Peter Deutsch: “If I could respond, let me respond, I think this really has been very healthy. I think there are some of us on our side…”

“If I could respond, let me respond, I think this really has been very healthy. I think there are some of us on our side, and hopefully there is a realization for some of you on your side as well, that as hard as we work as individuals and collectively as a body, that at the end of the day there might not be an agreement, that although there are general areas of agreement, that disagreement in terms of Medicare, your proposals, and what most of us want to see happen are really totally different. We see the problem differently. We, many of us, see the problem the same way you do on welfare reform, but there are some areas where we do not, and I guess my question to you is that I think you as individuals and collectively need to come to a realization that there might not be a point, I mean, we are hoping and we are working, we are up late at night tonight, and hopefully they are still at the White House working to come to that agreement, but if those agreements, if those disagreements are such that there cannot be a compromise, I mean, I absolutely believe that the approach to try to leverage President Bill Clinton is just not going to work. I mean Bill Clinton, you know, whatever someone might think of him, is not someone who is going to be intimidated by pressure, by threats or by anything like that.”