Bill Clinton: “I'm for it. That's my policy. I'm for it. I believe that any law-abiding taxpaying citizen who shows up in the morning…”

“I'm for it. That's my policy. I'm for it. I believe that any law-abiding taxpaying citizen who shows up in the morning and doesn't break the law and doesn't interfere with his or her neighbors ought to have the ability to work in our country and shouldn't be subject to unfair discrimination. I'm for it. Now, I have a little time left, so let me just say that I get attacked so many times on these questions it's hard to answer all those things. In February--Senator Dole just said we had the worst economy in a century. In February he said we had the best economy in 30 years--just February. And I don't want to respond in kind to all these things. I could; I could answer a lot of these things tit for tat. But I hope we can talk about what we're going to do in the future. No attack ever created a job or educated a child or helped a family make ends meet. No insult ever cleaned up a toxic waste dump or helped an elderly person. Now, for 4 years that's what I've worked on. If you'll give me 4 years more, I'll work on it some more. And I'll try to answer these charges, but I prefer to emphasize direct answers to the future, and I gave you a direct answer. Mr. Lehrer. Senator Dole? Senator Dole. Well, I'm opposed to discrimination in any form, but I'm--but I don't favor creating special rights for any group. That would be my answer to this question. And I'm--you know, there'd be special rights for different groups in America, but I'm totally opposed to discrimination, don't have any policy against hiring anyone--whether it's lifestyle or whatever, we don't have any policy of that kind, never have had in my office, nor will we have in the future. But as far as special rights, I'm opposed to same-sex marriages, which the President signed well after midnight one morning, in the dark of night--he opposed it. But I'll get back to the economic package because again, I think this is very important. If there is anything that's going to change America, it's get the economy to grow. The President inherited a good economy--sure. The S&L crisis ended, we were selling assets, we had a Republican Congress cutting spending finally, and he says we've had the best 4 years ever. That's not true. We've had over 1.2 million bankruptcies--set a new record. Credit card debt has never been higher. I just told you about this manufacturing job loss which is going to increase. We need a good, strong economic package. Let the private sector create the jobs. And they can do it. Mr. Lehrer. Mr. President?”