MSNBC "Interview with Rep. James Clyburn

MSNBC INTERVIEW WITH REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC), HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP

MS. MITCHELL: First of all, Congressman, thank you very much for joining us.

We talked earlier today to Steny Hoyer, the majority leader. And he had concerns that there might be some problems with some of the sweeteners that were added to the Senate Bill, that it might create a problem for some of the more conservative so-called Blue Dog Democrats.

Might you lose votes with this?

REP. CLYBURN: Well, that's a great possibility.

You know, anytime you reach out to one side when you've got a delicate balance like this, you've got -- you might lose on the other side. So to try to pick up 12 votes on the Republican side, when hopefully we could get more than that, you could very well lose 20 votes on the Democratic side. So that's a, that's a concern that we have.

MS. MITCHELL: Were House members consulted as the Senate leaders crafted this compromised version? Were you consulted along the way? Were you in on those negotiations?

REP. CLYBURN: Yes.

My staff has been working overtime on this. I was on the phone with Senator Reid this morning. We have had a conference call for about an hour with House leaders already today. And quite frankly I'm very pleased that one of the things I've been fighting very hard for got into this legislation. And that is to -- in the extenders, we will be allowed to have property tax deductions through to December 2009.

That's something I thought we needed to give property tax relief to people. That will be in the bill. And so while are increasing the insurance on the FDIC, from 100,000 up to $250,000, we will increase property tax deductions for property owners. And I think that they are taking a look at the so-called mark-to market.

Bobby Scott of Virginia, in the CBC, voted against the bill because he was very concerned about what kind of value the resale value. What will determine the cost of the property when we resell it? And Corrine Brown, who had a long talk with me, ended up voting for the bill, because we were able to assuage her concerns about foreclosures. And we have real, strong foreclosure language in here, short of bankruptcy.

But I would like to say to people, I think, our language is much better than to go into bankruptcy. You've got a stigma if you have to declare bankruptcy. And you also have got seven years with that label on you. And so we've got bankruptcy language here. And we're trying to look at whether or not we can get those entities that will be participating that we cannot reach, without foreclosure stuff, to see whether or not we can put language, much as we do with student loans, in order to rehabilitate some of those mortgages.

MS. MITCHELL: Congressman, you're talking about the nuts and bolts of trying to put together this package. And as you pointed out, it's a seesaw, where you add something for one side, and then the other side tries to jump off, and it becomes a problem. You lose the balance.

If you look at the vote itself, there were 20 members of the Black Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, who voted against; 18 voted in favor. So that's a rich area in order for you, as the whip, to try to get some more people.

You just mentioned how you got Corrine Brown over, Bobby Scott concerned about this accounting rule. Do you think you'll be able to get 10 more Democrats? Or do the Republicans have to also, you know, improve their side of the ledger?

REP. CLYBURN: I think I wouldn't like to make this partisan. But I really believe that the insurance issue, FDIC will bring in more Republicans.

I think the mark-to-market business will bring in more Republicans. And I'm trying to make sure that we don't lose any Democrats. And that's why I want this property tax relief to be in there, because that will get us more Democrats. And I also would like to see us put the foreclosure modifications in there, so that people who are not covered by the property that the government owns can use the kind of system we use for student loans to rehabilitate themselves.

Senator Reid is looking at all of this language. And hopefully the Senate will put it in, because I would love for the Senate to send us something that we can be pleased with and not have any arguments over.

MS. MITCHELL: Best case, do you think that there could be a House vote on Thursday? Or is it going to take till the end of the week and into the weekend?

REP. CLYBURN: No, no.

I think they will send us the bill. They'll vote on it around, I understand, around 9:00 tonight. We ought to get the bill maybe around noon tomorrow. It would have to lay over with the Rules Committee.

We won't be able to vote on this until Friday. Hopefully we can have some debate maybe on the rule tomorrow as well as maybe some on the bill. But we won't be able to vote on it until Friday.

MS. MITCHELL: Lessons learned now looking back at this sorry episode, everyone has agreed, it's been pretty much of a debacle and a failure of leadership. And there's a lot of blame to go around. But it, was it the failure of the White House to explain it and of Democratic leaders?

I don't want to get into the whole whether or not Nancy Pelosi gave a partisan speech at the last minute. But why was this described as a bailout bill and not a rescue plan?

Why wasn't it explained adequately to people? Why did people react so much to pressure from their districts, when they were clearly told that the credit markets were going to freeze up, despite any improvements back and forth that we see in the stock market?

REP. CLYBURN: Well, looking back on it, I don't want to assign blame to anybody. Like you said, there's enough blame to go around.

Sure, when we met Thursday before last, in Nancy Pelosi's conference room, with Secretary Paulson and with Chairman Bernanke, it was a real, gloomy evening. I went straight to the airport from there, and it was not a pleasant ride home.

On Saturday, we got three pages of recommendations. We then had 300 people work about 10 days to produce a bill of 206 pages. And then we set out to try to do this in a very hasty way.

We did in fact move too hasty. We did not do enough to explain to people what we were doing. We should have been talking about the streets that people live on.

I'm now talking about Walker Avenue that I grew up on or Main Street, where the grocery store is, or Broad Street, where automobile dealers are, so that people can begin to relate to the fact that what we are doing here is trying to stabilize their lives, trying to preserve their credit, trying to make sure that their students can get the loans that they need to further their education.

We did not do enough of that. The focus stayed on Wall Street when it should have been on Main Street, Broad Street and Walker Avenue over in Sumter, where I grew up.

MS. MITCHELL: All right.

James Clyburn, a man with a heavy load to carry this week as the majority whip who's got to line up those votes, thank you very much for joining us today from South Carolina.

REP. CLYBURN: Thank you.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

END.

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