Bill Clinton: “I'm not sure he won't. I mean, he told me clearly that he found that he thought the Senate was wrong to take out all the…”

“I'm not sure he won't. I mean, he told me clearly that he found that he thought the Senate was wrong to take out all the job incentives, and of course, I did, too. But my argument to him was don't let the thing get defeated. Let's send it to Congress and see if we can put them back in. But you know, he and Senator Domenici worked for years on this program of strength in America. I think he's got a lot vested in it. He's got some very strong convictions about it. But all of us, including the President, in order to get anything done in a tough time, we've got to be willing to compromise some. And I hope we will get his support at the end. But I just wanted to tell you what I think the roots of it are. I think they're--and that I'm very sympathetic with a lot of what he was saying. And I think in the end we'll get where he wants to go. Let me just mention one other thing I have to tell you. If you get the budget out of the way and you start health care reform, which is the only way to ever get the deficit down to zero, by the way--I'm not satisfied with going down to $200 billion a year and then going back up again in 5 years; we've got to do something about health care to move it to zero. Then the other big issue that's coming up this fall that I think is terribly important is the Vice President's report on reinventing the Government. That's been a big issue that Senator Nunn and I worked on through the Democratic Leadership Council. He is going to offer some very controversial but very important suggestions to cut the overhead costs of the Federal Government and make it more efficient, make it more user-friendly to the taxpayers, and free up some money which can itself be used to reduce the deficit or to invest in our future. So all these things have to be seen together. And the argument I have to make to Senator Nunn--and I'm trying to make to some others, and a lot of the moderate Republicans who basically think they ought to support me if they could get out from under the partisan deal--is that you cannot solve every problem with the Federal budget with this act. We cannot solve all the problems. But if you put the budget and economic program with the Gore reinventing Government initiatives, with health care reform, you can bring this deficit down to zero, and you can really revitalize the economy, and you can do it in a way that's fair to all the American people. But you can't do it in one bill. And I guess that's the--a lot of the people who are holding out are saying, ``Well, we want it to be perfect.'' Well, it can't be perfect. It's just got to be a big advance. It's given us the dramatically lower interest rates, and it's a good thing.”