MSNBC Meet the Press - Transcript

MSNBC Meet the Press - Transcript

MR. RUSSERT: But first, with us: the Republican and Democratic whips in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, Dick Durbin. Welcome both.

SEN. DICK DURBIN, (D-IL): Thanks.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Durbin, you were in Las Vegas yesterday. Here's pictures of you appearing with the leader of the Democrats, Harry Reid, in Nevada. This is what Senator Reid had to say.
(Videotape, yesterday):

SEN. HARRY REID, (D-NV): We're willing to work with the president for the Social Security in the out years when we recognize there are some problems 40, 50 years from now. We're happy to work with the president in that regard, but not until he takes privatization off the table. We are not going to negotiate with ourselves until the president takes privatization off the board, period.
(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Senator McConnell, the line's been drawn. The Democrats will not negotiate as long as the president continues to push for private personal accounts.

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL, (R-KY): Actually, I was encouraged by the fact that Dick and Harry Reid were out talking about Social Security the last two days. We've had a little bit of a difficult time getting them to engage on this issue. And I think they took James Carville's advice, who's on your program frequently, who said the appearance they're giving to the public is they're in concrete. Well, they're clearly now willing to talk. And I don't believe in the end they will insist that we can't discuss all aspects of this. It would be like us saying to Senator Durbin, "We won't discuss the possibility of raising the payroll tax," even though the president has said he doesn't think the payroll tax ought to be raised and even though the president doesn't think whatever changes we make would affect people over 55. If somebody wanted to raise the subject, what's wrong with that?

Looks to me like we're heading in the direction of being able to sit down and have a bipartisan conversation, Tim, about saving Social Security for our children and our grandchildren, and I think that's a good sign.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican, the chairman of the Finance Committee, told reporters in Iowa that "Congress should focus on the solvency of Social Security rather than the president's plan to create personal investment accounts for younger workers. Grassley, a Republican and the head of the committee that would handle any Social Security overhaul in the Senate, said he still intends to try to get a bill approved this year. 'But maybe we ought to focus on solvency, and bring people to the table just over what do you do for solvency for the next 75 years.'"
That's a Republican, chairman of the Finance Committee. Why not set aside personal private accounts and deal with solvency?

SEN. McCONNELL: Well, why don't we talk about all of it? I mean, your old boss, Patrick Moynihan, felt that personal accounts were a good idea because it was a good investment for younger workers. Alan Greenspan just said this week he thought personal accounts were a good idea. Why not discuss it all, the whole problem, if we're going to sit down on a bipartisan basis and have a broad- ranging discussion about how to solve this problem?

Senator Durbin, my friend here to my left, said back in 1998 he thought it was a crisis then. President Clinton said in 1998 he thought it was a crisis then. This is seven years later. It's time to sit down and talk about it. And I think we ought to get started.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Moynihan suggested Social Security plus private accounts outside of Social Security. Would you be open to that?

SEN. McCONNELL: Sure, let's talk about the whole problem.

MR. RUSSERT: What does private personal accounts do to fix the solvency problem? I don't understand that.

SEN. McCONNELL: What personal accounts are is an extraordinarily good investment. Let's take a 25-year-old, for example. Invests $1,000 in regular Social Security, gets a 2 percent return over 40 years, he gets $61,000. That same young person investing that same $1,000 in a personal retirement account, looking at the average return on investment of the stock market, would get $100,000 more. Why don't we at least discuss that in the context of the overall effort to save Social Security for our children and our grandchildren?

MR. RUSSERT: But how does that help the solvency problem?

SEN. McCONNELL: But why not discuss it? If it is a better deal for younger workers, why rule out adding that to the overall discussion of how we not only save Social Security but make it better for the next generation.

MR. RUSSERT: But when the president says Social Security is going to go bankrupt and we have a problem with solvency and the solution is private accounts, people don't understand that connection. Private accounts don't seem to deal with the solvency problem alone. And the White House acknowledges that.

