Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 8, 1995 TAG: 9504100032
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Medium
``I do not want a pile of vetoes, I want a pile of bills that will move this country into the future. I don't want to see a big fight between the Republicans and Democrats. I want this to surprise everybody in America by rolling up our sleeves and joining hands and working together,'' Clinton told the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Yet, Clinton balanced this accommodationist tone by detailing in the most specific terms yet where he is prepared to block the Republican agenda.
He said he would veto bills that would impose ``loser-pays'' provisions in lawsuits, repeal a ban on assault weapons, weaken regulations governing contaminated food and pollution, or limit the president's ability to have U.S. troops participate in United Nations peacekeeping missions.
He also said a House-passed tax cut is three times larger than the government can afford, and advised Republicans that their plan for a massive tax cut ``is not going to happen ... let's get over it and talk about what we can pass.''
But he pleaded with Republicans to work with his administration so that these measures do not reach him in the first place. ``Ideological purity is for partisan extremists,'' Clinton said. ``We've got to stop pointing fingers at each other so we can join hands.''
Among the areas where Clinton said bipartisan cooperation could produce results are in welfare reform and tax relief, which Clinton said he supports if it can be smaller and more targeted to middle-class families.
Most of the president's hour-long address was devoted to outlining where he stands on the House Republicans' contract, reflecting the extent to which Congress has wrested Washington's agenda away from the White House. Only at the end of his remarks did Clinton take up his own initiatives, which he said include a desire to pass a health care package that is less far-reaching than the administration plan that died on Capitol Hill last year.
He said the more-modest plan he will push this year will include provisions for insurance ``portability,'' meaning employees can take coverage with them from one job to another; limiting the ability of insurance companies to reject people because of pre-existing medical conditions; and the creation of voluntary organizations that would allow small businesses to pool their resources so they would have more bargaining power in purchasing medical coverage for employees.
On a day when House Republicans were celebrating their progress in passing their agenda within 100-days, the speech was Clinton's most extensive statement on how he intends to maneuver in Washington's new political environment.
Clinton's aim is to offer himself as an avatar of common sense - sharing with Republicans the belief that government needs vast reform, but not so entranced by anti-government fervor that he would cut programs that work well.
Clinton aides said this thread-the-needle strategy will leave the president in a favorable position moving into next year's election. And they say it offered a map for how the president will play a more-prominent role in the debate about the role of government; thus far in 1995, the president often has seemed a barely relevant figure compared with the rush of activity on Capitol Hill.
``In the first 100 days, the mission of the House Republicans was to suggest ways in which we should change our government and society,'' Clinton said. ``In the second 100 days, and beyond, our mission together must be to decide which of these House proposals should be adopted, which should be modified and which should be stopped.''
Rather than excoriating the Contract With America, Clinton said he discerned in it some of the same reformist impulses that are in his so-called New Covenant, and he said he and Republicans could be partners to ``keep alive the spirit and the momentum of change.''
by CNB