Amen. Put your hands together as we celebrate in the house and give god all the praise and all the glory for what he is about to do in 2017 somebody america is great tonight on America History tv, american artifacts, visits to museums, archives and historic sites. Tonights lineup aircraft from world war i, Ellis Island Museum and history of africanamericans in congress. American history tv starts today at 8 00 on cspan3. Remarks now from jean sperling, economic adviser from president Clintons Campaign and president obamas handling of 2008 economic crisis was part of a recent wall street journal ceo and leaders forum. Thank you very much. Thank you, gene, for joining us. Playing cleanup, which given events a week ago has a particularly apt meaning for you tonight. No, thank you for being with us. Lets talk first, if we could, about this election. You were an adviser to the clinton campaign. As john said you were in the barack obama administration, key adviser on economics, policymaker and adviser economics. Youre an adviser on this clinton campaign. You heard Elizabeth Warren talk about the issues. I dont want to press you for a postmortem but what went wrong in this campaign. Why am i not talking to you now as the increases treasury secretary. I think there will be lots of considerations about campaign and strategy. I think we had an excellent person in hillary clinton. I think her misfortune and maybe our misfortune for progress i was is we had somebody who was perhaps extremely qualified vast experience at a moment in time that was not wings to fly but like a deep weight. I think my First Campaign was the Dukakis Campaign in 88. George her better walkers experience was very tough for us. It was like a positive thing, tough to overcome. For her, i think it made it harder to capture some of that anger and outrage that perhaps trump and Bernie Sanders were able to capture. Because she had been part of the incumbent administration. Because she had been there she was first lady, senator from new york, secretary of state. She had to have a delicate message, those believed she helped barack obama save the country from a depression. We were 016 now, 106 but people want to go to the super bowl and its not there. She had to be a change candidate and build off the legacy of this past president. Its difficult but having been involved in all this, i believe one should be very passionate about their values to me im in policy because i believe we should have a country where every child the accident of your birth should not determine the outcome of your life. Theres room for poor americans and immigrants and people to ri rise. And that working families can work and retire with dignity. Those are values but you have to have a lot of humility. One of the things on the line last tuesday was how disastrous the last years have been for Democratic Party across the country. You can measure it. They have lost half a dozen senate seats since 2008. They lost about 25 house seats. Republicans now have astonishing control of state houses and governorships across the country. They are in an extraordinary strong position. Whats gone wrong from 2008 where you took everything and seemed to be advancing across the country and now youre in a worse party than youve been for a generation in the party. That goes to we won twice but there were problems. I think Elizabeth Warren said earlier, yes, they won the Electoral College and thats how you win the presidency and they get to govern. But they are going to have a respectable popular vote loss. They lost spots to the house and senate. There are conflicting sources. I guess what i really feel in my heart is barack obama coming into a terrible financial crisis was no doubt a mixed blessing. It absolutely made it easier to win the presidency in 2008. But terrible financial crisis as others said, they are terrible in at least three ways that are very difficult. Number one, the degree of pain and suffering of people who lost their dreams, their houses, their savings, was terrible. Secondly, when you have recoveries after great financial crisis, you dont get the pent up demand 1984 america. You get people deleveraging. You get people deleveraging at the time you need the robust growth so you dont get longterm Unemployed People who never get back in. And then third, the remedies are almost inherently unpopular. You have to stabilize the 75 of the system, which is large financial institutions. You stabilize them to help little the average person, to help their savings. But that person still sees you stabilizing the people who look like theyre the culprits. And so you get yourself in a situation where you have to do what you have to do to save the economy. But it is not out of anybodys agenda for what is popular, and then it save the economy, but destroy the Democratic Party . No, i think it was, when you inherit a financial crisis like that, it does help you get reelected, but it does make it hard to completely meet the expectations of people when youre overcoming the type of i mean, look, it wasnt an average recession. It is the worst recession and crisis since the great depression. You didnt bounce back as quick. I think, you know, look, we could talk about other things. People got kind of stimulus fatigue. You know, if you want to know what was the chart we used to show barack obama, that would drive him absolutely crazy, we would say what would growth be in the economy in unemployment if state and local spending had been the same under your presidency as it had been in the bush and reagan recoveries . And it was devastating. I mean, look, private sector gdp has been 2. 6 . I mean, the reason why it is over 2 has been the contraction at state local levels. I think that showed a bit of the public tolerance for keynesian and two ways to look at it. No, you need to keep increasing demand, do more infrastructure, get people to work. Productivity has been very, very poor in this recovery. It has been one of the weakest weve had, private sector productivity is back at level it is hasnt been at since the 1970s, thats a reflection, again it is not an economic achievement of this administration. No, but i think the people are theres a lot of mystery about productivity now, whether its accounted for right. The fact that, you know, whether gps clearly makes us more productive but doesnt come into the gdp factor, so therefore cant be part of productivity. I do think a lot of us feel there were demand issues at the time we tried to get things back. To be fair, barack obama did try those things. You can say they are bad policies but you cant say he got to implement all of them. I think right now, many progressives are united, in that we need more full employment economies. You see a lot of us more janet yellen, would like to see more demand. Quite honestly, i think that is more pervasive even in the Business Community now who are hoping that donald trump actually succeeds in what has been the democratic agenda of a stronger more significant infrastructure boost into the economy. Why dont we ask the audience questions. Right here. Hi, im nick pincheck from snapon tools. You said about president clinton and about his focus on the middle class and promoting it. And you know, i would suggest that i just spent last week, you know, election week in iowa at a factory. From their perspective, its like this. If you look at the campaigns as the balance between priorities among social issues versus Economic Issues, they clearly sought a Democratic Campaign as prioritizing social issues, before their own economically based issues. Whereas