[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 2 (Monday, January 15, 1996)]
[Pages 32-34]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Prior to a Cabinet Meeting and an Exchange With Reporters

January 10, 1996

    The President. Hello, everybody. Is everyone in here? Well, first, 
let me say that we're having this Cabinet meeting to discuss the present 
status of our budget negotiations and where we are. As I have said all 
along, I am for balancing the budget in 7 years, but I want to protect 
the fundamental priorities of the American people and the future of the 
American people. We can balance a budget in 7 years, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, without having dangerously low levels of 
commitment to Medicare and Medicaid, without having big cuts that 
undermine our commitments in education and the environment, without 
raising taxes on working families.
    Now, that's what the Congress said they wanted. I've got this letter 
here from Congress, a letter from Congress to the Speaker saying that 
the budget we submitted in fact balances the budget in 7 years. The 
differences between these two budgets are now clear. We do not want to 
fundamentally change the commitment of the Medicare program to the 
health care of seniors. We do not want to fundamentally change the 
commitment of the Medicaid program to senior citizens, to poor children, 
to the disabled. We do not want to adopt a level of investment that 
makes it certain that we will have to turn our backs on the needs of 
education or the environment.
    That is what this is all about. We can even have a modest tax cut 
for the American people, and for families especially, and balance the 
budget in 7 years according to the Congressional Budget Office. That's 
what this letter says. They agree now, so the only differences left 
between us are ideological differences.
    And I said in the beginning, let me say again: If the objective is 
to get a 7-year balanced budget that Congress says is balanced, we can 
do that. If the objective is to get a modest tax cut, we can do that. If 
the objective is to dismantle the fundamental American commitments 
through Medicare and Medicaid or to undermine our obligations in 
education and the environment, I will not do that.
    That is basically where it is.

Budget Negotiations

    Q. Mr. President, it seems like that what's being said here today 
and also with what's being said on Capitol Hill, that despite all of the 
good will that was apparent here yesterday, this really was a breakdown 
in the talks. You're very far away, and it sounds like you're not 
getting any closer together in this break.
    The President. We're not--we're only very far away if you turn this 
into--if you insist on a tax cut which requires unacceptable levels of 
cuts in education and the environment and Medicare and Medicaid or you 
insist on fundamentally changing those programs in ways that will erode 
the protections that Medicare and Medicaid now give to seniors and to 
poor children and to disabled people or you insist on cuts in education 
that will cut back on scholarships or Head Start or you insist on cuts 
which will really weaken our ability to protect the environment. If 
that's the deal, it's reconciling not only the level of cuts--it's not 
just the money here, I want to emphasize that. It's the policy.
    The Republicans--if I might, let me just take Medicare for an 
example, just for example. The Republicans and I agree that there should 
be changes in the Medicare program to encourage more seniors to have 
more options to join managed care programs. And we agree on a number of 
other provisions that should be changed that will strengthen Medicare 
and give more options to our senior citizens.
    I do not agree with changes that I think will, in effect, break up 
Medicare and put more and more seniors at the mercy of the present 
private insurance system so that the older and lower income and sicker 
you are, the more at risk you are. I don't want to do that.

[[Page 33]]

