House Speaker Newt Gingrich says his conservative colleagues should accept reality on such issues as the balanced budget deal with President Clinton and affirmative action.
He also indicated he was willing to alter his position against extending favorable trade treatment of China at the urging of Hong Kong's democratic leaders.Gingrich, R-Ga., and other Republican leaders have been criticized by some fellow conservatives for sacrificing tax and spending cuts in crafting a balanced-budget deal with the White House.
But Gingrich, in an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," said that while "armchair strategists" can dream of a fantasy world in which 1996 Republican challenger Bob Dole is president, the reality is that a Democrat sits in the White House and compromise is the order of the day.
With its commitment to cut capital gains and estate taxes and initiate a $500-a-child tax credit, "this is a conservative agreement, an agreement that moves us toward a smaller government with less spending."
He predicted that the budget deal, now on shaky ground, would hold and pass Congress. But like the basketball playoffs, he said, "people are going to be under the boards hitting pretty hard, trying to make sure they get their particular paragraph in those 2,500 pages" of the final document.