MSNBC Saturday Final with Lawrence O' Donnell - Transcript
MSNBC
SHOW: SATURDAY FINAL WITH LAWRENCE O' DONNELL 19:00
HEADLINE: SATURDAY FINAL for August 16, 2003
BYLINE: Lawrence O'Donnell; Noah Oppenheim
GUESTS: Flavia Colgan; Penn Jillette; Tom McClintock; Arianna Huffington; Joel Fox
HIGHLIGHT:
Panel discusses news of the week. Then, interviews with California gubernatorial candidates Tom McClintock and Arianna Huffington.
BODY:
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: Welcome to SATURDAY FINAL. I am Lawrence O'Donnell coming to you from Los Angeles, California, the center of recall madness. If your power was out this week, you may have missed the latest twist in the recall saga.
Take a look at the most recent field poll. It shows that Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante has gotten a real boost. He is now the leader, the first choice among Californians if Gray Davis is recalled, 25 percent of the vote to Arnold Schwarzenegger's 22 -- that's a drop for Schwarzenegger.
In the number three spot, Republican State Senator Tom McClintock, who has more than doubled his numbers since last weekend's poll. He is up to 9; Bill Simon who ran for governor against Gray Davis last time got eight, Peter Uebberoth at 5. Arianna Huffington, who will be joining us shortly, coming in sixth at 4. There was a bombshell in this campaign this week, the Buffett bombshell. Started off well when Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he was adding Warren Buffett to his campaign team, but on Buffett's first day, he was quoted in the "Wall Street Journal" as suggesting that California property taxes are too low. He compared them to the property taxes he pays in Nebraska and said that Nebraska property taxes are higher than California's, so California has got to do something about that. Arnold's rivals have pounced on this statement, and there has been a big shift in the Republican support from Schwarzenegger to my next guest.
Joining me now is California state senator and candidate for California governor, Tom McClintock. Senator McClintock, L.A. talk radio yesterday was absolutely wild with the Buffett bombshell. John and Ken on KFI, Al Rentell (ph) on KBC. They were being challenged by their listeners because they have been supporting Schwarzenegger because he can win, and they have not been supporting Tom McClintock because Tom McClintock absolutely cannot win. Their listeners yesterday were switching from Schwarzenegger to McClintock. Do you think that momentum is going to continue?
TOM MCCLINTOCK ®, CA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, I think it will, and by the way, the poll that you just cited came out of the field prior to the Buffett bombshell. So that, that migration away from Arnold Schwarzenegger and toward our camp really is not yet being reflected in the polling data.
But it is a bombshell. I mean, California already has one of the heaviest income taxes in the country. We have one of the heaviest sales tax burdens. We have one of the heaviest car tax burdens. Just saw that tripled. For Arnold Schwarzenegger's chief financial adviser to be pining for the days before Proposition 13 when folks were losing their homes because of skyrocketing property tax assessments, that is a shock wave in California.
O'DONNELL: Just the example he gave was that he has a $500,000 house in Nebraska, where the property taxes are $14,401. He has got a $4 million house in Laguna Beach, a $4 million house where the annual property taxes are $2,264. Which by the way, Senator McClintock, is about five times less than my property taxes on a house that's valued a lot less than $4 million. How does this happen?
MCCLINTOCK: Well, bear in mind, first of all, Californians are paying one of the heaviest overall tax burdens in the country. The alternative to the property tax system in California is a system where people are losing their homes because they can't keep up with the rapidly escalating property tax bills. Now, that might not make any difference if you're earning as much as Warren Buffett or Arnold Schwarzenegger, but if you're a retired couple on a fixed income, that's the difference between keeping and losing your home.
O'DONNELL: Should Arnold Schwarzenegger fire Warren Buffett?
MCCLINTOCK: It is not just Warren Buffett. Don't forget that before this, Arnold Schwarzenegger had assembled around him the same team that in 1991 imposed the biggest tax increase in American history by a state right here in California. It was $1,100 on average per family. It broke the back of the economy. It turned a recession into a near depression, needlessly prolonged our financial problems years into the future. And that's the team that he had before he brought on Warren Buffett.
O'DONNELL: But what about Buffett? Tom McClintock, you are known for answering yes or no questions.
MCCLINTOCK: OK.
O'DONNELL: Should Arnold Schwarzenegger fire Buffett?
MCCLINTOCK: Yes.
O'DONNELL: OK.
MCCLINTOCK: But he has ought to go a lot farther than that. He ought to fire the team that brought us the 1991 tax increases. He ought to also fire the team that was at the center of the Charles Quackenbush (ph) scandal a few years here ago in Sacramento, where the insurance commissioner was actually stealing money.
O'DONNELL: Now, are you talking about former governor and his chief of staff and the others who have been working on the Schwarzenegger campaign?
MCCLINTOCK: I'm referring to the Wilson team that was directing...
O'DONNELL: Pete Wilson, former Governor Pete Wilson and his team.
MCCLINTOCK: He was responsible for the biggest tax increase in this state's history. It was ruining us too, and by the way, we actually brought in less total tax revenues with those tax increases than we had received the prior year without. That was the economic damage that they did to the state's economy in 1991. Heaven forbid that that should be repeated again in this decade.
O'DONNELL: Now, Senator McClintock, you are the poorest Republican candidate in the race. You are not a rich man. Arnold Schwarzenegger says, vote for me because I am rich, because I have a lot of money. He is saying that he is incorruptible by all the evil influences in Sacramento because he is rich. Does that mean if a working guy like you gets up there, you are just going to be sold to the highest bidder in your first week?