SEN. McCONNELL: What we want to do is make Social Security better for the next generation, in addition to saving it. At the risk of being redundant, it seems to me that the smart thing to do is to discuss all aspects of this. Every good idea ought to come to the table. We're certainly open to any suggestions the Democrats have in any part of this discussion.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Durbin, if you're trying to fix a problem, why would you say, "We will not sit down and talk to the president until he meets our demand by taking off the table private and personal accounts"?

SEN. DURBIN: Tim, I first came to Congress in 1983. We faced a real crisis in Social Security. We weren't sure we were going to make the payments that year. And so President Reagan turned to Tip O'Neill, a great Republican turned to a great Democrat, and said, "We need to do this on a bipartisan basis." Alan Greenspan led the commission. The very first agreement on that commission was that Social Security fundamentally would stay the same for generations to come. There was no debate over whether Social Security, as a program, would be protected and maintained. That's what we're saying on the Democratic side.

The privatization proposal of the president is going to destroy Social Security as we know it. And let me tell you why. It doesn't strengthen Social Security. It weakens it. It doesn't address the solvency problem. Secondly, we know that the White House is envisioning deep benefit cuts that will push many senior citizens into poverty. And we also know that there's a $2 to $5 trillion-trillion-transition cost here. The president cannot explain how we would pay for it. We understand people have earned this Social Security benefit. They want a guaranteed benefit as a secure foundation for their requirement. You can't start the conversation with privatization, which strikes at the heart of Social Security.

MR. RUSSERT: So you're suggesting that private personal accounts are a secret plan to get rid of Social Security?

SEN. DURBIN: Look what it does. It takes money out of the Social Security Trust Fund, $2 to $5 trillion, to be gambled in the stock market. There are winners and losers.

A friend of mine called me this morning, I grew up with down in downstate Illinois, a businessman. He said, "Remind them on this show about these investments. I lost 35 percent of my retirement in two years just a few years ago. I thought I was set and I'm not." They want to risk the Social Security Trust Fund proceeds in this scheme that, frankly, is not going to strengthen Social Security.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that we currently have a crisis with Social Security?

SEN. DURBIN: I wouldn't use the word crisis. Untouched, Social Security will make every single payment for the next 37 years to every retiree, maybe 47 years. But beyond that, unless the economy grows well and grows us out of the problem, we need to address it. And there are ways to address it in sensible, commonsense approaches today that will play out in 40 or 50 years.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you Dick Durbin in 1998. This is when Bill Clinton was president. This is a press release you issued: "...due to the increasing number of 'baby boomers' reaching retirement age, Social Security will be unable to pay out full benefits beginning in 2032, but the sooner Congress gets to avert this crisis the easier and less painful it will be."

How could it be a crisis in '98 under Bill Clinton but not a crisis in 2005 under George Bush?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, even then, 2032 is the year that we projected. Now, it's 2042, so it's in stronger position today than it was then. But let me just say, I think we should do something, and I believe most Democrats believe we should, on a bipartisan basis, do something sensible that is dedicated to the long- term survival of Social Security. Privatization accounts, and I think the president now realizes, it, they're non-starters. People in his own party, Chuck Grassley and others are telling him, "Let's get way from that conversation."

Last week, did you hear the president when he went up to New York and out to Indiana? Now, he's talking about the safety net of Social Security. He's starting to sound like a Democrat. We understand it's an important safety net. Let's make our first commitment to the long-term solvency and permanency of Social Security.

MR. RUSSERT: So as long as the president insists private and personal accounts are on the table, will you not sit at the table?

SEN. DURBIN: I don't believe that we can. I believe that if we are to start with the premise that we are going to weaken Social Security, cut benefits and leave the next generation a $2 to $5 trillion deficit, how can that possibly be good for America?

MR. RUSSERT: Senator McConnell.

SEN. McCONNELL: If Pat Moynihan were still alive, he'd be here to speak for himself. But here's what he said about the use of the word "privatization," which you notice my good friend Dick Durbin keeps putting in. Senator Daniel Moynihan said about privatization, "That's a scare word. That's a scare word. No one is privatizing Social Security. Nothing of that sort is happening."

