[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 51 (Monday, December 25, 1995)]
[Pages 2195-2198]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Vetoing Departments of Interior, Veterans Affairs, and 
Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Legislation and an Exchange 
With Reporters

December 18, 1995

    The President. Good morning, everyone. The Republican Congress has 
shut down the Federal Government because they haven't passed a budget 
for this year and because they want to make the price of opening the 
Government up my acceptance of 7 long years of unacceptable cuts in 
health care, education, and the environment, in research and technology, 
cuts that are not necessary to balancing the budget and will have an 
adverse effect on our way of life and on the strength of our economy.
    It is wrong for the Congress to shut the Government down just to 
make a political point the week before Christmas. It is unfair to the 
American people and unfair to the public employees. This is a season of 
peace, and it should be a season of cooperation, not rancor or threats. 
Congress should reopen the Government. I am ready to work with them to 
balance the budget in a way that reflects our values and that is 
consistent with the resolution to which we both agreed when the 
Government was reopened a few weeks ago.
    So I call on Congress to reopen the Government, to come back to the 
negotiating table to resume discussions on finding common ground. We 
have to balance this budget in a way that reflects our values and our 
obligations to our children.
    The ultimate test of any budget is what kind of world it leaves for 
future generations. If we balance the budget without investing in our 
children or protecting their environment, it means we are really 
borrowing from the next generation without ever paying them back. 
Protecting the environment is one of the most important ways to uphold 
this value. We want to pass on to our children the good Earth God gave 
us. We want to give them the opportunity we enjoy. We want to safeguard 
their health. Then any budget must ensure strong protection of the 
environment.
    These science students who are with me today from Jefferson Middle 
School in Virginia have done a lot of work on the environment. They have 
helped to reduce energy use at their school. They have promoted 
recycling at home and at school. They know that the decisions that we 
make today will affect them and our Nation in the future. We owe it to 
them to put partisanship aside and to work in their interest to balance 
the budget in a way that protects the environment.
    I say again, when I agreed a few weeks ago to work with the Congress 
to balance the budget in 7 years, Congress committed to a budget that 
protects the environment. These bills that I have to veto today I do 
because they do not meet that test. For 25 years, leaders of both 
parties have recognized that our country is stronger when we control 
pollution and protect public health. Environmental protection is not, or 
at least it never has been until now, a partisan issue. It's an American 
issue. It's an American issue outside Washington. But Republicans in 
this Congress have attempted to roll back decades of bipartisan 
environmental protection. It's wrong, and I cannot permit it to happen.
    They have sent me legislation that would give our children less 
clean drinking water, less safe food, dirtier air. If I sign these 
bills, I would be condemning more than 10 million children under the age 
of 12 to living near toxic waste sites that might not be cleaned up for 
years. Therefore, in the interest of our children I am vetoing these 
measures because they would cripple these kinds of environmental 
protections.
    The bill that funds the Environmental Protection Agency, for 
example, would cut enforcement by 25 percent and pull the cop from the 
pollution beat. There would be a 45 percent cut in safe-and-clean-
drinking-water aid to local governments. The bill that funds the 
Department of the Interior would endanger some of our most precious 
natural resources. It would permit clearcutting in the Tongass National 
Forest in Alaska, and it would undercut our newest national park, the 
Mojave National Preserve in California, the largest addition to the park 
system in the lower 48 States.
    I'm vetoing the bills not only because of the impact they have on 
the environment that we leave our children but also because

[[Page 2196]]

of other things they do that violate our values. They completely 
eliminate the national service program, which has been very successful 
and is broadly supported by people across partisan lines and communities 
all across America. They cut innovative programs for economic 
development in our cities, the area which has been left most untouched 
by the economic recovery of the last 3 years. They drastically, 
drastically cut services for Native Americans, and they cut health care 
for veterans. None of these things are necessary to balance the budget.
    Let me be clear: It is time to finish the job of passing a budget 
for this year, and I am eager to work with the Congress to reach 
agreement on a balanced budget plan. We should be able quickly to reach 
agreement on how to fund the Government for the months to come.
    I have made a specific compromise offer to finish this year's budget 
so we can get the Government working for the people. Then we can resolve 
our larger differences over how best to balance the budget consistent 
with our values. We owe it to our children and their children to do both 
these things. We do need to balance the budget, and I am committed to 
doing it.
    I would remind you that we've cut the budget deficit in half since 
we've been here, and I want to go all the way. But doing things that 
weaken our environment is not the way to balance the budget and is 
directly contradictory to the resolution that both the Congress and I 
agreed upon just a few weeks ago.
    So I'm going to sign the veto messages, and then I'll answer a few 
of your questions.

[At this point, the President signed the veto messages.]

