AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- Former President Bill Clinton was in Austin, Texas, over the weekend to host the Clinton Global Initiative University, which encourages college students and administrators to come up with creative ways to address global issues.
CNN's John Roberts sat down with Clinton to ask him about how the Obama administration is performing, how his wife, Hillary Clinton, is doing as secretary of state, and what responsibility he may have for the current financial crisis.
John Roberts: Mr. President, in terms of the overall economic downturn, Time magazine had an article out this week in which it named 25 of the people most responsible for the economic downturn, and you were there. They, they had a picture of you in what looked like a police lineup. They had a little button where you could vote who's the most responsible? They pointed to your signing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. I wonder what you think about that.
Former President Bill Clinton: I think that the only thing that our administration did or didn't do that we should have done is to try to set in motion some more formal regulation of the derivatives market. They're wrong in saying that the elimination of the Glass-Steagall division between banks and investment banks contributed to this. Investment banks were already...banks were already doing investment business and investment companies were already in the banking business. The bill I signed actually at least puts some standards there. And if you look at the evidence of the banks that have gotten in trouble, the ones that were most directly involved in there ... in a diversified portfolio tended to do better.
Some of the conservatives said that I was responsible because I enforced the Community Reinvestment Act, and they said that's what made all these subprime mortgages be issued. That's also false. The community banks, the people that loan their money in the community instead of buying these esoteric securities, they're doing quite well.
Roberts: So what's your take on what Sen. [John] McCain said, that [President] Obama is off to a terrible start?
Clinton: I just disagree with him, but we have a different economic philosophy. For example, there's 100 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 in my income group a tax cut. But it doesn't stop them. Those guys are on automatic. You punch a button and they give the answer they give you. 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.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/16/bill.clinton.qanda/
CNN's John Roberts sat down with Clinton to ask him about how the Obama administration is performing, how his wife, Hillary Clinton, is doing as secretary of state, and what responsibility he may have for the current financial crisis.
John Roberts: Mr. President, in terms of the overall economic downturn, Time magazine had an article out this week in which it named 25 of the people most responsible for the economic downturn, and you were there. They, they had a picture of you in what looked like a police lineup. They had a little button where you could vote who's the most responsible? They pointed to your signing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. I wonder what you think about that.
Former President Bill Clinton: I think that the only thing that our administration did or didn't do that we should have done is to try to set in motion some more formal regulation of the derivatives market. They're wrong in saying that the elimination of the Glass-Steagall division between banks and investment banks contributed to this. Investment banks were already...banks were already doing investment business and investment companies were already in the banking business. The bill I signed actually at least puts some standards there. And if you look at the evidence of the banks that have gotten in trouble, the ones that were most directly involved in there ... in a diversified portfolio tended to do better.
Some of the conservatives said that I was responsible because I enforced the Community Reinvestment Act, and they said that's what made all these subprime mortgages be issued. That's also false. The community banks, the people that loan their money in the community instead of buying these esoteric securities, they're doing quite well.
Roberts: So what's your take on what Sen. [John] McCain said, that [President] Obama is off to a terrible start?
Clinton: I just disagree with him, but we have a different economic philosophy. For example, there's 100 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 in my income group a tax cut. But it doesn't stop them. Those guys are on automatic. You punch a button and they give the answer they give you. 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.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/16/bill.clinton.qanda/
