Bill Clinton: “I just want to make a couple of remarks about where we are in the Congress today. We're at the eleventh hour of this…”

“I just want to make a couple of remarks about where we are in the Congress today. We're at the eleventh hour of this budget debate. It's been going on for months now. And the Republican Senators say finally they're going to offer a plan. The plan clearly, if you look at all the options, will be to protect the privileged and to punish the middle class and the most vulnerable. The Senate Finance Committee bill which was reported out last week now has 78.5 percent of the burden of new taxes falling on people with incomes above $200,000. All the analysts say that my plan is an honest budget plan, that it will reduce the deficit at least as much, if not more, than we're saying, and it is fair. And we're working hard to pass it in the Senate. But we ought to have some bipartisan support. We ought to have some Republican support for this. And the fact that the Republican Senators are thinking about coming out with a plan now, calling it a no-tax plan, which is really nothing but a shield to keep the wealthiest Americans from paying their fair share, even though their taxes went down for the last 12 years while the deficit exploded, is a real disservice to this country. Economic Program”