Budget Impasse

    Q. Have you been in touch with the Republican leadership today, and 
is there a chance of any kind of a meeting and is there any chance of 
bringing workers back to work?
    The President. Well, I expect to talk to them today, and I look 
forward to that. And I'm going to do what I can to make some suggestions 
about how we can begin our talks. And I hope that they will--they will 
agree to put the Government back in business. That, of course, is a 
decision within their domain. I think it's always a mistake to shut the 
Government down.
    We should go back to the ordinary, constitutional way of dealing 
with this. I have dealt with them in good faith. I will continue to do 
so. I worked all weekend, continued to work all weekend, on budgetary 
matters. I have spent an enormous amount of my time as President trying 
to get rid of the deficit and invest in our future at the same time. 
There is no doubt--we have differences of opinion about how to do it, 
but there's no doubt that I want to do it. And I think that this 
shutting the Government down is just wrong. It's not right for the 
American people, it's not necessary, and it's not part of the ordinary, 
constitutional way of doing things around here.
    Q. Mr. President, do you have a 7-year--a new 7-year proposal that 
balances the budget using CBO numbers?
    The President. Well, I want to talk to the leadership, Mr. Blitzer 
[Wolf Blitzer, Cable News Network], about what we're going to say today, 
and then we'll be glad to answer questions after that.
    Q. When do you think it will happen that you'll talk to them?
    The President. Soon. Pretty soon. I've got to work out the times.
    Q. Are they going to come over here do you think?
    The President. I don't know.
    Q. Senator Dole says that if he and you and Speaker Gingrich could 
just sit down together for a few hours you could work this problem out 
pretty rapidly.
    The President. I think that is possible. It requires--all three of 
us have to want to. But I want to.
    Q. Why not do it?
    The President. But we've all got to come in, and we've got to be 
flexible and we've got to look at what we're doing. I mean, you know, 
you mentioned the CBO--one of the things that the resolution said was 
that there would be extensive consultation with OMB and with the private 
sector. This budget of theirs now predicts a recession at 7 years. Now, 
how in the world they could know there's going to be one in year 6 and 7 
is beyond me, but I believe if we were to bal- 

[[Page 2197]]

ance the budget, particularly if we continue to invest in education and 
research and technology, it would grow the economy. It would get 
interest rates down; it would grow the economy.
    They gave us a new set of assumptions which now has higher 
unemployment and higher interest rates, even with low inflation. I don't 
know how you can predict inflation goes down and interest rates go up. 
So--and, you know, I realize to a lot of Americans this may sound like 
just haggling or numbers, or whatever, but there are people behind these 
numbers.
    In this budget there are Native American children who won't get 
health care. In this budget there are serious, serious erosions in 
environmental protection. There are people--there are human interests 
here. We have to be careful as we do this. We cannot pretend that all 
these numbers are the same and it's just a political deal. This is not 
about politics; this is a very, very serious discussion. We are going to 
make some tough decisions, and we have to do it with a very great level 
of sensitivity about the impact of our decisions on people.
    Q. ----your problems, some of your problems with the new CBO 
assumptions. Is it possible to protect your priorities and come up with 
a 7-year plan, according to their new forecast?
    The President. Well, it depends on what kind of control mechanisms 
we have. It's conceivable. But I need to talk to them about that. And I 
intend to talk to them about it. I have no--and I'm not playing games 
with you. I just want to have my conversation with them first. I owe 
that to them. I don't want to carry on a war in the press over this. I 
would like it very much if we could just sit down and work through this.
    But I sure think--it's Christmas week; they ought to open the 
Government again. That's the least we can do for the American people 
that have--you know, this is the only time of the year some people have 
to come here to Washington. And we've got a lot of Federal employees 
that don't need to lose a paycheck this week. They've got Christmas 
shopping to do; they've got things to do. I just think we ought to do 
it.
    Q. Why do they keep saying you're not telling the truth?
    The President. I don't know. You'll have to ask them that. I 
haven't--you know, I've tried to be very careful in this whole debate to 
deal with the specific facts and not to do characterizations like that. 
We have very different views, but if you read this--go back and read the 
resolution we agreed to. We agreed to strive to do our best to reach a 
7-year balanced budget that the CBO would certify as balanced after 
consulting with OMB and with the private sector, that would protect the 
environment, would protect education, would protect agriculture and 
other things, and would invest in a way that really protected Medicare 
and Medicaid. And so we have certain standards to meet.
    This is not easy to do; nobody ever pretended it would be easy to 
do. But I have been working to do it and often I've felt that I was 
working only with myself. But over the weekend, we worked hard. We tried 
to involve more of the Democrats in the effort. We tried to--Mr. Panetta 
went up to see that bipartisan group of Senators. And I am eager to meet 
and discuss this with Senator Dole and with the Speaker.
    But we ought to open the Government. We owe that to the American 
people. It's Christmas week. We need to open the Government and then 
work this out. We can do it.
    Q. Is the key their cutting their tax cut proposal and your coming 
up with additional savings on Medicare and Medicaid?
    The President. Well, that may be the key from their point of view. 
The key from my point of view is that there's got to be--there has to be 
funds--funds have to go back into the Medicare and Medicaid programs and 
into education and the environment and research and technology.
    You know, I don't want--you can burden--we would burden future 
generations with the debt if we don't balance the budget. But we also 
will burden future generations if we don't protect the environment and 
we don't invest in education, research, and technology. And we just--on 
pure human terms, we cannot have this level of health care cuts.
    So we're going to have to work this out. But I think it can be done, 
but we don't--

[[Page 2198]]

they should open the Government, and I will work with them to get this 
done.

Speaker of the House Gingrich

    Q. How do you feel about fellow Time magazine man of the year?
    The President. I think he's had a big impact on events. That's the 
standard. That's it.
    Q. Thank you.
    The President. Thank you very much.
    Q. Thank you. Merry Christmas. Where did you get that tie?
    The President. Someone gave it to me. It's one of my Christmas ties. 
You know, I try to wear one every day for the last 12 days before 
Christmas.

Note: The President spoke at 11:40 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House.