Bill Clinton: “Well, I don't mind it. I wish we had more bipartisan efforts for change. If you look at the fact that 41 Governors at…”

“Well, I don't mind it. I wish we had more bipartisan efforts for change. If you look at the fact that 41 Governors at least have come out for this and only 2 have come out explicitly against it, I think we ought to have more common economic efforts. I thought the Republicans made a mistake. They may have hurt me politically by simply refusing to work with us on the economic program. But I think over the long run, we're going to come out ahead because it's produced deficit reduction, low interest rates, low inflation, and more jobs in 10 months than were created in the previous 4 years. So I think they made a mistake. The national security issues of the nineties by and large, are going to be economic issues, by and large. And to whatever extent we can pursue the national security in a bipartisan fashion, we're better off doing so. Also, a lot of the divisions that have ripped the Congress today do not break down into any traditional liberal or conservative terms, or Republican and Democratic terms. They're more like who's pro-change and who's against it, who's willing to go beyond the status quo in the debate and who's not. And it's amazing how it shifts from issue to issue, not only among Republicans and Democrats but among people who would otherwise define themselves as liberals and conservatives. So I'm not concerned about that. I think Newt Gingrich is doing the best he can with Mr. Michel to produce the votes that they think they can produce. And he sure knows I'm doing the best I can to produce the votes I can produce. The first question is, what's at stake. What's at stake, in my judgment, is something more than the sheer terms of this economic debate. I think, first, what's at stake is the strategy and the attitude and the conviction America will take in moving toward the 21st century economically. Are we going to try to do it by reaching out to the rest of the world, by saying we can compete and win, by building on the enormous productivity gains in the private sector of the United States over the last several years to do what is the time-tested way for a wealthy country to grow, to create jobs and incomes, and promote peace, that is, by reaching out, involving--[inaudible]--in trade. Or are we going to say we just don't think we can compete and win anymore with anybody until they pay their workers as much as we pay ours and until everything else is equal on every last scale. So even though here's a country that we've got a trade surplus with, that's buying more from us than we're buying from them, we're just not going to do it, I think, because we're just hurting too bad. Now, the hurts are legitimate. But you cannot do that. So I think that this will define our country's attitude for some time. Secondly, I think the second thing that's at stake is we may lose the chance to have a stable, good, strong, growing economic relationship with our neighbor in the south and lose the chance to build that sort of partnership with all of Latin America. I hope it is not so if we don't-- [inaudible]--but it could happen. The third thing is it could cost us getting a new world trade agreement in the GATT round by the end of the year, because the French, for example, will be able to say, ``Well, you say we shouldn't be protectionist, you say we shouldn't protect our agriculture, you want us to get into a world trade agreement that will bring America hundreds of thousands of jobs, and yet you walked away from a no-brainer on your southern border.'' So I think that America's abilities to forge a globally competitive but cooperative world in the 21st century in which we can compete and win, whether it is with Asia or with Europe or with Latin America, I think will be significantly undermined if we defeat this. It is far bigger than just the terms of this agreement. First, this agreement took on abnormal symbolic significance for those who were against it. They poured into the agreement all the accumulated resentments of the 1980's. Tom Sawyer's right about that; they did. I mean, a lot of the people who are against this, it's very moving to listen to them, to watch them. They almost shake when they talk about it. And it's real and honest the way they feel. But then, because of that, and because it became clear that the Congress might actually not adopt it, which is unheard of for the Congress to walk away from a trade agreement, it then took on a much greater symbolic significance for those of us who are for it. So it is about jobs and growth and opportunity for Americans by its own terms. And it is much better than letting the status quo go on. But it has bigger stakes as well.”