Bill Clinton: “Well, first, I don't want the Democrats to take partisan advantage; I just want us to get what's necessary for the…”

“Well, first, I don't want the Democrats to take partisan advantage; I just want us to get what's necessary for the country done. I do not believe the country believes that we should sit still up here. And for all your talk about trouble, let me remind you that every objective survey says that in 1993 this administration got more support from Congress than any administration since World War II except President Eisenhower in 1953, when he had a less ambitious agenda, and President Johnson in 1965, when he had a bigger mandate and more support from the Congress. So I think we're doing quite well with the Congress if you look at it in any kind of historic pattern. Now, I realize the fights and the conflicts and the delays endure more than the achievements. But we reversed Reaganomics. We passed an economic program that was part of a strategy that has given us 3 years of deficit reduction for the first time since Truman, over 4 million jobs. We have the most advances in trade than we've had in a generation, in the last year and a half. This economic program is working. We broke 7 years of gridlock with the Brady bill. We passed NAFTA, which was deader than a doornail when I became President; we revived it and passed it. So I believe this Congress is capable of working together, often on a bipartisan basis. And they still have some great opportunities here. They have the crime bill, the campaign finance reform bill, the lobby reform bill, the bill that passed the House last week that has not yet passed the Senate to require the Congress to live under the laws it imposes on the American people, which I think is a very good bill, and of course, the health care challenge. But I believe what I have to do is to keep trying to change things. Anytime you try to provoke as much change as I have, you're going to have resistance. And you will be criticized. Is it more difficult that I had 43 percent of the vote? Perhaps it is. But I think you can make another argument, which was that 62 percent of the American people voted for fundamental change in the things that we were doing and in the way Government works. If anything, I would say that I've been most disappointed, looking back, not so much in my inability to get things done, because once people look at the list it's a very long and impressive list, but I haven't been as successful in changing the way it works, that is, in trying to get the Democrats and Republicans to reach across to each other in good faith and work through these things. That's why I think this crime bill could be an important thing. It could be a way of people in both parties saying, ``We're putting you first for a change, not ourselves.'' Interest Rates”