Bill Clinton: “Well, I'm--first of all, I'm not--certainly not at odds with those who are determined to balance the budget by a date…”

“Well, I'm--first of all, I'm not--certainly not at odds with those who are determined to balance the budget by a date certain. And I invited the Congress to do what the law required them to do and submit a budget and then to work it through. They're now in the process of working through that budget. I want to evaluate it, and then I would--including the date. But I think we have to balance the budget. I think we have to do it by a date certain, and I agree with that. And I think we ought to do it in a bipartisan fashion. And I will support them. They haven't had--let me just point out--I am prepared to work with them to reduce the deficit and to bring the budget into balance. For 2 years, for 2 years, they said no to all my efforts to get them to work with me. So we reduced the deficit 3 years in a row for the first time since Harry Truman, with nobody helping us in the other party, none of them. And they were all saying we were going to have a big recession, and it would wreck the economy. A lot of those people who are up there in New Hampshire running for President said, ``If President Clinton's budget passes, it will wreck the economy.'' Well, New Hampshire had a 7.6 percent unemployment rate when I became President, and it's 4\1/2\ percent today. You've got almost 40,000 new jobs, and in the previous 4 years you lost over 40,000 jobs. So they were wrong. So now they believe in deficit reduction. And I say, welcome to the party, I'm glad to have you here, and I will work with you on it. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. And if we're going to cut spending more quickly, I will support that. But that means that the money that is left, the money we do spend, has to be spent even more carefully. I think people in New Hampshire will really identify with that. If you're going to spend--if you spent $10 yesterday and you're going to spend $8 today, then you've got to be more careful about how you spend the $8. That's my argument over this rescission package. If they'll take the pork out and put the people back, I will sign even more deficit reduction than they have. Middle Class Tax Cut Mr. Malof. I understand. Finally, Granite Staters are by no stretch of the imagination a tax- friendly bunch. But according to surveys, we're in step with the rest of the country in preferring deficit reduction to tax cuts. Are you determined to stick to fulfilling your long-delayed promise to cut taxes on the middle class even though it would set back the pace of deficit reduction? Because I would think if you back away from tax cuts, you'd be opening yourself up to more attacks that once again you haven't done what you'd say you would.”