    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [December 20, 1995]
    [Pages 1913-1915]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's News Conference
    December 20, 1995

    Budget Impasse

        The President. Good afternoon. Yesterday, Speaker Gingrich, Senator
    Dole, and I reached an agreement to work together in good faith to
    balance the budget and to reopen the Government. Today the most extreme
    Members of the House of Representatives rejected that agreement.
        These Republicans want to force the Government to stay closed until
    I accept their deep and harmful cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, in
    education, in the environment, and agree to raise taxes on the hardest
    pressed working families, all, in part, to pay for their very large tax
    cut.
        I won't yield to these threats. I'm determined to balance the
    budget. But I won't be forced into signing a budget that violates our
    values, not today or tomorrow, not ever.
        This is a very troubling development. The President and the leaders
    of the two Chambers of Congress reached an agreement on a matter of
    great national urgency. But a small minority in the House of
    Representatives is determined to keep the Government closed until they
    get exactly their way. Their way is the wrong way for America.
        We should reopen the Government now. We should work to balance the
    budget now. We should start the negotiations without any threats,
    without more ultimatums, without continuing this shutdown. This shutdown
    hurts the very people we are duty-bound to serve. If Congress doesn't
    vote to reopen the Government by tomorrow morning, 3.3 million veterans
    will not receive their benefits on time. If Congress fails to act by
    Friday, 8 million children will not receive their benefits on time.
    Every day of the shutdown, 20,000 college loan and scholarship
    applications go unprocessed. Air and water pollution goes unstopped
    because they've taken all the environmental protectors off the job.
        Christmas is only days away. I have said before and I will say
    again, we ought to be guided by the spirit of the season, not the spirit
    of partisanship. We can balance the budget in a way that reflects our
    values and is good for our future, but only if we put aside rancor and
    extremism. I say again, I hope that we can go to work.
        Q. Mr. President, what can you do about this? Do you have any
    recourse to get these benefit checks to these poor people?
        The President. Well, I'm hoping that Congress will move on the
    veterans benefits today. And of course, I hope they will move on the
    other thing.
        Q. Can they do that independently----
        The President. Apparently, they can. I have talked to Senator Dole
    twice today. I just got off the phone with him a few minutes ago, and we
    have--I don't want to reveal exactly what we said because I think that
    he's making a good-faith effort here to honor the agreement we made.
        Q. Can you clear up the question, Mr. President, about whether
    you're willing to score your budget on the CBO? There seems to be some

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    dispute about that, and in fact, Republicans are blaming this breakdown
    on what Vice President Gore said last night just minutes after this
    apparent agreement was struck.
        The President. Well, there's no doubt--there's no difference about
    what the discussion was and what the agreement was. I have said--if you
    go back to the agreement in the last continuing resolution, I have said
    that any budget we agree to would have to be scored by the Congressional
    Budget Office as being in balance. That's what I said, and I say that
    again.
        What the Vice President said last night was that should not be taken
    to preclude our ability to discuss in the budget negotiation the
    specific suggestions we have already made or any discussions we still
    have about what we think ought to be considered in the ultimate decision
    of the Congressional Budget Office. That's all we said. We have never
    disputed the fact that the final agreement, once we make it, would have
    to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office as being in balance.
        Q. [Inaudible]--what the agreement that occurred yesterday
    apparently had to do with whether any plan, any budget plan that did not
    meet that standard could be on the table as part of the talks. That
    seemed to be Mr. Gingrich's understanding. Mr. Gore saw it a different
    way. And that appears to have been at the root of all this. Did the way
    the Speaker worded his understanding of this yesterday--did that get it
    wrong, in your view?
        The President. Well, I don't think that is at the root of all this.
    There was a clear understanding, and I believe our staffs agreed on it,
    that we would come back with our ideas.
        As I said to them, I would actually--I offered them two options. We
    would either go back and take the other budgets that had been proposed
    as a starting point and work together to try to get a balanced budget
    that would be scored as balanced by the CBO, or if they wanted me to put
    one down right now that would be scored right now as balanced by the
    CBO, I would do that, but they would have to come to the Medicare and
    Medicaid investment levels that I had recommended because I've already
    moved 3 times as much as they have.
        Q. Just to follow, Mr. President, Senate Democrats have now come
    forward with a plan today very much like yours in some important
    respects. It does get to balance in 7 years using CBO numbers now. They
    apparently--the Republicans say they're prepared to talk about that one.
    Are you prepared----
        The President. We said we were prepared to talk about----
        Q. ----to endorse that one and make that your starting point?
        The President. No, but I'm prepared to discuss that in the context
    of the negotiations. We encouraged everybody who wanted to come out with
    a plan to come out with it and we would discuss them all and we would
    see where we are on that.
        Q. [Inaudible]--just a small minority. Why are they so powerful?
    What do you think is behind it?
        The President. I think that there has been a decision on every issue
    except the environment, where some moderate Republicans decided that
    they could no longer go along with it, to put those people in control of
    the House of Representatives. And they have varied--the moderate
    Republicans who have disagreed with them, I think, on many, many issues
    have broken ranks with them, to the best of my knowledge, only on the
    environment, and then in a modest way.
        Now, sooner or later, they're either going to have to let the
    Speaker honor his commitments--that group. And if they're not going to
    do that, because what they really want is to end the role of the Federal
    Government in our life, which they have, after all, have been very open
    about. I mean, a lot of them will be happy about this because they don't
    think we ought to have a Government up here anyway. And the tail will
    keep wagging the dog over there until those moderate Republicans find a
    way to do what they did on a couple of the environmental votes or until
    they decide to let the Speaker honor his commitment.
        Q. You're saying that these people control the Speaker of the House;
    he doesn't control them?
        The President. No. First of all, I don't think he ever asserted that
    he controlled them. I am saying that at the present time, they control
    what their decisions--the leadership decisions, which are in the hand of
    this very conservative group, the anti-Government group, control what
    the shape of the measures that come up for a vote. That's what this is.
    And there are only two ways to resolve this, I think. We either--over
    the long run, other options that could get the support of both Democrats
    and Republicans

