Bill Clinton: “I will answer that. First of all, I had 200 such cuts, 200 that were not adopted by the previous administration or the…”

“I will answer that. First of all, I had 200 such cuts, 200 that were not adopted by the previous administration or the previous Congress in the previous budget, 200. I did not ask that stimulus bill to be voted on until the Congress had adopted the budget resolution committing itself to more than $500 billion of deficit reduction in the next 5 years, more than $500 billion, including this $16 billion. It was paid for by those budget cuts. Secondly, as I said, even if it hadn't been paid for, all of the spending was under the spending limits that Congress had already adopted. It was paid for. And you know, I must tell you that I find it-- I will say one more time, a majority of the Republican Senators voted under Presidents Reagan and Bush--not the Democrats, the Republicans--28 times for over $100 billion of exactly the same kind of spending, usually for foreign aid purposes, without blinking an eye. And so, do I think that it was a mistake that they didn't vote for it? I do. Now, if I had just come up and said, how about adding $16 billion to the deficit this year, they should have voted against that. But I didn't ask them to vote on it until we had adopted a budget resolution in the Congress that reduced the deficit $514 billion over the next 5 years, including the $16 billion. I did not ask them to vote to spend until they had voted to cut. Now, I concede that I didn't do a great job of painting that picture, but that is a fact. And you ought to write those fellows and ask them how they'd feel about just the suggestion that you made. Tell them to come up with that program. We'll see what we can do with it.”