Bill Clinton: “Well, for one thing, I think it would be to everyone's advantage to continue to make progress. As I always tell the…”

“Well, for one thing, I think it would be to everyone's advantage to continue to make progress. As I always tell the Republicans and Democrats, no matter how much we do, there will still be plenty of things on which there is honest disagreement, over which the next election can be fought. That is just in the nature of things. That's healthy; that's good; that's a two-party system in America. But we are all hired by the American people to work here day-in and day-out, week-in and week-out, and we make a grave mistake--and it's almost never good politics to do the wrong thing, that is, to take a pass on making progress when you can do it. This is a very unusual moment where we have sustained prosperity, the longest peacetime expansion in our history. We've gone from having the biggest deficits in history to having the biggest surpluses in history. And yet, we have these looming demographic challenges of Social Security and Medicare. And we have these big issues that are right before us now, the ones I mentioned on which there is basically broad agreement. So I think that it would be good for America and, therefore, good for everyone involved if we go ahead and do this. I think, obviously, the closer you get to the election, perhaps the more difficult it will be. But I expect--I'll make you a prediction here--I expect that we'll get some good things done in the year 2000, before the Congress recesses finally for the election then. I expect to keep working right up to the very end, and I think that we will continue to make progress. But the most important thing is the attitude of the main players in Congress, insofar as Congress has to play a role in this. Yes, go ahead. Cox Committee Report on Chinese Nuclear Espionage”