Press Conference With Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Press Conference
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SEN. MCCONNELL: Good morning, everyone.
I'm sure everybody watched the president's interview before the Super Bowl. And you may have been focusing on the Steelers and the Cardinals. I was focusing on something else.
The president said in his interview -- and let me just read the quote, with regard to the stimulus package and what kind of package he thought was appropriate to jump-start this economy -- he said exactly this: "It has no earmarks. We're going to be trimming out things that are not relevant to putting people back to work right now." I couldn't agree with that more.
He also said, "I've done extraordinary outreach, I think, to Republicans because they have some good ideas and I want to make sure those ideas are incorporated." Well, I couldn't agree more. That's exactly where we need to end up. Of course, that's not where we are right now.
And I know the Democratic leadership is going down to the White House tonight. I hope he can get through to them that the way to build this package is, indeed, to do it on a bipartisan basis, which doesn't mean just talking to us but including ideas that we think would work. And also, we need to make sure that we're not borrowing money to spend on projects that are not going to stimulate the economy.
Unfortunately, at least to this point, it appears the Democratic leadership has not gotten the memo -- or the message, if you will -- from the president. We believe, Republicans, that a stimulus bill must fix the main problem first, and that's housing. That's how all of this began. We think you ought to go right at housing first. And we have already indicated that we think this 4 percent mortgage proposal, which was developed by Glenn Hubbard, is something that can work and make a difference. That'll be a part of whatever we offer on the floor.
We also think the second part of a package that will actually do the job -- that is, that is timely, temporary and targeted -- would put money back in people's hands directly. And we've suggested focusing on the two lower tax rates for income taxpayers up to 65,000 (dollars) a year: lower the 10-percent rate to 5; the 15 percent rate to 10.
Before you even begin to ask me, I'm going to tell you, I don't have any comments to make on the Daschle matter; the Gregg matter. I know that's on everybody's mind. I've already addressed both of those, and don't have anything more to add on either today.
You get the drift: I'd really like to talk about the stimulus proposal, and where it needs to head and where it may end up.
Who'd like to lead off? Yeah.
Q Senator McConnell, you've got the procedural option to call this as emergency money. Are you going to try to knock some of it out, using your numbers and points of order?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, I'm not going to indicate what amendments we might offer or what procedural techniques we may employ. But just let me say, nobody that I know of is trying to keep a package from passing. You know, we're not trying to prevent a package from passing. We're trying to reform it, reformulate it, put it in a different place.
The package that most of my members would support would be dramatically different from what passed the house and, frankly, dramatically different from what we currently see out of the Finance Committee and the Appropriations Committee. And I've indicated where we think it ought to go: fix housing first, tax relief for middle- and low-income taxpayers that puts money back in their pockets immediately.
Yeah?
Q Mr. Leader, if you should get progress on housing, on tax relief, would you also require changes on the spending part, some of the entitlements --
SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, look, I -- well, I don't think it's a great idea to use a bill that's supposed to be timely, temporary and targeted to actually make entitlement, permanent spending worse. I mean, why in the world would we want to -- you know, the president's already been talking about the importance of getting a handle on the entitlements. We should not use this bill to make that problem more complicated, more difficult. We should not use it to increase permanent spending.
Entitlement is an inside-the-Beltway word that we all understand, but for those who are not working here, we're talking about -- there is an attempt under way, here, to use this bill to increase permanent spending. I think that's a bad idea, no matter how worthwhile the various proposals are.
John?
Q Senator McConnell, what do you think the total price tag of this should be? What do you think -- a trillion dollars now in terms of the Senate version -- regardless of the specifics, what do you think about a top-line number?
And also, I wanted to try Daschle, not specifically -- (inaudible) -- the process. How is it that it was so long before this became public, before you knew about it, even to the point of a first- round confirmation hearing for Daschle before the Health Committee?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Let's go back to your first question. What was it again? (Laughs, laughter.)
Q Top-line number of the stimulus.
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, I -- most of my members believe that we could pass a very robust stimulus for less than the amount currently before us. We've been throwing figures around like it was paper money. We're already looking, before we even do this, at over a trillion-dollar deficit for this year.
Now, we all agree that we need to do something, but I don't think we should just completely act like the amount is irrelevant. As someone mentioned the other day, one of my colleagues, just to put a trillion dollars in context, if you started spending the day that Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day, you still wouldn't have spent a trillion dollars. This is a lot of money.
Now, we know we have a huge economy. We know we need to jump- start it. But most of my members feel we can do it for less than what is currently being proposed.
Q Senator, just a second. You had --
(Cross talk.)
SEN. MCCONNELL: I'm going to skip the second question.
Yeah.
Q Have you had any contact with -- (inaudible) -- or the White House and been given an indication of where the Democratic leaders in the Senate or the White House now want this bill to go -- (off mike)?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, I've just read you what the president said yesterday. I think I know where he wants it to go. And I -- I hope that he's going to be able to put the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate in line. He needs to talk to them. He needs to let them know that the measures that they are moving forward don't meet his own standard, which I just read to you. And maybe that's what the meeting at the White House is about tonight; I hope so.
Q Senator McConnell? Senator McConnell?
Q What do you think of the "buy American" provision that's in the Senate bill? A lot of trading partners are raising concerns about this.
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, not -- not much. I don't think we ought to use a measure that is supposed to be timely, temporary and targeted to set off trade wars when the entire world is experiencing a downturn in the economy. I think it's a very bad idea.
