Despite the continuing budget impasse, President Clinton Thursday minimized the chances for a government shutdown, offering to continue working with Congress to get the job done.
"I do not believe there will be a government shutdown," Clinton said during a joint White House news conference with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. "I would be very surprised if there is one."
But, he added, "Neither do I think we should just have continuing resolutions for the next year and a half. Somehow, we have to come to terms with it."
Clinton aides in recent days have emphasized privately that the White House is not pushing this year for a shutdown, instead hoping just to get a deal done.
Asked if any of his proposals were "non-negotiable," Clinton said he was always aware that he would not receive "100 percent" of his request.
But he also listed a few priorities he feels strongly about, including continuing to hire 100,000 teachers, getting 50,000 new police officers on the street, and a commitment to "adequately fund our environmental budget" and "get those anti-environmental riders" off the Interior measure.
Clinton said Republicans were making "a big mistake" by not funding a prescription drug benefit for Medicare "and not adding any days to the life of the Medicare and the Social Security trust funds."
Seeming to acknowledge he is unlikely to see movement on Medicare and Social Security initiatives this year, Clinton vowed to bring them back. "Because I vetoed the tax cut we can come back to all of that early next year," he said.
Clinton inveighed once again against continuing a "big partisan blowout", which he said had been prompted by both sides committing not to spend the Social Security surplus and then finding out the task was harder than they thought.
Offsets could be found, he said, to avoid spending the Social Security surplus.
At other points in the news conference, Clinton said he had spent part of the day pushing for the Africa free trade bill, talked about the need to make payments due the United Nations, and discussed debt relief for developing nations.
In the face of concerted GOP media attacks charging Democrats with wanting to raid the Social Security fund, Clinton touted new Congressional Budget Office numbers showing that the GOP plan itself would tap Social Security, even with the "smoke and mirrors" he said the Republicans are employing.
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