MSNBC "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D), ILLINOIS: Thank you, Chris.

HAYES: Well, first of all, I want to--I wonder why is the chairman of the panel devoting so much energy to slashing Social Security, increasing the retirement age, which is a really regressive way of going about making fixes when that actually wasn"t on the plate and that"s not the problem with the long-term debt that we"re facing?

SCHAKOWSKY: No, the commission is doing the favor of figuring out the 75-year solvency of Social Security after admitting it has nothing to do with the deficit and it"s not going to be used for debt reduction either. But we might as well do that, as well. Of course, this is not something that we need to do right now.

And we certainly don"t need to save Social Security by cutting Social Security. And not just for future beneficiaries, but actually, we"re going to begin right now--by changing the way we calculate the cost of living adjustment. Meaning, we"re going to give current beneficiaries less money.

HAYES: You know, one of the things I think that gets really confused in this discussion, I"m wondering if you can sort of walk us through it, is the difference between the deficit we face right now in the short and medium term and what the problems are for the whole U.S. budget in the long-term, say 20 years out. Those two things it seems to me are getting confused in this conversation.

How do you sort of see dividing these up?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, even if we just first talk about achieving primary budget balance by 2015, which is the first mandate of this commission, what the Simpson/Bowles proposal does not do is talk about how are we going to get the economy going, create jobs, not interrupt any kind of fragile recovery by starting to cut the budget too soon.

And so, what one of the lacking things is that we don"t stimulate the economy. There"s very little talk even about the need to do the unemployment insurance benefits--which is not only good for the 2 million people that are losing their benefits right now, but is really good for the economy, because those people will go out and spend money.

But long-term, they"re talking about a major overhaul of the tax system and claim that by getting rid of all these tax expenditures, that is those deductions in credits, most of which go to wealthier Americans, that are--were going to be able to cut about $4 trillion from the budget over the next few decades.

So, it"s both a long-term and a short-term plan.

But their plan for health care is to make seniors pay more out-of-pocket for their Medicare. I mean, you know, there"s a lot of talk in the commission about shared sacrifice. But there has not been shared sacrifice for the last two decades. They"re acting as if we"re starting even.

HAYES: Right.

SCHAKOWSKY: But, of course, all the wealth has gone to the top earners in the country, the wealthiest have gotten richer, and the poor and middle class have gotten poorer. And now, they want to solve these problems on the back of middle-class Americans. And it"s just the wrong way to go.

HAYES: I think it"s a great way of putting it, that we"re not starting all sort of the same place, after these 20 years.

Finally here, I want to ask you--you have come out with some of your own recommendations. What are the big things they didn"t--they missed that you would--that you would propose as a path to getting on a better sort of fiscal trajectory?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I, of course, looked at the same things, the tax expenditures. I looked at the defense budget, they did, too. But I don"t cut military pay, they do. I don"t cut military health care, they do.

And I certainly don"t cut Medicare. I say that the Medicare ought to be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies to get lower prices. Instead of, you know, digging further into the pockets of seniors who are making the grand average of $18,000 a year--that"s what our elderly make -- I say let"s get it out of the pharmaceutical companies, and let"s put a public option back on the table. Let"s make sure that the insurance industry actually has some competition from a plan that will hold down the cost.

So, my--what I wanted to prove was--I wanted to prove that we could do this without hurting the middle class.

HAYES: Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, sorry, I didn"t mean to cut you off there. I really appreciate you coming on. I"ll throw a financial transactions tax into the mix.

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I didn"t put a financial transaction tax into the mix. But there--there are a number of other ideas beyond getting it from, you know, the people who have been paying the price while the rest of the people have been partying, and, you know, saying that Wall Street needs to pay its fair share, as well. And all of these hedge fund managers who, by the way, live longer, Chris.

You know, when you talk about cutting the age of Social Security, poor people actually aren"t living longer. So, you"ve got a janitor who"s going to have to work longer because the hedge fund manager is going to live longer.

So, I think there"s a lot of inequities in there, and there are places that the money really is that we can fairly ask for in order to reduce the deficit and the debt.

HAYES: Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, congresswoman from Illinois and also a member of the debt commission--thanks so much for joining me tonight.

SCHAKOWSKY: Thank you, Chris.

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