    So if we can work that out, we'll have an agreement. It's the same 
thing----
    Q. Can you explain why----
    Q. It seems like what you're talking about here really is a 
fundamental policy difference that is not going to be bridged and, for 
example, can you possibly accept the idea that Medicaid would no longer 
be an entitlement?
    The President. No. No. But let me say this: More than my 
predecessors, my Republican predecessors, I have been for and I continue 
to be for giving the States far more flexibility in the way they run the 
programs. But I don't believe we should send a check, a Federal check to 
the States and say if you decide that you no longer want to provide 
health care to some poor children or some disabled people or some 
seniors who are getting it now, that's okay with us. I don't believe 
that.
    There is a national interest--a national interest--in protecting the 
health care of our children, our seniors, our disabled population. And I 
believe the American people believe that.
    In terms of letting the States have more flexibility to make the 
money go further, to do different things with it, to expand coverage in 
different ways, we have been on the forefront of that. That's what the 
Vice President's reinventing Government effort is about, that's what 
Secretary Shalala has done in giving all these waivers to States. We are 
willing to go much further there.
    But let me ask--I thought that we were supposed to be balancing the 
budget. We have agreed already, both sides have agreed to far more 
savings than are necessary to balance the budget in 7 years according to 
the Congressional Budget Office. That's what this little letter says 
here. That's what their letter says. Both sides have agreed.
    If this is about balancing the budget, we could do it in 15 minutes 
tomorrow afternoon. The American people need to understand that. 
Congress now agrees. I have done this. I have given them a plan. It just 
simply does not have the dramatic changes in Medicare and Medicaid that 
I think will weaken our commitment to those folks, and it does not 
mandate cuts in education and the environment that are far larger than 
we could sustain. That would be--we cannot take the discretionary 
account down so low that we know that we will not be able to protect 
education and the environment.
    So that's where we are. We can balance the budget. It's very 
important that the American people understand that. We have agreed, the 
congressional leaders and I have agreed already to far more than enough 
reductions in Government spending to balance the budget within 7 years. 
We already have.
    The issue here is over the policies involving Medicare, Medicaid, 
education, the environment, our opposition to raising taxes on the 
lowest paid working people and on the size and structure of the tax cut. 
This has nothing to do with balancing the budget anymore. Nothing.
    We could balance the budget, literally, in 15 minutes tomorrow 
afternoon. And the Congressional Budget Office would say hooray. The 
financial markets would say hooray. Interest rates would drop. The 
economy would start to grow. Everything would be fine. Then we could 
have an election in 1996 about whether the American people agree with 
their view of Medicare or mine, with their view of Medicaid or mine, 
with their view of our obligations in education and training of our work 
force and our children or mine, with their view of environmental 
protection or mine.
    Now, that's what we ought to do. We can do this in 15 minutes. So 
when they express pessimism, it's because they don't believe that--at 
least, maybe in the House and perhaps in the Senate as well--that they 
can pass a balanced budget program that they, their own Congressional 
Budget Office will say is balanced, but doesn't further these 
ideological goals. We ought to have an election about that.
    If we're going to walk away from the fundamental commitments of 
Medicare, we ought to have an election about that. We haven't had an 
election about that. If we're going to say that our children, because 
they are poor, are not entitled to the health care they would otherwise 
get or that middle class families that have disabled children who are 
now getting help will or will not get that help depending on who happens 
to be Governor

[[Page 34]]

of a given State, we ought to have an election about that.
    And if we're going to say we're going to reduce the number of 
college scholarships, college loans, investments in our education 
system, investments in environmental protection, we ought to have an 
election about that. That is not what the '94 election was about, 
certainly not what the '92 election was about.
    So let's come back here, balance a budget in 7 years, show the 
American people we can do it, get the economic benefits of doing it, and 
then have all 1996 to argue about these policies. That's the proper 
thing to do.
    We have bent over backwards to reach good-faith, honorable, 
principled compromise, and we can still do that. And I don't understand 
what the problem is. We can even have a reasonably good-sized tax cut 
and do it. But there is a limit to how big the tax cut can be, and there 
certainly is a limit beyond which we cannot go in good conscience based 
on our priorities.
    And let me just make one final statement. Ever since the Congress 
and I agreed to reopen the Government the first time, there was a 
resolution we passed--we all agreed to it. It said that, finally, we 
would agree on a budget that was balanced in 7 years, that the Congress 
would say was balanced in 7 years, that protected our priorities, 
Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, and that's what the 
resolution said.
    From the next day, all I ever heard was, ``Where is your budget that 
they say is scored?'' As if they had no obligation at all to deal with 
the other parts of the resolution. Well, here it is. This is their 
letter.
    Now, what we ought to do is honor the second part of the resolution. 
That resolution said we're going to put off the ideological battles 
until the next election. That resolution said, yes, we'll balance the 
budget in 7 years, but we will protect education and the environment, 
and Medicare and Medicaid. And all I'm trying to do now is honor the 
resolution that I signed off on when we had the first Government crisis 
a few weeks ago.
    Q. Do you think they've deceived you, Mr. President, in their goals? 
Did they deceive you?
    The President. No, no. I always told you what this is about. I said 
this weeks and weeks ago, months ago. I have not been deceived. But you 
know, we don't--in a political system where one party, where even, I 
might say, one philosophy within one party does not have total control, 
sooner or later you have to ask yourself, are you going to make the 
perfect the enemy of the good?
    You know, when the Democrats--let me just give you an example. When 
the Democrats had the Congress in 1993 and '94, we passed the most 
sweeping education reform we've passed in 30 years. I did not agree with 
every last line in every one of those bills. But I did not make the 
perfect the enemy of the good. I said, I want the education reform.
    We passed a crime bill after 6 years of people talking about it 
before I got here. I did not agree with every line in the crime bill, 
but I said--and neither did the Attorney General. But we said, we're not 
going to make the perfect the enemy of the good. We're going to have a 
principled, honorable compromise. We passed the crime bill. We put over 
30,000 police on the street. Crime is going down in America.
    So I would plead with the Republicans to think about that, to look 
at that example. They can have an election over the biggest differences 
they have with me. Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good. We 
have already agreed to enough spending cuts to balance the budget and to 
give a modest tax cut. Let us do it.

Note: The President spoke at 2:24 p.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White 
House.