White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart today declined to promise that President Clinton would sign any new continuing resolution that may be needed to extend government operations beyond this Friday, when the current CR expires. But Lockhart did not threaten a veto either.
"We've got a Congress that's in overtime. The last thing they need is to be told that they have more time," Lockhart explained. "They shouldn't spend a lot of energy on Capitol Hill talking about their next extension. We have time between now and when this CR runs out for them to send down legislation. And that's what they should be focusing their attention on."
Lockhart termed a "mischaracterization at best" Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's discussion Sunday of a conversation he had with a White House official who-according to Lott-told him the White House would shut down the government if "it's to our advantage."
Lockhart identified Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles as the White House official. "There was certainly, as you can imagine, discussion about the various politics that go on, but ... Erskine did not tell Sen. Lott that we would shut the government down if it suited our political purposes," Lockhart said.
Bowles, according to Lockhart, "made a very strong case to the majority leader that Congress needs to get its work done" and that if Congress "sent down bills that [do not] meet the president's priorities, the president would veto them."
Lockhart denied the White House views a shutdown as a potentially attractive option. "The President has made it very clear that it's in no one's interest to shut the government down. Not the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, not, more importantly, the American people," he said.
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