Question and Answer Session: Q: Leader Pelosi, should passage of the Employment Non Discrimination Act be part of the Republican job initiative?Leader Pelosi. Passage of – well first of all, I don’t know what the Republican job initiative is. Six weeks, this is the sixth week that we’ve been in this new Congress, and we haven’t seen one piece of legislation that has created one job. And that’s what our concern is: endless debates on the floor about subjects that are not about job creation. The American people told us that what the top priority for us—to create jobs, to reduce the deficit and to protect the middle class. But we haven’t seen any evidence of job creation. In fact, a cavalier attitude when jobs are lost: ‘So be it.’ I do firmly support ending discrimination though.
Q: Speaker Boehner said today that [inaudible.] Are you concerned that might lead to a government shutdown [inaudible.] Leader Pelosi. Well I invite my colleagues to join in responding to you, but I will say this. I do not—so much is at stake if this great government shuts down; in terms of social security checks of our seniors, meeting the needs of our men and women in uniform, be that domestic or in our armed forces. Ever category you can name will be affected by it. And so I would hope that instead of having ultimatum and statements of “I’m not going to do this,” or “I’m not going to do that” we would really have a process that talks—we go forward with an approach that talks about how we keep government open, not how we intend to shut it down.
Q: [Inaudible follow-up question.]Leader Pelosi. Well, I actually didn’t hear his statement. I heard about it, and I know that Senator Reid has expressed some concerns about it as well. Perhaps we know what is at stake. We’ve seen this happen before, and it is a failure. It’s really a failure to say, we have taken the leadership of the Congress of the United States, and the first thing we are going to do is shut down the government to the detriment of our people, to our security and to our countries future. Yes ma’am.
Q: Can you tell us about your meeting with the President today and also I’m wondering if the Republicans [inaudible.]Leader Pelosi. I will, but I wanted to see if my colleagues wanted to respond to the question that we had before. Perhaps we’ll do that after I answer your question.
We had a very good meeting with the President at the White House today. We covered a number of subjects, but central to all of it is of course, the budget. We are all fully committed, remove all doubt, the Democrats are committed to reducing the deficit. We know that toll it takes on our investments in the future, and we have a history of reducing the deficits.
When President Clinton came into office, you know the story, he inherited a big debt. Because of the actions of a Democratic President and the economic bill that we passed in 1993, we not only reduced the deficit, 23 million jobs were created. We had pay-as-you-go as our guiding principle, no new deficit spending. That was all tossed overboard when President Bush became president and took us deeply in debt.
Yesterday when Jack Lew, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget testified before both committees, the Budget Committee and then next the Ways and Means Committee, he said ‘The last time I was here representing the Office of Management and Budget, I was here to talk about a 5.6 trillion going into surplus, as part of the Clinton Administration.’ That was ten years ago, now we’re at a different – more than ten years ago. Now we’re at a different place. But we know how to do it, and we intend to do it.
So a good deal of our focus at the lunch with the President was about his budget. It’s a tough budget; it’s an honest budget; it’s a transparent budget. It’s a budget that has a freeze of several hundred of several hundred billion dollars. It makes difficult decisions, but does so again artfully, with a scalpel not crudely with a machete. Even an end, coming out the same week as this Continuing Resolution, I think shows the sharp contrast. The President’s budget is about out-building, out-educating, out-innovating the rest of the world to keep us number one; investing in the future while we reduce the deficit, create jobs and meet the needs of the American people. Again, it will save 1.1 trillion dollars, 1.1 trillion dollars over the life of the budget.
In contrast, to what we are seeing in these few days, and we look forward to a Republican budget, should that come forth, where we are not creating jobs, we are not investing in the future, we are not reducing the deficit, we are not strengthening the middle class. So I think there is a big strong contrast. But to your question, at the White House, we talked about the President’s budget.
We also talked about the fiscal reform commission, which in its proposals talked about reducing the deficit, but cautioned not to go too quickly, like through this first year. We’re coming back, from the deep recession that President Bush took us to with their reckless policies, the ‘so be it’ doctrine. And coming out of that, even the fiscal reform commission said when we go down this path of cutting spending, we have to be cautious in this first year, or else we can reverse some of the economic growth that we need to have to grow our way out of the deficit. This is part of their statement, part of what I’m adding to it.
And so again it was a positive meeting, again a message out of theirs, to remove all doubt in anybody’s mind, the Democrats are committed to reducing the deficit, but to do so in a way that grows our economy, creates jobs, strengthens the middle class, and helps us win the future.
