The Negotiator by George Mitchell

Author:George Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

I met this morning with the Bipartisan leadership—the Speaker, the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Republican Leader, the House Majority Leader, and the House Republican Leader—to review the status of the deficit-reduction negotiations.

It is clear that both the size of the deficit problem and the need for a package that can be enacted require all of the following: entitlement and mandatory program reform; tax revenue increases; growth incentives; discretionary spending reductions; orderly reductions in defense expenditures; and budget process reform—to assure that any Bipartisan agreement is enforceable and that the deficit problem is brought under responsible control. The Bipartisan leadership agree with me on these points.

We have further agreed that the budget negotiations should reconvene promptly with a view toward reaching substantive agreement as quickly as possible.

Before anyone else spoke I said, “Mr. President, this is very positive. But before we respond I’d like the opportunity to meet for a few minutes privately with my colleagues.” The president agreed and Foley, Gephardt, and I went into an adjoining room, where we had a general discussion. We each had a positive reaction, but we also had some concerns. In the second paragraph, the only substantive part of the statement, I thought the words to me should be added after “It is clear,” so there could be no doubt that it was the president himself who believed that tax revenue increases were required. The second was the phrase itself: tax revenue increases. Our preference would have been to delete the word revenue. “But,” I said, “I think they believe this will get them off the hook with their right wing. So they’ll probably insist on it. We should let them have it because it won’t save them. They won’t get anywhere trying to explain it away by the use of the word revenue.” Foley and Gephardt agreed. We also suggested a minor change in the last paragraph. After a further brief discussion we reached full agreement; I took out my pen and wrote the changes on the typewritten draft.26

We returned to the breakfast table and I read our proposed changes aloud. I told the president that if he agreed to make that statement public we would return to the Capitol building and within five minutes of its release we would hold a joint press conference at which we would express our agreement with and support for his statement. I then handed him my copy so he could see the changes on paper. He read it, looked up, and repeated what he had said earlier: “Okay, let’s go ahead.”

The storm broke quickly. Some Republican leaders tried to hold back the tide by arguing that the statement was not a change in policy. But, as we anticipated, their words were drowned out by the protests of disbelief and dismay that reverberated across the country. For all the attention the statement received, Americans would have been justified in thinking that the budget crisis had been resolved. But in fact the struggle continued and even intensified.

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