remains low by
historic standards, but that doesn't mean that for the individual who is
out there who is looking for a job or is concerned that they might lose
their job, that the anxiety that comes with that makes for a less happy and
productive life. And so that's why we want to try to get ourselves back on
a path to job growth.

Q Dana, following on what Jennifer was asking about -- so the figures about
sales for existing homes come out and it shows a downward trend, and the
same share prices for Freddie and Fannie that were boosted yesterday as
soon as the President said he wouldn't veto go back down. And it seems to
suggest a real sort of brittleness to the situation that may be beyond any
kind of housing bill or government -- any kind of legislative approach. Do
you fear or worry that the tremors, especially in the housing market, are
beyond something that the government can fix right now?

MS. PERINO: Well, we have said for a while that the housing crisis is
something that we needed to deal with. In fact, it was last August 31st
when President Bush saw the -- listened to his advisors, who recognized
that the housing crisis was coming, and asked Congress to act. We're 11
months now from that time frame and we think that if we could have acted
sooner, we could have helped do a couple of things, such as on this GSE
reform getting a strong regulator in place to make sure that Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac are focusing on their core missions, which is to help
homeowners, and in particular, help low-income homeowners. We think that's
what they should be focused on because that is their mandate in the
statute.

But we also recognize that the GSE reforms would help stabilize the market,
and that's one of the things that without this housing bill -- even though
the housing bill -- even though the President said yesterday he wouldn't
veto it, it still hasn't passed.

So -- I'm not a market analyst. Things go up and down in a market all the
time. I think it's wrong for me from this podium to try to judge why that's
happening. There's lots of financial experts and I'm sure you can talk to
them. But I think let's take a look and see if we can get this bill signed
and into law once the Congress passes it and up to the President, and then
take it from there. But we do think it will have an impact on the overall
health of the market in terms of stability and confidence in the financial
markets.

Q Dana, the provincial elections in Iraq have been seen as necessary for
reconciliation between the different groups there. They're on indefinite
hold right now over objections from the Kurds. And Ambassador Crocker, in
an AP story today, says he thinks it might take decades for the country to
settle its economic and social problems. Does that have any implications
for how long the U.S. would be in that country?

MS. PERINO: No, I don't think -- what Ambassador Crocker was talking about
was long-term political gains and long-term democratic institutions that
could solidify. I think that we've already said that we think that we'll be
able to start bringing -- keep bringing troops home based on success, given
that we've been able to have a lot of the surge implementation take place
over the past year, and it's taking hold in many places. But as we've said,
the gains aren't irreversible.

I don't think that Ambassador Crocker was suggesting in any way about
troops, especially combat troops, being there for decades. I think he was
just talking about the reality of when you take a country that was broken
by a dictator and you try to rebuild it. Iraq is certainly going to be a
lot farther along than Afghanistan, just given from -- where they started
from.

Q So that wouldn't require U.S. military or diplomatic participation to
resolve those problems?

MS. PERINO: I don't know what future troop posture would be, but I
certainly don't think anybody is forecasting that. Now, we do have presence
in countries where we -- countries that we used to be at war with, such as
Japan and Germany, Korea. But those are different configurations
altogether. So I think that what we'd like to do is get them stabilized and
able to take on more of their own responsibility for their security. But
they've also improved a lot on the diplomatic side of things.

But there's deep-rooted tensions, and some hatred, even, inside Iraq and
then outside within the region. But they've made great strides. We now have
an ambassador coming to Iraq from Kuwait, which is the first time since --
for a couple of decades. You have the UAE, who has just agreed to forgive
their debt. You have Turkey playing a more helpful role. You have Jordan
playing a more helpful role; Saudi Arabia has suggested that they would
send an ambassador.

So it is going to take some time, but it's moving in the right direction.

Q And is the administration still hopeful that those elections could happen
this year?

MS. PERINO: We are hopeful that they are, but I think that, as Ambassador
Crocker said and the Iraqis have said, that the hope for an October time
frame is unrealistic at this point because the election law was vetoed by
both of the -- I think the President and the Prime Minister. So it goes
back to the legislature, and hopefully now that they can work out their
differences.

But one of the big issues is the Kirkuk region, and it's going to be
something they have to work through. But they will do that. Just remember
that the Iraqis now are trying to solve their problems in the parliament;
they're not trying to solve them in the streets with violence. And that's
remarkable in itself, given where we were a year ago.

Q On -- earlier today the President talked to Prime Minister Singh and they
discussed the trade talks. India's negotiator in Geneva has said that they
have nothing new to offer. Did the Prime Minister express that to the
President? What was his reaction? And do you all still believe you can get
the deal by the end of the year?

MS. PERINO: We're working to get a deal by the end of the year. I don't
know specifically what the Prime Minister and the President talked about;
we'll keep that confidential. Regardless, even though I don't -- I wasn't
there; I don't have the exact conversation in front of me, either -- we do
think that it's important to get a deal. We've been working hard towards
it. We just made concessions ourselves on Tuesday of this week, and we
would like other countries to do so as well. It's going to take them moving
forward as well as us. So we have to take steps together at the same time.
It's one of the reasons the President has continued to work and call
individuals. And let's just see how it plays out. We'll try to reach out to
USTR and see if they have an update later.

Q And the SPR bill that's moving through Congress, do you all have an
opinion on that yet, a veto threat, or --

MS. PERINO: I think there's a SAP that we will have, a statement of
administration position, that will be coming out soon. The House
Republicans, the only thing that they're asking for, when it comes to
adding -- I'm sorry, I shouldn't say just -- House and Senate Republicans,
what they are both asking for when it comes to increasing supply in our
country is the ability for them to vote on the issue. And so -- and that's
on the overall issues.

