MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript
Interview
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REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-IL), CHIEF DEPUTY WHIP: Thanks, Rachel.
Always good to be with you.
MADDOW: Doesn"t the government already ban funding for abortion? Why do we need the "no taxpayer funding for abortion" act?
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, because this bill actually goes way further. This says that a person whose employer provides health care, but that health insurance policy covers abortions, man or woman, then that employer can"t get a tax break, if an individual who buys a policy that provides for abortion cannot get any kind of health care tax deduction if that policy were to cover abortion.
So now it goes into private money and private insurance policies and things that people do on their own. It"s much further than the Hyatt Amendment.
MADDOW: So this is restricting private health insurance, provided privately to individual Americans, essentially restricting them from providing coverage for abortions?
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, what it does - it doesn"t ban the abortion, but it says that you can"t get any tax credit. I think what it really says is that insurance companies don"t offer abortion coverage.
That"s the safe way to go because people won"t want to buy that coverage because they won"t be able - let"s say they have a separate health tax account.
If they use the money out of tax account to pay for insurance or to pay for abortion, then that will be considered income.
I mean, they"re getting around it through the tax code in order to prevent ordinary Americans - and the way I read it, it could extend to men who buy those policies as well.
MADDOW: Do you think this is going to create jobs?
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, of course it"s not going to create jobs. It"s not even on the radar of what people think is most important.
In fact, we have a pro-choice country right now. The Congress is way out of step. This is not a priority for Americans. Americans believe that women should be able to make choices.
Do they always agree there shouldn"t be some rules of the road? But Roe versus Wade provides rules of the road around abortion. And the Hyatt Amendment is sufficient to say that direct federal funding isn"t going to go to abortions.
I actually think that that"s a discrimination against poor women. I don"t support the Hyatt Amendment, but that is the law right now. This goes way beyond.
MADDOW: What do you think explains the distance between the reporting about the priorities of this Republican Congress that say that they"re really abandoning culture war issues. They"re letting social conservative issues down.
That part of their base is going to be disappointed because they"re so focused on economic issues. That continues to be the mainstream beltway line about what Republicans are doing.
Whereas what we see is HR-1 is their new rule, which they violate with HR-2, which is repealing health care to increase the deficit and HR-3 is abortion.
It seems like they"re front paging both symbolic issues, the opposite of fiscally responsible action and culture war issues in their agenda in the House. I don"t understand the difference between that and how they"re being described.
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I think that the American people are beginning to have serious buyer"s remorse. We"re seeing that the president"s numbers are going - are going up. And the Republicans, I don"t think, have really had a good day since the Election Day, which was a very good day for them.
But since then, I think the honeymoon is over. This is a party that has clearly looked now in the rearview mirror, reversing health care. They wanted to reverse the Wall Street reforms.
They want to cut the budget back to - for social programs that serve so many middle income Americans to 2008, some to 2006. It"s all about pedaling backwards now.
And the American people are ready to move forward to get ourselves out of this economic mess. And they are not interested in these culture wars that they continue to engage in.
MADDOW: Congresswoman Schakowsky, I know that you served with Congressman Paul Ryan on the Bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Congressman Ryan, of course, delivering the Republican response to the State of the Union.
I saw today that you blogged that we should be prepared to be frightened by what Congressman Ryan says tomorrow night. What did you mean by that?
SCHAKOWSKY: What I meant by that is that Paul Ryan is going to exacerbate the problem of money just gushing to the wealthiest of Americans, the richest of the rich and taking from the disappearing middle class in our country.
Turning Medicare into a voucher program, cutting social security
by privatizing it, adding a value added tax, at the same time, eliminating
corporate income taxes and creating a tax policy that would make the top
0.1 percent get up to $1.7 million a year in tax breaks.
This is a kind of policy that he"s providing, not surprisingly, because Paul Ryan has received about $1.4 million from banks and investment houses and hedge funds and other financial institutions for his campaigns.
This is exactly the direction that we should not be going in, in our country right now. We"re going to see programs that - for medical research and education and health care and law enforcement in our country being shredded - all those programs being shredded at the same time as more money is going to the wealthiest Americans.
This kind of income disparity that he"s helping to create I find very scary. We talk about the deficit as the biggest problem that we"re facing. Yes, we have to deal with it.
But they"re not even doing that. And they are creating - they"re helping to disappear middle-income people, and low-income people are hurting worse than ever.
MADDOW: Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, articulating many of the reasons I think that Democrats are politically very happy that Congressman Ryan is giving that response tomorrow night, because he offers such a stark contrast with your own agenda. Congresswoman Schakowsky, thank you.
SCHAKOWSKY: Thank you, Rachel.
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