Q Senator McConnell -- (off mike) -- you would support taking it out --
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, I think it's a bad idea to put it in a bill like this, which is supposed to be about jump-starting the economy.
Yeah.
Q Senator McConnell, earlier in the Congress, you had said this is a new Senate where there's an open debate process and amendment process, things of that nature. But last week, some of your members indicated that based on what had happened in Finance and Appropriations, that those amendments that you were offering would likely be defeated on -- (inaudible). Do you still have hope that that's possible? Or are you hoping that President Obama would instruct the Democratic leader to go along with some of those votes or insert some of that language that you want into the legislation before it hits the floor?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, first, it's a good idea that we're actually voting on amendments in the Senate again. That's a refreshing return to the traditional method of operating.
We can't anticipate that we're going to win 'em all. I mean, there are more of them than there are of us. But I can tell you this: with regard to this measure that's on the floor this week, there is considerable -- and you're hearing it -- considerable Democratic senatorial unrest about this package, considerable. I think there is a bipartisan feeling that this is not the way to get the economy moving, and hopefully we'll see that exhibited on various amendments, where we may have some bipartisan success in modifying the bill and making it more in line with what I think the president was talking about yesterday.
Q Senator? Senator McConnell, if Democrats don't make significant changes to this bill, how many Republican votes will there be for the package along the lines of what, you know, the funding would (be ?)?
And also, Democratic leaders are working very hard to win some Senate Republicans like Olympia Snowe, George Voinovich and Susan Collins to that bill. What are you doing to keep your -- keep your folks in line and together on this?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, there's no way to answer the hypothetical of what the vote will be like at the end because we don't know what it'll look like.
Our goal is to produce a bill that makes a difference, not to kill the measure. So the goal is entirely different from what your question seems to suggest. The goal is to make it better.
And we go into this with an open mind. We have two I think really good ideas that are entirely in line with what the president, I think, wants to do. Remember, the president said earlier he thought at least 40 percent of this package ought to be tax relief. I think the House-passed bill was something like 20 percent tax relief. And then you have to ask the question, what kind of tax relief?
We believe that a lot of the things that we want to do are not inconsistent with where the president is. They do seem to be inconsistent with where the majority is, at least at the moment.
Yeah.
Q You've already mentioned that you thought that this bill could be done for a lot less, but compromise in this chamber often makes measures bigger when they're done. Are you willing to rule out the possibility of this measure getting larger, if that's the way that you would get, for instance, more tax cuts or some of the other proposals?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, I -- I think the only way I can answer that is making the measure bigger is not likely to make it more bipartisan. In other words, I think most of my members, while fully understanding that we need to spend a significant amount of money here compared to anything we've done in the past because of the emergency nature of the economic situation -- I don't think you make it more appealing to Republicans by making it more and more expensive.
So I would predict that if it gets, you know, well up over a trillion dollars -- and some would argue that it already is, if you count any interest we'd have to pay on this -- it's not going to make it more appealing to my members; it'll probably make it less appealing to them.
Yeah.
Q President Obama has indicated that he's going to be using a fairly substantial portion of the second tranche of the TARP money on mortgages. Do you think that there needs to be more mortgage money specifically in this stimulus, or, I mean, or will, you know, the president's use of TARP money fit the bill?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, I had an opportunity to talk to the secretary of the Treasury over the weekend, and I -- you know, I believe that they understand the importance -- the importance of stabilizing the financial system, and most people don't believe we're quite there yet. So I'm not going to predict what a new TARP recommendation would look like, but I think -- well, maybe I will predict.
(Chuckles.)
I think it's going to be related to the financial system and stabilizing the financial system, and hopefully not a measure crafted to allow the administration to basically get involved in industrial policy, where you pick winners and losers, which is one of the things that disturbs so many of my members about the auto bailout of the previous administration.
Yeah?
Q Along those lines, do you favor some kind of restrictions on executive compensation for companies that get money from TARP or a similar -- (inaudible) -- bailout? SEN. MCCONNELL: I believe that was part of the debate back in late September and October. What you have to do, it strikes me, is have some kind of parameters that don't have the government basically running a private business; it's a tough challenge.
I think we're all appalled by these -- some of these executive salary arrangements and bonus arrangements and perks and all the rest. On the other hand, I really don't want the government to take over these businesses and start telling them everything about what they can do. Then, you truly have nationalized the business. So it is a -- it's a delicate dance to try to prevent blatant abuses and still not have the government, as a result of taking an equity position in the government, telling them, for example, you can't pay dividends or you can't -- I mean, things that are just ordinary business practices. I think we have to resist the temptation to basically dictate to these businesses how to run every aspect of their operation.
I'm going to take one more. (Inaudible.)
Q (Off mike.)
SEN. MCCONNELL: I don't -- you know, we earlier signed onto limitations on executive pay; that was part of the financial rescue package way back in October. So I don't have any particular philosophical objections to that.
I do, at the risk of being redundant, think that we ought not to start -- you know, the government basically is not in this business -- start dictating every thing they can do in their businesses. That's not a great way for them to recover, it's not a great way for them to raise private capital if they're really not running the business, we are.
So it's -- that's why I say it's kind of a delicate balancing act here. And what I think it does tell you is that all of these companies, I would hope, at the earliest possible time ought to pay us back and get rid of their partner -- get rid of their new large partner that they have as a result of these infusions of cash into these companies.
Thanks a lot, everyone.
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