    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [April 21, 1993]
    [Pages 474-475]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Exchange With Reporters on the Stimulus Package
    April 21, 1993

        Q. Mr. President, any reaction to the----
        The President. Well, I'm disappointed. But I knew when I came here
    that we'd have to change some things in Washington and that the American
    people won't be surprised, I guess, to think that a minority of one
    House could keep several hundred thousand people out of work this year.
    I think it's a mistake, but I'm not done. I'm going to come back next
    week and regroup and go forward.
        We've had a real good success getting our budget plan through. We've
    kept interest rates down. There's going to be $100 billion in
    refinancing this year as a result of that. So I think that things are
    going basically in the right direction, but I'm very disappointed about
    this. And frankly, I'm a little surprised about it. It doesn't make a
    lot of sense. A lot of the Republican Senators told me they wanted us to
    work something out, and I went out of my way to meet them halfway, and
    then some. I don't know. But I just think that we've got to keep
    fighting for jobs.
        I think it's so easy for people who are here, who have not been out
    in the country, who make these decisions, who all have jobs, to be
    willing to pay for unemployment but not want to invest in employment,
    not want to put people to work. And I just think we've got to keep
    fighting for it. So next week I'll regroup and

    [[Page 475]]

    try to do something else.
        Q. What do you come back with next week?
        The President. I don't know. We'll see. This country went in one
    direction solid for more than a decade. I've been here about 90 days;
    it's going to take a little while to turn it around. But I'm not too
    disheartened. I'm disappointed in this particular thing and surprised by
    it, genuinely surprised, but I think we can regroup and go forward.
        Q. If you can't get a $16-billion stimulus package through Congress,
    what does it say for some of your more ambitious proposals, health care
    reform and the price tag that that carries with it?
        The President. Well, we'll just have to see. I think that depends
    on, always, whether there is a majority for a proposition and then
    whether the minority will keep it from even being voted on. I think the
    American people need to know that we had a majority in both Houses of
    Congress, but the minority kept the issue from being voted on. I feel
    pretty good about it.
        We passed the budget resolution, and we got the 60 votes necessary
    to break the debate in the Senate there, so I think we've got a real
    shot at a lot of reform. But it's going to be hard. And as I said, look
    at what's happened in the last 12 years: the deficit goes up, jobs go
    down, and no investment in our people. Congress passes laws it doesn't
    live under. We're trying to change this. And a lot of the Members of
    Congress have been willing to support this process of reform. This is, I
    hope and believe, an aberration where a minority stubbornly refused to
    let an issue get voted on. I'm just not going to be discouraged by it;
    we're just going to go on.
        Q. Let me ask you, when you come back next week, are you coming back
    with a scaled-down jobs bill or what are you----
        The Vice President. Stay tuned.
        The President. I've got to talk to a lot of people, see where we
    are, and go forward. We've got lots of other issues we need to put out
    there in the Congress and, you know, we may not win them all. But I'm
    going to keep fighting for jobs. I'm going to wake up tomorrow knowing
    that I'm waging a fight to put the American people back to work and lift
    this economy up, and that's what I was hired to do. I'm just going to
    keep doing it.
        Q. Is this a pretty big defeat for you, Mr. President? Isn't this a
    big defeat?
        The President. Not a big defeat. For me, it's a big disappointment
    to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who would have had jobs. But I
    don't have to explain it; I fought for it. The people who have voted for
    this sort of spending repeatedly to help other countries and wouldn't do
    it to help their own folks and did it when the deficit was going up, and
    I'm bringing the deficit down, they may have to explain some things, but
    that's the way Washington's worked for too long. We're going to lift
    this thing up and change it. We've just got to get people focused on the
    American people and their needs and put aside all the petty politics and
    all the maneuvering and start thinking about what's best for the
    American people. I think we can change it, and I'm upbeat about it.
    We've just been here 90 days. And basically, the big part of the plan,
    the budget resolution, passed. We've just got to keep fighting it.

    Note: The exchange began at 7:42 p.m. in the North Portico at the White
    House. A tape was not available for verification of the content of this
    exchange.