America was still suffering through the Government Shutdown: the impasse

between the Republican Congress and President Clinton, in which the President had

vetoed the Budget Reconciliation Bill, and neither House had the two-thirds majority

needed to override. WFB: "Does the logic of the situation suggest that, at the end, the

House would simply have to exert its money power to actually prevail, or is this simply a

politically inconceivable turn?" JT: "Well, if by exerting the money power you mean

having our nation default, I would regard that as an extraordinarily serious and most

unfortunate way of exercising the money power. If by exercising the money power you

mean passing individual bills which do particular things and then, when the President

vetoes them, overriding his veto, I would have no objection to that at all."