[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 13 (Wednesday, January 31, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H976-H977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  PRESIDENT CLINTON AND BIG GOVERNMENT

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to include extraneous material.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, last week President Clinton said this was 
the end of the era of big government. And this week, the President says 
that he established a record of remarkable consistency.
  Mr. Speaker, let's review the facts. President Clinton is responsible 
for the largest tax increase in American history. He tried to take over 
one-seventh of the U.S. economy by socializing the Nation's health care 
system. Last year, the President submitted four budget plans, none of 
which balanced, all of which had $200 billion deficits as far as the 
eye could see. And only until very recently has the President submitted 
a balanced budget, but even that puts off the tough choices for future 
politicians and spends $326 billion more on failed Washington programs.
  If this is the end of big government, I must be in political 
fantasyland.
  Mr. Speaker, let's cut through the double-speak see that, in reality, 
Bill Clinton has become big government's little buddy.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Record:
  
[[Page H977]]


               [From the Washington Post, Jan. 31, 1996]

          Clinton Says Record Shows ``Remarkable Consistency''

                   (By Ann Devroy and John F. Harris)

       President Clinton said yesterday his declaration last week 
     that the era of big government is over was not a departure 
     from the philosophy he brought to the White House three years 
     ago and said he will show voters this year that he has 
     compiled a record of ``remarkable consistency.''
       Clinton's comments came in an Oval Office interview a week 
     after a State of the Union address in which he embraced many 
     of the limited-government themes sounded by congressional 
     Republicans. Despite his advocacy of a federal overhaul of 
     health care earlier in his administration and recurrent 
     charges by his critics that he has moved across the political 
     spectrum with the polls, Clinton said his basic approach to 
     the presidency has not changed.
       ``I believe I've given the American people a coherent view 
     of the world,'' he said, adding: ``Just because I'm not for 
     big government doesn't mean I think we should have a weak 
     government or that there's nothing for government to do.''
       Clinton said that while he hopes other Democrats share this 
     vision, he will not make recapturing Congress for the 
     Democrats a primary goal of his 1996 campaign. Such an appeal 
     based solely on party, he said, would be ``self-defeating.''
       On welfare reform, Clinton said he has not given up hope 
     that a compromise bill acceptable to him will be approved 
     this year. But he set a new price for his signature on a 
     welfare system overhaul, asserting that the Senate proposal 
     he indicated he would support last fall will have to be 
     changed for him to support it now. He called on Republicans 
     to send him a revised bill that would contain fewer cuts in 
     funding for food stamps, provide child care for welfare 
     recipients who work and preserve current protections for 
     disabled children.
       One of Clinton's major campaign pledges in 1992 was to 
     replace welfare ``as we know it,'' but he must reconcile that 
     with his veto of a Republican welfare plan earlier this year 
     because it was too hard on children. Since the veto, 
     Republicans have been debating among themselves how to revive 
     the issue. One alternative they have discussed is to agree to 
     unite behind the Senate version, which was adamantly opposed 
     by House Republicans.
       That way, some Republicans argue, Clinton would have to 
     sign the bill--as he earlier indicated he would do--hereby 
     angering liberals in his party, who think the Senate bill 
     amounts to an abandonment of the party's traditional 
     commitment to the needy.
       Clinton's comments yesterday appear to add a new hurdle to 
     getting any version of welfare overhaul through Congress this 
     year. Some argue it is an academic discussion anyway, because 
     Republicans have deep disagreements over whether to try for a 
     deal, how to proceed and whether a more limited measure like 
     the Senate version could make it through the House.
       In the interview and later talking to reporters, Clinton 
     said any new version sent him should ``at least reflect'' 
     understandings on improvements reached between him and 
     congressional Republicans during their marathon balanced-
     budget talks at the end of 1995.
       ``We reached an understanding,'' Clinton said, that ``we 
     should do more'' on child care funding, food stamp proposals, 
     funding that covers Social Security disability payments to 
     children and provisions affecting the children of legal 
     immigrants.
       Republicans disputed Clinton's description of the talks and 
