Bill Clinton: “Well, first let me say that before we can start that conference, Senator Moynihan has got to shepherd this bill through…”

“Well, first let me say that before we can start that conference, Senator Moynihan has got to shepherd this bill through the Senate, and that's not going to be all that easy. I think we can do it. But there's been so much rhetoric around this economic program and so much inaccurate information put out there that it's not going to be easy to get the Senators to make the tough choices to pass the bill. I think they will do that, and I think in no small measure they will do it because of the leadership of your Senator in leading the Senate Finance Committee. But after that, the House and the Senate will get together. And I think they'll try to agree on a provision with regard to energy which will do what all of us agreed to do, which is to reduce the energy tax somewhat below where it was in the House version, have some more spending cuts, make it clear to the American people there are more spending cuts than tax increases in this program and that they are fair and balanced. The Secretary of the Treasury, Lloyd Bentsen, had a good suggestion, I thought, for reducing the Btu tax, reducing its impact on jobs through lowering the industry and agricultural provisions and cutting the rates across the board on middle class Americans but still leaving it in there so there would always be an incentive for energy conservation, environmental cleanup, and switching to American natural gas. But one of the Senators on the Senate Finance Committee had said he would never vote for a bill based on the heat content of energy, which meant that they had to change the form of the energy levy. And we'll just have to see what comes out of the conference. I don't know what will happen. Mr. Scheld. This is pretty complicated, but the American people were so well-informed a couple of months ago exactly how much it was going to cost. I think people were--at least in this area, I think we got the impression that people were willing to bite their bottom lip and to pay for deficit reduction. Are you taking that attitude back to the Senate and saying, listen to the American people?”