Interview with President Bill Clinton

Mr. President thanks for joining us. Hello. Hello. Can you hear me Peter. Yes thank goodness. Have we been having technical snafus. You know the White House radio station. We don't do this all day every day. Not everything we ought to be said. Well I sure appreciate you joining us. Glad to do it. I guess you folks down in Washington are officially in the thick of the budget battle. Your reaction to the recision package just passed by the House was that it favors pork over people and you promised a veto. Republicans are saying they're outraged. How comfortable are you with the prospect that your role may be shaping up more and more to be a blocker of action rather than an initiator. Well I don't want to block action. I have offered even more spending cuts than is in their bill. So this is not about cutting spending. And they know it. I worked in good faith with the Republican majority in the Senate to shape a rescission bill that would be better for the American people and would still cut spending.

And for example I work with the Senate to add back some of the money and the LAHAIE program which goes to states like New Hampshire to help older people with their utility bills. But we cut spending somewhere else. So we had an agreement that I would go along with this bill and we worked in good faith in the Senate and the House members went behind closed doors when nobody was looking. And this is not a partisan issue. Members of both parties put a lot of pork in the bill and took a billion and a half dollars in education funding out. Now correct me. So that let me just finish all I have. All I told them was I am all for cutting this much spending. Indeed I think we should cut a little more spending. I offer another $100 billion in spending cuts but I don't believe if we're going to balance this budget and cut back on government spending then we need to be very careful about how we spend the money we do spend. We ought to targeted education. We ought to target the things that will raise incomes and grow jobs in America and improve the security of the

American people. And instead they took out money to make our schools safer and more drug free. They took out money to fund college educations for young people who are working in their community and the national service program that received broad bipartisan support in New Hampshire. Instead they put in a hundred million dollars for a courthouse. They put in even more road projects into a congressman's district who now has nine special purpose road projects in his district. They even put in a million dollars for a city street in a state in the Midwest where the mayor didn't ask for the money. Now that's what was done behind closed doors. That's the old politics if we're going to change things around here. We've got to move away from the old politics cut unnecessary spending and then when we do spend money the money ought to be well spent we shouldn't be trading in pork for people behind closed doors. That's what we did. And it was wrong. And I want to change that. But I'm all for the spending cuts. Now it's my impression that the only new spending in the House bill is disaster

relief anti-terrorism laws and Oklahoma City aid. You originally signed on to items that you're now calling pork such as the highway construction and federal courthouse. That's right and that's when they were given a pass when. That's right. But that's when we were spending more money. But let let's just let's look at the real facts. If we're going to cut $16 billion dollars for the spending and I said let me remind you that I signed onto it because the Congress has the ability to put these special projects in there. And because I don't have the line item veto which the Republicans say they are for and which I have agreed with the Republicans for now they pass a line item veto in the house. They pass one in the Senate but they're different. If they had they still have not appointed the conferees to resolve the difference between the House and the Senate if they had sent me the line item veto we wouldn't be having this discussion today. But if you say it they say we want to cut $16 billion. And I say we want to cut $16

billion. And then we reach an agreement. I reached a good faith agreement with the Senate and then they go behind closed doors and they say no no no we don't want to do all this education business we want some of our pork barrel projects or we'll cut education a billion and a half and put pork in. Now that's what happened. If you're going to cut spending you have to make choices what you cut and what you keep. If you're going to spend more money you can spend more money on different things. But I will say again I think they're wrong to put in pork barrel projects and cut education and I don't think they can defend it and they're not trying to defend it very hard. They're just talking about process. Now obviously nobody is saying we don't need deficit reduction. The question seems to be how and how fast do you consider yourself at odds with those who are determined to actually balance the budget by the year 2002. Well first of all I'm not certainly not at odds with those who are determined to balance the budget by date certain. And I invited the Congress to do what the law required him to do and submit a budget

and then to work it through there. Now in the process of working through that budget I want to evaluate it and then I would including that date. But I think we have to balance the budget. I think we have to do it by a date certain. And I agree with that. But you have to do it in a bipartisan fashion. And I will support them. They haven't had one. Let me just point out I'm prepared to work with them to reduce the deficit and bring the budget into balance for two years. For two years they said no to all my efforts to get them to work with me. So we reduce the deficit three years in a row for the first time since Harry Truman with nobody helping us in the other party. None of them. And they were all saying we were going to have a big recession and it would wreck the economy a lot of those people who are up there in New Hampshire running for president said it President Clinton's budget passes it will wreck the economy. Well New Hampshire had a 7.6 percent unemployment rate when I became president and it's four and a half percent today.

