Clinton Says His Budget Calls for Less Pain Than GOP’s Proposals

President Clinton said Saturday that his new plan to balance the federal budget treats Americans more fairly than legislation moving through the Republican-controlled Congress.

“The difference between my plan and the congressional plans is the difference between necessary cuts and unacceptable pain,” Clinton said in his weekly radio address. “. . . Unlike other plans, my plan protects the people in our country who have so much to give and who have given so much.”

The President rewrote his fiscal 1996 budget, proposing in a nationally televised address Tuesday that the government cut $1.1 trillion in spending to balance the budget over 10 years. Republican-driven budget proposals approved by the House and Senate are aimed at balancing the budget in seven years.

“We could do it in seven years, as some [members] of Congress want, but there’s no reason to inflict the pain that would cause or to run the risk of a recession,” Clinton said.

Sen. Spencer Abraham of Michigan, who delivered the Republican response to Clinton’s address, said the President’s renewed interest in balancing the budget has vindicated congressional budget initiatives.

Clinton’s remarks Tuesday night “confirmed that Republicans were right in saying that you can balance the budget and cut taxes at the same time in order to help working families and strengthen the economy,” said Abraham, a member of the Senate Budget Committee.

Abraham also noted that an analysis this week by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that Clinton’s plan is based on overly optimistic projections and might not balance the budget in a decade.

“It looks like he will have to reduce more spending to end the red ink,” Abraham said.

Clinton’s budget proposal has no chance of winning outright approval from the Republican-controlled Congress. But the President’s plan does put him on record as supporting the popular goal of balancing the budget, and it could help frame talks between the White House and Capitol Hill.

Clinton, speaking from Halifax, Canada, where he is attending a meeting of leaders from the seven wealthiest democracies, sought to highlight some of the differences between his budget proposal and those of the congressional Republicans.

Deeper cuts to Medicare and Medicaid can be averted, Clinton said, through “genuine reform,” which he described as home care instead of expensive institutional stays for the elderly, mammograms for early detection of breast cancer and “cracking down on fraud and abuse.”

Clinton said his budget proposal “would avoid a number of cuts proposed by the Congress that would seriously hurt hundreds of thousands of American veterans. The House budget plan has proposed quadrupling the amount veterans pay for the prescription drugs they need, while cutting taxes a lot for upper-income Americans who don’t really need a tax cut.”

Clinton also criticized the Senate budget plan, saying it would deny benefits to military personnel for injuries not related to the performance of duty.

“I think we’ve got a duty to help our veterans when they’re sick or injured,” Clinton said.