Bill Clinton: “Well, I think that--let me repeat, there are two things at work here. In any given month, military downsizing--and keep…”

“Well, I think that--let me repeat, there are two things at work here. In any given month, military downsizing--and keep in mind, these decisions we're announcing today will have an impact on the economy a year and a half, 2 years from now, some of them even longer than that, some of them 3 years from now, the base closing commission's recommendations today. So we're giving some advance planning time on that. The military cutbacks that are manifesting themselves in this unemployment rate were based on decisions made a couple of years ago. Again, I will say you've got two things at work there. Because of the size of the deficit, we are not reinvesting as much as I think we should be reinvesting to generate jobs here at home. But the larger problem is that two-thirds of our jobs in the last 5 years have been generated, or new jobs, have been generated through exports. And with Europe down and Japan down--we've got Europe with the lowest economic growth in 20 years and Japan with the lowest economic growth in longer than that, more than three decades. That's why I'm going to the G-7. Because if we don't find a way for all of us to do things together, it's going to be difficult to sustain jobs. Now, notwithstanding, the country has produced a substantial number of new jobs in the first 5 months of this year. We're so far behind in coming out of the recession that it's going to be difficult to do unless we can have a global strategy of growth so we can start getting some jobs out of exports again.”