Fox News Channel - Transcript

Interview

MR. JON SCOTT: So, will House members pass the bill this time? California Congresswoman Maxine Waters voted in favor of the bill the first time around. She joins us live. I assume you'll be voting aye again when it's presented to the House?

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): I assume. I've not finished going through what the Senate added. I understand they added a lot of sweeteners and tax extenders for alternative energy development. I want to take a look at that. I suspect I'm still on the same track of voting for it.

MR. SCOTT: Well it seems like it's essentially the same bill, it's just bigger and more expensive than it -- you know, provides some tax breaks and some things that a lot of people refer to as pork. Why is that more palatable to House members?

REP. WATERS: Well, I don't think you can look at the energy incentives and call it pork. One of the things we know is the people in this country want to get away from dependence on foreign oil. And they're asking us to come up with alternatives, to invest in wind and energy and solar.

And so this bill will do that. As a matter of fact, the essence of what they put in had already been passed by the Senate back in September. So I don't think you can call this pork.

MR. SCOTT: But, you know, the problem is I guess in counting the votes here, you've added some things -- I'm saying the Senate has added some things that some House members will like. But is there a danger that you're going to leave some House members shaking their heads? I mean, even the Democratic leader, Steny Hoyer, has expressed some reservations about some of the things that the Senate bill has included.

REP. WATERS: Of course you are going to have members who are not going to support the idea that anything should have been added. But people have been hearing from their districts. They understand that the credit is tightening up. People are not able to buy cars. It's harder to buy a house. Many of the small businesses can't get the short term loans to make their payroll.

So more of that information is coming in and I think that you'll see some members who voted no will change their minds. They will vote yes. Some will never vote yes on the bill, but I predict the bill will pass.

MR. SCOTT: Yeah, there are some economic numbers just out even today that suggest the economy is already taking a real hit. Is that, in your view, likely to make this bill more likely to pass the House?

REP. WATERS: Yes, absolutely. Those things that I've just alluded to are becoming real to the average person. We have small businesses that have already started to close down, and some larger businesses. Car dealerships are vanishing from these neighborhoods and from our communities. And so I think that people are beginning to understand a little bit better that it's not simply about Wall Street, that it is indeed about Main Street too.

MR. SCOTT: When the bill didn't pass the first time, you were talking about the fact that people were, in your view, tricked into taking out mortgages that they couldn't afford. But what happens to personal responsibility here? I mean, if I sign for a mortgage shouldn't I be obligated to pay it?

REP. WATERS: Oh you certainly should and I talked about people who were lured into these exotic products, the adjustable rate loans and the no documentation loans. And our regulators should have been on top of that. They should have seen these predatory type exotic loans coming on the market and they should have stopped them. Of course, we must have --

MR. SCOTT: Why should the lenders who made those loans be bailed out now?

REP. WATERS: Well most people who sign on the dotted line really don't understand everything that's in that mortgage contract. You have lawyers, you have people in the industry and in the media who are signing contracts every day who don't understand them. But most people are not lured into products that they cannot afford.

This happened with deregulation. This mess started because they found that they could come up with all kinds of adjustable rate mortgages and loans that people truly didn't understand, who wanted to get into that American dream of owning a home, and they got lost in all of this. They got messed up. It's not that they're all irresponsible people. Of course there are some, but many good hard- working people thought this was an opportunity to own a home.

MR. SCOTT: All right, we'll see how many of your fellow Congressmen and women vote yes when this thing comes up on Friday. Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California, thank you.

REP. WATERS: You're welcome.

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