Clinton on Jobs and Obama

Bill Clinton

As President Obama called on Congress today to adopt his “balanced” planon entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce the federal deficit. Former President Bill Clinton sat down with Maria Bartiromo today to discuss jobs, global economies ahead of his annual Clinton Global Initiative Meeting in New York.

Heads of state, CEOs and other global leaders will meet to discuss how to create jobs in the 21st Century, sustainable consumption, even scaling what works for girls and women around the globe. President Clinton told Bartiromo there are "200 to 300 million people in the world that need work who don't have it." When asked if President Obama can get re-elected with 9.1% unemployment, Clinton said "sure, but it depends on whether people believe that we've turned a corner, that he's got a plan that will work, and it depends on what the competition says." "I mean, right now, he's out there running against himself and people's misery," Clinton said.

President Clinton thinks we should “see what the Small Business Administration could do with its existing programs, loan guarantee programs, and its ability to do joint investment to get more small business loans.” President Clinton referred to a recent survey of the small business community “had about 40 percent of it saying that if they could get more capital they would expand and hire more people.” President Clinton believes “we should focus on that.”

On a bright note, President Clinton said “we should look at all these places where there is no recession.

Look at San Diego, a biotech center, look at Silicon Valley, look at what's being done in Orlando with 100 computer simulation companies, where the Defense Department's cooperating with Disney World , with Universal, with Entertainment Arts video games, and figure out how to create one of those in every major urban area in America to be magnets.

There, we have prosperity centers in America and we need to replicate them. There are easy ways to do it. You can expand the Enterprise Zone program that started when I was president of the New Markets Agenda, and really give people serious, serious incentives to do what we know what works.”

Outside of jobs, President Clinton talked taxes with Bartiromo. With President Obama proposing a millionaire's tax today, Clinton said he "doesn't have a problem with that" but" payroll tax cuts and incentives now, this is what we should be focused on for the next couple of years."

President Clinton believes “We need to broaden the base of the corporate tax and lower the rates. Our corporate tax rate is now the second highest in the world after Japan. And for other reasons, corporations don't leave Japan. But our corporate tax take is not 35 percent, it's 23 percent. And the European tax is 24 percent. So the take is OK, the average take. The problem is that ranges from a high of 35 to a low of about 10. So I think there's real opportunity here for bipartisan agreement to broaden the tax base and lower the rate to a competitive rate, 23, 24, 25 percent.”

Bartiromo asked President Clinton about Obamacare and whether the legislation should be appealed. Clinton told her "No. It should be improved on a continuous basis." "The real reason that they want to repeal it is not that it's 1,000 pages long, it's that it's got one line in it that says 85 percent of your health insurance premium must now go to your health care, not to profits and marketing."

Donna Burton contributed to this article.

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