MSNBC "Hardball With Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "Hardball With Chris Matthews" - Transcript

MSNBC "HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS" INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI) AND SENATOR CHRISTOPHER BOND (R-MO)

INTERVIEWER: CHRIS MATTHEWS

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MR. MATTHEWS: We begin with the debate over the stimulus plan with Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri.

Gentlemen, let's hear -- here's President Obama yesterday with NBC's Matt Lauer.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From videotape.) I've done extraordinary outreach, I think, to Republicans because they have some good ideas, and I want to make sure that those ideas are incorporated. I am confident that by the time we actually have the final package on the floor that we are going to see substantial support and people are going to say this is a serious effort. It has no earmarks. We're going to be trimming out things that are not relevant to putting people back to work right now.

MR. MATTHEWS: And here's Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell reacting to what the president said. Here he is today.

SENATE MINORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): (From videotape.) I couldn't agree more. That's exactly where we need to end up. Of course, that's not where we are right now. We believe, the Republicans, that a stimulus bill must fix the main problem first, and that's housing. That's how all of this began. We think you ought to go right at housing first.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, that's the great question. Senator Whitehouse, you're a Democrat, and this house of cards economically is falling all over us. People are losing their jobs right and left; 401(k)s are now 201(k)s and shrinking. And the question is -- I think it's raised by McConnell of Kentucky -- why not start with the housing crisis, the foreclosures, the problem people had of buying houses they can't afford, which led to this whole problem? Why not fix that first?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Well, I think we have three problems going on. We've got a significant problem in the financial sector. And the president, by asking for the second section of the TARP money and by promising to clean up the way that money is delivered, is addressing that.

The second is the economic meltdown with people losing jobs, and so they're not buying, and so factories are laying off, and you've got that cycle going. This is designed to address that cycle. I think that's a very important cycle.

The third one is the housing cycle, which has also, you know, spun negative as housing values decline, dragging down other housing values. But to a certain extent, I think we've got to do this one at a time. This is where the president chose to start. It affects people all over this country who are losing their jobs. It affects the underlying strength of our economy. And I think, frankly, we're in the right place to start with this. We do have to address housing. We do have to address it soon. But I think we need to pass this piece of legislation sooner.

MR. MATTHEWS: Senator Bond, your leader says start with housing if you're going to get the stimulus package to pass and to work. What do you say?

SEN. BOND: First, on this stimulus package that the Democrats have drafted, it stimulates the debt, it stimulates the growth of government jobs, and it doesn't stimulate the economy. When I look at this bill, I feel much like the mosquito in a nudist colony. There are so many targets, I don't know where to start. It does drive up the debt.

There are a tremendous number of things that are spending on Democratic priorities, but only about 6 percent is on infrastructure, where there are shovel-ready projects. And we do need to address the credit crisis and housing. And I believe that there's not anything significant in this bill, nor do I think the TARP alone is going to fix the housing or the financial crisis.

MR. MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Senator Whitehouse, how do you explain -- because I think the president has yet to do this -- how the almost trillion dollars in the stimulus package leads to a re- excitement of our economic -- our economy? It gets the American economy rolling again and creating jobs and getting people to invest and to spend money. How does it -- do you actually see how this works? Can you imagine all the elements in this spending plan adding up to a recovery of our economy? Do you see it --

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: I think --

MR. MATTHEWS: -- the connection?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: I think we're probably going to need to do more before it's over. I think that this is an important down payment on economic recovery, and it does it in three ways. First, there's an enormous amount of infrastructure work in here, and it's infrastructure that we need. We came into this administration with an infrastructure deficit. We need to rebuild America in many different dimensions, and this bill does that in important ways.

It also contains significant tax cuts, ones that the American public voted for when they elected President Obama to lead our country. And third, it helps families who are suffering as a result of the changes, economic changes that we're going through, things like extending unemployment benefits and helping support the Medicaid program. This is basic humanitarian necessity. And I think it's appropriate. I think it's necessary. It may be too little.

And I think the idea that it's going to be a problem for the deficit is -- I mean, it's almost ironic to hear my Republican friends discussing this, because they ran up $7.7 trillion in relative debt off of the Clinton years during the Bush administration when times were good and they could have been setting it aside. Now we're spending, what, one-seventh of that at a time of real economic crisis, and now they've discovered that deficit spending is a problem? It seems very unlikely.

MR. MATTHEWS: But you admit that it may not do the job.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: My personal feeling is that more will be required. But this is an important down payment to start turning it around. If we don't do it, every responsible economist that we have heard from tells us that we are headed for a really significant economic crisis. And --

MR. MATTHEWS: But --

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: Go ahead.