     his call for using them as a basis for new legislation. Tony 
     Blankley, spokesman for House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), 
     said the welfare discussions were in the context of 
     Republicans taking less than real reform in order to get more 
     of a real balanced budget. Without the balanced budget, he 
     said, the equation doesn't hold up.
       ``It's not going to happen,'' he said of legislation 
     rewritten to reflect the president's newest specifications. 
     Adding new requirements now to the one version he did embrace 
     ``offers a flavor of the kind of two-step he did in the Oval 
     Office last month,'' moving the goal posts as the game 
     proceeded, Blankley said.
       Administration officials are vague on what precisely 
     Clinton and the Republicans reached understandings about. But 
     one senior official said Republicans agreed to add back about 
     $4 billion of the $26 billion in cuts they proposed for food 
     stamps, and were no longer seeking to make the program a 
     block grant. On child care, they did not object to adding $2 
     billion in spending and to allowing women who work 20 hours a 
     week to meet the work requirement to keep benefits.
       On Social Security disability payments, the Republicans, 
     officials said, did not object to loosening requirements to 
     allow more traditionally disabled recipients to retain their 
     benefits, while removing alcoholics and others. The two sides 
     also ``threw out a number of ideas'' on how to loosen the GOP 
     requirement that legal immigrants not be eligible for most 
     welfare benefits, an official said.
       Clinton was relaxed and voluble for most of the interview, 
     becoming more intense only when defending himself when asked 
     if he has been inconsistent in his approach to government. He 
     was joined in the Oval Office by a handful of senior aides, 
     including senior adviser George Stephanopoulos, press 
     secretary Michael McCurry and communications director Don 
     Baer, none of whom joined the discussion.
       Regarding the 1996 campaign, Clinton said he has gotten a 
     good reception to the conciliatory tone of his State of the 
     Union speech and said seeking common ground with Republicans 
     would be part of his election-year message.
       But asked if he would ask voters to give him a Democratic 
     Congress to help accomplish second-term goals, Clinton said, 
     ``The American people don't think it's the president's 
     business to tell them what ought to happen in the 
     congressional elections.''
       Presidents have been only modestly successful in recent 
     elections in getting voters to link their presidential votes 
     to congressional votes by party. George Bush, when he was 
     elected in 1988, saw his party lose seats in Congress, as did 
     Clinton in his 1992 election. But the reelections of Richard 
     M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan, in 1972 and 1984, saw their 
     Republican Party make double-digit gains in congressional 
     seats.
       ``The evidence that the president's been successful making 
     that kind of argument to the American people is not very 
     heavy,'' Clinton said.
       He added, ``I think it ought to be obvious to people that 
     Speaker Gingrich would like to have a Republican president 
     and it's obvious to people that I would like to have more 
     Democrats in the Congress, but I think what the American 
     people want to know is: What are these people saying, how's 
     it going to affect me, and then I'll make a decision about 
     how I'm going to vote.'' The president said he would ``make 
     my case'' about what he wants to do in a second term. ``I 
     hope it will embrace a lot of the people that are running for 
     Congress in my party. But to tie the two things together I 
     think would probably be self-defeating.''
       Asked about his changes in governing philosophy since he 
     took office and to reconcile his first speech to Congress in 
     1993 with his State of the Union address last week, the 
     president flushed and rejected the premise that the different 
     themes showed a different philosophy.
       In 1993, he began his speech by saying, ``Tonight I want to 
     talk to you about what government can do because I believe 
     government must do more,'' and went on to outline a ``package 
     of jobs investments of over $30 billion to put people to work 
     now, to create half a million jobs: jobs to rebuild our 
     highways and airports, to renovate housing, to bring new life 
     to rural communities.'' Last week, he twice proclaimed, ``The 
     era of big government is over.''
       Clinton said the two speeches are inconsistent ``only if 
     you have that kind of selective quotes.''
       ``I've worked very hard to work out a coherent philosophy 
     that is different from either just letting the market run the 
     world and America, or pretending that the government can 
     solve all the problems,'' he said. ``I have worked on it very 
     hard for years and years and I believe that there's a 
     remarkable consistency in what we have done.''

                          ____________________