Bill Clinton: “But the point I'm trying to make--that is what I said. And if you look at the context in which I said it, at the…”

“But the point I'm trying to make--that is what I said. And if you look at the context in which I said it, at the proposals they then had on the table, already they have moved on that. And I have made a good faith effort to come toward them. But that's what you have elections about. The way democracies work--and particularly the way ours has worked for 200 years--is that people of good faith and honest differences attempt to reconcile their differences. And then when they can't, they attempt to do what they can and then let the voters resolve their differences that they can't resolve at election time. The important thing now is that all the American people know that one of the differences we do not have to resolve is whether we should pass a credible balanced budget plan. That can be done. That can be done in no time. We have already--both sides have agreed to well over--well over $600 billion in spending reductions. We have agreed to more than enough to balance the budget in 7 years and still give a modest tax cut. So that is no longer at issue. My view is we should do both those things. We should pass the balanced budget. We should give a modest tax cut. We should put the other differences off for the election. That's what elections are for. But that's not an excuse for us to lay down on the job now. The people hired us to show up for work every day. I mean, to say, well, we're not going to do anything until the people vote in November--this is not a parliamentary system. This is the American system, and it requires us responsibly to do what we can to set aside our partisan differences when we have an agreement and not hold up the good things waiting for what we believe are the better things. The better things, we can debate those in the election.”