THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. (Applause.) Everybody, please have a seat. Thankyou.
Well, it is wonderful to be here,and I always look forward to an opportunity to speak tosome of our topbusinesses across the country who are hiring people, investing inAmerica,making the economy run. And many of youI’ve had a chance to interact with before. Asyou know, oftentimes when I do something like this, I want to spendmore time answeringquestions and having a conversation than giving any formalremarks. Let me just provide alittlebit of an introduction.
Obviously, over the last coupleof months, most of the oxygen in this town has beenconsumed with two things --one, the government shutdown and the possibility of default thatwas ultimatelyresolved; and the second has been the rollout of the Affordable Care Act andthefact that my website is not working the way it’s supposed to. And it’s entirely legitimate thatthose havebeen issues of great concern.
The impact of the shutdown andthe threat of default I think not only did some significantdamage to theeconomy at a time when we didn’t need self-inflicted wounds, but it also spoketosome of the larger problems we’ve seen here in Washington, and the sense ofdysfunction andthe seeming incapacity of both parties in Congress to worktogether to advance an agendathat’s going to help us grow.
With respect to the AffordableCare Act, I think people are legitimately concerned becausewe have a majorproblem with health care in this country -- 41 million people withouthealthinsurance, a lot of people underinsured. And once again, how we fix a health care systemthat’s been broken fortoo many people for too long I think ends up speaking to how muchconfidence wehave in government and whether we still have the capacity, collectively, tobringabout changes that are going to be good for our economy, good for ourbusinesses, good for theAmerican people.
I do want to say, though, thatbeyond the headlines, we have made real progress in theeconomy, and sometimesthat hasn’t gotten enough attention. Some of the tough decisions thatwe made early on have paid off --decisions that helped us not only recover from a crisis, butbegin to lay astronger foundation for future growth.
We refocused on manufacturingexports, and today, our businesses sell more goods andservices made in Americathan ever before around the world. Aftera decade of shedding jobs,our manufacturing sector has now added about half amillion new jobs, and it’s led by anAmerican auto industry that has comeroaring back after decades of decline.
We decided to reverse ourdependence on foreign oil, and today, we generate morerenewable energy thanever before and more natural gas than anybody in the world. And for thefirst time in nearly 20 years,America now produces more of our own oil than we buy from othercountries.
When I took office, we invested afraction of what other countries did in wirelessinfrastructure, and today, it’sup nearly 50 percent, helping companies unleash jobs,innovation and a boomingapp economy that’s created more than 500,000 jobs. When I tookoffice, only 5 percent of theworld’s smartphones ran on American operating systems. Today,more than 80 percent do.
And it’s not just in thehigh-tech economy that we’re seeing progress. For example,American farmers are on pace to have one of their bestyears in decades, and they haveconsistently been able to export more, makemore profits and help restore rural economiesthan when we came into office.
And, yes, we decided to take on abroken health care system. And even though the rollout ofthe new health caremarketplace has been rough, to say the least, about half a millionAmericansare now poised to gain health care coverage beginning January 1st. That’s after onlya month of sign-up. We also have seen health care costs growingat the slowest rate in 50 years.Employer-based health costs are growing at about one-third of the rateof a decade ago, andthat has an impact on your bottom line.
And after years oftrillion-dollar deficits, we reined in spending, wound down two wars, andbeganto change a tax code that I believe was too skewed towards the wealthiest amongus atthe expense of the middle class. And since I took office, we have now cut our deficits by morethan half.
Add it all up, and businesseslike yours have created 7.8 million new jobs over the past 44months. We’ve gone farther and recovered faster thanmost other advanced nations. And so inalot of ways, America is poised for a breakout. We are in a good position to compete aroundthe world in the 21stcentury.
The question is, are we going torealize that potential? And that meansthat we’ve still gotsome more work to do. Our stock markets and corporate profits are soaring, but we’ve gottomake sure that this remains a country where everyone who works hard can getahead. Andthat means we’ve still got toaddress long-term unemployment. We stillhave to addressstagnant wages and stagnant incomes.
