Bill Clinton: “Okay. Stand there. Let's go through them all. First of all, I proposed welfare reform not all that different from the…”

“Okay. Stand there. Let's go through them all. First of all, I proposed welfare reform not all that different from the Republican plan. My bill was there, been in the Congress since March. Secondly, I'm strong for the line-item veto, and I recognize that some members in my party in the Senate prohibited it from passing, and I'm going to do everything I can to pass it. I've always been for it. Thirdly, I believe that we should do more to provide tax relief to middle class families, especially with children, although I would remind you that we did provide substantial relief last time with no help from members of the other party. And--wait a minute--70 percent of the tax relief in the contract goes to upper income people. But my fundamental problem is how it all fits together. On the balanced budget amendment, I've lived under a balanced budget amendment. The problem with the way the balanced--it depends on how it's written. But no matter how it's written you've still got to lower the deficit, I mean--and cut the size of Government. It was the Democrats, we've cut the size of the Government. When the Republicans were in, they didn't cut the size of the Government. The Federal Government has 70,000 fewer people working for it today than it does on the day I became President. It's going to have 270,000 fewer people working over a 6-year period. It will be the smallest Federal Government since Kennedy. We are shrinking the Federal Government. We are doing that, and we are doing it in a good way. So yes, I'm for that. And insofar as those ideas are in there, I am fine on them. But here is the problem. My problem is it doesn't add up. You cannot promise that in a fixed period of time you're going to cut everybody's taxes, raise defense, bring back Star Wars, and balance the budget. That is exactly what we heard before. It is almost exactly what we heard before. And what did we get? The debt of this country was quadrupled in 12 years. A lot of the isolated elements are very popular, and they sound wonderful. But when you add it up, you wind up with more deficits, which will take the economy down, cause massive--I'm talking massive--cuts in all Government programs, including education and Medicare and other things. We're not talking about minor things. We're talking about huge cuts. You'll still have a bigger deficit. The economy will be weaker, and we'll go right back where we were when we tried this before. That's my problem, not the specifics. The specifics sound great. But the package is cynical because when you say, ``How are you going to pay for it?'' ``I'll tell you later.'' And it's the same thing as it was before. It's more red ink when we ought to be investing and growing. That's the way to put the American people first.”