Exchange With Reporters Prior to a Meeting With the Senate Budget Committee

Q. Mr. President, are you going for nonmilitary domestic spending cuts across the board?

The President. Well, first of all, let me say I think both the Senate and the House committees deserve a lot of credit. They've come forward with further spending reductions consistent with what the CBO group calculations would indicate. They are consistent with the direction of my plan to reduce the deficit and increase investment. And I think that eventually all the committees will get together, and the two bodies will get together, and we will work out a budget that the American people can be proud of that does the things that we're all trying to do. I'm encouraged by it.

Q. So you are going to accept the across-the-board cuts?

The President. We haven't worked out the details on how it's going to be done. The two committees have slightly different positions, as you probably know. But I think that in the end there will be further cuts and there will be, I'm convinced, a much more substantial reduction in the deficit than the estimates show. I feel good about it.