And frankly, we’ve got to stopgoverning by crisis here in this town. Because if it weren’t forWashington’s dysfunction, I think all of usagree we’d be a lot further along. Theshutdown andthe threat of default harmed our jobs market, they cost oureconomy about $5 billion, andeconomists predict it will slow our GDP growththis quarter -- and it didn’t need to happen. Itwas self-inflicted. We shouldnot be injuring ourselves every few months. We should be investingin ourselves. And in a sensible world, that starts with a budget that cuts what we don’tneed,closes wasteful loopholes, and helps us afford to invest in the thingsthat we know will helpbusinesses like yours and the economy as a whole --education, infrastructure, basic researchand development.
We would have a grand bargain formiddle-class jobs that combines tax reform with afinancing mechanism that letsus create jobs, rebuilding infrastructure that your businessesdepend on, butwe haven’t gotten as much take-up from the other side as we’d like to see sofar.We have the opportunity forbipartisan authority to negotiate the best trade deals possible sobusinessesand workers can take advantage of new markets that are opening up aroundtheworld. We haven’t seen the kind oftake-up from the other side that we’d like to see so far.
We’ve got the opportunity to fixa broken immigration system that strengthens oureconomy and our nationalsecurity. The good news here is theSenate has already passed abipartisan bill that economists say would grow oureconomy by $1.4 trillion and shrink ourdeficits by nearly a trillion over thenext two decades. You wouldn’t turn downa deal that good,and Congress shouldn’t either. So I’m hoping that Speaker Boehner and theHouse ofRepresentatives can still work with us to get that done.
And we need to be going all outto prepare our kids and our workers for the demands of a21st-centuryeconomy. I’ve proposed giving everychild an early start at success by making high-quality preschool available toevery four-year-old in America. We knowthat you get more bangfor the buck when it comes to early childhood educationthan just about anything else, andyou’ve got great examples around thecountry, oftentimes in red states, that are doing just that.We need to make that same investment.
We’re working to bring down thecosts of a college degree so more young people can get ahigher education. And one thing that I’m very excited about --and this has been a goodexample of a public-private partnership -- is the ideaof redesigning our high schools to makesure that more young people gethands-on training and develop the skills that they need,particularly in math,science and engineering, that businesses are looking for. And in fact, todaywe’re announcing acompetitive grant program that will encourage more high schools topartner withcolleges and local businesses to better prepare our kids for college or acareer. Andin December, I’ll bebringing together college presidents and other leaders to figure out waystohelp more low-income students attend and to succeed in college.
So just to sum up, my basicmessage is this: We know what thechallenges are. We knowwhat thesolutions are. Some of them are tough,but what’s holding us back is not a lack of goodpolicy ideas or even what usedto be considered good bipartisan policy ideas. We just have tobreak through the stubborn cycle of crisis politics andstart working together. Moreobstruction,more brinkmanship won’t help anybody. It doesn’t help folks politically. My understanding isnobody in this town isdoing particularly well at the moment when it comes to the opinions oftheAmerican people, but it certainly doesn’t help anybody economically.
On many of the issues, I thinkyou and I would agree, and I want you to know that I’mrooting for yoursuccess, and I look forward to making sure that we are able in theremainingthree years that I’m President to work together to not only improve thebusinessclimate, but also improve the prospects for Americans all across thecountry who have beentreading water, feel like they’re losing ground, areanxious about the future and their children’sfutures, but I think are stillhopeful and still possess that fundamental American optimism. Ifthey see leadership working across theboard on their behalf, then I’m confident that we canmake enormous progress.
So with that, why don’t we getJerry up here and I’ll start answering his questions. I hope headds some input. (Laughter.) If he starts asking me about whathappened to the Kansas CityChiefs, I’m not sure I’ll have a good answer forthat one. (Applause.)
