Transcripts For CSPAN Newsmakers 20150111 : vimarsana.com

They would interfere with somebody else. Id hesitate to tell you how much more efficient it would be because you would laugh me out of this room, but were talking not about tens of times of improvement, or hundreds or thousands, but millions of time improvement, and thats not as crazy as it sounds because from the time of marconi until now, we are a trillion times more efficient than we were in mar coneys time. So the thought of being a billion times more efficient in the next 20 or 30 years is not as crazy as it sounds. Monday night at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan 2. Thanks so much for being with us on cspan. Its great to be with you. Christina peterson of the wall street journal and rebecca shavad. Congressman, i want to begin with the scenes were seeing in paris today as the unity march continues. Well over a Million People expected to pay their respects to those who were killed in the acts of terror last week, and i mention that because congress is about to debate the future funding of the department of Homeland Security. Do the events in paris change the dynamics in that debate . Well, steve, first, let me say, all of our hearts go out to the people of france, and as president obama has said, were going to be working very closely with them to continue to track down the terror cells that may have been responsible for those attacks. We had good cooperation with the french. Look, it would be a bad idea for anybody to play politics with the department of Homeland Security appropriations bills. It would be bad any time. Its especially i think a bad signal now to do that, and so i really hope our republican colleagues will not tie down that department of Homeland Security bill with other kinds of amendments. Unfortunately, by all accounts, it looks like that is what theyre planning to do this week. So specifically, what are you expecting. Well, my understanding is that theyre going to be having amendments that would essentially deny funding for the department of Homeland Security unless the president works back his recent executive order that prioritizes the deportment of felons over families, and i understand theyre also going to be operating them and essentially undoes the provisions with respect to dreamers, young people who are brought here through no fault of their own. So if they try and load it up with those kind of amendments and say that theyre not going to fund the department of Homeland Security unless those things are a part of it, that will obviously create a big problem. Now, i doubt the senate will adopt those positions and then our republican colleagues will have to decide whether they want to shut down the whole department of Homeland Security until they get those provisions and i certainly hope they back off on where theyre headed right now. One other followup, what is your biggest concern and what is the republican end game with all of this, at least House Republicans . Thats a very good question. We saw on opening day a largerthanexpected number of Tea Party Republicans vote against Speaker Boehner, so we know that there is certainly a big group in their caucus, a lot bigger than those 24, who are very responsive to sort of cheap party sentiment when it comes to Immigration Reform. So i dont know how its going to play out. I can only tell you how i hope it will play out, which is that House Republicans dont try to hold up department of Homeland Security funding, that helps protect our country and address the kind of issues that are being faced in france right now. I hope they will not do that. And i hope they wont play politics in that way. Lets see how it unfolds. I hope more sober heads will prevail in the end. And lets turn you to our two reporters who cover congress, Christina Peterson of the wall street journal. Congressman, the vote for House Speaker boehners third term, what does that suggest could play out for you later in the budget process . What do those internal divisions suggest are coming down the road . Well, it suggests that the thinking that has been, you know, in some quarters that somehow, Speaker Boehner was going to have, you know, more flexibility in this congress to reach toward the center and put together compromises for the good of the country. That may not be the case, unless hes really willing to stand up and stare those groups down. What we were just talking about with respect to Homeland Security amendments suggests these not willing to stare down those parts of the caucus, that hes willing to allow these amendments to go forward in a way that could end up jeopardizing the entire Homeland Security bill when, in fact, what should be doing is what Speaker Boehner said they were going to do almost a year ago, which is move forward on their Immigration Reform legislation. I mean, that is the appropriate response to addressing this issue, if you have differences with the president. And when youre talking about the budget its really a good question and i dont know how this will play out. I expect the House Republicans to come up with a budget very much like their old budget which provides for, you know cuts and tax rates for the very wealthy, and on opening day, as you know, they tried to change the house rules to make it easier to provide tax cuts for