Back to Work - Bill Clinton [0]
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2011 by William Jefferson Clinton
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Due to limitations of space, permissions to reprint previously
published material can be found following the acknowledgments.
Library of Contress Control Number: 2011940942
eISBN: 978-0-307-95976-8
Jacket photograph by Andrew Hetherington, 2011/Redux
Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson
v3.1
To the millions of good people who are looking for the
chance to be part of America’s recovery, and their own.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
PART I / Where We Are
1. Our Thirty-Year Antigovernment Obsession
2. The 2010 Election and Its Place in the History of Antigovernment Politics
3. Why We Need Government
4. So What About the Debt?
5. How Are We Doing Compared with Our Own Past and with Today’s Competition?
PART II / What We Can Do
6. How Do We Get Back in the Future Business?
Epilogue: Time to Choose
Acknowledgments
Other Books by This Author
Charts
INTRODUCTION
I WROTE THIS BOOK BECAUSE I love my country and I’m concerned about our future. 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.
That belief has a tenuous hold on the more than fifteen million people who are unemployed or who are working part-time when they need full-time jobs to support themselves and their families. And it must seem downright unreal to the growing number of men and women who’ve been out of work for more than six months and can’t even get interviews for job openings, as if they’re somehow to blame for becoming casualties of the worst recession since the Depression.
Work is about more than making a living, as vital as that is. It’s fundamental to human dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful, independent, free people. I earned my first money mowing lawns when I was twelve. At thirteen, I worked in a small grocery store and set up a used-comic-book stand on the side. By the time I finished college, I’d made a little money doing seven other things. By the end of law school, seven more. Over the last four decades, nine more, not counting my foundation and other philanthropic work. Most of my early jobs didn’t last long. I didn’t like them all. But I learned something in every job—about the work, dealing with people, and giving employers and customers their money’s worth.
I came of age believing that no matter what happened, I would always be able to support myself. It became a crucial part of my identity and drove me to spend a good portion of my adult life trying to give other people the chance to do the same thing. It’s heartbreaking to see so many people trapped in a web of enforced idleness, deep debt, and gnawing self-doubt. We have to change that. And we can.
In these few pages, I’ll try to explain what has happened to our country over the last thirty years, why our political system hasn’t done a better job of meeting our challenges, and why government still matters and what it should do. I’ll do my best to clarify what our choices are to revive the economy and deal with our long-term debt, and I’ll argue that the looming debt is a big problem that can’t be solved unless the economy starts growing again. And I don’t mean the kind of jobless, statistical growth of the first decade of the twenty-first century, with stagnant wages, rising poverty, crippling household debt, and 90 percent of the income growth going to the top 10 percent. I want American Dream growth—lots of new businesses, well-paying jobs, and American leadership in new industries,