MR. SNOW: All right, everybody ready? The President's schedule, early normal briefings. We're on our way to New York, where we'll go to Federal Hall. The President will first have an interview with Neil Cavuto, of FOX News, on the state of the economy address that the President is going to deliver afterward at Federal Hall. And then upon conclusion of that, he'll meet we Ceasar Borja, Jr. and other members of the Borja family. And then we will return home.

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MR. SNOW: That's correct. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: His mother, brother and sister. His mother is Eva; brother, Evan; and sister, Nhia, N-h-i-a. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: That is correct. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: It's a private meeting. We will probably -- we may have a photo release. We're not going to do pool; this is a private meeting. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: What? Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: I'm sorry, what? Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: Because it's an appropriate thing to do. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: Well, I think -- look, the President is going to be dealing with a grieving young man and his family. The one thing we can assure him, from a policy point of view, is that we will plug the gaps in any coverage and anybody who needs treatment will get it. Period. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: First responders who need treatment will get the treatment they need. Many are already covered by insurance programs, many through their union; but if there are gaps in that, we're going to do it. We've already -- he will get -- the family will get some briefing also about ongoing medical efforts. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: What I'm saying is first responders. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: Well, at this point we're talking with the family of the first responder. I think at this particular juncture the most important thing to do is to talk to the Borja family, to pass on condolences and we do not look upon this as a political meeting, and I doubt they look at it as a political meeting, as well. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: I'm not getting into that sort of speculation. I'd send you off to the Department of Defense for any readout they're going to give. But let me just reiterate what the President said -- we're going to do force protection and people who are trying to kill our troops or to try to destabilize the democracy, we will respond to forcefully and appropriately. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: Well, I think it indicates the success of the President's program. If you take a look at the GDP numbers -- a couple of other items I'd draw your attention to: low inflation and high wage growth. What we're seeing now is vigorous growth -- I think it's 5.4 percent in wage growth in the fourth quarter. You guys will have handouts, so you can double check me on the numbers. The fact is, there's vigorous wage growth and it indicates that the President's proposal of cutting taxes and creating more opportunities for businesses and workers is, in fact, succeeding, and it's important that Congress continue to think about ways of expanding our prosperity. And the first thing it ought to do is to extend the tax cuts that are already part of the law.

I've also got Eddie Lazear here, Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. So if you want sage advice on economic analysis, Eddie is your guy. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

CHAIRMAN LAZEAR: I do. We've had this kind of economic growth for a number of years now. It's symptomatic of what we see as we come out of a recovery. Usually the first year or two is very, very strong, then it tapers off.

We've been fortunate in that this economy has been able to sustain growth for a long period of time. We're seeing it show up not only in growth of output in GDP, but we're also seeing wage growth, as Tony said. We're seeing high profits, which help the business climate, in terms of investment.

The only weak spot in the economy has been housing, and the very good news is that the economy is so robust that it's been able to grow at a very steep pace, despite the fact that the housing sector has slowed really to its historic levels. So it's not slowing relative to its past, it's just slowing to its historic levels. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

CHAIRMAN LAZEAR: We think there -- we think that we could see sustained growth. Remember, the labor market is extremely tight right now. We have a lot of people working. We've got 4.5 percent unemployment. Job growth is very strong. When you see that in the labor market, that suggests that the economy can continue to grow. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: Look, I'm not going to get into specifics. I'll let you -- the better thing to do is talk to the policy guys. Again, what you have is a situation where a lot of people were insured, and if there are holes in the insurance, we're going to plug them. The federal government has made a significant commitment, and we're committed to helping the first responders. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: Well, we'll have to see. Look, there are a lot -- what happened is that there was a big first payment -- the federal role began to expand only last October, as you know. So at this point, we are still getting data in. As a matter of fact, the first tranche of data should be coming in either tomorrow or the beginning of next week.

So rather than trying to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, we'll take a look at the real numbers and find out what we've learned through the first quarter, and obviously we'll make appropriate adjustments as the data indicate. Read more Comment (0), Email this.

MR. SNOW: We'll find out. Again, we don't know what adjustments need to be made. So you're trying to talk into a vacuum. It may be that this is sufficient, it may be that it isn't. We'll just have to see. Read more Comment (0), Email this.