Well, thank you, Mr. President. Let me start by thanking you officially forjoining us today. Ithink you probablysee a lot of familiar faces out there, most friendly, most of them. And I wouldalso note that you’re gettinghere a little late. Congressman PaulRyan is coming later. He isgoing to gethere a little early. So if you guysoverlap a little bit, maybe we can just get someproblems solved righthere. What do you think?
THE PRESIDENT: Let’s do it. (Laughter.) Let’s do it.
It’s your chance. We have talked amongst ourselves or tried tosort of take the sense of theroom. So I’mgoing to try to reflect some of the conversations that have been going on hereinthe questions I’m going to ask you. You’ll not be stunned that I’m going to ask you abouthealth care first.
You indicated there and you’veindicated publicly quite clearly that the rollout has beendifficult. What do you think you’ve learned from thisexperience about the government’s abilityto do this sort of thing, about thelaw itself, or about your own administration?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, there are a couple of things. Number one is that this has been abigproblem for a very long time and so it was always going to be challenging notjust to pass alaw, but also to implement it. There’s a reason why, despite a century of talking about it,nobody hadbeen able to successfully try to deal with some of the underlying problems inthehealth care system.
The good news is that many of theelements of the Affordable Care Act are already in placeand are workingexactly the way they’re supposed to. Somaking sure that consumers who haveemployer-based health insurance are gettinga better deal and that are protected from some ofthe fine print that left themin the lurch when they actually got sick -- that’s in place. Makingsure that young people under the ageof 26 can stay on their parents’ plan -- that’s helped 3million childrenalready. That’s making adifference. Helping seniors to getbetter prescriptiondrug prices -- that’s already helped millions of seniorsand billions of dollars in savings. Rebatesfor people who see insurance companies who are not spendingenough on actual care, more onadministrative costs or profits, they’re gettingrebates. They may not know it’s theAffordableCare Act that’s giving them rebates, but it’s happening. So there were a number of things thatwerealready in place over the last three years that got implemented effectively.
The other thing that hasn’t beentalked about a lot is cost. There was a lot of skepticismwhen we passed theAffordable Care Act that we were going to be giving a lot of people care butweweren’t doing anything about the underlying costs. And, in fact, over the last three years,we’veseen health care costs grow at the slowest pace in 50 years. And that affects the bottomlines ofeverybody here.
And there are a lot of smartdelivery system reforms that slowly across the system are beingimplemented andthey’re making a big difference. Andthat’s saving us money. That’s why, bytheway, some of the projections that in terms of what the Affordable Care Actwould do to deficitshave actually proved even better than we had originallyexpected.
What I have learned, though, withrespect to setting up these marketplaces -- which areessentially mechanismswhere people who are currently in the individual market or don’t havehealthinsurance at all can join together, shop, and insurance companies will competefor theirbusiness -- setting those things up is very challenging justmechanically.
The good news is that choice andcompetition has actually worked and insurers came in withbids that were evenlower than people expected -- about 16 percent lower than had originallybeenprojected.
The challenge has been justmaking sure that consumers are actually able to get on awebsite, see thosechoices, and shop. And I think that weprobably underestimated thecomplexities of building out a website that neededto work the way it should.
There is a larger problem that Iprobably -- speak personally, but also as theadministration -- could haveidentified earlier, and that is the way the federal government doesprocurementand does IT is just generally not very efficient. In fact, there’s probably no biggergapbetween the private sector and the public sector than IT.
And we’ve seen that in, forexample, the VA and the Department of Defense trying to dealwith electronicmedical records for our servicemen as they move into civilian life. Most of thatstuff is still done on paper. We’ve spent billions of dollars -- I’m notsaying “we” as in myadministration, I mean we’ve now had about a decade ofexperimentation, spent billions ofdollars and it’s still not working the wayit should.
