President Bill Clinton gives us his views on the challenges facing the United States today and why government matters—presenting his ideas on restoring economic growth, job creation, financial responsibility, resolving the mortgage crisis, and pursuing a strategy to get us "back in the future business.” He explains how we got into the current economic crisis, and offers specific recommendations on how we can put people back to work, increase bank lending and corporate investment, double our exports, restore our manufacturing base, and create new businesses. He supports President Obama’s emphasis on green technology, saying that changing the way we produce and consume energy is the strategy most likely to spark a fast-growing economy while enhancing our national security.

Clinton also stresses that we need a strong private sector and a smart government working together to restore prosperity and progress, demonstrating that whenever we’ve given in to the temptation to blame government for all our problems, we’ve lost our ability to produce sustained economic growth and shared prosperity.

Clinton writes, “There is simply no evidence that we can succeed in the twenty-first century with an antigovernment strategy,” based on “a philosophy grounded in ‘you’re on your own’ rather than ‘we’re all in this together.’ ” He believes that conflict between government and the private sector has proved to be good politics but has produced bad policies, giving us a weak economy with not enough jobs, growing income inequality and poverty, and a decline in our competitive position. In the real world, cooperation works much better than conflict, and “Americans need victories in real life.”

美國第42任總統。在剋林頓的執政下，美國經曆瞭曆史上持續時間最長的一次經濟發展，經濟實力大為發展。離開白宮之後，剋林頓總統建立瞭剋林頓基金會，旨在強化美國以及世界其他國傢和地區的人民應對全球化背景下相互依存度提高帶來的挑戰。他還創立瞭剋林頓全球倡議組織，匯集全球領導人，為解決世界上最迫切的問題而共同製定、實施創新性的方案，他曾是聯閤國海嘯救災特使，現在是聯閤國海地問題特使。