Bill Clinton: “Well, my reaction is that it is unfortunate that our side was not, in effect, defended in Texas. Neither of the…”

“Well, my reaction is that it is unfortunate that our side was not, in effect, defended in Texas. Neither of the candidates in the Texas Senate race had voted for or supported my economic program. So the voters of Texas, unfortunately, were permitted to cast their ballots in an atmosphere of unreality, I mean, where one candidate is running saying the issue is spending stupid, and we'd cut $250 billion in spending programs. We'd cut veterans, Medicare, agriculture, foreign aid, defense, just about everything you can see. And it's going to be very interesting now, in light of what happened there, to see the debates that are coming up. I have been a strong supporter, because I believe in it, of the space station and the super collider. We had a qualified panel of experts. Both those projects are in Texas, you know, super collider entirely in Texas, space station largely in Texas. I had a qualified panel of experts look at the space station. They recommended ways to redesign the project that would save $4 billion and to change the management of NASA in a way that would make the whole space program work better. And we also reduced some spending in the super collider. And I'm hoping I can save those projects now. But there are strong opponents of those projects in the Congress, and they're saying, ``Well, the voters of Texas voted to kill them,'' because of the unrealistic atmosphere in which that whole election unfolded. And I wish that Lloyd Bentsen, who was Senator from there, had been able to spend full time down there telling the people of Texas he put the program together, and he would not have put a program together which was unfair to Texas, unfair to the middle class, and which didn't have spending cuts. When you take tough stands and you want to make tough decisions, you have to expect to suffer some unpopularity in the short run as the rhetoric overtakes the reality. But every evidence we have is when the voters know the specifics of the program, that we prevail. In the race in California for Leon Panetta's House seat, where this whole program became the issue, the person who was elected to Congress defended the program, advertised it. Leon got on television and gave the specifics of the program. Our opponent attacked us and said how terrible it was. The voters gave the guy who took my position a 10-point margin. And I thought that in view of all the other problems out there, that was pretty impressive. Mr. Levey. Mr. President, I thought you got off a good line last week. You said that Washington has become the home of gridlock and greed. Are we really that bad, or is this just political language?”