Bill Clinton: “Yes, and we want to do it in a way that looks politically palatable. So they talk about, well, let's put a cap on all…”

“Yes, and we want to do it in a way that looks politically palatable. So they talk about, well, let's put a cap on all this spending or limits on all that and not come up with the specifics. My budget has 200 specific spending cuts over the previous Bush budget. A hundred of them are more than $100 million a piece. And I really have tried to take this thing on. For years we listened to all this rhetoric about how we could cut taxes and increase spending and somehow everything would be all right. And we took the debt from $1 trillion to $4 trillion. We had astronomical long-term interest rates. Ever since we've been trying to bring the interest rates down by bringing the deficit down, you see mortgage rates at a 20-year low, housing starts at a 7-year high; construction employment is increased at the highest rate in 9 years. We've got 755,000 new jobs coming into the economy. Most of them are coming in because people are refinancing their debt and freeing up money to invest in the economy. So we're moving this in the right direction. But of course, it's not popular to do these difficult things. International Economy Mr. King. You're going to have to go to Japan in a couple weeks. That's a major economic conference. Let's assume the Senate passes this; then they go to House committee, and that of course won't be settled by the time you go there. And you go to a country where their leadership is going to change. How much of a ball of wax is that?”