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    will have to be permitted to come to the floor of the Congress, or they
    will have to give the Speaker at least the leeway to do what he said he
    would do yesterday when we left.
        Q. Mr. President, since so much is at stake right now, all these
    veterans benefits and these other benefits, why don't you simply pick up
    the phone and call the Speaker, the Senate majority leader and invite
    them to come back to the White House and rack your brains and not leave
    until there is an agreement that can be implemented?
        The President. First of all, I had an agreement last night. I don't
    know who I'm supposed to make an agreement with. But what the Vice
    President said is not the basis on which this agreement came--I will do
    anything I can to reach an honorable agreement. But the people in the
    House are misreading their own agreement. They voted for the other
    continuing resolution. The other continuing resolution has us agreeing,
    our side agreeing, to work for a balanced budget in 7 years, that the
    agreement would be scored by the CBO as being in balance. It has them
    agreeing to work to meet our standards of protecting Medicare and
    Medicaid, education, and the environment. And ever since that agreement
    was reached their group has treated this as a one-way street. And I'm
    hoping that we can find a way out of this.
        Let me say, I'm happy to meet with anybody, anytime. But it's hard
    for me to know--what would happen now is--I mean, we can only conclude
    that what would happen now is that the three of us could sit down and
    make an agreement with Senator Daschle and Representative Gephardt and
    then everybody would be for it, and they'd take it back to the House and
    the same crowd would say, ``No, thank you. We want exactly what we
    passed.''
        Q. So what you're saying is there's absolutely nothing else that you
    can do to meet with them because of this group?
        The President. No, no, no. Wait a minute, no, no. I just told you
    I've already had two conversations with Senator Dole and that we're
    trying to work this out. We're working at this moment. And I do not--I
    believe when Speaker Gingrich left here yesterday he intended to come
    back today and begin the negotiations with the continuing resolution
    going on.
        But you're asking me why we're not meeting right now. I'm telling
    you what we have to determine is who we can meet with and expect if we
    give our word and somebody else gives their word, that whatever we say
    is going to be done will get done. That's what we've got to determine.
        Q. Mr. President, why is it necessary for you to get an agreement
    from----
        Q. Mr. President, does the Government have to be reopened? Because
    last night there was no talk of that being a precondition when both
    sides came out. And if you did reach an agreement with the Democratic
    and Republican leaders, presumably you would have enough votes in
    Congress to override the Republicans.
        The President. Well, that's what we thought. And that might be the
    case now if such a vote were to be taken. And I think that's one of the
    things that's being discussed. But I think it's very important that all
    of you understand here, you've got a group of people that in my judgment
    do not represent even the majority in the House of Representatives, and
    certainly not the majority opinion of Republicans in America, who are
    prepared to shut the entire Government down unless we agree with their
    priorities. That's what's going on.
        And they today made it impossible for an agreement made in good
    faith between the President, the Speaker of the House, and the leader of
    the Senate to be implemented.
        Now, I am, obviously, willing to do whatever I can to continue
    whatever constructive talks can be continued. But I showed up today
    ready to do my part, and the thing that you have in this business that
    has to work is when you say you're going to do something, it has to be
    that way.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President's 111th news conference began at 3:47 p.m. in the
    Briefing Room at the White House.