Bush calls emergency meeting on unemployment rate

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, September 6, 2001

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – President Bush summoned Republican leaders to an emergency Oval Office meeting today and sought to reassure the nation about the rising unemployment rate.

“We’ve got a plan to get our economy moving so Americans can find work,” the president said. Privately he considered calling for across-the-board budget cuts next year if the economy worsens and spending starts eating into Social Security reserves.

The president spoke from outside the Oval Office, where he and Vice President Dick Cheney had just finished meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., to discuss the economy, the rising unemployment and the Republicans’ political predicament over Social Security.

The three GOP leaders, with an eye on next year’s midterm elections, also are looking for ways to head off political damage should the economy worsen.

“The slowdown is real and it’s affecting too many lives and we’re concerned about it,” said Bush.

He stopped short of announcing any agreement on spending cuts and abruptly turned away from news cameras as reporters tried to ask him about the developing deal.

Hastert, as he headed to the White House, had told reporters: “We said we wouldn’t dip into Social Security, and we want to make sure it happens.”

Congressional and White House aides said the last-minute huddle was called after the Labor Department reported this morning that the nation’s unemployment rate soared to 4.9 percent in August, the biggest one-month jump in six years. The four men were looking for a way to reassure Americans that Republicans have a plan to revive the economy and work within a balanced budget that shelters the Social Security trust fund.

“Any American out of work is too many Americans out of work and that’s why it’s absolutely essential that we work together to put a growth plan in place to create jobs for hardworking Americans,” Bush said.

“It starts by having a responsible budget that meets our nation’s obligations without affecting Social Security or dipping into Social Security.”

Already, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle had seized on the unemployment figures as fresh ammunition against Bush. “Today’s news confirms our worst fears about the president’s budget and its impact on the economy and on working families,” Daschle, D-S.D., said in a statement.

Bush countered that such critics of the tax cut he signed earlier this year must want now to raise taxes, something he ruled out. Flanked by Cheney, Lott and Hastert, Bush said: “I can assure you the four of us on this stage are not going to let anybody pick the pockets of the American taxpayers.”

Congress could help by passing his energy plan and by giving him the authority to negotiate free trade deals overseas, Bush said.

Advisers said Bush was seriously considering the GOP proposal to create a new mechanism in the law for triggering automatic across-the-board government spending cuts should a worsening economy force lawmakers to turn to Social Security surpluses to meet the general federal budget. Officials looking to blunt the unemployment news had hoped for an agreement to be announced today, but said details were still being worked out and an agreement was uncertain.

The officials, in Congress and the administration, spoke about the developing deal on condition of anonymity.

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