For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 1, 2001
Remarks by the Press Secretary to the Travel Pool
En Route Lakewood Elementary School North Little Rock, Arkansas
MR. FLEISCHER: Let's begin the
mobile gaggle. The President's first stop is Lakewood
Elementary School, in North Little Rock, where he will participate in a
Leadership Forum on improving education, which will be -- get used to
it -- he's always focused on education throughout his presidency.
Lakewood is a very mixed elementary school,
grades K through 5. They do annual testing, something the
President very much believes in. And 4th grade reading
scores in 1998 to 2000 are 50 percent higher than the district level
and at least 20 percent higher than the state level. So the
President will come here to tour the school, visit, give remarks, and
praise the school board's testing program.
He'll be joined here also by a tax family, and
those are the Bensons -- Stephen, Shelia. Stephen works for
Alltel. He was previously employed at
Wal-Mart. His wife, Shelia, works at the Shoe
Carnival. They have a total family income of
$56,000. They currently pay $4,620 in income taxes.
Under the President's plan, the Bensons will pay $2,910 in
taxes, a savings of $1,710, for a 37 percent tax cut as a result of the
new 10 percent bracket, doubling the child credit, and marriage penalty
relief.
They have two children -- I should have
mentioned this, Stephen II, who attends Lakewood Elementary School, and
a daughter, LaCheidra. I don't
have their ages, but they're both in elementary school. One
is at Lakewood Elementary, the other is at Lakewood East.
I should note that in St. Louis I saw this --
it's interesting, wherever we go and talk about the tax families -- at
least in St. Louis, I haven't seen Nebraska's papers yet -- there was a
giant front-page story about that family in the St. Louis papers that
day.
Then we'll go to Atlanta, Georgia, and the
President will be there to highlight his budget, at the Fern Bank
Museum of Natural History -- Fern Bank -- not to be confused with the
flowers that were in front of his room last night. It will
be similar to Nebraska and other large-style events, to highlight his
tax relief plan, and pay down the debt plan, entire budget
plan.
He'll be joined by a series of local
officials, elected officials, members of Congress. And then
he will visit Georgia Health Care -- then he'll have a visit at
Children's Health Care of Atlanta at the Aflack Cancer Center, where
he'll talk about his budget plan and his address to Congress to fund
priorities. Here he'll talk about health care, doubling the
money for the NIH, a $2.8 billion increase in spending for the NIH,
doubling the number of people who will be served in community health
centers, doubling the funding for Medicare over the next 10
years. The $2.8 billion is the installment for the next
fiscal year.
Q Part of the five-year
bipartisan plan that has already long been --
MR.
FLEISCHER: Precisely. And that's the event in
Atlanta -- the two
events in Atlanta. There will also be a tax family in
Atlanta that joins him, and that family will be the Riedels -- I'm
sorry, that's not the tax family. That's the family that
will be joining him -- there will be several families joining him who
are cancer survivors. It's the Riedels, Vickie, Joe, Ansley
who is 13 -- that's the cancer survivor -- and her younger brother
Joseph.
Ansley was diagnosed with leukemia, ALL, a
very rare form of leukemia,
at 10 months of age. She went to the -- hospital in Atlanta
for treatment. Her family was told that her chances of
survival were actually very well and she participated in a research
study. As part of the study she had a bone marrow transplant
and cancer chemotherapy. It was completed
December 1988. She was rediagnosed in March of
1989. She underwent 18 months of aggressive chemotherapy
and it was completed in November of 1990. She had more
than 35 admissions to the hospital. And the President will
be with her today --
Q Will he mention his
sister?
MR. FLEISCHER: That's not in his
prepared remarks.
He will also be joined by the DeWilde family,
cancer survivors -- mother Cynthia, father Joel. Joseph
DeWilde, 4 years old, cancer patient. Josh DeWilde, 18
years old, and Brittany DeWilde, 16 years old. The DeWildes
also have a foster baby who is 10 months old who will not be with them
at the time. And Joseph was diagnosed with leukemia in 1999
and is now in the maintenance phase of a 3-year protocol treatment
plan. He requires chemo and a daily pill, a weekly chemo
shot and a bimonthly injection of chemo to his spinal
canal. They are a very religious family.
He will also be joined by a tax family, the
Winfields -- Tommy, Sharen and their three
children, 13-year-old daughter Destiny, 10-year-old daughter Amber, and
16-year-old son Ager. The Winfields have a total family income of
$41,000. They currently pay $1,380 in federal income
taxes. Under the President's plan their entire income tax
liability would be eliminated. They'd be one of the 6
million families totally removed from the income tax rolls, thanks to
the President's plan.
The father is an operating engineer at
Children's Health Care of Atlanta, and the mother is a regional sales
coordinator for High Mark Life Insurance Company. When I say
this tax cut benefits low-income people the most, this will have the
biggest change in their lives. If you give a tax cut 10
times the size to an upper-income family, it won't change their lives
nearly as much as it will for a family who lives paycheck to paycheck,
who all of a sudden now will have $1,382 in their
pockets. And they'll have more options, more new things to
do in life as a result of the
tax cut.
Q On the NIH funding,
do you know what year of the five years --
MR. FLEISCHER: Let me look in my
book, it's in the budget book. I think it's year
four. Let me check.
The President will be met by Nancy Coverdell,
the widow of Senator Paul Coverdell, on arrival. And then we
will have Representative Cynthia McKinney, Representative Sanford
Bishop, Representative John Lewis, Representative Johnny Isaacson, Bob
Barr, Representative Nathan Deal, Representative Charlie Norwood with
him. And some will be with him for the
whole day, some are going to depart and then rejoin. Some
will be likely with him on the flight back to Washington.
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