[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 51 (Monday, December 25, 1995)]
[Pages 2194-2195]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Democratic Members of Congress

December 16, 1995

    Let me, first of all, welcome all of you here. I thank you for being 
here. I imagine some of you have stayed here in an unplanned way over 
the weekend.
    We are determined, as Democrats, to try to work together and to try 
to work with the Republicans to achieve a balanced budget but in a way 
that is consistent with our principles.
    As all of you know, yesterday the Republican congressional leaders 
called the negotiations off unless we would first put much bigger 
Medicare and Medicaid cuts on the table. I thought that was wrong and 
unwarranted.
    Virtually all of us don't agree with the large portions of their tax 
package and particularly a lot of the special interest provisions of it. 
But we didn't ask them to abandon it just to talk and begin 
negotiations.
    So we hope that we can get back to a constructive dialog consistent 
with our values, our principles, and what's good for this country. And 
that's what we're going to be working on today.
    We don't believe that decimating Medicare and Medicaid and 
undermining our investments in education and the environment, raising 
taxes on working families is a good prescription for America's future. 
And it is not necessary to balance the budget.
    So we're going back to work today. We're going to keep working, 
trying to reach as much agreement among ourselves as possible, and then 
we'll keep reaching out to the Republicans in Congress in the hope of 
passing the right kind of balanced budget.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:40 p.m. at Blair House.

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