President Bill Clinton gives us his views on the challenges facing the United States today and why government matters—presenting his ideas on restoring energyeconomic growth, job creation, financial responsibility, resolving the mortgage crisis, and pursuing a strategy , job creation, and financial responsibility and offering a plan to get us “back in the future business.” He explains how we got into the current economic crisis, and lays down a plan for long-term prosperity. He offers specific recommendations on how we can put people back to work, increase bank lending and corporate investment, double our exports, restore our manufacturing base, and create new businesses. He supports President Obama’s emphasis on green technology, saying that change changing in the way we produce and consume energy is the strategy most likely to spark a fast-growing economy while enhancing our national security.
Clinton also stresses that we need a strong private sector and a smart government working together to restore prosperity and progress, demonstrating that whenever we’ve given in to the temptation to blame government for all our problems, we’ve lost our ability to produce sustained economic growth and shared prosperity.commitment to shared prosperity, balanced growth, financial responsibility, and investment for the future. For example, he believes our ability to compete in the twenty-first century is dependent on our willingness to invest in infrastructure: we need faster broadband, a state-of-the-art national electrical grid, modernized water and sewer systems, and the best, airports, trains, roads, and bridges.
Clinton writes, “There is simply no evidence that we can succeed in the twenty-first century with an antigovernment strategy,” writes Clinton, based on “a philosophy grounded in ‘you’re on your own’ rather than ‘we’re all in this together.’ ” He believes that conflict between government and the private sector has proved to be good politics but has produced bad policies, giving us a weak economy with not enough jobs, growing income inequality and poverty, and a decline in our competitive position. In the real world, cooperation works much better than conflict, and “Americans need victories in real life.”
“I wrote this book because I love my country and I’m concerned about our future,” writes Bill Clinton. “As I often said when I first ran for President in 1992, America at its core is an idea—the idea that no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll have the freedom and opportunity to pursue your own dreams and leave your kids a country where they can chase theirs.” In Back to Work, Clinton details how we can get out of the current economic crisis and lay a foundation for long-term prosperity. He offers specific recommendations on how we can put people back to work and create new businesses, increase bank lending and corporate investment, double our exports, and restore our manufacturing base.
He supports President Obama’s emphasis on green technology, saying that change in the way we produce and consume energy is the strategy most likely to spark a fast-growing economy and enhance our national security. Clinton also says that we need both a strong economy and a smart government working together to restore prosperity and progress. He demonstrates that whenever we’ve given in to the temptation to blame government for our problems, we’ve lost our commitment to shared prosperity, balanced growth, financial responsibility, and investment in the future. That has led our nation into trouble because there are some things we have to do together. For example, he says, “Our ability to compete in the twenty-first century is dependent on our willingness to invest in infrastructure: we need faster broadband, a state-of-the-art national electrical grid, modernized water and sewer systems, and the best airports, trains, roads, and bridges.
“There is no evidence that we can succeed in the twenty-first century with an antigovernment strategy,” writes Clinton, “with a philosophy grounded in ‘You’re on your own’ rather than ‘We’re all in this together.’” Clinton believes that conflict between government and the private sector has proved to be remarkably good politics, but it has produced bad policies, giving us a weak economy with few jobs, growing income inequality and poverty, and a decline in our competitive position. In the real world, cooperation works much better than conflict, and “we need victories in the real world.”
Bill Clinton has advice, and some criticism, for President Obama in new book
The Washington Post – November 4, 2011 (Excerpt)
President Obama and his Democratic allies made two key political missteps in recent years, according to former president Bill Clinton in a new book to be released Tuesday.
First was not raising the federal debt ceiling in the first two years of the president’s term, when Democrats still had a majority in Congress, and then failing to devise an effective national campaign message during the midterm elections of 2010.
Clinton also suggests, obliquely, that Obama’s criticism of Wall Street has been too harsh and counterproductive.
The 42nd president periodically surfaces with cheerful tips on how he managed the economy and offers these observations in his book “Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy.”
The Washington Post obtained a copy of the book before its publication.
The volume is dense with criticism of Republicans; it devotes substantial attention to what Clinton describes as the GOP’s relentless “antigovernment ideology,” identified as the cause of the anemic economy, high unemployment and American inability to compete on the world stage.
But the subtext of the book is that Obama has struggled, both to identify workable economic policies and to outmaneuver his Republican foes.
“The Democrats did not counter the national Republican message with one of their own,” Clinton writes of the Democratic losses in 2010. “There was no national advertising campaign to explain and defend what they had done and to compare their agenda for the next two years with the GOP proposals.” He compares it with his own congressional defeats in 1994. [Read the full article...]
Bill Clinton’s ‘Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy’
The Washington Post Book Review – November 4, 2011 (Excerpt)
With the 2012 election a year away, Democrats can latch onto an articulate, reality-based strategy for economic renewal that threads the needle between extremes. But this engaging, center-left manifesto wasn’t written by the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Rather, it was penned by someone who is constitutionally barred from seeking the highest office: former president Bill Clinton.
Clinton burst onto the national scene 20 years ago at a time of national economic self-doubt spurred by high unemployment and fears over a rising power in Asia. Sound familiar? In“Back to Work,” a slim volume packed with ideas on how to fix America’s broken job machine, the Man from Hope offers some well-timed optimism in the face of depressing statistics, such as the fact that the United States ranks 18th in high school graduation rates and 24th in infrastructure quality.
