MSNBC Interview - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC Interview - Transcript

MSNBC INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN)
SUBJECT: ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE INTERVIEWERS: MELISSA FRANCIS, PETER ALEXANDER

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SEN. KLOBUCHAR (Joined in progress.): -- long-term, that's one of the problems I've always had with some of the government programs; you don't have something to show for it in the long-term. Here we're finally going to have some better roads and some bridges. We had a bridge fall down in the middle of Minnesota. We need to fix our infrastructure in this country.

MR. ALEXANDER: Senator, help us understand. We know that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding a news conference a little bit later tonight. She's going to be our guest on "Hardball With Chris Matthews" a little bit later. Can you get into the conversation about the fact that she may try with the House to make some changes to the stimulus before its all said and done?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: I don't know if that's true. What I've heard is that a deal is done, that we have worked this out painstakingly through the process and it's not an easy thing, and some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle wanted to keep fighting this.

I can tell you and this is Minnesota common sense, when it's ten below zero in Minnesota and your car stops, you don't stand out there and debate the finer points of auto mechanics; you give it a jumpstart and that's what we're doing with this economy, we're trying to jolt it into action. It's not going to happen overnight; the American people know that. But we need to put some of the investment, that's what got us out of the Great Depression, putting our investment in roads and work projects --

MS. FRANCIS: Senator, a lot of people look at this price tag and they take a deep breath, I mean, it's going to mean a big deficit in the years to come. Can you tell us that this is it? Do you think we're going to need another stimulus package and to spend even more money beyond this?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: You know, we hope not, but one of the things that we know here is that we're in a crisis like we've never seen before; unemployment up well over seven percent, almost to eight percent. We're seeing jobs shed every day in this country, 598,000 jobs in January, that's not just a statistic, those are real people and I like the Obama administration's plan to now move onto the financial markets to try to get that credit flowing and then to move onto healthcare and energy.

These things have been really decaying for years and years with no action by government; we are finally taking action.

MR. ALEXANDER: Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, the senior senator from that state.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: And the only senator.

MR. ALEXANDER: Do you have a junior senator yet?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: I am the junior and senior senator. The one good thing is there's no friction in our delegation right now.

MR. ALEXANDER: Yeah, that's for certain.

MS. FRANCIS: All right. Thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.

END.

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