Bill Clinton: “Thank you. I really appreciate that. Let me make one comment in response, if I might. I think it's important, and you…”

“Thank you. I really appreciate that. Let me make one comment in response, if I might. I think it's important, and you can help others understand this, to understand why we have to reduce the deficit, which is something that is normally not done when unemployment is high. And unemployment is still too high. Even though we're in an economic recovery, most of our recovery is due to higher productivity from firms that, in turn, this time are not hiring new people for all kinds of reasons. And we have to reduce the deficit for two reasons: Number one, we're already spending 15 percent of your tax money just to pay interest on past debt. If we don't change present patterns, we'll be over 20 cents by the year 2000. That's money we should be spending on education and technology in the future. Number two, the more money we take out of the pool of funds for borrowing, the more expensive it is for companies like this and other companies that have to go into the markets and borrow to borrow. Just since the election, since we made it clear we were going to try to bring the deficit down, long-term interest rates have dropped seven-tenths of one percent. That is a huge savings for everybody that is going to borrow money or that has a variable interest rate on a loan, whether it's a home mortgage or a business loan or a car loan or whatever. That's important. The second thing we're trying to do that I know you will also appreciate is to shift the balance of the money we do spend more away from consumption toward investment, investments in education, technology, environmental cleanup, and converting from a defense to a domestic economy. One of the bizarre things that happened to us in the eighties is that we increased the deficit first through defense expenses and then through exploding health care costs and increasing interest payments. But we reduced our investments in the future and the things that make us richer. So those are the changes we're trying to effect. Let me just make one other point. I will not support raising anybody's taxes unless budget cuts also pass. Foreign Trade”