Clintonian to the core, “Back to Work” cribs proposals and anecdotes from all over — from Democrats and Republicans, from the public and private sectors — and includes a lengthy, somewhat windy list of 46 prescriptions. They consist of two parts wonkery and one part down-home common sense. While professors would call the functional difference between a tax credit and a spending increase, as Clinton writes, “a distinction without a difference,” he adds that “when I was growing up in Arkansas, we called it straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.” [Read the full article...]
Bill Clinton Lays Out His Prescription for America’s Future
The New York Times Book Review – November 7, 2011 (Excerpt)
Bill Clinton’s new book, “Back to Work,” is really several books in one slender volume. It’s a lucid one-man rebuttal of the Tea Party’s anti-government agenda. A series of shrewd talking points for Democrats trying to hold on to the White House and battling for control of Congress in the midst of a sour economy and growing voter discontent. A self-serving reminder of the prosperity the country enjoyed during Mr. Clinton’s tenure in the White House, meant to burnish his legacy. And a practical set of proposals — some borrowed and some new, some innovative and some highly sketchy — for restoring economic growth and creating jobs.
The book, which appears to be an expanded version of a Newsweek article by Mr. Clinton that appeared in June, shows the former president in two familiar modes: freewheeling policy wonk and genial retail politician.
At a time when anti-government ranting dominates the Republican debates and the Democrats often seem on the defensive, Mr. Clinton serves up a succinct common-sense argument for why America needs a strong national government, why both spending cuts and increased tax revenues are necessary for addressing the debt problem (which is going to get worse given the demographics of an aging baby-boomer population and the high costs of interest payments), and why that debt problem “can’t be solved unless the economy starts growing again.” [Read the full article...]
Book review: ‘Back to Work’ by Bill Clinton
The Los Angeles Times Book Review – November 8, 2011 (Excerpt)
The Democratic Party has been criticized — by supporters as well as critics — for not having the fortitude lately to stand up for its ideas, policies, even its president. That may change with the release of Bill Clinton’s “Back to Work,” a book with the chutzpah that the Democrats have been missing.
Clinton presents a personal, plain-spoken economic picture of where we are, a mile-high view of the three decades that got us here, and how to revive our economy in classic “American Dream growth” style. He challenges Americans and our elected representatives to make hard choices, support innovation and to renew the spirit of cooperation. He gets behind President Obama’s jobs plan, criticizes Democratic policies when he finds them lacking and, for the most part, supports the recommendations of the wide-ranging bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
Yet despite his calls for a positive dialogue, the former president digs in and calls House Republicans ”anti-government zealots.” This is a fight, and there will be blood.
“From 1981 to 2009,” he writes, “the greatest accomplishment of the anti-government Republicans was not to reduce the size of the federal government but to stop paying for it.” This is a jazzy launch into his discussion of the national debt, a subject that ranges from daunting to dull. As he argued during his own administration, debt is crippling. He demonstrates, in a simple chart, that the classic Republican anti-tax stance has been coupled with economic policies that have loaded up the debt. A total of $6.1 trillion in debt was acquired during George W. Bush’s eight years in office, $1.9 trillion in Ronald Reagan’s, $1.5 trillion in George H. W. Bush’s four years, $1.4 trillion in Clinton’s eight and $2.4 trillion during Obama’s administration, much of it trying to pull us out of recession. [Read the full article...]
Ex-president offers blueprint for recovery
The Chicago Tribune – November 11, 2011 (Excerpt)
The Democratic Party has been criticized — by supporters as well as critics — for not having the fortitude lately to stand up for its ideas, policies, even its president. That may change with the release of Bill Clinton’s “Back to Work,” a book with the chutzpah that the Democrats have been missing.
Clinton presents a personal, plain-spoken economic picture of where we are, a mile-high view of the three decades that got us here, and a blueprint for how to revive our economy in classic “American Dream growth” style. He challenges Americans and our elected representatives to make hard choices, support innovation and renew the spirit of cooperation. He gets behind President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, criticizes Democratic policies when he finds them lacking and, for the most part, supports the recommendations of the wide-ranging bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
Yet despite his calls for a positive dialogue, the former president digs in and calls House Republicans”anti-government zealots.” This is a fight, and there will be blood. [Read the full article...]
What Bill Clinton Would Do
The New York Times Book Review – December 9, 2011 (Excerpt)
Bill Clinton’s new book, “Back to Work,” is less a bold plan to create jobs than it is a passionate rebuttal of “our 30-year antigovernment obsession.” That obsession, he insists, is public enemy No. 1. He also seems to be sending a barely disguised message to Barack Obama to join him in confronting the antigovernment chorus.
But coming from a former president who contributed to that very antigovernment narrative in the 1990s, it is unsurprising that the substance of the case he makes is weaker than it should be. In his State of the Union address in 1996, Clinton told us with a sense of triumph that the “era of big government is over.” By absorbing the new American distaste for government after the Republican Congressional victory of 1994, he assured his re-election two years later. And in his second term Clinton was more concerned about restraining government spending and paying down the debt than investing in America.
Clinton now seems to believe the orthodoxy has finally gone too far. He argues that antigovernment zeal led to President Bush’s deep tax cuts in the early 2000s. Those cuts, he tells us, are a major cause of today’s budget deficits, while the stubborn reluctance of Republicans to agree to any tax increases at all has brought the political process to a near halt. [Read the full article...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss
I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith. - 2 Timothy iv. 7
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]
THE BLEEDING HILLS