When it comes to the SPR, we have made our points clear about this before.
The SPR, when it first came into being, was set up for national
emergencies. It's the nation's energy insurance policy. And we don't think
it should be raided for purposes that were -- to try to manipulate price.
It's been tried in the past -- it hasn't worked -- and because of action
taken by Congress recently, we even stopping filling the SPR. That did not
have an impact on price.

And so I think that instead of wasting time talking about the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve, that they should look to what the House and Senate
Republicans are asking for -- and many Democrats -- which is a chance to
vote on looking for more resources here in our own country. Don't think the
SPR is the right place to get it done.

I think in some cases the Democrats believe that a problem delayed is a
problem half-solved, and we've seen over the decades that that is not the
case, given that prices continually rise. We used to see this every spring
and then they'd slightly go down in the fall. But right now when you look
at the issues of supply and demand in the emerging countries like India and
China, the demand doesn't seem to be tapering off at all.

So you're going to have to do something on the supply side, and tapping
into 700 million barrels of the SPR, which is our national insurance
policy, doesn't seem like the best idea, when in fact we could send a
signal to the market that we would be willing to look for domestic
resources in our own country. For example, the Outer Continental Shelf,
they estimate it has 18 billion barrels of oil; up in ANWR, 10.4 billion
barrels; and oil shale, 800 billion barrels. Compare that to 700 million
barrels in the SPR and I think you can see why the math doesn't add up.

Q So the SAP will be a veto threat?

MS. PERINO: I believe -- we'll have to say that senior advisors will
recommend a veto, yes.

Ann.

Q The price of oil is down $23 a barrel in the last two weeks. Why does the
President think that is? Is it just supply and demand? Is it anything about
American policy that has caused that pressure to go down on price?

MS. PERINO: Again, I'm not a market analyst and I couldn't tell you why
it's gone down in price --

Q I know, but what does the President --

MS. PERINO: And the President -- he puts himself in the same category, as
not somebody who predicts the markets or can explain all the different
pieces. But we have seen that Americans are starting to drive less,
slightly less, which can help reduce demand. But in addition to that,
possibly the markets are looking at the fact that there are more people
being more serious about looking for resources in our own country, which
would send a signal that we would finally start to bring on more supply.

Q Can I ask one on Iraq as well? The Iraqi Olympic athletes have been told
they have to stay home. And the problem is that Prime Minister Maliki fired
the members of the Olympic committee, and the IOC says you can't do that,
and he did it anyway. Did the United States ever offer Iraq any advice on
how these international operations work?

MS. PERINO: I'm not sure if we offered any advice. I would refer you to
Ambassador Crocker's office because -- obviously that's not really been
their focus so much. And I'm sure that they got advice from others, and I
don't know the particular details as to why Prime Minister Maliki decided
to take that action. But I'm sure that the Iraqi athletes who have trained
so hard and were finally going to represent a country that is free and
sovereign and working to establish its democracy, they have to be terribly
disappointed, and I'm disappointed for the athletes as well.

Q Two quick questions. One, Dana, President has any comments on Senator
Barack Obama's global foreign policy --

MS. PERINO: No.

Q And second, Dana, as far as his comments, or both candidates have been
saying, especially Senator Obama, as far as immigration is concerned will
play a major role. But do you think President is going to push this
immigration bill, or going to ask Congress again before the elections?

MS. PERINO: No, we -- Congress is about to take yet another recess and they
don't seem to be the mood to pass much of anything.

Go ahead, Savannah.

Q Back on oil supply for a second.

MS. PERINO: Okay.

Q There are reports that a proposed rule from the administration this week
would allow about 100 new oil and gas leases on Colorado's national forest.
Can you confirm that?

MS. PERINO: It sounds like something that the Department of Interior might
be doing in terms of leasing that would be underway. But that's not
something we would detail out of here at the White House.

Q Okay. In general, do you know of an effort -- I mean, I know oil shale,
for example, is one of the areas --

MS. PERINO: In general, I know just from my own history that there are
people who are trying to develop the technology that would allow to be able
to develop resources in the West. I don't know if that's particularly oil
shale or not. There are other types of resources out there -- geothermal,
et cetera. So I'd have to refer you to Interior Department.

Go ahead.

Q Thank you, Dana. Two questions. On Bloomberg Television, Washington
State's Democrat U.S. Senator Cantwell said that Democrats don't want to
increase oil supplies because they want to wean Americans off petroleum and
into "things like wind and solar that can help us with our high cost of
natural gas." And my question: Does the White House believe this is at all
helpful to our present rising costs of more than $4 a gallon?

MS. PERINO: We have said that we believe there needs to be a transition
period between the traditional oil and gas use that we have today to when
we would able to run on alternatives and renewables, and it's going to take
a little while of time. That's why we think that we need to open up more of
our own resources here at home so we can add more supply to the market.

Q Thank you.

Q What -- does the White House --

MS. PERINO: Hurry up.

Q No, he had one more.

MS. PERINO: I know. That's why hurry up.

Q Does the White House believe that our nation's media should strive for
neutrality in covering the presidential race? And do you believe that most
of them are neutral, or that most of them are biased in support of one
candidate?

MS. PERINO: I'll answer the first, but not the second. Yes, I think that
everyone should try to cover candidates equally. But it will be up to
everybody else to analyze.

Q Why won't you answer the second? (Laughter.)

Q Thank you.

END 1:00 P.M. EDT
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