Fox News - Transcript

Interview

MR. HEMMER: South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune is the chief deputy minority whip. He's my guest from the Hill.

Sir, good morning.

SEN. THUNE: Good morning, Bill.

MR. HEMMER: Does Congress even know what it's about to vote on in this stimulus package?

SEN. THUNE: Not at all. We haven't seen it yet. We haven't seen anything in print, at least. And so at this point, all we hear about are some of the details that the press is reporting upon. But this -- obviously, when you're talking about spending almost a trillion dollars of taxpayer money -- needs a lot more oversight, a lot more public hearings and input. And at this point, none of that's occurred.

MR. HEMMER: Also -- it's being talked about anyway -- the tax breaks, the tax credits, however you want to phrase it, could total $300 billion. Is that enough to get your vote?

SEN. THUNE: Well, I think that Republicans will warm to the idea of tax relief as opposed to government spending. If this is a program that creates more government jobs and grows government in Washington, D.C., there isn't going to be much enthusiasm among Republicans.

Cutting taxes will draw and attract Republican support, but I think it has a lot to do, Bill, with how that's done. If you cut taxes on investment and job creation, if you reduce marginal income tax rates, those are things that I think could attract Republicans to this. But if the spending part of it is about creating more Washington jobs for bureaucrats and growing the size of government, I don't think you'll find a very favorable response among Republicans, and it'll probably take primarily Democrat votes in order to pass it.

MR. HEMMER: Well, but part of the whole idea about the tax breaks involved is to recruit more Republican votes. Now you --

SEN. THUNE: No --

MR. HEMMER: -- voted in favor of the bailout back in the fall, right, 700 billion (dollars) for the banks?

SEN. THUNE: I did.

MR. HEMMER: You know what you're going to hear from the other side. They're going to say, how can you justify a no vote here?

SEN. THUNE: Well, I think there are a couple -- a couple of distinctions I would make. First off, we were facing an imminent financial collapse last fall. Secondly, the 700 billion (dollars) is essentially a line of credit on which we hope to get paid back. This is a 750 (billion dollar), who knows, 850 (billion dollar), trillion dollar spending bill designed to stimulate the economy, but I think we have to be very careful and weigh it against the debt that we're passing on to future generations; and is this actually going to do the job and accomplish what it was intended to do, and that is to create jobs?

MR. HEMMER: I think you make -- you make some great points there.

SEN. THUNE: The way to -- the way to do that is to reduce taxes on small businesses and entrepreneurs, Bill.

MR. HEMMER: I understand your point. Now, we talked about whether or not Congress knows what it's voting on. David Obey, from the House side, Democrat from Wisconsin, says, "There aren't no frigging numbers because dozens of issues haven't been resolved. Obama just got here yesterday, and people want answers to questions that haven't been asked yet."

Boy, you look at the speed on this and you listen to analysts on both sides. They say, you got to do it now or don't do at all. But this is lightning fast for what could be a trillion dollars.

SEN. THUNE: Absolutely. And having not seen anything yet, I don't -- you know, we don't know how to react to it. You know, clearly there's got to be at least some public input, some, I think, discussion among Republicans and hopefully some hearings. This is almost a trillion dollars of taxpayer money that we're talking about.

And I think even though there's a need to respond fairly quickly, there's got to be some deliberation given, some consideration to how we go about doing this and to have at least somewhat of an open process that the American people can have a voice in. We haven't seen any of that yet.

MR. HEMMER: Yeah. You mentioned oversight. Mr. Obama apparently yesterday in his meetings on the Hill says he is for that and is even going to post the budget online. And you can do a Google search and figure out which categories and which members of Congress are spending what or voting on what. So that's a new phase in 2009.

Senator, thank you for your time.

SEN. THUNE: Good to be with you, Bill, thanks.

MR. HEMMER: Seven hundred fifty billion (dollars). We'll talk to you any time. John Thune, thanks.

Source