From: CRNC LD Mark Fletcher Subject: C-NEWS: CRNC ONLINE: RNC / Deficit Reduction RNC Talking Points October 28, 1996 MEMORANDUM TO REPUBLICAN LEADERS FROM: HALEY BARBOUR SUBJECT: WHO SHOULD TAKE A BOW FOR DEFICIT REDUCTION? Revised data on the current federal budget deficit is scheduled to be released today showing the deficit has dropped $55 billion to $109 billion for FY 1996. While Clinton will try to take credit for this good news, we need to point out to voters and the media that this substantial downpayment on a balanced budget is due to the common-sense Republican Congress - not Bill Clinton and congressional Democrats. In fact, without the Republican Congress, such a decline would never have happened. When the Republican Congress took control in January 1995, Bill Clinton sent them budgets with annual deficits of $200 billion. O Clinton sent Congress a FY 1996 budget that according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected a deficit of $211 billion, and according to Clinton's own Office of Management and Budget (OMB) projected a deficit of $197 billion. O At the time, even Clinton's fellow Democrats were shocked by the lack of deficit reduction in his budget: "The budget which came from the president said, 'I've given up; that as long as I am president of the United States there will never be a balanced budget.' That is an astonishing statement." --former Democrat Senator Paul Tsongas, press conference, 2/7/95 "[It] falls short, way short of the deficit reduction we need. he has dropped the ball." --Sen. Jim Exon (D-Neb.), ranking minority member of the Senate Budget Committee, The New York Times, 2/7/95 o Clinton proceeded to present a slew of phony budgets which he claimed would balance in 10 years, 9 years, 8 years, 7 years - whatever. The truth was none of them actually balanced according to the CBO. O Even Clinton's FY 1997 budget projects a deficit of $80 billion in 2002 according to the CBO. Bill Clinton has fought efforts by the Republican Congress to balance the budget. O In 1995 the House of Representatives passed a proposed balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, but it was defeated in the Senate because Bill Clinton convinced six Democrats who previously had voted in favor of such an amendment to switch their votes to defeat it. O On December 6, 1995 Clinton vetoed the balanced budget passed by the Republican Congress, the first balanced budget in 26 years. It was the spending constraints, hard work and persistence of the Republican Congress that led to the budget deficit falling $55 billion from $164 billion in FY 1995 to $109 billion in FY 1996. This represents the single largest reduction in the federal deficit since FY 1987 during President Reagan's second term. In 1995 alone, the budget deficit fell $43 billion, the largest single reduction in government spending in a single Congress since World War II. Also, the common-sense Republican Congress passed the line- item veto to help eliminate wasteful Washington spending. It will be an important deficit reduction tool for future presidents. Bill Clinton and the Democrats can be expected to go to great lengths to take credit for the hard work done by the Republican Congress to reduce the deficit and balance the budget. We need to point out that it is the common-sense Republican Congress that is truly responsible for reducing the deficit and setting America on the path to a balanced budget.