they saw trump, you know, the other side, whatever they thought of him, as prioritizing jobs, and Economic Issues. Despite the fact that karl rove wrote books, middle class stupid, it almost seemed like the democratic agenda departed from bill clinton. So going forward, how do you see that playing out . Do you see the democratic agenda going back to emphasize Economic Issues over social issues . Or do you see them trying to double down on the social issues . You know, it is obviously, this whole week has obviously been very painful, and it is painful to hear you say that, because from our point of view and from her point of view, the economy was first. So i dont think that that is a i dont think that was the aspiration of the campaign. But you know, we will very to look at why that didnt break through. Maybe it is just the idiosyncratic nature of donald trump, kind of a once in a lifetime personality. We worked forever on a really Ambitious College plan, and it came out the day he was fighting with megyn kelly. And we just couldnt get any coverage. You mean, was that just bad luck . Was that our failure . I think that, i guess what i would say the focus was on the economy, stupid. The focus was on this is a little different than saying but we were trying to focus on an economic plan, a plan that aligned tax incentives and investments in what would create jobs on our shores what, would be good for the middle class and an infrastructure plan. People responded quite well. Even exit polls are very mixed on who they thought had the better economic policy. But as i said, you have to have humility and cant sit there and said we meant to do a, b, and c. If we failed, then we have to look at that for going forward. But i dont think it reflects that there was a conscious desire to not have it be an economy stupid campaign, because i can tell you that she that was her aim. If it didnt come through, that was more of a failure of execution than intent. Any other questions . Yes, right here. Mark from hyatt hotels. The first two Major Economic initiatives put on the table are infrastructure and tax relief. Or tax reform. First, what is your take on what has been indicated so far, and secondly, what level of congressional support amongst democrats do you think there will be for this, those two initiatives . Well, i think thats to be seen. Because they will try to do this as a reconciliation measure, which not to bore everybody, but it is a process by which you use a budget resolution to essentially only need 50 votes in the senate and obviously vicepresident pence can do the tie breaking vote. That creates the opportunity for donald trump and the republicans to pass a tax reform, and perhaps infrastructure bill, without any democrats. Now, you know, reconciliation is a complicated term, and you know, thats a possibility. Now, part of the question for them will be if you can do it, do you want to do that. And i think that if they want to pick up democrats, you know, theyre going to have to move off the vision thats going to there will have to be more focus on the progress of the tax package, on whether it is draining, you know, draining our fiscal situation for tax relief, that is you know, going mostly to upper income americans. They have this challenge even in the campaign, which is on the republican side, you know, there is a lot of pressure when they cut the corporate rate to cut the passthrough rate to the same level. We all know that probably everybody would be for that, if every passthrough was the owner of a hardware store. As we know, passthrough income is every Corporate Law partner, hedge fund manager, every consultant. You know, and most for a lot of people, thats going to be just a back doorway of lowering taxes for the most well off. So i think, you know, when people have when people have both the white house and the house and senate, they tend to go tend to look at it as their moment and sometimes overreach a bit and theyll have to be careful. I would say this to people in terms of Corporate Tax reform. You know, obviously as part of president obamas team, we were engaged in that process. We do believe that our current process is irrational, and that you want something that is simple, more fair. And encourages more job creation here, and has your brilliant cfos spending more time helping you create new products as opposed to International Tax arbitration. We kind of agree with that. But i think that people will judge this a lot in the end as how aligned those benefits are with the kind of job creation, and investment impact. And in 2004, when there was a repatriation holiday, which lots of democrats voted for, and george bush signed, the analysis was fairly clear. Almost unambiguous, almost 90 plus percent of the money brought back was used for dividends, stock buybacks, stock buybacks that will raise the compensation of executives, et cetera, and if people look at the end, and they say they did tax reform and led to this rising tide and helped workers, but if it looks like boy, this was just something where they were able to do whatever they want, because democrats didnt control anything, and this was just, i guess, what Elizabeth Warren would call a wet kiss to elites, then it will backfire. So i think when you have the privilege of having the whole government, you know, again, you know, be interesting to see whether you run the table, or you realize that it might actually be in your longterm benefit to try to buy more support from progressives. Thanks very much for joining us, coming all the way from california to do so. Before i turn it back to jerry, just a couple of quick housekeeping notes ive been asked to remind you folks. Anybody who decided to go to the sponsor dinner tonight. The shuttle leaves at 6 15. At the french ambassadors residence. Theres a couple more seats left if some of you folks want to join. Ill see you may 16 at the tokyo house hotel. Thank you very much. Thank you. [ applause ] i think the toughest job in the world is being the losing quarterback in the super bowl and having to do the press conference after ward. That concludes this wall street journal ceo council. Thank you for coming. A particular thank you to our team who worked so hard to make this such a great event. Make it go so smoothly. Particularly, as you can probably tell from the agenda, we had to scramble pretty hard to make sure that we had an appropriate, relevant topic on the agenda for you to enjoy. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you very much for coming. Reminder, these sessions and the discussions will be published in a special report in the wall street journal next tuesday. I want to thank our sponsors. Thank you very much. It wouldnt be responsible without your support. Please share your thoughts. Well be sending a short survey tomorrow morning. And just to elaborate a little more on what john said. As ceo council members, youre invited to a number of events. The ceo Council Lunch in dabos. Dinner with the wall street journal in menlo park. One in chicago on may 16th. Well beholding our first annual ceo Council Meeting may 16th in tokyo with senior asian officials, ceos, experts, and others. Of course, next years annual meeting will be back here next november after such it wont be after such a monumentous election. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us. Please join us outside now for cocktails. Thank you. This Holiday Weekend on cspan here are some of the featured programs. On saturday well take a look at farewell speeches and tributes for outgoing members of congress and the white