Bill Clinton: “I think the American people do want it. And I have tried to cooperate. Let me just give you three--a couple of examples…”

“I think the American people do want it. And I have tried to cooperate. Let me just give you three--a couple of examples and remind you that cooperation means just that. It requires two people to cooperate, two sides. Example number one: I signed and strongly supported a bill, the first bill the Republican Congress passed, to apply to Congress all the laws they put on the private sector, because I figure that'll make them think twice before they ask private employers to go out and do a lot of things that they don't have to do--the first thing we did. The second bill we did was a bill sponsored by Senator Kempthorne in Idaho to limit the ability of Federal Government to impose unfunded mandates on State and local government. I was strongly for that. I signed it. The third thing I did was to help them break a filibuster and get strong support among Democrats in the Senate for the line-item veto, which they all said they wanted. You remember the House passed a line- item veto on President Reagan's birthday as a present for him; that was weeks ago, right? The line-item veto--one of the things the Republican Congress said that was essential to cut spending--I said, ``Give it to me. I'll cut it.'' Do you know--so we had a line-item veto pass the House, a line-item veto pass the Senate, and I am still waiting for a conference committee to be appointed. And one of the Republican Senators said last week, ``Oh, we're not going to give President Clinton the line-item veto. We may not like the cuts he makes in spending.'' So here I am, all dressed up and ready to cooperate. [Laughter] Now, on the--let me give you one other example. They wanted to cut some money out of this year's budget to make a downpayment on balancing the budget. That's what this so-called rescission bill is. They wanted to do it so they would raise money to pay for Oklahoma City, the California earthquake, and the floods that are now going on in the Middle West and still have some money to bring the deficit down starting this year even more. And I said, fine. They said $16 billion; I said, fine. I met with the Republican Senators, and we worked out an agreement. And then all the Democratic Senators, just about, voted for it. It was a great deal, right? So then they go behind closed doors, and they take a billion four that we agreed on spending on education and health care and veterans and a bunch of other stuff out and put in a billion four worth of courthouses and special street and road projects and some other things. Now--and so I said, ``Look, I want to sign this bill; I want to cooperate. But I made a deal. Then you guys went behind closed doors. You took people out; you took pork in.'' We've got to raise incomes of Americans. We shouldn't be cutting education. We shouldn't be cutting those opportunities. I do not want to have a pile of vetoes, but I am not going to sign a bill that gets changed behind closed doors after the cooperation we had agreed on produced this bill. So, I still want to cooperate with them. I'll help them balance the budget, too, but not if it collapses the American economy or wrecks Medicare or closes every country hospital in Montana and my home State. I want to cooperate, but it takes two to tango. Power Marketing Administrations [After the station took a commercial break, a participant questioned the proposed sale of Energy Department power marketing administrations to private interests.]”