[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 51 (Monday, December 25, 1995)]
[Pages 2211-2214]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 ex- 

[[Page 2212]]

actly 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 
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

[[Page 2213]]

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 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.

[[Page 2214]]

    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.