Bill Clinton: “That's not accurate. I also said that we would cut the deficit in half in 4 years. We did better than I said; we cut it…”

“That's not accurate. I also said that we would cut the deficit in half in 4 years. We did better than I said; we cut it by 75 percent in 4 years. But if you--that's a very selective reading of my 1992 campaign. I also said that I would have to eliminate programs, cut the size of Government by at least 100,000, and do more things that we had--that I believed we could reduce the deficit and increase targeted investment. And let me remind you that in this budget--let me just go through this quickly. When you adjust for inflation, all of these departments with discretionary budgets are going to have to cut spending 10 percent during this budget. There are more entitlement savings in the Medicare program in this budget than ever in any budget since Medicare has been enacted, about $400 billion. There are new, modest fees for home health care in the Medicare premium. So there will be--this is not all increased spending. Some things will be increased; many things will be decreased. And if we do it, we'll produce growth. Let me just make one other point. I'm convinced that if we did not pass this plan and did not say to the world and to the investor community, we're going to balance the budget, it would slow economic growth. Let me answer your final question, why do I think subsequent Congresses will stay with this? Because I think that they have seen what happens if you do this. If you have fiscal responsibility and you're running a balanced budget when you have good economic times, then you get rewarded in the markets, and your economy does well. If you spend a lot of money you shouldn't be spending and you run big deficits in good economic times, the international financial markets will punish the United States. They will drive up interest rates. They will drive down the value of our stock market. They will weaken our economy, and they will make the deficits even worse. So I believe that the markets are sending us a clear signal. Alison [Alison Mitchell, New York Times] and then David [David Bloom, NBC]. Campaign Financing”