the wealthy as part of their trickledown Economic Strategy which crashed and burned in 2008. So that appears to be the direction theyre headed once again when it comes to their budget. If they do tack to the right on budget issues, you would have the same phenomena of it being hard to pass a bill like that in the senate, right . Is there a chance they wouldnt be able to get a budget through both chambers . I know you only need a simple majority in the senate, but could that be tough with so many republicans up for reelection and what would that forfeit if they cant . Youre raising a question that is on all of our minds which is now that republicans are in the majority in the senate, the burden is on them to govern, and theyve had this House Republican budget put forward by paul ryan, which as i said, provides tax cuts for folks at the very top of the income ladder for millionaires but dramatic cuts in investment and things like science and research and infrastructure, and by the way, dramatically hurts many of the programs like medicare and medicaid from our perspective. How will that play in the Republican Senate . And if the republicans in the senate back off of that, what are republicans saying to their constituents, because when they were in the majority in the house, they said this is what weve got to do. Weve got to pass this budget. If theyre in a position to govern now, and are they going to back off and say, we were just kidding and not pursue that . It will be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out. I should say, House Democrats will have the alternative budget and the president s budget will be arriving in the next couple of months, and so this is going to be a really important debate for the country on Economic Policy and Economic Strategy Going Forward. Rebecca shabat from the hill newspaper and the hill. Com. Congressman, if the republicans are able to strike a budget resolution, Top Republicans have talked about using the reconciliation process to either repeal or roll back parts of obama care. Which option do you think is more viable for the republicans . Well, and this is a debate going on of course within the Republican Party right now. In the house just last week, we saw republicans vote to roll back a particular provision of the Affordable Care act which according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, would add 56 billion to the deficit. I dont know what republicans are going to do. I really hope theyll end up where the American People are, which is, for goodness sakes, lets not get rid of the Affordable Care act. It is working more, and more and more americans are being insured. Everyone has seen all the recent numbers and we all know at the end of the day, that effort wont go anywhere because the president will veto it. If they have constructive ideas to fix specific provisions in a way thats not harmful, then weve always said we would consider them. But yeah republicans are going to have this big internal debate about where to go on the Affordable Care act and again, thats one of the Big Questions on our minds. I just hope that we dont have like the 55th vote to repeal the Affordable Care act. Theyve always said they wanted to repeal and replace, that theyve come up with an alternative. To this day, weve never seen any alternative. Another issue tied to the budget process is sequestration and in october, the sequestration budget caps are set to return unless those caps are raised or they do Something Else to it. Congressman tom price, the new chairman of the house Budget Committee, he has proposed possibly eliminating the firewall between the defense and nondefense sides, to shift funding from the nondefense side to the pentagon. What do you think about that proposal . Do you think that thats more likely . Do you think the caps will be raised . What do you think will happen . Well, i think that particular proposal is a nonstarter. Its a nonstarter with democrats in the house and with the white house. I think anybody whos looking at our budget recognizes that after the very deep cuts to both defense and nondefense, theyre going to have to be some changes Going Forward, and that means that as we if were going to be restoring some investment in the department of defense, we should also look at places like the National Institutes of health, which does medical research on diseases that impact every american family, cancer, diabetes Heart Disease they have been seeing a reduction in funds in real terms, and those investments provide real returns for the American People, both in terms of better health, but also for our economy. So we need to look at this as a whole, defense spending, but also the nondefense spending, investments and things like education. So that will be part of a conversation Going Forward. But i dont think were going to have it just one way or the other when it comes to dealing with those caps. Back to Kristina Peterson of the wall street journal. Congressman, after you had that budget conversation, has it affected the recent economic improvements weve been seeing, does it make it easier for the republicans to argue that the economy can with stand some reduction in spending and could potentially benefit from that . Well, i think what weve seen is that the actions that the president and the Congress Took in