Fox News "Your World" - Transcript

Interview

ECONOMIC STIMULUS AND TAX CUTS

MR. CAVUTO: A lot of money to fix an economy that might -- might -- already be improving on its own. Just today, news that construction spending was up, home refinancings are way up, and all after hundreds of billions of dollars already spent to get the economy fired up. So maybe is this time to just hold up? My next guest says no way. New York Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks says this is no time to be pennywise and pound foolish.

Congressman, always good to have you. I guess my concern is that we're spending like crazy, and we might already be seeing some benefits from money already spent. What do you say?

REP. MEEKS: Well, you know, I'm saying that President-elect Obama is looking at the unemployment numbers of last month, dismal, and the prediction for January even worse. And so, therefore, when we look at the number of individuals that are unemployed, you look at not only the Big Three, whether you're talking about GM, Ford or Chrysler, but if you look at the Honda numbers, they were down 35 percent as far as sales are concerned.

So I know just using my district, the number of individuals that are being laid off, we have to do something to stimulate the economy and to get people spending and to move our economy forward. And that's what the president-elect is talking about. I think that's what we're going to ultimately do in Congress.

MR. CAVUTO: So why then are building some bridges and an $80 million pool in Florida part of something that's going to stimulate jobs in Detroit? How does that jive?

REP. MEEKS: Well, I don't know about an $80 million pool in Florida. I know that President-elect Obama, if that's the case, it's not on his watch. What President-elect Obama is talking about --

MR. CAVUTO: Well, that's part of the planned stimulus, part of the stimulus we're looking at. It's for projects like that.

REP. MEEKS: What he's talked about is projects that are good for the environment, green projects, bridges, tunnels, roads, schools. Those are projects that we've heard him talk about as well as tax cuts for the middle class, which I think will help stimulate the economy, as he had talked about. That's what I hear him talking about.

Tax cuts for the middle class, I don't know whether you're against or for that, building roads, improving bridges, creating better infrastructure because our infrastructure in a number of cities are old, which will help create jobs. He's talking about incentives for small business that creates jobs here for American citizens as well as, you know, to prevent people from being fired. To me, that's the kind of stimulus package that we're looking for.

MR. CAVUTO: Well, what if we've already done a lot of the things that are near and dear to you, Congressman. You have led the effort to see a lot of relief provided to the economy, and you're one of the big reasons why we've spent the hundreds of billions we already have. Now, why don't we just see if that works before we start digging deeper into American's wallets because, ultimately, Americans are paying for this, right?

REP. MEEKS: Well, what we're looking at is two sides. One we had with President Bush. We tried to make this, you know, and I've been trying to make this a nonpartisan issue with President Bush and the Bush administration. They said the failure of the financial institutions, which would have had an imminent effect on all of Americans. So we came to aid to try to make sure that we worked with the president.

Now we have President-elect Obama who's looking at the other side of it. We've talked about we've got to also make sure that we save the economy and we help Main Street. Here is a way in which we can do that. And basically, it's talking about reducing taxes, a large part of this, for the middle class. And I don't think that, you know -- I didn't hear necessarily you, Neil, or anyone else talk about when Bush made the tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans. So now we've got to focus on middle class --

MR. CAVUTO: Well, to be fair -- no, no, no. This is a canard we always push here. But he cut taxes for everybody, didn't show a discretion toward wealthy. Nevertheless, do you think then that in order to get the middle-class tax cut approved, would you approve of a deal with very leery Republican members in Congress to at least stall the hike in the upper-income-tax rate a couple of years? In other words, to let them expire on their own in the end of 2010.

REP. MEEKS: Well, I think that if you listen to what Vice President-elect Biden has indicated, I listened Senator Reid, I've talked and listened to my speaker, Nancy Pelosi, I don't think that there has been any talk about, you know, not allowing the tax cuts just to go out on its own in 2010. So I think that the whole --

MR. CAVUTO: Well, they (haven't ?) unequivocally. You say that they've established that position, that they are going to wait until they expire.

REP. MEEKS: The only talk that you've heard about is the middle- class tax cuts.

MR. CAVUTO: Okay. Congressman, always a pleasure. Happy new year to you.

REP. MEEKS: Same to you, Neil.

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