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Clinton on Bloomberg Television

SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY): Thank you so much, Peter. It's great to talk to you.

PETER COOK: Any doubt in your mind right now that the economy has replaced Iraq as the top issue for voters?

SEN. CLINTON: No, not at all, and for good reason, Peter. I mean, look at what's happening. Unemployment is up, $100 a barrel oil. Energy costs therefore are up. We have got more and more people who are worried about losing their homes to foreclosure. Across the board, people are coming to me and saying, look, what can you do, what can anybody do - because they are feeling incredibly anxiety. Consumer confidence is down and the American consumer has basically held up the global economy.

You know, the American people need a president who will run the government and manage the economy. We've got a lot of tough choices ahead of us. Obviously I'm putting forth what I would do were I president, but we don't have time to wait; we've got to get the president and the Congress working together because we've got to begin to take the fiscal steps that will hopefully try to eliminate some of the pain that will come with this economic slowdown.

MR. COOK: I want to ask about some of those specific steps you would take right now. But before I do that, has the slowdown in the economy shaken your confidence in Ben Bernanke and the Fed to handle this situation?

SEN. CLINTON: You know, look, I think that Chairman Bernanke is walking a very delicate line trying to figure out how to stimulate the economy, try to increase demand, again, for credit and make that credit available and worrying about inflation, which, you know, we always do have to keep in mind. You know, the global economy has been, in my view, radically changed over the last decade. And a lot of what used to work may not work. So we've got to figure out how to partner the monetary and fiscal side of this.

That is why I've come forward in response to people coming to me saying what can we do on this foreclosure crisis with a plan for a moratorium on foreclosures for 90 days, to freeze interest rates for five years, to have more transparency in the mortgage markets so that we know whether workouts are really happening. We can put pressure on, you know, the lenders and the servicers to actually begin to try to, you know, save as many of these homes as possible because otherwise we're going to see a continuing deterioration in the housing market.

And that is going to be, unfortunately, an indicator of what is to come because as the housing market goes down - and we know housing wealth has lost 6 percent in the last year; in a place like Nevada, it's lost 12 percent - then we're going to see consequences far beyond the individuals who are risk of being foreclosed on.

That is why it's so important than in this campaign, people really listen hard and look at all of the candidates. We need a president who will, you know, manage the economy and run the government effectively. We haven't had that for seven years. We've really suffered because, you know, we had basically a president who was hands-off, who listened to advisors, who, you know, didn't hold people accountable. I'm offering a different approach which I think is really needed now with the economy and all of the other challenges we face.

MR. COOK: Does Senator Barack Obama lack the requisite experience to run the world's largest economy?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, I was somewhat taken aback by what he said that was reported yesterday. I think it's important that we have a president who understands that you have to run the government. We all need to be inspirational and set goals, and I've been doing that throughout this campaign. We need to set big goals for our standing in the world, for our economy to deal with energy and health care and so much else that is really on the minds of the people who talk to me as I go in and out of their homes, Peter. That is what they are talking to me about. They want a president who they believes gets up every single day and works for them.

That requires a president who is hands-on, who after you set the goals and you give the speeches, you go back to the White House, and you start holding people accountable. And you want to know what they've done today to help the American people. You've got to take on this government; you've got to run this government. You can't leave it to others. You've got to manage this economy. That's why I've been calling for a stimulus package for a number of weeks because I know that if we don't move now, we'll have a much deeper and longer recession than we might otherwise have.

MR. COOK: Senator Obama has also floated his own ideas for a fiscal stimulus package. There are some differences. Specifically, he stops - you stop short of calling for immediate tax rebates for Americans at this time. Senator Obama would call for those immediate tax rebates. Wouldn't that be a faster way to stimulate the economy?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, actually, as part of my plan, I have a $25 billion fund that will put $650 in the hands of Americans who are having trouble paying their energy bills. We know how to do this; it's a program that's been around a long time. It's not been funded adequately to deal with the spike in energy costs. So that $650 will go directly into the hands of millions of Americans. But I also want to do what I think begins to throw us into the future, Peter, because I don't want to just have economic stimulus that, you know, is the same-old, same-old. We've got to start looking at this global economy and our role in it differently.

I want to start funding the jobs of the future. You know, let's put people to work in green-collar jobs. I was at a training facility in L.A. last week where electrical workers are being trained to put in solar panels. There's actually a bigger demand for that than we have a supply. Let's begin to train people to do what we need to do to begin this move away from our dependence on foreign oil. You know, frankly, I find it disheartening that our president goes to the Gulf and basically begs the oil-producing countries not to charge so much. If he had been responding to what the pressures were when he came into office, where we had oil prices at $20 a barrel, where we could have begun to make the move so that we would be more energy independent today, I don't think we would have as much of an economic challenge as we face now.

MR. COOK: Senator -

SEN. CLINTON: So I've got a lot of different pieces in my plan plus a $40 billion contingency for direct rebates if that's necessary.

MR. COOK: Senator Clinton, in our time remaining, I want to ask you about an issue that's coming to the attention of Americans across the country. Sovereign wealth funds - during the debate last night, you expressed reservations for the recent investments by foreign-government controlled funds into U.S. companies like Citigroup, like Merrill Lynch. I wanted to ask you, was it wrong for Citigroup, where your supporter Bob Rubin works, of course, to take that money?

SEN. CLINTON: No, not at all. Look, I don't have any problem with these funds as long as they are transparent, as long as there are international rules for how they function. I raised the alarm about sovereign wealth funds some weeks ago because this is a new challenge we face. You know, when you have private investors who are basically disciplined by the market, that's a different kind of investment than if you have sovereign wealth funds that are basically an arm of a government. There are different strategic and national interests at work there.

And I just want to be sure that the IMF, the World Bank, the Fed, our government begin to say, look, we've got to have rules here. Now, these investments that are coming into, you know, a lot of the companies that I'm proud to represent in New York, you know, they're not going to upset the, you know, apple cart, so to speak. But think about what these kinds of investments will do in other countries. Think about what will happen as they grow in our own country. Think about what it means to have us indebted already because of our addiction to foreign oil, because of the reckless spending of the Bush years, going from a projected $5.6 trillion surplus to a $9 trillion debt.

Think about how it will begin to constrain us. You know, you cannot get tough with your banker. You cannot stand up if they have very different interests in the Middle East or in Asia than we do and they basically say, fine, you want us to dump dollars? Do you want us to pull our investments out? I want us to start thinking about this. The United States has never been in this position before. You know, we've got to have rules that are internationally accepted and enforced. And we've got to have some, you know, domestic rules about what it means to take these investments and how we, you know, control and constrain the effects that they might have, not only on individual institutions, but more broadly throughout our economy.

MR. COOK: All right. Well, Senator Clinton, we've got to leave it right there. Thanks very much for the time, for chatting with us from the campaign trail. We appreciate it and look forward to talking with you again as the election rolls on. And for now, I will send it back to Mike McKee in New York. Mike?

(END)

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Related Topics: clinton | economy | election 2008 | taxes |

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