response to the economic crisis have, over time, improved. Weve seen a Record Number of consecutive months of private sector job growth, and so i think the real focus of conversation right now should be, what are we going to do about the continuing stagnant wages, right . Jobs are coming back. The economy is growing. The stock market is way up. But real wages for most americans have remained stuck, which is why on the opening day of congress, i proposed a piece of legislation that says that, you know, corporations shouldnt be able to deduct ceo bonuses and performance pay over a Million Dollars unless theyre also giving their employees a raise, right . I mean, why should they get a deduction for their big bonuses if theyre not also giving a fair shake to their employees . Unfortunately, my republican colleagues voted against that, but those are the kinds of things i think we should focus on. What can we do to make sure that more americans are benefitting from what seems to be now a greater and greater Economic Growth. Congressman, you know the president friday in knoxville, tennessee, proposing a new plan that would provide Free Education for those who wanted to attend Community Colleges to get them on the path to a college degree. Is there any appetite in congress to support this plan that would be funded 75 by the federal government and 25 by the states . Well, i certainly hope so, because we know one of the things that can lead to higher paychecks over a lifetime is getting the education, the skills, and the training that people need. And so i hope we will do that, because the costs of Community College are a barrier to many people getting that training getting those skills. Tomorrow, im going to be delivering a speech at the center for American Progress on exactly the subject were talking about right now. How do we deal in a comprehensive and integrative fashion with the issue of middle class and minimum wage squeeze, its a problem thats gone over the last couple of decades. We really need an Economic Strategy to deal with that, and just another round of tax rate cuts for millionaires is not going to do it. We saw how that failed when it was tried last. How do you pay for . How do you pay for, im sorry, for what . The free Community College education. You pay for it as we have other items in the president s budget, which is eliminating some of the special interest tax breaks that have gotten into the code because people have very highpriced lobbyists who get special deals. You know, when you get a special tax break, what it means is you pay less and everybody else pays more. So, for example, one of the other things we offered on opening day was to say lets address the coming shortfall in the National Transportation trust fund, right. This may its going to start going insolvent. So we proposed that we end these corporate inversions, these maneuvers by some corporations where they simply change their address to overseas, to avoid paying their taxes here in the United States, which means more people here in the United States have to pay taxes. And we would use those funds to invest in modernizing our national infrastructure, our roads and bridges. Those are the kind of things you can do also to invest in this Community College plan. Congressman, you know the republicans are kind of debating whether or not to replace doug almandorf, the director of the c. B. O. You talked about that earlier and described it as trickledown economics. What do you think will ultimately happen with almandorf and what do you think is the argument for replacing him as far as the republicans go . Well, the congressional budget office, in order to maintain its credibility and stature stature has to be a nonpartisan organization. Doug almandorf i think has steered that nonpartisan course very well. And its not just my opinion. Its the opinion of lots of republicans, both economics and republican economists around the country. It appears republicans in Congress Want to replace him, which is their right, i just hope they bring in somebody of dougs stature with that nonpartisan approach. The fact that on opening day, they changed the rules of the house to try to make it easier to enact these tax cuts for the very wealthy, and implement what has been in the past a failed trickle down strategy on the economy. The fact that they did that gives me great concern because in the process Going Forward, in order to try to disguise the Deficit Impact for another round of tax cuts for the very wealthy, which by the way, only resulted in the people doing well, doing even better, leaving everybody stuck with the flat wages, the deficit has come way up. On the bills that have focused on improving the middle classs economic status, you know, thats a lot of what we heard from democrats over the last two years, and House Democrats now have their smallest minority in the house in decades. Why is this still a good strategy to stick with . Oh, listen, i think that the American People have this issue on their minds front and center. And i think its really important that we communicate a very specific strategy, right. Words are not enough. You need to back up the words about empowering the middle class and dealing with middle class squeeze with an agenda. Now, democrats have put forward a number of proposals already dealing with