Q: Leader, just to follow up, I had one last question. Speaker Boehner argued this morning that basically that the President is sitting on the sidelines [inaudible.] So on entitlement reform is there a Democratic plan [inaudible.]Leader Pelosi. Well, it would be interesting to see what the Republicans are going to put forth on this. For them to say that the President is sitting on the sidelines, when he has put forth his budget is almost ludicrous if it was not so serious. The President has put out a budget. The Republicans are saying if you’ve lost your job: ‘So be it.’ I think the public has to make a judgment about the leadership of the President of the United States.
Yes, we will be addressing all aspects of reducing the deficit, but let me just say that whatever we do for Social Security is not about reducing the deficit. It is about strengthening Social Security, the solvency of Social Security. These are two separate, different questions. And then as we go forward, addressing other entitlements, the defense budget, I think we should subject every dollar to harshest of scrutiny to make sure the public is getting its money’s worth.
Then we look forward to a time when perhaps we can come together to do that. As has been said, Speaker O’Neill and President Reagan came together, were able to strengthen social security for decades to come because they were serious about doing that. They weren’t there to eliminate social security. They were there to strengthen it. With that, I want to yield to my colleagues for any comments.
Congressman Bill Pascrell. I want to put to rest, going back to the question about the entitlements. There are two questions on that, Madam Speaker. We all know the number, about twenty four hundred pages was in the health bill. And I’m sure most of you read most of it. Do you how many pages were in there about Medicare? You see, we have to put this to an end, that there was no responsible looking at what was in Medicare, what we needed to do to extend it. The commissions that have been created and already exist, we took their recommendations about Medicare. We intend to lower the cost of Medicare through cost-saving entities within the health care bill. So the health care bill was a direct response to the entitlement of Medicare, not only extending it for 12 more years but helping us get the rest of the budget in focus. We have sort of another alternative plan, Madam Leader, and that is, of course, the “Road Map.” I hope you read that “Road Map.” I hope we start getting used to having vouchers, giving seniors vouchers to go and get their health care. This I want to see, but I hope we don’t. So we have approached entitlements. That is an absolute myth. And there are many pages dedicated to the Medicare in the health care bill. And it is going to help us get to what the President has used as a goal: In five years, we want the debt to be 3.2 percent of the gross domestic product. That is clear. That is simple. I am waiting to hear the response from the other side. Thank you.
Congressman Henry Cuellar. Let me just say this. There was an election in November. The Republicans won. They are now the Majority, and now I think they are realizing that, you know, to govern is very difficult. So for them to say they want to see what we want to say—they are the Majority; they are the ones that decide. I believe Representative Paul Ryan had some ideas on Social Security and nobody’s taking up on that one on their side. But keep in mind what they are doing. They are trying to balance or trying to address the deficit on 15 percent, on 15 percent. They are leaving everything out. They are the governing folks. I didn’t know they were taking our suggestions. They pretty much have been running everything, so as governing Majority they should come up with the proposals.
Q: [Inaudible.] Leader Pelosi. Oh, absolutely. The stimulus bill, and at the lunch Vice President Biden gave us the final, I guess it is the final or the most recent final, report on the stimulus bill and how it created and saved jobs for our country, how it invested in innovation. People from all over the world and all over our economy have been very complimentary about this legislation because it was about the future. It proves that President Obama was a job creator from day one. One week and one day from his inaugural address on the steps outside the Capitol, the House of Representatives passed a Recovery Act, and a recovery act it was—without it we would have been even deeper into the Bush recession. So we are very proud of it. And I think the more time goes by, people will have a fuller appreciation for the initiatives that were taken to win the future, for the jobs that were created and saved, and for the investments in education and basic biomedical research and new, clean energy jobs for the future. We are very, very proud of it. It was definitely worth it—as was passing the health care reform bill, making health care a right not a privilege in our country, lowering the cost, improving the quality, expanding the access; as well as Wall Street Reform, where never again will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause joblessness on Main Street. The list goes on.
I am very proud that we began—the President’s first bill he signed was Lilly Ledbetter; one of the last bills he signed was the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ So whether it is reducing discrimination, expanding opportunity, being true to our commitment to the future, we are very proud of what we have done.
But I am also very proud of our firefighters and Office Thielen who is with us today. Again, I want to close by thanking them, because if you are not safe in your community, really what else matters? You have to have that feeling of safety to raise your family, to build your community, to honor all of the possibilities of our great country. Thank you all for making that possible.