So what we probably needed to doon the front end was to blow up how we procure for IT,especially on a systemthis complicated. We did not do thatsuccessfully. Now, we are gettingitfixed, but it would have been better to do it on the front end rather than theback end.
And the last point I’ll make isthat in terms of expectation setting, there’s no doubt that inan environmentin which we had to fight tooth and nail to get this passed, it ended upbeingpassed on a partisan basis -- not for lack of trying, because I met with anawful lot ofRepublicans to try to get them to go along -- but because therewas just ideological resistanceto the idea of dealing with the uninsured andpeople with preexisting conditions. There was aprice to that, and it was that what was already going to behard was operating within a verydifficult political environment. And we should have anticipated that thatwould create arockier rollout than if Democrats and Republicans were bothinvested in success.
One of the problems we’ve had isone side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure, and thatmakes, I think, thekind of iterative process of fixing glitches as they come up and fine-tuningthe law more challenging. But I’moptimistic that we can get it fixed.
Well, that’s the question I was going toask next. Is it possible you’ve lostenough time hereand enough potential customers in the exchanges that you’renot going to reach the criticalmass of signups that you need to make themarketplace work? Is that a danger thatyou have toworry about right now?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s something that we have to payattention to. But keep in mindthat thismodel of marketplaces was based on what was done in Massachusetts, andtheexperience in Massachusetts was that in the first month, 153 or 163 people signedup out ofan ultimate 36,000. It wasless than 1 percent signed up in that first month -- partly becausebuyinginsurance is a complicated process for a lot of people. When they have more choices, itmeans thatthey’re going to take more time.
There’s no doubt that we’ve lostsome time, but the website is getting better each week. Bythe end of this month, it will befunctioning for the majority of people who are using it. They’llbe able to shop, see what theirchoices are. The prices are good. The prices are not changingduring the openenrollment period that goes out until March. And so I think that we’re going tohave time to catch up.
What’s also been expressed as aconcern is the mix of people that sign up. So we mightend up having millions of people sign up; they’re happy withtheir new coverage, but we’ve gotmore people who are older, more likely to getsick than younger and healthier. We’vegot tomonitor that carefully. We alwaysanticipated, though, that younger folks would be the last folksin, justbecause -- it’s been a while since you and I were young -- but as I recall, youdon’t thinkthat you’re going to get sick at that time.
So, look, I am confident that themodel that we’ve built, which works off of the existingprivate insurancesystem, is one that will succeed. We aregoing to have to, A, fix the website soeverybody feels confident aboutthat. We’re going to have to obviouslyre-market and re-brand,and that will be challenging in this politicalenvironment.
But keep in mind, in the firstmonth we also had 12 million people visit the site. Thedemand is there. There are 41 million people who don’t havehealth insurance. The folks intheindividual market, many of them are going to get a much better deal in themarketplaces.And so we’ve just got tokeep on improving the customer experience and make sure that we’refending offefforts not to fix the problem -- because if somebody wants to help us fix it,I’m allgame, but fending off efforts to completely undermine it.
Let me turn to the economy, the broadereconomy, probably the predominant concern ofpeople in this room. We seem to be stuck in an economic growthpattern of okay, but not greatgrowth. Your friend, Larry Summers, was here earlier today and said essentiallythe problem orone of the problems is that the system can’t do two things atonce. It can’t cut deficits andspurgrowth. It needs to do one or the otherright now. It needs to spur growth,should not worryso much about deficits. Do you agree? And if you doagree, how do you make that happen?
THE PRESIDENT: Actually, Larry and I, and most of myeconomic team -- in fact, all of myeconomic team -- have consistentlymaintained that there is a way to reconcile the concernsabout debt anddeficits with the concerns about growth.
What we know is, is that ourfiscal problems are not short-term deficits. Our discretionarybudget, that portion of the federal budget that isn’tdefense or Social Security or Medicare orMedicaid, the entitlement programs,is at its smallest level in my lifetime, probably since DwightEisenhower. We are not lavishly spending on a whole bunchof social programs out there. Andin many ways, a lot of these programs havebecome more efficient and pretty effective.
