MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Budget

Interview

SCHULTZ: Joining me tonight on the congressional panel: Congressman
John Garamendi of California, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, and
Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota.

Great to have you with us tonight.

REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D), OHIO: Thank you.

SCHULTZ: Let`s, first, respond to what the Republicans are saying.
John, you first. They`re saying no revenue. Where does that leave
us?

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, the American people know
what we should do. And that`s a balanced approach. You gave the
statistics a moment ago, Ed. America wants a balanced, they want a
compromise.

Some taxes, some cuts. We can do that. The proposal has been on the
table now for more than three weeks. And we`ve got the revenue out there.
We need to get that revenue back from the oil industry.

My God, they got enough of our money at the pump. We don`t need to
give them a subsidy. That`s but one example of many, many.

SCHULTZ: Marcy, your thoughts on getting the Republicans to give up
revenue, or is there going to be a deal without revenue?

KAPTUR: I don`t think for the Democrats there can be a deal without
revenue because we need a balanced plan. In the original bill that passed,
we provided revenue, but that was on individuals` incomes.

As Congressman Garamendi has said, there are so many loopholes in the
tax code, why should children in Ohio who are disabled have to pay the
price for those who are offshoring jobs and not paying their fair share of
the load? Why should the unemployed in Ohio or anywhere have their
unemployment benefits cut by 9 percent to 11 percent? You`re talking
millions of Americans who are living at the edge.

SCHULTZ: Yes.

KAPTUR: And our senior citizens who are going to have their nutrition
programs cut in Ohio, three-quarters of a million dollars cut out of those
programs. What are they going to do? Give them fewer green beans?

SCHULTZ: You`re right. A lot of the programs slated for cuts are
extremely popular with the public. Their polling is very strong for the
Democrats.

Congressman Ellison, what you hearing from your constituents in
Minnesota?

REP. KEITH ELLISON (D), MINNESOTA: Well, what I`m hearing is we still
have a number of people unemployed. And the training and the assistance
that they get to get back into the workforce is going to be dramatically
cut, and thousands of people will suffer. Not only that, food assistance,
law enforcement.

But I want to go back to another quote that John Boehner had about two
years ago. And that is that if they won`t eat the whole loaf, we`re going
give it to them a slice at a time.

And what the Republicans have done since then is set up crisis after
crisis after crisis. And this is just the latest one. We got another one
we`re dealing with in just over a month when the continuing resolution
comes up. We just passed one with the fiscal cliff. So, this Friday, here
we are one more time, seeing the fulfillment of a philosophy of reducing
government to the size you can drown it in a bathtub.

SCHULTZ: Congressman Garamendi, military cuts are going to hit your
state of California really hard. Can you put a number on how many jobs
that would affect?

GARAMENDI: Well, the jobs are going to be enormous. We`ve had five
hearings in the House Armed Services Committee with the top generals and
Secretary Panetta and others coming in and saying we can`t stand this.
This is going to be a horrible problem for the safety of this country.
And to hear Mr. Boehner and others simply say it`s no problem, hey,
the military says it`s a big problem.

Travis Air Force Base, they`re looking at not being able to do the
kind of training that is necessary, the readiness that is necessary.
You`re looking at a loss of some $30 million of wages. They`re clearly
going to be layoffs among the civil servants, 3,200 there.

Some of those people are going to be lose their jobs. The rest are
going to clearly be on furlough, losing perhaps 20 hours of work or more.
You are looking at the Coast Guard. Take a look at the Coast Guard,
just this cruise ship incident. The Coast Guard is going to lose 20
percent of its ability to do its job. What are we talking about here?

This is terrible for the nation`s security. It`s terrible for the health
of the people of this nation.

SCHULTZ: You have a Republican Party that will not budge. These cuts
are going to go into effect. The only solution is to hold the line.

Congresswoman Kaptur, do you think the Democrats have the intestinal
fortitude? I know you have signed on to this letter of 107 of your
colleagues that say no cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
This is going to be who blinks first.

KAPTUR: Well, I think that the Republicans, at least this particular
group, care more about manufacturing crises than manufacturing jobs.
And we have to hold the line. We know that there is a lot of ill will
toward the president. He won the election. And what they`re trying to do,
though, is to stop his program in its tracks because they`re not satisfied
with what happened last November. But you shouldn`t do this to the
American people.

SCHULTZ: You think these Republican governors will help? You`ve got
a Republican governor there in Ohio in John Kasich. You think he`ll help
the president?

KAPTUR: I hope he`ll help because in the speaker`s home state of
Ohio, over 26,000 personnel who work for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
and our garden reserve facilities across the state are going to be
furloughed, 13,000 of those in the speaker`s own backyard. Up at NASA,
Glenn-Lewis, and Cleveland Brookpark, we think we`re going to lose the
cryogenic hydrogen program.

SCHULTZ: Yes.

KAPTUR: And power program, which is one of the two major missions of
that site.

So this is going to be felt throughout Ohio. And we`re a state that
is crawling its way forward to recover. We don`t need more job loss or
underinvestment in states like Ohio.

SCHULTZ: Yes. Senator Rand Paul says local law enforcement won`t be
affected by the cuts. Keith, you want to answer that?

ELLISON: That`s absolutely not true. In the state of Minnesota,
several law enforcement programs, people who protect our streets, people
who run to the crisis when the rest of us are running away from it are
going to see cuts and possibly layoffs.

The fact of the matter is, this is the most irresponsible legislative
action I`ve ever seen. And I believe that the American people are going to
get first hadn`t experience as to what Senator Paul`s philosophy really
does mean. Shrinking government down, cutting government down,
government`s the problem.

We`re going to find out sadly how wrong he really is. But I hope --

SCHULTZ: These tax loopholes that we`re talking about, we`re talking
about oil and gas. We`re talking about big agro business.

ELLISON: Yachts and jets.

SCHULTZ: What about that?

ELLISON: Yachts and jets.

SCHULTZ: Yachts and jets, no doubt. This is plenty of money to be
found there.

John, you`re on the -- you`re on the ag committee. Can these
subsidies be cut and agriculture still be strong in America?

GARAMENDI: Oh, absolutely, it can. In fact, the two farm bills, one
from the Senate, one from the House did reduce these subsidies that are now
being discussed as part of the Democratic proposal.

Senator Stabenow has been working on this. She`s figured out how to
make this happen in a way that does not harm agriculture. It shifts over
to an insurance program.

But, Ed, let`s go back to the beginning here. These issues were
thought to be so bad, the sequester was thought to be so terrible that it
wouldn`t happen. And now, the Republicans are embracing what everybody
said was so bad that it couldn`t possibly happen.

I don`t understand where they`re coming from.

SCHULTZ: It`s all about President Obama. That`s a big part of the
equation, I think.

GARAMENDI: I`m afraid so.

SCHULTZ: Congressman John Garamendi, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur and
Congressman Keith Ellison, great to have you on the program tonight.

Eric Cantor`s world of lies about the World of Warcraft. We`ll are
the facts between the GOP`s latest dishonest talking points.

And the Tea Party governors agree with President Obama on spending.
The big panel on the president`s big plan for infrastructure.

Stay with us. We`re coming right back.

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