MCCLINTOCK: Oh, on the contrary. In fact, our principle source of contributions is coming from small contributions over the Internet. We're actually raising more in Internet contributions now than Howard Dean is raising in his run for the White House.
O'DONNELL: All right. Let's go to our panel. We have with us today Penn Jillette, coming to us from Las Vegas, of the team of "Penn & Teller," and Flavia Colgan, Democratic strategist, and also with us is Noah Oppenheim, MSNBC political analyst. Noah, do you have a question for Senator McClintock?
NOAH OPPENHEIM, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, I'm happy for the senator's 9 percent, but I'm more concerned about Cruz Bustamante's 25 percent. Is the California Republican Party which lost to Gray Davis in the general election and has been in a sort of a state of abject disarray going to give uskick out Davis and then give us Cruz? How are you guys going to get his numbers down, how are you going to beat Cruz Bustamante?
MCCLINTOCK: Well, I think Cruz Bustamante ultimately will beat himself. I don't believe that the people of California, having voted out a governor for policies that have bankrupted our state's finances and devastated our economy and decimated our infrastructure, are then going to turn around and elect another Democrat to carry on precisely those same policies. That's just not rational. But that's what the campaign will be sorting out over the next 52 days.
O'DONNELL: Flavia Colgan, take a shot at Tom McClintock.
FLAVIA COLGAN, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I just saw you being critical of the 1991 tax increase and Buffett's most recent remarks. What are your ideas for increasing revenue? What are some of the first cuts that you would make, and how as governor without a mandate would you get a largely Democratic legislature to help you push those priorities through?
MCCLINTOCK: First of all, California is not suffering from a revenue shortfall. We've had 21 percent increase of inflation and population combined over these last four years. We've got a 25 percent increase in revenue. So this is not a revenue problem.
COLGAN: Well, how do you...
MCCLINTOCK: ... the problem isthe problem is our spending went up 40 percent in the same period. So what you have to do is begin reorganizing the way we're spending money.
For example, simply restoring to California government the same freedom that every household and every business has to shop around for the best service at the lowest price will save about $9 billion across all departments, according to a recent study done by the Reason Foundation and the Performance Institute. Streamlining the state's bureaucracies, that means eliminating agencies that duplicate one another's services. For example, we're the only state in the nation that has two entirely separate tax agencies collecting taxes. Untangling all of that mess is about another $6 billion in savings right there.
Simply restoring our workers' compensation laws to reflect the savings that Arizona, for example, is enjoining, bring our workers comp costs down by two thirds, which I have pledged to do in the first few hours of this administration, at least set the special session for the legislature in motion. That's about $2.5 billion of direct savings to state and local government alone.
COLGAN: And how do you work with the Democratic legislature?
MCCLINTOCK: Well, I've said within moments of taking the oath of office, I'll sign the executive order to rescind the tripling of the car tax. That can be done without the legislature. I will act to void $42 billion of outrageously overpriced electricity contracts that Davis locked us into. That can be done without the legislature.
And when I call that special session of the legislature to replace California's workers' compensation law with Arizona's, I'll give them 30 days to act, and at the end of those 30 days, I'll take the measure to the ballot and let them explain to the voters while they failed to act while this state's job market was collapsing.
When Hiram Johnson took office as governor in 1910, that's exactly what he did to go around a recalcitrant legislature that was totally dominated by special interests. He ushered in a breathtaking air of political reform by doing that, and I believe the next governor of California has got to take a page from that playbook.
O'DONNELL: Penn Jillette, do you have a quick question for Tom McClintock?
PENN JILLETTE, RESEARCH FELLOW AT CATO INST.: Yeah, do you give a damn about the Republican Party? I mean, you seem to know more than anyone and you seem to believe what you believe. If it comes down to the wire where it's either a Republican wins and you have to kind of jump on board with someone else, give up what you believe, would you do that? Do you care more about the issues or more about the party?
MCCLINTOCK: I care more about the issues. This is not about the Republican Party. This is about the future of California. Look, it is fight or flight time here in this state. A lot of folks are fleeing. We've lost a net loss of nearly a third of a million jobs in the last two and a half years. We've seen the first net domestic outmigration in this state's history. But those who are staying realize that this state is worth fighting for.
O'DONNELL: Tom McClintock, Republicans have put a lot of pressure...
(CROSSTALK)
MCCLINTOCK: ...future of California.
O'DONNELL: Tom McClintock, you guys know, David Dreier and others Republicans are putting pressure on Republicans to stay out of this race, let Arnold go all the way. Quickly, yes or no. Are you in this until October 7, no matter what?
MCCLINTOCK: Yes. Yes.
O'DONNELL: And once again, you are calling for Arnold Schwarzenegger to fire Warren Buffett for his bad advice in this campaign. You're making news right here on SATURDAY FINAL.
MCCLINTOCK: Of course I am. And I am going to step farther and saying he needs to fire the team that brought us the 1991...
O'DONNELL: Get rid of Warren Buffett and get rid of everybody else who he's got in his team right now.
MCCLINTOCK: Yes.
O'DONNELL: All right, thanks, thanks, we are going to hold it right there. Thank you very much, Tom McClintock, we'll be right back. This is SATURDAY FINAL on MSNBC.