relieving Student Loan Debt so students can get started in life without a huge debt hanging over their heads. Weve proposed a number of things like equal pay for equal work, so women are getting a fair shake. I think thats a good foundation, but as i indicated tomorrow, im going to be giving a speech where im going to lay out i think some pretty significant proposals for discussion, which i hope, you know, democrats and republicans together will debate that are aimed at getting exactly at what were talking about here. And by the way, that bill i mentioned earlier that provides an incentive for corporations to give their employees wages if the ceos are getting big bonuses, is that kind of legislation. It says taxpayers shouldnt be providing this deduction, the corporate ceos for bonuses and performance pay if their employees arent getting a fair shake in terms of higher wages. So those are the kind of things we should be focused on and i enjoyed hearing Speaker Boehner on opening day say that we need to deal with flat wages. What i didnt enjoy was after hearing him say that, he voted against a measure that would have been able to address that issue. On cspans newsmaker program, representative chris von hollen. Dr. Shabat. Congressman, over the next two years, many are going to be focused on the 2016 president ial election. How do you think that race will affect the republicans approach to the budget process . Do you think itll play a little more moderately, or do you think theyll take the extreme . Well, again, these are the kind of things all of us are watching. As you know in republican primaries, a lot of the Political Energy is on the tea party writing. And so the question is whether or not a lot of their candidates will head in that direction. So, for example, on immigration in the last president ial election, mitt romney ran way to the right, right. He was talking about self deportation and he did not have any plan to deal with Immigration Reform in a comprehensive way. I dont know what will happen on that issue or on the budget issues as we go into the next president ial round. I think were already seeing on the republican side a great mix of views, and then the question is, how does that mix of views play out in the primary . And as we talked about earlier, a change in the leadership of the committee you served on as the ranking democrat with paul ryan now over weighs and means, and your relationship with congressman price, whats going to change in terms of the committee, its agenda, and your own personal relationship with the chairman . Well, i had a very good working relationship with paul ryan, and i hope to forge that kind of relationship with tom price. That obviously does not mean were going to agree on all these budget issues, but i hope it means that the Budget Committee will continue to conduct itself in a professional way, meaning that we had sharp debates but civil debates. With respect to the substance of the budget, you know, i expect it to be very similar to the old republican budget, which, again, provides those tax breaks for folks at the very top. Which, by the way, if you do it in a deficitneutral manner, the way they claim they want to do, according to the nonpartisan tax policy center, would actually increase the tax burden on middle class families. And while theyre doing that, theyre cutting our investments in things like education and infrastructure components as well as science and research to 40 below the lowest levels or percent of the economy that weve seen since the eisenhower administration. So you take the lowest level of investment as a percent of the economy since the eisenhower administration, cut it 40 below that. That is a recipe for American Economic decline. Weve helped our economy by investing in our education, by investing in our infrastructure and by investing in innovation and scientific research. It would be a huge mistake to have a budget that once again tries trickle down by cutting tax rates for folks at the top, while also cutting investments that help power our economy and help people climb that ladder of opportunity. Congressman, perhaps not on the budget resolution, but is there any other area that you think you and congressman price might agree . Any policy change we might see coming from the two of you . Well, what i hope we can do is tackle this issue of the looming shortfall in the Transportation Trust fund. As i indicated, as soon as may, the month of may, theres less revenue coming into that trust fund and it is necessary just to keep the investments at current levels, and we are already seeing the impact of infrastructure and disrepair throughout our country, our roads, our bridges, our transitways. We should also be updating our broad band and modernizing and extending that. But when it comes to our Infrastructure Trust fund, were going to have to come together and have a funding mechanism. Now, if our republican colleagues are going to reject our proposal as they did in opening day, which would close down some of these corporate loop holes that encourage companies to move overseas right. They didnt want to close down the corporate inversion loop hole, which would have raised money to fix the trust fund for at least two years, they dont want to do that, i hope tom and i can come together on a mechanism to fund the trust