Former President Bill Clinton should be tapped to help the Trump administration hammer out national education and welfare reform, veteran economist Larry Kudlow, who advised Donald Trump's presidential campaign, told Newsmax TV.
Kudlow, a CNBC senior correspondent, said Clinton could help tweak Budget Director Mick Mulvaney's ideas about moving people from welfare to workfare and the belief of Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and his assistant, that four-year colleges might not be for everybody.
"[There are] vocational schools for technology and trade and fixing things and working with local companies," Kudlow told host Steve Malzberg. "We have one going on, oddly enough, in the diocese of Fairfield Bridgeport in Connecticut. We're doing a vocational training program with local businesses. This is terrific stuff.
"You train them, and you're going to have to add to that some brand new welfare reforms and eligibility to move people off welfare to workfare.
"I suggested when I was in the West Wing last week . . . to [Trump's] top people, why not put a call to Bill Clinton and say 'look, Mr. President, we are in effect going to continue the work you and [former House Speaker] Newt Gingrich did 20 plus years ago because the system needs to be re-reformed. It's falling apart."
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Kudlow said he believes Clinton would be "quite interested in lending a word or even a hand on that, so I'm totally for it. You know what it is? It's pro-growth. You know what I mean? We need more people working. This is a great way to do it. It's not a punishing way; it's a helping way."
"Give Bill Clinton credit . . . John F. Kennedy cut taxes first. A Democrat. Bill Clinton was a leader in welfare reform with Newt and the Republican Congress.
"They worked together. It was a path-breaking bill and contrary to what the naysayers said on both the left and the right millions of people went back to work. Instead of dying in the streets, they went back to work. Abled body men and women could go back to work."
Kudlow is the author of "JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity," written with Brian Domitrovic and published by Portfolio.
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