| To the amazement of the press and the Montanans watching, my deputy chief of staff, Harold Ickes, rode off after the runaway steed at a blistering pace, chased him down, and returned him to his ownerHarolds exploit seemed totally at odds with his image as a high-strung, urban, liberal activistAs a young man, he had worked on ranches out west, and he hadnt forgotten how to ride
On June 5, Henry Cisneros and I unveiled a National Homeownership Strategy of one hundred things we were going to do to increase home ownership to two-thirds of the populationThe big decline in the deficit had kept mortgage rates low even as the economy picked up, and in a couple of years, we would reach Henrys goal for the first time in American history
At the end of the first week of June, I vetoed my first bill, the $16 billion GOP rescission package, because it cut too much out of education, national service, and the environment, while leaving untouched unnecessary highway demonstration projects, courthouses, and other federal buildings that were pet projects of Republican membersThey may have hated government in general, but, like most incumbents, they still wanted to spend themselves to reelectionI offered to work with the Republicans to cut even more spending, but said it would have to come out of pork-barrel projects and other nonessential spending, not investments in our children and our futureA couple of days later, I had another reason to fight for those investments, as Hillarys louis vuitton purses brother Tony and his wife, Nicole, gave us a new nephewZachary Boxer Rodham
I was still trying to find the right balance between confrontation and accommodation when I went to Claremont, New Hampshire, for a town meeting with Speaker GingrichI had said I thought it would be good for Newt to talk to people in New Hampshire as I had in 1992, and he took me up on itWe both made positive opening comments about the need for honest debate and cooperation rather than the kind of name-calling sound bites that make the evening newsGingrich even joked that he had followed my campaign example by stopping at a Dunkin Donuts shop on the way to the meeting
In the course of answering questions from citizens, we agreed to work together for campaign finance reform, even shaking hands on it; talked about other areas where we saw eye to eye; had an interesting, civilized disagreement about health care; and disagreed about the utility of the United Nations and whether Congress should fund AmeriCorps
The discussion with Gingrich was well received in a country weary of partisan warfareTwo of my Secret Service agents, who almost never said anything to me about politics, told me how glad they were to see the two of us in a positive discussionThe next day, at the White House Conference on Small Business, several Republicans said the same thingIf we could have continued in the same vein, I believe the Speaker and I could have resolved most of our differences in a way that would have been chanel pearl necklace good for AmericaAt his best, Newt Gingrich was creative, flexible, and brimming over with new ideasBut that wasnt what had made him Speaker; his searing attacks on the Democrats had done thatIts hard to restrain the source of your power, as Newt was reminded the next day when he was criticized by Rush Limbaugh and the conservative Manchester Union Leader for being too pleasant to meIt was a mistake he wouldnt often repeat in the future, at least not in public
After the meeting I went to Boston for a fund-raiser for Senator John Kerry, who was up for reelection and would likely face a tough opponent in Governor Bill WeldI had a good relationship with Weld, perhaps the most progressive of all the Republican governors, but I didnt want to lose Kerry in the SenateHe was one of the Senates leading authorities on the environment and high technologyHe had also devoted an extraordinary amount of time to the problem of youth violence, an issue he had cared about since his days as a prosecutorCaring about an issue in which there are no votes today but which will have a big impact on the future is a very good quality in a politician
On June 13, in a nationally televised address from the Oval Office, I offered a plan to balance the budget in ten yearsThe Republicans had proposed to do it in seven, with big spending cuts in education, health care, and the environment, and large tax cutsBy contrast, my plan had no cuts in education, health services for the elderly, the family omega seamaster watch supports necessary to make welfare reform work, or essential environmental protectionsIt restricted tax cuts to middle-income people, with an emphasis on helping Americans pay for the rapidly rising costs of a college educationAlso, by taking ten years instead of seven to get to balance, my plans annual contractionary impact would be less, reducing the risk of slowing economic growth
The timing and substance of the speech were opposed by many congressional Democrats and some members of my cabinet and staff, who thought it was too early to get into the budget debate with the Republicans; their public support was dropping now that they were making decisions instead of just saying no to me, and a lot of Democrats thought it was foolish to get in their way with a plan of my own before it was absolutely necessary to put one outAfter the beating wed taken during my first two years, they thought the Republicans should have to endure at least a year of their own medicine
It was a persuasive argumentOn the other hand, I was the President; I was supposed to lead, and we had already cut the deficit by a third with no Republican supportIf I later had to veto Republican budget bills, I wanted to do so after demonstrating a good-faith effort to make honorable compromisesBesides, in New Hampshire, the Speaker and I had pledged to try to work togetherI wanted to hold up my end of the bargain
My budget decision was supported by Leon Panetta, Erskine Bowles, most of the economic louis vuitton mahina team, the Democratic deficit hawks in Congress, and Dick Morris, who had been advising me since the 94 electionsMost of the staff didnt like Dick because he was difficult to deal with, liked to go around established White House procedures, and had worked for RepublicansHe also had some off-the-wall ideas from time to time and wanted to politicize foreign policy too much, but I had worked with him long enough to know when to accept, and when to reject, his advice
Dicks main advice was that I had to practice the politics of triangulation, bridging the divide between Republicans and Democrats and taking the best ideas of bothTo many liberals and some in the press corps, triangulation was compromise without conviction, a cynical ploy to win reelectionActually, it was just another way of articulating what I had advocated as governor, with the DLC, and in 1992 during the campaignI had always tried to synthesize new ideas and traditional values, and to change government policies as conditions changedI wasnt splitting the difference between liberals and conservatives; instead, I was trying to build a new consensusAnd, as the coming showdown with the Republicans over the budget would show, my approach was far from lacking in convictionEventually, Dicks role would become known to the public and he would become a regular part of our weekly strategy sessions, which were normally held every Wednesday nightHe also brought in Mark Penn and his partner, Doug Schoen, to do polling gucci women's watches fo |
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