Clinton, Dells work on global initiative

Dell World

have a country that grows younger still,” he told the audience of about 5,000.

“Crazy things will happen in the world and politicians will do dumb things,” he said. “Bad things will continue to happen, but on balance, I think the world is headed in the right direction.”

One of the big challenges ahead is fixing the broken federal budget process and whittling down the nation’s deficit spending. Clinton said he expects there will be a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, either late this month or early in January.

Part of the key of a spending deal, he said, will be to avoid drastic cuts in federal spending on education, science and technology research, because those are tied to the nation’s future growth.

There is an expanding relationship between would push the economy into a recession.

The two sides have traded proposals for an alternative budget deal. Obama has called for $1.4 trillion in new revenue over 10 years, partly by raising taxes on the wealthiest two percent of taxpayers. He has also recommended $400 billion in spending cuts over a decade.

House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, has offered $800 billion in new revenue and is calling for $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. House Republicans want to raise the revenue by closing loopholes rather than raising tax rates, as Obama is demanding.

The government has run annual deficits for more than a decade and Clinton’s ambitious nonprofit group, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.

That foundation is sponsoring the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative University, which helps train young leaders from many countries. The 2013 event is at Washington University in St. Louis in April and the foundation will support the entrepreneurship theme of the event.

The Clinton Global Initiative was created in 2005 to gather global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. CGI members have made long-term commitments to support a range of projects in more than 180 countries. Taken together, those commitments are valued at more than $73 billion when they become fully funded. hit a record $1.41 trillion in 2009, Obama’s first year in office. That was largely because of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Tax revenue plummeted during the downturn, while the government spent more on stimulus programs.

The budget gaps in 2010 and 2011 were slightly lower than the 2009 deficit as a gradually strengthening economy generated more tax revenue.

President George W. Bush also ran annual deficits through most of his two terms in office after he won approval for broad tax cuts and launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The last time the government ran an annual surplus was in 2001.