Clinton Urges Governors to Maintain Fiscal Discipline

His opinion on national priorities may soon be worth less than “half a soda pop,” President Clinton said, but he nonetheless offered a low-key rebuttal Monday to Republican tax cut and spending plans that would far outlast his presidency.

“I think we’ve got to keep the economy going by hewing to the same principles of fiscal discipline that got us where we are,” a nostalgic Clinton told the National Governors’ Assn., which he once chaired. “And that means I think whatever combination of spending and tax cuts any candidate for any office proposes, there ought to be enough left over” to get rid of the national debt and other priorities.

Clinton also appealed for civility amid election-year politics. “I ask you to help ensure an election season that is positive, open and vigorous about the real and honest differences, but devoid of the poison that has too often clouded the judgment of everybody involved in the public process,” he said.