MSNBC "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" Interview - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" Interview - Transcript

MSNBC "1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE" INTERVIEW WITH REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD) INTERVIEWER: DAVID SHUSTER

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MR. SHUSTER: The economic recovery bill did not get a single Republican vote in the House. It's not exactly the bipartisanship the White House and many Democrats were hoping for.

Joining us now from our studio is Democratic Congressman from Maryland Chris Van Hollen. He's also the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman.

The bipartisanship did not work. Whose fault was it?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: It did not work, despite the fact that the president reached out on numerous occasions to the Republicans. He came up to Capitol Hill. He invited them down to the White House. The last time he came up to Capitol Hill, the head of the Republican Party in the House sent out an e-mail, before the president even arrived, instructing his Republican colleagues to vote no on the bill.

I think that's been symbolic of what we heard. My counterpart, the Republican counterpart on the campaign committee side, said that they had learned the tactics of the Taliban. I mean, he said that. So it's pretty clear they made a very calculated decision to bank on failure, which I think is a terrible message to send to the American people. Whether you're a Republican, a Democrat or an independent, you want this plan to succeed.

MR. SHUSTER: What about the argument that Republicans said, look, the president wanted 40 percent of this to be tax cuts -- it ended up 38; that maybe if this had been 45, 50, 55 percent tax cuts, you would have gotten some Republican support?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, first of all, there's a lot of tax relief in this bill. In fact, it is the largest tax relief proposal for middle-class Americans in the history of the country. From that perspective, the Republicans should be happy.

Look, as Paul Krugman was just saying, we have tried the Republican tax cut proposal before. That is what ran up the deficit and put us in the fiscal situation that we're in. And it was really interesting to see that the Republicans proposed substituting the Obama tax relief for the middle class with another package that provided greater relief to higher-income taxpayers when any economist will tell you, if you want people to spend that money more quickly, you're much more likely to get that effect if you put it in the hands of people who are a little more stretched economically.

MR. SHUSTER: What about the other part of Paul Krugman's argument, that this is simply not big enough, that it may mitigate unemployment by a point or two, but it's really not going to have the desired effect?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, let me pick up with what he said, that if we did not do this, all hell would break loose. This is a very important step in trying to get the economy going. Nobody can predict how deep this recession is going to be, this downturn, or how long. It will certainly soften the blow. Whether or not it's enough, at the end of the day, only time will tell. But if we did not take this measure, the situation would get much worse very quickly.

MR. SHUSTER: That's true, but I hear you talking about political realities there. Would you have preferred that this be much bigger?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: I would have preferred to see, on some of the investment sides, maybe on the infrastructure piece, some additional funding. However, it is important to remember there's a constraint. There is -- you can only spend money effectively so fast. And there is always a danger if you try and increase that and push more money out the door quickly, that it gets misspent. And then you have all sorts of horror stories about money being wasted. We don't want to have that. That's why we have accountability and transparency.

So I believe, overall, this bill does strike the right balance in terms of getting the money out the door quickly, but also creating that accountability and transparency, trying to make sure it's spent well.

MR. SHUSTER: Well, speaking of horror stories of whether this is going to be spent well or not, here's Congressman John Boehner, the House minority leader, talking about his outrage in how this process happened. Watch.

HOUSE MINORITY LEADER JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): (From videotape.) I don't know how you could read 1,100 pages between midnight and now. Not one member has read this. What happened to the promise that we're going to let the American people see what's in this bill for 48 hours? But no, we don't have time to do that.

MR. SHUSTER: What do you make of that?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, I was on the floor for that bit of theatrics. Look, this bill has been vetted more than any other piece of legislation in the history of the country. It's been on the news shows. It's been on talk shows. We had the House bill. We had the Senate bill. It's been on the Internet.

This final bill is the product of putting those different pieces together -- pieces that have been, you know, looked over and scrubbed by millions of Americans and the eyeballs of all sorts of viewers around the country and listeners. So I would say that if you're going to measure this by transparency, it has been the most transparent process in the history of any piece of legislation.

MR. SHUSTER: Well, we found a couple of things in there, as did others. And here's what the GOP, of course, is complaining about -- $650 million for digital-to-analog converter box coupons; $198 million to authorize payment to certain Filipino veterans in World War II; $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Let's take the payment, say, to the Filipino veterans from World War II. How does that help the economy?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Right. Well, this is something that's been long overdue; people who served their country in war, served the national cause. And just like any other payment of this kind to people who are in need, it's money that will be put into the economy. I mean, in that sense it's like a tax cut. If you receive a tax cut, you're stretched economically, you go out and spend that money. This has been a priority that has been, as I say, something long overdue.

You can argue about whether this is the best place to put it. I will grant you that. But I do believe that putting this money in the hands of these deserving individuals will be money that is going out into the economy right now.

MR. SHUSTER: What about the digital-to-analog converter box coupons?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, this is trying to address a situation that is facing a lot of Americans right now. And again, that will be money that goes out in the economy as people take those coupons. So, look, again, you've got a huge forest here, and you can always pick out a single tree in the forest and say, "I'm not sure that's as stimulative as this other thing might be." And I will grant you, there are fair arguments there, but --

MR. SHUSTER: Well, here's a question. Has the forest burned down? If you guys have to come back, as Paul Krugman is suggesting, is there any political will there to go back and pass more?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, the first thing we need to do is have the other thing that complements this, which, as he said and Secretary Geithner said, is the second round of spending the TARP money. And we do need to put that in the housing sector. We need to address the foreclosure issue. We need to restore the confidence of the American people. And by finally putting limits on CEO bonuses and those kind of things, I think the president has bought a little time and a little confidence going forward.

But, look, this is -- nobody knows how this is going to unfold. We are in a terrible situation, the worst situation since the Great Depression. We're going to continue to monitor the situation. Just like in 1932-'33 period, when Franklin Roosevelt faced a terrible economy, he experimented. Not everything they did worked just right the first time. But over time they took measures that had the confidence of the American people and began to turn things around. And that's our hope.

MR. SHUSTER: Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen, good of you to join us tonight. We appreciate your coming in the studio.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Very good to be with you.

END.

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