Defense, we spent a lot from 2019to 2019, but generally we are stabilizing. And thePentagon, working with me, have come up with plans that allow usto meet our security needswhile still bringing down some of the costs ofdefense, particularly after having ended the war inIraq and on the brink ofending the war in Afghanistan.
So when we talk about our deficitand debt problems, it is almost entirely health care costs.You eliminate the delta, the differencebetween what we spend on health care and what everyother country -- advancedindustrialized nation spends on health care, and that’s our long-termdebt. And if we’re able to bend the costcurve, we help solve the problem.
Now, one way to do that is justto make health care cheaper overall. That’s I think the bestway to do it, and that’s what we’ve been doingthrough some of the measures in the AffordableCare Act. There are some other provisions that we couldtake that would maintain ourcommitment to seniors, Medicare, Social Security,the disabled, and Medicaid, while stillreducing very modestly the costs ofthose programs.
If we do those things, thatsolves our real fiscal problem, and we could take some of thatmoney, a verymodest portion on the front end, and invest in infrastructure that putspeopleback to work, improve our research and development.
So the idea would be do somethings in the short term that focus on growth; do some thingsin the long termthat deal with the long-term debt. That’swhat my budget reflects. That’s whatamultiple series of negotiations with John Boehner talked about, the so-calledgrand bargain. Wecouldn’t quite getthere in the end, mainly because Republicans had a great deal of difficultywiththe idea of putting in more revenue to balance out some of the changesthat were made onentitlements.
I would guess a lot of people in this roomwould say another way to make some of thosethings happen would be to fix thecorporate tax code that everybody agrees is a mess. You’vegot some companies that pay way toomuch compared to their international competitors; somecompanies don’t pay atall. It’s not a good system. it’s not anefficient system, everybody agrees,but it doesn’t ever seem to change. Can you make it change? And can you do something aboutrepatriationof U.S. assets overseas?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, here is the good news, is that both myadministration andRepublicans have talked about corporate tax reform. And Paul Ryan, who is going to becoming afterme, said he’s interested in corporate tax reform. And we’ve reached out to himand we’ve saidlet’s get to work. We put forward a veryspecific set of proposals that would lowerthe corporate tax rate, broaden thebase, close some loopholes. And in termsof internationalcompanies and competitiveness, what we’ve said is rather thana whole bunch of tangled lawsthat incentivize folks to keep money overseas,let’s have a modest but clear global minimumtax, get rid of some of the hugefluctuations that people experience. Itwill save companiesmoney, make them more competitive and, in terms oftransitioning to that system, actuallyallow some people to bring back moneyand, in a one-time way, help us finance infrastructureand some other projectsthat need to get done.
I don’t expect Republicans toadopt exactly the proposal that we’ve put forward. Butthere’s not that much separation betweenwhat Democrats are talking about -- I know ChairmanMax Baucus put outsomething today, the Chairman of the Finance Committee -- what DaveCamp overin the House has talked about. Thisshould be bridgeable.
The one thing I would caution is-- and I’ve said this to the Business Roundtable and othercorporate leaderswho I’ve talked to -- people like the idea of corporate tax reform intheory.In practice, if you want to makethe corporate tax reform deficit-neutral, then you actuallyhave to close someloopholes. And people like the idea of asimpler tax system until it’s theirparticular loophole that’s about to getclosed.
And what we can’t afford to do isto keep all the loopholes that are currently in place andlower the corporatetax rate. We would then blow anotherhole in the deficit that would have tobe filled. And what I’m not willing to do is to havehigher rates on the middle class in order topay for that.
Some of the CEOs here had a working groupearlier today, the mission of which was toaddress the question of how do youstay competitive. Interestingly, atleast to me, their firstpriority -- first priority -- was this: immigration reform. The U.S. needs immigration reformto retaintalented workers educated in the U.S. and attract talent to the U.S. Immigrationreform could provide an instantjolt to the U.S. economy which we need.
