ANN CURRY, co-host:
We're back now at 7:41 with former
President Bill Clinton
. The nation's unemployment rate now stands at 9 percent, with 14 million people out of work and
President Clinton
is offering his proposal to get people off the
unemployment lines in his new book "Back to Work:
Why
We Need Smart Government
for a
Strong Economy
." Mr. President, good morning.
Former President BILL CLINTON:
Morning, Ann.
CURRY:
"Back to
Work
" is a prescription for economic renewal. Is there anything that can be done right now that is not being done that could spark the movement towards creating more jobs?
Pres. CLINTON:
Yes, but it won't bring us all the way back. Let me explain what I mean. What happened to us was we had a financial collapse and a real estate collapse. If you go back 500 years when countries do this, it takes a long time to get over, sometimes five to 10 years, sometimes even longer. So I wrote this book to try to explain how we can beat those odds. But there's no instantaneous fix. I think the president's proposals on the payroll tax cuts for employers and employees would help and I think they should pass. Then I think we have to get the money going in the
economy
again, which means you have to get the bank money released, primarily that's reforming the mortgage crisis, get corporations to invest back in
America
again. There's $4 trillion in banks and corporations that could be invested here, and that would take the world out of the
financial crisis
.
CURRY:
The question is, what is it going to get them to invest that money? And you just mentioned that -- you compliment the president on some of his policies. But I want to point out that you also point out a number of mistakes made by
President Obama
and the
Democratic Party
, including not making a stronger case for efforts to stabilize the
economy
in
2009
, failing to craft an effective
national
campaign message to counter the
tea party
's anti-government rhetoric of
2010
and bungling their response to the
country
's debt by not choosing to raise the debt ceiling in
2010
when they had a Democratic majority in the
house
. Why offer these criticisms now in this book? Are you considering that they are fodder for the
Republican Party
?
Pres. CLINTON:
First of all -- no. Well, probably because this is the second you question you asked me which proves the thing I said in the book. The first half of the book is what happened to us politically and economically in the last 30 years. Conflict makes better politics and news coverage, cooperation makes better economics. So the second question
out of the box
, the book lavishly praises the administration's economic, its
energy policy
, it's whole thing. And the second question I get asked is this,
this is the way
America
works. Ann...
CURRY:
But you do you criticize the president.
Pres. CLINTON:
No. Well, first of all, I made a mistake as it turns out, on the debt ceiling because I didn't think it was subject to the filibuster. Turns out the
White House
told me,
Gene Sperling
told me they did try to raise the debt ceiling and Senator
McConnell
said he wouldn't do it unless they caved to all their demands. But on the other thing, I also pointed out, we made the same mistake when I was president in
1994
. We didn't run a
national
campaign. So the debt -- the
tea party
line basically was the only thing people heard. But I think that the important thing is what are we going to do now? And what works best in
real life
is cooperation, not conflict, and so we got a big disconnect between where our politics have worked, conflict works and the way our economics works. If you look at
Silicon Valley
, if you look at
San Diego
, where they have the
Human Genome Center
and more
Nobel Prize
winning scientists than other city, look at
Orlando
, where I was yesterday where they have 100 computer simulation companies. Look at
Cleveland
, where the
Cleveland Clinic
and the
Cuyahoga Community College
are training these midcareer people with high school educations who have lost their jobs and they are desperate, to go back into health care work.
Pittsburgh
, switching from steel to nanotechnology. All these places, you've got your government and the private sector working together.
That's what
works.
CURRY:
You say cooperation. Because I want to play you a clip because it's not the only thing I think you've said that has worked. In
1992
there was a presidential campaign video in which you talked about something else. I want to show you that video.
Pres. CLINTON:
We've got to put our own
house
in order and restore the
middle class
, reduce poverty, bring this
country
together again. I've got a fine
national
economic strategy
for the short and the long run, but in the end a plan is just a piece of paper. To make it change lives you need leadership and vision and action. That's been the work of my life and that's why I'm running for president.
CURRY:
First of all, how cute were you and your hair hasn't changed. But number two -- but number two, you talk about vision there and leadership. So what is
President Obama
's vision on the
economy
?
Pres. CLINTON:
He wants to work -- he wants it to work for everybody. He wants to have broad-based prosperity, shared prosperity, growing
middle class
again, not the kind of growth we had in the last 10 years where almost all the income gains went to the
top 10
percent, most of that to the top 1 percent, and you had median income declining, as it still is. Poverty rising, that doesn't work. To build a shared
economy
with shared prosperity, you have to have growing jobs. And until you get
job growth
, until you get
economic growth
, we can't balance the budget. I don't care what you do, they're finding that now in the
UK
. You can cut spending, you can raise taxes, you can do whatever you want. You can't balance the budget until we grow this
economy
again.
CURRY:
I want to know if you -- what you think about this, because when you look at the president's disapproval rating on the
economy
, it's 57 percent, according to the latest poll, you know, you often speak of your wife's extraordinary gifts.
Do you ever think
that the
country
would be better off if she had won the presidency?
Pres. CLINTON:
I don't
think about it
.
CURRY:
You don't?
Pres. CLINTON:
No.
CURRY:
Why?
Pres. CLINTON:
Because I deal with the world as it is. I think he's done a better job than he's getting credit for. I think he now has a
Congress
that doesn't want to do anything with him. And until the
American people
send them a signal that they want to send the
tea party
Republicans
a signal that they want cooperation you're going to have trouble.
And I
think it's unfair to compare
President Obama
adversely to me. When people say, they're talking about my last five years as president, the proper comparison is what happened to me in
1995
in my third year, same thing that's happened to him. We went through the same thing. Not much happened, we fought and then there were two government shutdowns and the voters decided they agreed with the approach I was taking.
The Congress
got the message, then we started working together. So there hasn't been an action-forcing event yet. And you can see by this book, I essentially agreed with his
energy policy
. Green technology jobs are growing at twice the rate of ordinary jobs. We lost manufacturing jobs every single year in the eight years before he became president. We got a chance to get them back again. He's got a good export strategy, he's got a great idea for this infrastructure bank that puts
private money
and
public money
together. This book is about how to do this. It's not about politics. He'll -- his politics will improve when the
economy
gets better. But the
American people
need to send a signal to
Congress
that they want them to work together. Not that he's right all the time or that I was right. They got to work together.
CURRY:
All right, well, clearly you want us all to work together so we can get back to work. And
Bill Clinton
, thank you for caring so much about
America
to write this book.
“ ”