The title "Back to Work" refers to policies after 9/11 and after the Great Recession to get the economy to fully recover. The book did not anticipate the rise of Donald Trump -- it is written to counter the Republican Party's "normal" Great Recession response, mostly with Clintonian policies like economic stimulus and fiscal responsibility. Clinton notes that, had his 1990s policies been followed under George W. Bush's presidency, the Great Recession would have started off with much less debt, and the entire U.S. national debt would have been paid off by 2020 (for the first time since the 1800s). That argument would have been effective in a 2016 campaign against, say, Jeb Bush, who most pundits would have guessed as a frontrunner for 2016, at the time of this book.

The book is also written with a possible Tea Party candidate in mind -- just not one as anti-establishment as Trump. Clinton points out that the Tea Party early on supported paying off the national debt. Clinton addresses the "anti-government" attitude in chapter 5, but in a Tea Party context, which at the time seemed nihilistic and extremist, but in the Trump era, seems benign and moderate in retrospect. Some highlights of that chapter and others:

• Chapter 5: Clinton explores "anti-government governance" vs. "investments" in social programs and infrastructure. Clinton's Cabinet invented the concept of labeling as "investments" all stimulus spending. Clinton cites an example from Singapore, where the government "invested" $3 billion to initiate a biotech center there (which Republicans might call "picking winners and losers").

• Chapter 4: Clinton contrasts the larger differences in philosophy, with the Reagan-Bush-Bush team favoring "You're on your own" to the Clinton-Obama-Clinton team favoring ""We're all in this together."

• 2010 Election: Clinton analyses the Democratic loss of majority control of Congress in the 2010 election, which sounds very dated now, but it's the same analysis as for the 2018 Republican loss of majority control of Congress, and all the same themes as for Hillary in 2016. Bill Clinton's approach is as a "senior statesman" -- a detached observer who has seen it all -- even though in reality he was not entirely detached.

• Chapter 4: Clinton discusses the need for Social Security Trust Fund reforms to pay for the coming baby boom retirement cycle, and notes that Americans accepted higher tax rates in the 1990s because they were satisfied with overall economic growth and with federal investments.

• Chapter 6: In the "senior stateman" role, Clinton classifies types of recessions: those cause by low points in the business cycle take only a couple of years to recover from. But those cause by financial crises, such as the Great Recession begun in 2008, typically require 5 to 10 years for full recuperation.

-- Jesse Gordon, OnTheIssues editor-in-chief, July 2019

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• Bill Clinton