I know you agree with thatstatement, but it’s hard to see that happening right now. You’vegot the Senate off on one track -- it’spassed a comprehensive bill the House won’t even agreeto take up. Democrats want to do comprehensivereform. Republicans want to do step-by-stepreform. It’s a poisonous politicalatmosphere. Can you make it happen?
THE PRESIDENT: I am actually optimistic that we’re going toget this done. I am acongenitaloptimist. I would have to be -- I’m named Barack Obama and I ran forPresident. (Laughter.)
And won.
THE PRESIDENT: And won twice. (Laughter.)
So, look, keep in mind, first ofall, that what the CEOs here said is absolutely right. This isa boost to our economy. Everywhere I go, I meet with entrepreneursand CEOs who say, I’vegot these terrific folks, they just graduated fromCalTech or MIT or Stanford, they’re ready to dobusiness here, some of themhave these amazing new ideas that we think we can commercialize-- but they’rebeing dragged back to their home countries, not because they want to gobutbecause the immigration system doesn’t work.
The good news is that the Senatebill was a bipartisan bill and we know what thecomponent parts of thisare. We’ve got to have strong bordersecurity. We’ve got to havebetterenforcement of existing laws. We’ve gotto make sure that we have a legal immigrationsystem that doesn’t cause peopleto sit in the queue for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years -- in somecases, 20years. We should want to immediately sayto young people who we’ve helped toeducate in this country, you want to stay,we want you here.
And we do have to deal with about11 million folks who are in this country, most of themjust seekingopportunity; they did break the law by coming here or overstaying their visa,andthey’ve got to earn their way out of the shadows -- pay a fine, learnEnglish, get to the back ofthe line, pay their back taxes -- but giving them amechanism whereby they can get right by oursociety. And that’s reflected in the Senate bill.
Now, I actually think that thereare a number of House Republicans -- including Paul Ryan, Ithink, if you askhim about it -- who agree with that. They’re suspicious of comprehensivebills, but if they want to chop thatthing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, Idon’t carewhat it looks like as long as it’s actually delivering on those core valuesthat we talkabout.
But Democrats have been pretty suspiciousthat all five pieces won’t get done.
THE PRESIDENT: And that’s the problem. I mean, the key is -- what we don’t want todois simply carve out one piece of it -- let’s say agricultural jobs, which are important, but iseasier,frankly, or the high-skilled jobs that many in your audience here wouldimmediately wantto do -- but leave behind some of the tougher stuff that stillneeds to get done. We’re not goingtohave a situation in which 11 million people are still living in the shadows andpotentiallygetting deported on an ongoing basis.
So we’re going to have to do itall. In my conversations with theRepublicans, I actually thinkthe divide is not that wide. So what we just have to do is find a pathwaywhere Republicans inthe House, in particular, feel comfortable enough aboutprocess that they can go ahead andmeet us.
This, by the way, Jerry, I thinkis a good example of something that’s been striking meabout our politics for awhile. When you go to other countries, the political divisions are so muchmorestark and wider. Here in America, thedifference between Democrats and Republicans, we’refighting inside the 40-yardline, maybe in --
You’ve fooled most people on that in thelast few months, I’d say. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, no, no. I would distinguish between the rhetoric and the tacticsversus theideological differences. I mean, in most countries you’ve got -- people call measocialist sometimes, But, no, you’ve got to meet real socialists.(Laughter.) You’ll have a sense ofwhata socialist is. (Laughter.)
I’m talking about lowering thecorporate tax rate. My health carereform is based on theprivate marketplace. The stock market is looking pretty good last time I checked. And it is truethat I’m concerned aboutgrowing inequality in our system, but nobody questions theefficacy of marketeconomies in terms of producing wealth and innovation and keepinguscompetitive.
