Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much for what you said. I'd like to say one thing in closing if I might. First, I have very much enjoyed…”

“Thank you very much for what you said. I'd like to say one thing in closing if I might. First, I have very much enjoyed being here, and I appreciate your taking some of your family time away on the Fourth of July to come out and visit about these farm issues. Second thing I'd like to say is I really wish I had more time to do a little town meeting about the larger economic issues like the one the young man raised about the tax issue. This is a very difficult time for this country. And a lot of the decisions that I have to make as President are not simple or easy. Before I became President I never raised any taxes from anybody to balance a budget or reduce a debt. I lived in a State that had a balanced budget law that made my chief budget officer a criminal if he let 3 months go by where spending outstripped revenues and where I literally had the power to cut spending once a week if I wanted to, to keep the budget in balance. And we did what we did while having one of the fifth lowest tax burdens in the country as a percentage of income. So this whole experience dealing with this deficit has been very painful to me. And I guess we split the difference, he and I did, on what we said. When I was running for President I said that I thought we ought to raise some taxes to pay the deficit down on upper income people but that we shouldn't raise taxes on the middle class, and I meant it. When the deficit got written up $165 billion, the choice I had was to take the politically difficult decision in the short run to ask for a modest contribution from middle class folks, cut as much as I could in spending without really getting into hurting older people on Medicare or essential investments in education, and take three-quarters of the money from the top 6 percent of the income earners in the country, or stick with literally what I talked about in the campaign and risk not being able to do enough to really get interest rates down and try to get the economy going again. It's a very tough call. It is not an easy call. But as you will see when you read in the papers about this trip I'm about to take to Japan, as tough a shape as we're in, we're doing better than Europe is. They're having negative growth. Japan's got the slowest growth they've had in 40 years. And all these people have been after us for 10 years to get our deficit down. They said, ``If you'll get your deficit down, we'll do some things.'' And together we can grow the world economy. So I'm doing the best I can, believe me. You may think I'm wrong, and maybe time will prove me wrong, but I'm trying to make the best decision I can to create jobs and incomes for the American people so that we come out ahead on this deal, not behind. It is a complicated, difficult time that the goal ought to be to ask every question in terms of: Is it good for jobs? Is it good for incomes? Will it help the economy to grow? Will it help people to have security and health care and educating their children and to make this a stronger and better country? And on this, the Fourth of July, we're always going to have our partisan and philosophical differences, and that's what makes this country wonderful. But if we can always keep that goal in mind, then when we differ, at least we'll be arguing about the right things. Thank you, and God bless you all.”