fund and make sure we have an opportunity to modernize our infrastructure before we become one giant pothole. So is the goal here to try to do a longterm extension, something along the lines of five years, and is there talk of a way to pay for this . I know theres been some chatter about the gas tax this week, but Speaker Boehner did say that he was opposed to that. Well, thats exactly right. We need to put our transportation funding on a longterm basis, because when youre going, you know just monthtomonth, what it means is that people who are planning projects around the country, whether its roads or bridges or rail or transit, whatever it may be they dont have the confidence of making those long term plans. So we need a fouryear plan. The president s budget and the budget that House Democrats proposed last year did that, as i said, by closing down a whole number of these tax breaks to actually encourage American Companies to move jobs and investment overseas. We wanted to end those perverse incentives and use the savings at home. If tom price and the republicans dont want to take that approach, i hope theyll put Something Else on the table. We should have a bipartisan discussion about the issue of a gas tax increase. It hasnt been increased since the early 1990s. But republicans need to be willing to participate in that conversation in a bipartisan way, and not play politics with it. But again, our preferred approach we put on the table. Closing Corporate Tax breaks that leave lead companies to go overseas. Lets come together with a plan, for goodness sakes. Another debate youll have this year is over the debt ceiling and raising it. Congressman price brought up a few weeks ago, suggested the idea of revising the boehner rule, which would result in every increase in the ceiling, would be matched with a decrease in discretionary funding. Im assuming you wouldnt be for that. Do you think that this could possibly lead to a showdown between republicans in congress and president obama . Well, i really thought wed gotten over using the debt ceiling as a political weapon because it has such devastating economic consequences. The consequences of a Government Shutdown are very disruptive and bad for the economy. But the consequence of the United States defaulting the debt obligations would be catastrophic catastrophic. And you know, mitch mcconnell, when he was elected republican leader, said that republicans arent going to do that again. So i hope tom price will at least in this instance listen to what senator mcconnell has to say. That would create a huge amount of disruption in the economy. And let me ask you a question, in maryland political circles that you could potentially be a candidate for governor in four years. My question is, what is your long term goal . Do you want to stay in congress . Would you like to seek Elective Office in maryland as governor . Whats in your future . Well, steve, im enjoying my responsibilities right now as the senior democrat, the ranking democrat on the Budget Committee, and that is my focus. Ive been spending many months actually preparing this plan, this strategy that im going to be talking about tomorrow at the center for American Progress. And i hope that that will become at least something for our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to debate Going Forward because i think the fundamental challenge that weve got in this country is to grow our economy, make sure we sharpen our competitive edge, but do it in a way where we have more broadly shared prosperity and i think, you know, Congress Needs to act on that, and i hope to continue to be part of that discussion and maybe take it to another level. So can you get more done in congress or in the Governors Office . Well, you can certainly you can get things done in congress if you have a willingness on all sides to Work Together which continues to be my goal. But obviously, the governorship in maryland is a its a great position. Its a very strong governorship. It has strong executive powers under the maryland constitution. So ive been you know, ive been flattered by the approaches ive gotten with respect to running for governor in maryland, but i do want to give this Current Governor who just got elected, lets give him a chance. Lets see what he comes up with and i think all of us need to be at least for now making sure that maryland moves forward, those of us in maryland, and in congress, we need to be working to make sure the government moves forward. By the way, weve got a lot of International Global economic challenges. Weve got to make sure that more americans are benefitting from Economic Growth Going Forward. That is the economic challenge of the day. Congressman Chris Van Hollen from marylands eighth Congressional District and the ranking democrat on the house Budget Committee. Congressman, thank you for being with us. Thank you. Its great for being with all of you. Rebecca shabad, i want to follow up on the last comment he made republicans cant be scary moving ahead. How does the gop govern . You know, its a question that were all looking at right now. Obviously, the republicans in the house, we saw it with the vote for speaker and with the omnibus debate in the late house session. Its hard to determine how the republicans will agree on the same terms, especially in the