On the flip side, mostRepublicans, even the tea party -- one of my favorite signs during thecampaignwas folks hoisting a sign, “Government, keep your hands off my Medicare.” (Laughter.)Think about that. (Laughter.) I mean, ideologically, they did not like the idea of thefederalgovernment, and yet they felt very protective about the basic social safety netthat hadbeen structured.
So my simple point is this: If we can get beyond the tactical advantagesthat partiesperceive in painting folks as extreme and trying to keep an eyealways on the next election,and for a while at least, just focus on governing,then there is probably 70 percent overlap on awhole range of issues. A lot of Republicans want to getinfrastructure done, just like I do. Alot ofthem believe in basic research, just like I do. A lot of them want to reform entitlementstomake sure that they’re affordable for the next generation; so do I. A lot of them say theywant to reform our taxsystem; so do I.
There are going to be differenceson the details, and those details matter and I’ll fight veryhard forthem. But we shouldn’t think thatsomehow the reason we’ve got these problems isbecause our policy differencesare so great.
Well, the details are obviously importantenough to shut down the government just a coupleof weeks ago. And everybody knows we’re headed back towardshowdowns again -- January,budget; February, debt ceiling. Jack Lew was here earlier, your TreasurySecretary, and said hethought maybe the system crossed a threshold in Octoberand has realized it doesn’t want to goback and do that again. Are you confident it’s not going to go backand do that again? And bythe way, theOECD, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, suggestedtodaythat the U.S. just get rid of the debt ceiling entirely. Would you be in favor of that?
THE PRESIDENT: I think that the way our system is set up islike a loaded gun, and oncepeople thought we can get leverage on policydisputes by threatening default, that was anextraordinarily dangerousprecedent. And that’s a principle that Ihad to adhere to, not just forme but for the next President -- that you’re notgoing to be able to threaten the entire U.S. orworld economy simply becauseyou disagree with me about a health care bill.
I’d like to believe that theRepublicans recognize that was not a good strategy, and we’reprobably betteroff with a system in which that threat is not there on a perpetual basis. I donot foresee what we saw in October beingrepeated in January. But the broaderpoint is one thatI think all of us have to take to heart. We have to be able to disagree on policyissues withoutresorting to the kinds of extreme tactics that end up hurtingall of us.
And that’s been my maindisagreement with a lot of my Republican friends. And frankly, theAmerican people agree withthat. They don’t expect us to march inlockstep. There’s a reasonwhy we’ve gottwo parties in this country. They doexpect that we are constantly thinking abouthow are we making sure they canfind a job that pays well, that their kids can go to college andafford it,that we are growing and competitive, that we are dealing with our fiscalposition in asensible way. And if wekeep them in mind consistently, then I think we’re going to besuccessful.
One thing -- you’ve got someinternational CEOs here, and I think they’ll confirm this --when I travel, what’sstriking to me is people around the world think we’ve got a really goodhand.You just take the example of energy. They say America is poised to change ourgeopolitics entirely because ofthe advances we’ve made in oil production and natural gasproduction. It means manufacturing here is much moreattractive than it used to be. That’sahuge competitive advantage.
We’ve got the most productiveworkers just about in the world, and our workers havebecome more and moreproductive, and a lot of companies look at that and say we wish we hadworkerswho were able to operate the way these folks do.
Our university systems, ourresearch infrastructure -- all those things are the envy of theworld. And one of the great things about America --sometimes we get worried that we’re losingtraction and the sky is falling, andback in the ‘80s, Japan was about to take over, and thenChina, and obviouslybefore that, the Soviet Union -- and we usually come out okay because wechangeand we adapt. I just want everybody toremember that we’re in a very strong position tocompete as long as ourpolitical system functions. It doesn’thave to be outstanding. This issort oflike Winston Churchill, two cheers for democracy. And it’s always going to be messy. Butit’s got to function better than it has.