Now, that's Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic expert on Social Security. I wish he were still alive to be here and make that statement himself. Why do we have to keep using that word? The reason they want to use that word is they want to politicize this issue. Why don't we just stop that and sit down together now that it's clear from the tour of the last two days, that Dick and Harry Reid and others believe that it's time to start talking? Why don't we just sit down and start talking about the subject and see what we can work out on a bipartisan basis?

MR. RUSSERT: Here's what the Democratic National Committee is saying in paid radio advertisement about the president's plan, and this is being played in swing congressional districts around the country. Let's listen.
(Audiotape):

Unidentified Woman: This week, President Bush brought his risky plan for Social Security to South Bend, a plan that would end Social Security's guaranteed benefits and tie our retirement savings to the ups and downs of the stock market. How does President Bush plan to pay for this risky scheme, you ask? First he'll borrow $4.5 trillion from foreign countries. Then he'll cut benefits by up to 40 percent. Cutting benefits and borrowing trillions from foreign nations won't solve Social Security's problems. It will make them worse.

(End audiotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Cut benefits by 40 percent?

SEN. DURBIN: That's exactly what the White House memo suggested. When you move the index from a wage index to a price index and play this out over the next 20 or 30 years, that's exactly the outcome. And if you took today's Social Security beneficiaries had they been held to the same standard, they'd be making less than half each month from Social Security as they do today. It is a benefit cut.

And when you confront the administration and say, "How can we be for personal accounts or privatization if it weakens Social Security, if it's going to drive more seniors into poverty, how are we going to pay for the $2 to $5 trillion in transition costs?" Tim, they have no answer. So the fact we don't believe the conversation should start on the premise that this is the answer is really based on the fact that the White House can't explain it.

MR. RUSSERT: And the $4.5 trillion from foreign countries is debt being bought by other countries?

SEN. DURBIN: Absolutely. Absolutely. Right now today the largest mortgage holders of the United States' future are Japan and China, Taiwan and Korea. And as we incur more debt for our younger generation, the mortgage holders, these Asian countries will decide from week to week and month to month whether the dollar is trustworthy. If they lose faith in the dollar, our economy's in trouble.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator McConnell, what Senator Durbin is referring to is that the White House saying that private personal accounts do not solve the solvency problems, that we have to look at indexing, wage, price indexing. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities put together this graph and said that in 2042 and 2075, that if the current law, you'd have a 36 percent replacement of your earned income, that if you had the proposals which are being discussed, it would drop down to 27 percent in 2041 and 20 percent in 2075, which would be a benefit cut of 26 percent in 2042 and 46 percent in 2075.

Don't you have to cut benefits in order to deal with solvency?

SEN. McCONNELL: Can I start first with the fact that you were playing a Democratic ad run by the Democratic National Committee. My recollection is we just had an election about five months ago. Can we ever quit campaigning? There is not going to be another election until November of '06. What we ought to do is quit running ads and sit down and start figuring out how to solve this problem.

MR. RUSSERT: On both sides?

SEN. McCONNELL: On both sides.

MR. RUSSERT: So the independent committee supporting the president should stop.

SEN. McCONNELL: I don't know what you can do with independent committees, but I think the DNC and the RNC ought to let it go for a while and let us sit down and try to solve the problem. Look, the one thing we know for sure is a huge number of baby boomers are about to retire beginning four years from now. We know for sure that starting in 2018 when today's five-year-olds start to college, the Social Security Trust Fund is going to be paying out more than it takes in. The Pew poll indicates that 73 percent of Americans-this is an independent poll taken recently--73 percent of Americans believe that we ought to get about solving this problem either this year or very, very soon. So I think we ought to quit all the posturing and sit down and see if we can't do something important and constructive for our children and for our grandchildren.

MR. RUSSERT: Can you deal with the solvency problem of Social Security without cutting benefits?

SEN. McCONNELL: We can't deal with any problem until we sit down on a bipartisan basis and start talking about it.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Durbin, if the president took private and personal accounts off the table, would you then sit down and have on the table raising retirement age, raising the cap on payroll taxes, perhaps cutting benefits in out years? Would you be willing to put that on the table?

