    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [May 19, 1995]
    [Pages 713-716]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Interview With Peter Malof of New Hampshire Public Radio
    May 19, 1995

        Mr. Malof. Well, I sure appreciate you joining us.
        The President. Glad to do it.

    Federal Budget

        Mr. Malof. I guess you folks down in Washington are officially in
    the thick of the budget

    [[Page 714]]

    battle. Your reaction to the rescission 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?
        The President. Well, I don't want to block action. I have offered
    even more spending cuts than is in their bill. 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. For example, I
    worked with the Senate to add back some of the money in the LIHEAP
    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. Then the Senate and the House Members went behind
    closed doors when nobody was looking and--remember, 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.
        Mr. Malof. Now, correct----
        The President. And so--let me just finish--so all I told them was, I
    am all for it, cutting this much spending. Indeed, I think we should cut
    a little more spending. I offered another $100 million 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 target it to education. We
    ought to target it to things that will raise incomes and grow jobs in
    America and improve the security of the American people.
        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 in the national service
    program that's received broad bipartisan support in New Hampshire.
        They--instead, they put in $100 million 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 dolllars 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.
        Mr. Malof. Now, it's my impression that the only new spending in the
    House bill is disaster relief, antiterrorism laws, and Oklahoma City
    aid. You originally signed on to items that you're now calling pork,
    such as the highway construction and----
        The President. That's right. That's when we had a--that's right. But
    that's when we were spending more money. But let's just--let's look at
    the real facts.
        If we're going to cut $16 billion worth of spending, and I signed--
    let me remind you that I signed on to 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 passed the line-item
    veto in the House, they passed 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--if 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. So 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.

    [[Page 715]]

        Mr. Malof. Obviously, nobody's 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?
        The President. Well, I'm--first of all, I'm not--certainly not at
    odds with those who are determined to balance the budget by a date
    certain. And I invited the Congress to do what the law required them to
    do and submit a budget and then to work it through. They're now in the
    process of working through that budget. I want to evaluate it, and then
    I would--including the 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. And I
    think we ought to do it in a bipartisan fashion. And I will support
    them.
        They haven't had--let me just point out--I am prepared to work with
    them to reduce the deficit and to bring the budget into balance. For 2
    years, for 2 years, they said no to all my efforts to get them to work
    with me. So we reduced the deficit 3 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, ``If 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 4\1/2\
    percent today. You've got almost 40,000 new jobs, and in the previous 4
    years you lost over 40,000 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 $8 today, then you've got to be more careful about how
    you spend the $8. That's my argument over this rescission package.
        If they'll take the pork out and put the people back, I will sign
    even more deficit reduction than they have.

    Middle Class Tax Cut

        Mr. Malof. 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 deficit
    reduction? Because I would think if you back away from tax cuts, you'd
    be opening yourself up to more attacks that once again you haven't done
    what you'd say you would.
        The President. Well, first of all, let's look at what I did do,
    before we get all carried away here. Let's look at what we--let's look
    at what we did do. In 1993, we cut taxes for lower middle income working
    families with children an average, this year, of $1,000 a family, for
    working people with incomes of $27,000 a year or less. We've already
    done that. We also cut taxes for 90 percent of the small businesses in
    America that increased 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 the House has and balance the 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 4 years ago, I met
    people who were 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 childrearing, 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 balance this budget without doing severe
    damage to the elderly of this

    [[Page 716]]

    country, including the elderly people in New Hampshire.

    Federal Budget

        Mr. Malof. And do I understand you correctly that you are not
    prepared at this point to set a date for balancing the budget, a year?
        The President. No, but I can say this. I think it can be done----
        Mr. Malof. [Inaudible]
        The President. Well, it can--first of all, it can be done in 7
    years. The question is, what is the penalty, and what are the tradeoffs?
    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. Then 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--I gave them my
    word I'd do it, and I will do it. I owe that to them, and I owe it to
    the American people.
        Look, I believed in deficit reduction before they did. My budgets,
    adopted in the last 2 years, are giving us 3 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 in bringing this deficit down and bringing 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 a date certain.
        Mr. Malof. Okay. Mr. President, thank you very much for taking the
    time to talk with us.
        The President. Thank you.

    Note: The interview began at 12:26 p.m. The President spoke by telephone
    from the Oval Office at the White House. The interview was broadcast
    live on WEVO, Concord, NH; WEVH, Hanover, NH; and WEVN, Keene, NH.