Bill Clinton: “First of all, I was invited a long time ago to give that speech in Texas, and I think it was a very important speech.…”

“First of all, I was invited a long time ago to give that speech in Texas, and I think it was a very important speech. I've had--secondly, more importantly, anybody who looks at my entire public life can see that it's been dominated by three things: economics, education, and race. If there is any issue I ought to have credibility on, it is this one, because it is a part of who I am and what I've done, and I don't feel the need to defend myself. I think all you have to do is look at the way I constitute my administration, look at the way that we've changed the Federal bench, and look at the policies I've advocated. And I'm very proud of the process through which we went to develop the affirmative action policy with--Mr. Edley here was a part of that, and I think we did it right. After all, we not only had to come up with a position, we had to come up with a position in a way that we could defend it against those who thought we were wrong and who were determined to undo it, and we wanted to give everybody a chance to be a part of it. So I'm rather proud of that. And on the welfare issue, time will prove whether Marian Edelman is right or I am. That's all I can tell you. All I can tell you is, even before the welfare reform bill passed, we moved more people from welfare to work than at any time in American history, and the Council of Economic Advisers says that 36 percent of them--about 30 percent of them moved because of initiatives taken by States to help people move from welfare to work. We kept the guarantee for medical care; we kept the guarantee for nutrition for poor children; we kept the guarantee that the money had to be spent on poor people; we gave the States more money to spend on welfare than they would have today under the old system. They have 20 percent more money to spend on poor people today than they would have had if we hadn't changed the law--today. And we're going to get, under the budget agreement, $3 billion more to create jobs for people who don't have them. So let's-- give me a couple of years to see whether--who is right on this. She was sincere and honest in her position, and I'm sincere and honest in mine, and time will see who was right. Expected Results”