SEN. DURBIN: If the president takes privatization off, if he makes a commitment to the future of Social Security, we're ready to sit down on a bipartisan basis and put everything on the table.

MR. RUSSERT: Everything?
SEN. DURBIN: That's the only way to start a good-faith negotiation. But let me add something else. If we decided to take the president's proposed tax cuts for people making over $300,000 a year, if we took those away and put those resources into Social Security, we wouldn't be sitting here today. So the tax cuts that are not permanent law the president wants for people making over $300,000 a year. The money that takes out of the Treasury is enough to make Social Security solid for 75 years.

MR. RUSSERT: What would raising taxes do to economic development in the country?

SEN. DURBIN: I think if the people who make the decisions based on our economy see that we are not going to go $2 to $5 trillion in debt for some privatization or personal account approach, if they see that we're going to get our house in order and not continue cutting taxes in the midst of a war, I think it's going to restore some confidence in our economy and I think it's going to help us grow.

MR. RUSSERT: Would the president consider doing away with his tax cuts in order to deal with Social Security? Is that on the table?

SEN. McCONNELL: Look, I'm encouraged by the fact that the Democrats have been out for the last two days talking about Social Security. I'm not here to announce anything the president may or may not do. I think the tax cuts have been very, very helpful, very, very important in stimulating this economy and getting our growth back in line. I don't think that has anything to do, personally, with this discussion about Social Security. But I think I hear Dick saying that maybe he's willing to sit down and talk. I don't think there ought to be any conditions whatsoever on beginning a bipartisan discussion to save Social Security for our children and our grandchildren. Why would we want to condition...

MR. RUSSERT: Including putting tax cuts on the table?

SEN. McCONNELL: ...the discussion? We ought to sit down and begin to do something on a bipartisan basis for our children and for our grandchildren.

MR. RUSSERT: The majority leader, Bill Frist, said that it might take a week, a month, six months or a year in order to bring something before the Senate. Two days later, he went to the floor and said, "No, no, we're going to do it this year." Is this going to get done this year?

SEN. McCONNELL: We're going to address Social Security in the Senate this year. The majority leader said it this week. I believe him.

MR. RUSSERT: Will we have legislation this year?
SEN. McCONNELL: We're going to address it. We're going to do the very best th-the only way we can have legislation is if our friends on the Democratic side are willing to sit down and help us come up with a bipartisan plan to get the job done.

SEN. DURBIN: And we should as long as privatization is not the basis for this discussion because it doesn't strengthen Social Security. It doesn't add to its solvency. Once you take that away, I think we can have a constructive bipartisan discussion and maybe then shift gears into issues that people really care about like health care in America. It amazes me all the time, 60 days, 60 cities for the president, when the number-one issue in America is: What are we going to do about health care, Medicare, Medicaid-the fact that fewer people have health insurance? We are avoiding that conversation. We need to engage.

MR. RUSSERT: Harry Reid, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, said this to Judy Woodruff on CNN the other day: "I'm not a big Alan Greenspan fan. I voted against him the last two times. I think he's one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington."

Do you share that view?

SEN. DURBIN: I'm troubled by Alan Greenspan. I will tell you I read Paul O'Neill's book...

MR. RUSSERT: You voted for him.

SEN. DURBIN: Yes, I did. And I read Paul O'Neill's book "Price of Loyalty."

MR. RUSSERT: But should the chairman of the Federal Reserve be described as a political hack?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, I will just tell you I think he's gone too far. I think he went too far on the tax cuts. In the book by Paul O'Neill, "Price of Loyalty," those two close friends said, "We shouldn't have tax cuts without a trigger to save this from deficits," and yet it didn't happen. And you had Alan Greenspan endorsing tax cuts which have driven us into the worst deficit situation we have ever seen in this country. That is not good and wise advice from the head of the FCC.

MR. RUSSERT: How about this: "He as brought technical expertise, sophisticated analysis, old- fashioned common sense. His wise and steady leadership has inspired confidence, not only here in America but all around the world"-President William Jefferson Clinton in 2000.