MR. MATTHEWS: But you say adding a trillion dollars to the national debt over the next two or three years may not work, and yet it will add to the debt. So you know for sure it's going to create more of a debt problem, but you're not sure it's going to create a demand for more goods and services and get people working again.

But you do know the bad part.

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: No, it'll definitely do that, Chris. It will definitely do that. The question is, will it do enough of that? It is definitely good stimulus. It is good economic recovery. But is it enough, given the depth of the negative spiral we've turned into? I can't say that this is enough. I can't say that we won't have to come back and do more. But it is the right thing, and it will help Americans.

MR. MATTHEWS: On the other hand, Senator Bond, you voted for a big measure coming out of Appropriations. Why did you vote for it, a big part of this program, and now you seem skeptical?

SEN. BOND: I voted for it simply to move it to the floor, because the Republicans were totally shut out on both the House and the Senate side from having anything to do with it. The best chance we had -- as I stated when I voted for it, I do not approve it. I do not approve of it. I'm hoping we can do massive surgery on it.

There's over 90 percent of that bill that doesn't have anything to do with infrastructure, with the stimulus, with things that are going to happen today, that can happen in 2009. We tried having a one-time rebate last year, and frankly it had no impact on the economy. It showed a slight blip and the economy continued to go down.

Tax cuts, to the extent we include them, for small business and for working families should be done in a modest manner that will continue and give small businesses the opportunity to plan for making productive investments to put more people to work.

This bill has, for example, $265 million for Hollywood producers. Now, folks in Missouri, if you look at those and many, many other things like that, will say, "This is not where we ought to be spending our money." To talk about the debt, we've run up a debt getting out of the 2001 credit bubble, fighting a war that was necessary to keep our country safe from the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.

MR. MATTHEWS: Right.

SEN. BOND: We need to get --

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, that's an argument you made.

SEN. BOND: Yeah, that's --

MR. MATTHEWS: A lot of people -- most Americans don't believe that war was necessary to fight for our self-defense. They think that war was a distraction. So you could say that was necessary spending, but that's in dispute right now.

SEN. BOND: Well, I can tell you, I --

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: And nobody believes -- (inaudible) -- 9/11.

SEN. BOND: I can tell you, I serve on the Intel Committee, and the intelligence we have is that al Qaeda has come at us. They're going to keep coming after us. And until we can keep them off- balance, as we have, by driving them out of Afghanistan, shutting down their operations in Iraq, we need to continue with those operations to keep our country safe or nothing we can do for the economy is going to take care of our security, which enables us to get our economy back on sound footing.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, there we are, back at the issue that got you elected, Senator Whitehouse. Are we wasting money fighting in Iraq? Is that good use of government spending? Is that a stimulus package, to keep spending money in Iraq?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: It's a stimulus for the Iraqi economy. It's a stimulus for Halliburton. I don't know that it does much for jobs at home.

Certainly just today in Rhode Island I was up in North Providence with the mayor, and he was listing off all of the different infrastructure projects that they're going to be able to go with as soon as this bill passes. Across the state, we're seeing infrastructure projects. I don't know where my distinguished colleague gets the notion that there's such a small percent of infrastructure. Just in Rhode Island -- maybe it's all coming to Rhode Island, Senator, but we're seeing an awful lot of infrastructure projects that are going to be teed up. We're looking forward to the work. People need it. And we think it's important.

SEN. BOND: Well, that's why --

MR. MATTHEWS: What about the $265 million for Hollywood? I've never seen that as a line item. Can you explain that, Senator Bond?

SEN. WHITEHOUSE: I haven't seen that either.

SEN. BOND: I --

MR. MATTHEWS: What is exactly the money, the quarter-trillion dollars going to, or quarter-billion going to Hollywood? What is that money?

SEN. BOND: That's in the bill. If you read that bill -- and I've read the summaries of it -- and there are many, many things like that. That's why I say, when you look at that bill, only 10 percent --

MR. MATTHEWS: But what's Hollywood do with the money?

SEN. BOND: Whatever they do in Hollywood with it. I don't know if my friend from Rhode Island is going to get all of the less than 10 percent in the stimulus package in Rhode Island. I sincerely doubt it. But it is less than 10 percent of that $1 trillion that's going to go into shovel-ready stimulus, the infrastructure construction.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay. I want to find out about that Hollywood money. We'll be right back with more.

SEN. BOND: We'll get it to you.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Senator Kit Bond of Missouri.

END.

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