[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.