Bill Clinton: “You know what I said yesterday; I said--I carry this little statement around with me. This is the agreement I made with…”

“You know what I said yesterday; I said--I carry this little statement around with me. This is the agreement I made with the Congress when we reopened the Government. The agreement says that we will enact legislation to balance the budget in 7 years, protecting Medicare, Medicaid, education, the environment, and other things, and that the agreement we finally make must be scored by the Congressional Budget Office as bringing the budget into balance. What is not negotiable with me is that we must protect these things. I have proposed savings in Medicare and Medicaid that are considerable but that will protect both the integrity of the programs and the interest of the people who depend upon Medicare and Medicaid. So what I said to the Speaker and to Senator Dole yesterday was if they wanted me to put down a 7-year budget on the front end, I expected them to respond to the second part of this resolution. This is not a resolution about just any old 7-year budget. This 7-year budget has all these things that we all agreed to to protect, and Medicare and Medicaid are at the top of that list.”