BILL CLINTON IS INTERVIEWED ON CNN - Political Transcript Wire

BILL CLINTON IS INTERVIEWED ON CNN

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

SPEAKERS: WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN CORRESPONDENT

[*] ROBERTS: What do you think of the job President Obama did on this? And is he, in fact -- does he, in fact, have the experience necessary to be a good president, reach across party lines and craft a bipartisan bill?

CLINTON: Well, first of all, he has reached across, and it takes two to tango. I find it amazing that the Republicans, who doubled the debt of the country in eight years and produced no new jobs doing it, gave us an economic record that was totally bereft of any productive result, are now criticizing him for spending money.

You know, I"m a fiscal conservative. I balanced the budget. I ran surpluses. If I were in his position today, I"d be doing what he"s doing. Why? Because the problem with the economy is the housing decline led to the general decline in values. Assets are going down. The only -- this stimulus is our bridge over troubled waters until the bank reforms kick in.

He did the right thing. He did everything he could to get Republican support. He took some of their tax cutting ideas.

But if you look at this bill, it is designed to do three things, and it does all three. It puts money in the hands of people who need money to survive -- unemployment benefits, food stamp benefits, tax cuts.

Second thing it does is to give money to state and local governments so they don"t have to lay a million people off or raise taxes. Either one would be bad for the economy.

The third thing it does is create new jobs.

And I think, given the Congress he had and the environment and the speed with which they had to move, I think he did a fine job with this.

ROBERTS: So what"s your take then on what Senator McCain said, that he"s off to a terrible start?

CLINTON: Well, I just disagree with him, but we have a different economic philosophy. For example, there"s a hundred economic studies which show that you get a better return in terms of economic growth on extending unemployment benefits or investing money in energy conservation jobs to improve buildings than you do giving people of my income group a tax cut. But it doesn"t stop them. Those guys are on automatic. They have a, you know, you punch a button and they give you the answer they give you.

I think that there are a lot of tax cuts in that bill for middle- class families, for lower-income families. There"s a $7,500 tax credit that will kick in when these plug-in electric vehicles go on the market, which could help us to become the world"s leader in that and secure us jobs for a decade or more.

ROBERTS: Do you really think the president can change Washington, can bring the type of change to Washington that he campaigned on? He"s already up against a wall, against the Republicans in Congress. Not quite as big a wall as you found yourself up against in 1993, but he does seem to be having some difficulty. Do you think he really can bring change to Washington? CLINTON: Here"s what I think will happen. I think that as we go along, if the American people stick with him and if he begins to have good results, then I think more and more Republicans will cooperate with him, because they will see that he"s right, or because he carried their states, or for any number of reasons.

ROBERTS: How long do you think he has?

CLINTON: Well, I think that, first, his next big challenge is to come forward with the details of how we"re going to rewrite as many home mortgages as we can, how are we going to take some of these bad assets off the banks" books so they can get cleaned up and they can loan money. And what conditions will we give more money to banks for? That is, they"re going to have to loan money from now on. That"s what Secretary Geithner is working on.

Those three things make a lot of sense. That"s our long-term answer.

The stimulus is our bridge over troubled water, I"ll say again.

So when he does that, as it starts to work, and people see America start moving again, then I think you will see people open up and we"ll see a more bipartisan spirit develop.

ROBERTS: How much time do you think he has? A hundred days, six months, a year, two years?

CLINTON: I think that, first, he"s got -- the public, I believe, will support him at least for a year in trying to work these things out. And he"s been very straightforward in saying it might take as much as two years for the economy to really get in gear again.

My instinct is it will happen a little quicker than that.

But keep in mind, before he ever took office, $30 trillion had disappeared. That"s more than twice America"s annual gross national product.

END