You've got almost 40000 new jobs in the previous four years you lost over 40000 jobs. So they were wrong. So now they believe in deficit reduction and I say welcome to the party. I'm glad to have you here and I will work with you on it. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. And if we're going to cut spending more quickly I will support that. But that means that the money that is left the money we do spend has to be spent even more carefully. I think people in New Hampshire will really identify with that. If you're going to spend if you spent $10 yesterday and you're going to spend today then you've got to be more careful about how you spend the night. That's my argument over this rescission package if they take the pork out and put the people back. I will sign even more deficit reduction than they have. I understand finally Granite Staters are by no stretch of the imagination a tax friendly bunch. But according to surveys we're in step with the rest of the country in preferring deficit reduction to tax cuts. Are you determined to

stick to fulfilling your long delayed promise to cut taxes on the middle class even though it would set back the pace of debts deficit reduction. Because I would think if you back away from tax cuts you'll be opening yourself up to more attacks that once again you haven't done what you said you would. Well first of all let's look at what I did for we get all carried away here. Let's look at what we saw was what we did do in 1993. We cut taxes for lower middle income working families with children. On average this year of $1000 a family for working people with incomes of $27000 a year or less. We've already done that. We also cut the taxes for 90 percent of small businesses in America that increase their investments in their own business. So we did do that while reducing the deficit. Do I believe that we can bring the budget into balance

within the next few years and still have a tax cut. I do but not one the size that the House of Representatives has adopted. You can't you can't cut taxes as much as as the House has. And balanced budget. It won't happen and it's not right frankly to cut taxes in ways that largely benefit upper income people and to pay for it by cutting Medicare and Medicaid to the elderly and disabled. When I was in New Hampshire four years ago I met people who are already making a decision every week between buying drugs and paying for food. We don't want to make that worse. So my answer to you is if we have a targeted tax cut that focuses on the middle class and rewards education and child rearing we can do that and we can afford to do that in the context of deficit reduction. But we cannot afford a big broad based huge tax cut in the magnitude that the House passed and balances budget without doing severe damage to the elderly in this country including the only people

in New Hampshire. And do I understand you correctly that you are not prepared at this point to set a date for balancing the budget a year. No but I can say this I think it can be done. It can. First of all it can be done in seven years. The question is what is the penalty and what are the tradeoff. I think it clearly can be done in less than 10 years. I think we can get there by a date certain. But I want to evaluate the actual budget that the Republicans finally agree on. That is the Senate has to adopt their budget proposal and they'll get together and reconcile the differences. Then I have to do what I promised them I did. I promised them that if they would adopt a budget that I would negotiate with them in good faith and that I would propose a counter budget. That's what I gave my word I'd do it and I will do it. I owe that to them and owe it to the American people. Look I believe in deficit reduction before they did. My budget

is adopted in the last two years are giving this three years of deficit reduction for the first time since Mr. Truman was president and had it not been for the debts run the interest we have to pay on the debt run up in the 12 years before I came to town. We would have a balanced budget today. That is the only reason for the deficit today is the interest we are paying on the debt run up between 1981 and the end of 1992. And both parties bear responsibility for that because in every year but one the Congress then in the hands of the Democrats actually adopted less spending than the White House then in the hands of the Republicans asked for. So this is not a partisan issue with me. America has a vested interest in the future and bring this deficit down and bring the budget into balance. And I will work with them to do it. And yes it can be done and it can be done by date certain.

OK. Mr. President thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us. Thank you