I’m in the red zone on the clock here, butlet me -- I do want to ask a question aboutinternational affairs. You’ve mentioned the world and the U.S.position in it. There’s thepossibilitythis week of an agreement with Iran, a preliminary, limited agreement in whichtheywould free some of their nuclear activities in return for some relief onsanctions. Your Israelifriends havebeen arguing, along with some of your friends as well as your foes in Congress,thatif you give the Iranian regime any relief on sanctions, the sanctionsregime will fall apart;countries that don’t want to be there in the firstplace will head for the exits; it will all comeapart -- and that’s the dangerof what you’re negotiating right now.
I know you talked to somesenators about this very topic today. Isthere going to be a deal?And why canyou ease sanctions without having them fall apart?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, just by way of background, when I cameinto office, we had a tradeembargo; the U.S. had done some thingsunilaterally. We did not have a strong,enforceableinternational mechanism to really put the squeeze on Iran aroundits nuclear program, despitethe fact that it had violated a range of U.N. andnonproliferation treaty requirements.
So we built, we constructed, withthe help of Congress, the strongest sanctions regimeever. And it has put a bite on the Iranianeconomy. They have seen a 5 percentcontraction thelast year in their economy. It’s projected to be another contraction this year. And in partbecause the sanctions have beenso effective, we were able to get Iran to seriously come to thetable and lookat how are they going to give assurances to the international communitythatthey are, in fact, not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
I don’t know if we’ll be able toclose a deal this week or next week. Wehave been very firmwith the Iranians even on the interim deal about what weexpect. And some of the reportingoutthere has been somewhat inaccurate, understandably, because the P5-plus-1, themembersof the -- permanent members of the Security Council in addition to --and Germany as well --have kept the negotiations fairly tight.
But the essence of the deal wouldbe that they would halt advances on their nuclearprogram; they would roll backsome elements that get them closer to what we call breakoutcapacity, wherethey can run for -- a weapon before the international community has a chancetoreact; that they would subject themselves to more vigorous inspections eventhan the onesthat are currently there, in some cases, daily inspections.
In return, what we would do wouldbe to open up the spigot a little bit for a very modestamount of relief thatis entirely subject to reinstatement if, in fact, they violated any part ofthisearly agreement. And it wouldpurchase a period of time -- let’s say, six months -- during whichwe could seeif they could get to the end state of a position where we, the Israelis,theinternational community could say with confidence Iran is not pursuing anuclear weapon.
Now, part of the reason I haveconfidence that the sanctions don’t fall apart is because we’renot doinganything around the most powerful sanctions. The oil sanctions, the bankingsanctions, the financial servicessanctions -- those are the ones that have really taken a bigchunk out of theIranian economy. So oil production andoil sales out of Iran have dropped bymore than half since these sanctions wereput in place. They’ve got over $100billion of oilrevenue that is sitting outside of their country. The rial, their currency, hasdroppedprecipitously. And all those sanctionsand the architecture for them don’t go anywhere.
Essentially, what we do is weallow them to access a small portion of these assets that arefrozen. Keep in mind, though, that because the oiland banking sanctions stay in place, they willactually still be losing moneyeven during this six-month period relative to the amount of oilsales they hadback in 2019.
So what we are suggesting both tothe Israelis, to members of Congress here, to theinternational community, butalso to the Iranians, is, let’s look, let’s test the proposition thatover thenext six months we can resolve this in a diplomatic fashion, while maintainingtheessential sanctions architecture, and, as President of the United States,me maintaining alloptions to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. I think that is a test that isworthconducting.
And my hope and expectation isnot that we’re going to solve all of this just this week inthis interim phase,but rather that we’re purchasing ourselves some time to see how serioustheIranian regime might be in re-entering membership in the world community andtakingthe yoke of these sanctions off the backs of their economy.
Well, Mr. President, with that, let me justthank you again for joining us. Iappreciate it verymuch. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I enjoyed it. Thank you very much. (Applause)