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Interview

MR. SCOTT: And now for another viewpoint, fair and balanced, let's check in with a representative of Barack Obama's campaign, Congressman Chris Van Hollen is a Democrat from Maryland and an Obama supporter.

Congressman, thanks for being with us.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you, Jon.

MR. SCOTT: The town hall format, which is what's in effect tonight is supposed to favor John McCain. How does Barack Obama try to counter that?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, as you said, this is a forum that John McCain has proven to be very comfortable with, and therefore, he's on his own playing field so to speak. What Barack Obama intends to do is talk to the American people about his vision for the future and what he plans to do about the economy.

It was interesting to listen to the McCain spokesman say they're going to talk about the issues. If that's true, that's good news if they're going to have a debate on the economy, after all, they just said yesterday, their campaign spokesman that when they talk about the economy and the issues the American people care about, they lose. And so they were going to switch the subject and get into the gutter and play the slime game and that's not me saying it, that was their own campaign spokesman saying what their strategy was.

So Barack Obama is going to stick to the issues the American people care about and talk about how he does have a plan to route those taxes for middle-income Americans, anyone under $250,000 will not see any tax increase at all, and, in fact, 90 percent of them will see a tax rebate, a tax benefit. He's got a plan to try and get the economy going again, a plan that was vetoed, threatened to be vetoed by the Bush administration and the fact of the matter is they can say it all they want, but we're going to be listening very carefully to what the difference is between John McCain's economic policy and George Bush's because, so far, he hasn't told us any differences at all.

MR. SCOTT: But both of these candidates when asked in the last debate, you know, what they're going to do to limit spending or curtail some of their big, new programs, proposals as a result of all of this federal money that's getting spent on the bailout, neither one of them really had an answer for that. I mean, isn't Barack Obama going to have to honestly say that he's either going to have to reduce tax cuts or cut back on his health plan or some of these expensive programs that he's proposing?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, in the last debate, in fact, he did say that some of his plans would have to be scaled back. He said it might take longer to implement some of his plans, for example, on health care or in terms of a new energy investment plan, but that doesn't mean you have to scrap the plans. It does mean that you have to take economic reality into account and deal with that and he said he would adjust things accordingly. But the American people are going to be listening very carefully tonight to what these two gentlemen have to offer in terms of getting ourselves out of this ditch and the fact of the matter is, the McCain-Bush policies on the economy are exactly what most people in this country recognize got us into the fix we're in right now.

And so the question is going to be: How do we get out of this mess? And Barack Obama has presented plans. He says in January he would begin a second round of economic stimulus in terms of investing in our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our transit ways, an energy investment policy to try and get this country, not just to stop the freefall that we're in as a result of this deregulatory mentality, but to actually help boost the economy.

And so people are going to be listening to whether John McCain engages on those issues or whether he does what his campaign says it's going to do, which is try and engage the subject and just engage in vicious attacks, and so that's what people are going to be listening to whether he's serious on the issues.

MR. SCOTT: You say that Obama has a number of these economic proposals. In the media, the general characterization and I think you would agree with this, the characterization is that Obama has stood by and not said a lot about the current crisis. He hasn't really laid out a course of action.

Do you agree with that? And if not, why not?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, I don't, because from early on Barack Obama laid out four principles that he said had to be required in any economic rescue plan. Remember, we got a request for a $700 billion blank check from the administration. Barack Obama said no way. He wanted provisions to limit CEO compensation to make sure taxpayers had an equity stake so he benefited from the upside, not just the downside, something to protect homeowners and transparency and accountability.

We got sent three pages. We reshaped that. Nobody likes this bill, but the costs of doing nothing are huge and Barack Obama was very engaged in that debate, and in fact, it was John McCain who weeks earlier said the economy, the fundamentals of the economy are strong, showing that he's way out of touch and then he got engaged and then he said he was against the AIG bailout, then he said he was for it and then he said he was going to come to Congress to try and persuade the Republicans in the House to support it. He came here. They did not support the bill on the first round.

What Barack Obama showed was steady leadership, the kind of leadership that you want in a commander-in-chief, whereas John McCain --

MR. SCOTT: We have to keep this even time-wise. We've got to keep it even time-wise. Chris Van Hollen, congressman and a Barack Obama supporter.

Thank you.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Thank you, Jon.

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