SEN. DURBIN: It is true that most presidents do everything they can to boost the image of the head of the Federal Reserve, because they believe that that is a way to make sure that the economy is strong and stable. I understand that. But as we look back, I think Alan Greenspan made a grievous error when he endorsed tax cuts and brought us to this point in deficit.

MR. RUSSERT: But he's also advocated pay as you go, that if you cut taxes or you increase spending, you have to find a way to pay for it, and Republicans don't like that. In 1992 when he didn't lower interest rates quickly enough, former President Bush was very upset with him.

SEN. DURBIN: I can understand that there are differences of opinion, but I think there is this point-we've reached the point here where the tax cuts have brought us into a deficit situation, and as he toys with this idea of privatization, it really does raise a question of his credibility.

MR. RUSSERT: You don't find "political hack" too strong?

SEN. DURBIN: It may have been slightly too strong.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator McConnell.

SEN. McCONNELL: Look, they were praising Alan Greenspan when he chaired the Social Security Commission in 1983 and the recommendations they made, which Dick was just praising a while ago. They praised him when he was doing-making recommendations that President Clinton liked during the 1990s. I think it is outrageous to describe Alan Greenspan as a "political hack." He has been an independent player at the Fed for a long time, under both parties, and made an enormous positive contribution to our country.

MR. RUSSERT: Before we go, I want to talk about foreign policy and Iraq. This is The New York Times editorial, Senator Durbin: "The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power."

Do you concur with that?

SEN. DURBIN: I think there is a momentum for positive change in the Middle East, and I think the Democrats support that. I happen to believe the way we invaded Iraq, without a broad coalition, without our traditional allies, taking on the responsibility in terms of human lives and dollars, was the wrong decision at that moment. But today we have to look at the Middle East and say, "What is in the best interest of America and its security?" And I think we are moving forward.
The elections are encouraging but, you know, this week they had a tough time in terms of forming their government. There are still a lot of question marks; four Marines killed yesterday, three American soldiers the day before. It is still a very dangerous place. I think that we ought to be supportive of moving this process forward, but not to believe at this point that the game's over, that we have won.

MR. RUSSERT: But if you had voted against authorizing the president to invade Iraq, would we be seeing some of the changes in democracy we're seeing in the Middle East?

SEN. DURBIN: I would have liked to have seen us go into Iraq under the right situation where the president described the situation accurately. Weapons of mass destruction didn't exist. Nuclear program didn't exist. Any connection with the 9/11 terrorism didn't exist. All of these things were said and those of us on the Intelligence Committee knew that they were, at best, exaggerations. I don't think you should mislead the American people, whether you're doing it intentionally or by accident, and in this case they were misled.

MR. RUSSERT: You don't regret your vote?

SEN. DURBIN: I don't.

MR. RUSSERT:: Senator McConnell, 1,500 Americans now dead. How long will we be there?

SEN. McCONNELL: The ink-stained index fingers of the Iraqis going to vote are a symbol of how the president's Iraq policy has galvanized this change that's sweeping the Middle East. We-this Iraq policy is changing the area of the world most resistant to the things we believe in: democracy, human rights and freedom. It's sweeping the whole area.

We'll be in Iraq only as long as we need to be in Iraq. The Iraqi military is in the process of being trained, upgraded. They handled most of the security, by the way, for election day, which is widely thought to have been a big success. This negotiation for leadership in Iraq is what you do in a democracy. They're in the process of deciding who's going to get to be prime minister. Who would have thought that would have ever been possible four years ago in Iraq?

The policy has been an enormous success, and our military should be praised for making it possible, not only for this to happen in Iraq, but the effect of that is making it happen all over the area. Egypt's talking about having a real election. They had a real election in the Palestinian territories. They even had something close to an election in Saudi Arabia. None that of would have happened without the president's decision to go into Iraq, which we supported.

MR. RUSSERT: How would you like to be the whip of the Iraqi parliament?

SEN. DURBIN: That's a tough job.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican and Democratic whip, thank you both very much.

SEN. DURBIN: Thank you.

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