THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release                      March 4, 2014
 
PRESS BRIEFING BY
DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
SYLVIA MATHEWS BURWELL,
CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS JASON FURMAN,
DIRECTOR OF THE DOMESTIC POLICY COUNCIL CECILIA MUÑOZ,
DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL GENE SPERLING
AND PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY
 
South Court Auditorium
 

12:48 P.M. EST

MR. CARNEY: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. As you know, today we have the presentation of the President's budget. For today's briefing, as part of that introduction and presentation, I have with me the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Sylvia Burwell; I have Jason Furman, the Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers; Cecilia Muñoz, the Director of the Domestic Policy Council; and Gene Sperling, the Director of the National Economic Council.

...

Q BOB WEINER: Can you comment on the balance between tax cuts and infrastructure jobs in that the Congressional Research Service Report said that direct jobs are four times as effective as tax cuts in creating jobs, and CBO reported that the American Jobs Act would have created 1 to 2 million jobs and dropped unemployment by a percent -- so why the value of tax cuts versus direct infrastructure jobs?

A MR. FURMAN: A lot of our focus in this budget isn't on short-run support for aggregate demand and the types of multipliers you're talking about, but on how to best expand the productive capacity of the economy. In that respect, infrastructure is a very important investment. And it's not just a one-year plan. It's four years sustained together with reforms and how that money is spent.

On the revenue side, one of the most important things for growth isn't something that costs any money or raises any money; it's what is neutral over the medium and long term reform of the business tax system. It will generate money in the short run to invest in infrastructure, but it will also help simplify the tax system and ensure that capital is being allocated to its highest rate of return.

Finally, there are other revenue measures that include, for example, higher revenue from high-income households by cutting back on their tax expenditures. Those are part of that balanced approach to deficit reduction that Sylvia talked about to help ensure that the economic plan is sustainable over the medium and long run.