Bill Clinton: “For one thing, on AmeriCorps, I didn't ask for AmeriCorps to be fully funded at the level that we funded it in our…”

“For one thing, on AmeriCorps, I didn't ask for AmeriCorps to be fully funded at the level that we funded it in our budget. I only asked that it be funded at the level that the Senate--the United States Senate passed a rescission bill with a bipartisan vote. And all I asked the conference to do was to leave the people programs, the education programs in at the Senate level. I asked the conference also to take out some very harmful language on the environment dealing with the forests in the Pacific Northwest which will cause us all kinds of legal problems and headaches. I hope that can be modified as well. But I accepted some cuts in every--I think we're going to have to look at everything for cuts, but what I asked was that we not cut below what the Senate did. And what happened was, they cut below what the Senate did to stick in a bunch of pork projects. And that wasn't right. And I want to say this: To the people of Oklahoma and California and Louisiana and the other States who need the emergency aid, they can get that aid today, they can get that aid tomorrow with more deficit reduction than is in this bill that came out of the conference if the Congress will just take out the pork and put back the people. Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown”