Fox News "Fox & Friends" - Transcript

Interview

Fox News "Fox & Friends" - Transcript

FOX NEWS "FOX & FRIENDS" INTERVIEW WITH REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD)
SUBJECT: DEBATE OVER THE ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE INTERVIEWERS: STEVE DOOCY, ALISYN CAMEROTA AND BRIAN KILMEADE

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MR. DOOCY: The back forth over the stimulus has begun, so will House and Senate Democrats continue to butt heads on the details of the bill? And how soon can a compromise be reached? Because as soon as they have compromise, then they put it front of the president and he gets out a pen and he signs it.

MS. CAMEROTA: Joining us from Washington, D.C. is House Majority Leader Representative Steny Hoyer.

Good morning, Congressman. Thanks for being with us.

REP. HOYER: Good morning. Good to be with you.

MS. CAMEROTA: Okay, as we understand it -- well, actually, before I get to a question, let us play for you a little bit of sound we've been playing for our audience this morning on what Chuck Schumer said about how the American people feel about so-called pork projects that might be involved in the bill. Take a listen.

(Begin video excerpt.)

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY): And let me say this to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments: The American people really don't care.

(End video excerpt.)

MS. CAMEROTA: Is that right -- do the American people really not care about pork?

REP. HOYER: No, I think American people do care. But I think Chuck's point was -- Senator Schumer's point was that too often, we focus on the minutia as opposed to the big picture and the impact that we're trying to have on the economy in this particular instance -- or the impact of other bills -- that are very substantial. But unfortunately, too often tiny little elements of them are the focus of the press and the public.

But you know, I think that his point was accurate. But the fact is that you and I both know that these little pork projects do garner a lot of attention and a lot of anger -- particularly when they're like the bridge to nowhere that clearly was unjustified and shouldn't have been in there.

MR. KILMEADE: Right, from way back and now made famous.

Republicans, the three you have in the Senate, say it is no go -- they will withdraw their support -- if the House restores the $100 billion they claim they cut from this project. If they are hard and fast on that decision, is the House going to back off?

REP. HOYER: Well, you know, it's interesting: The Senate bill was $20 billion more than the House bill -- about 840 (billion dollars) to about 820 (billion dollars). In fact, therefore, the Senate bill will spend more money than the House bill.

In addition to that, the Senate bill has the unfortunate status of creating less jobs than the House bill. The whole point of this bill is to create jobs to get our economy moving, to stabilize the economy and to grow jobs. We're losing 20,000 jobs a day over the last few months. That's an extraordinary indication of a deep recession that we've got to get out of.

The bills are significantly different in some ways, but for the most part the same. Both the Senate and the House have passed major bills -- about $800 billion -- to try to get this economy moving. I'm hopeful and believe that we'll try to come to an agreement on the differences that exist and have a bill by the end of the day that both houses can vote on.

MR. DOOCY: Yeah, but Congressman, going to Brian's -- talking about the fact that there are these three Republicans, also a Democrat from Nebraska -- they say that unless the House passes the Senate bill pretty much intact, they're bailing!

REP. HOYER: Well, I hope that's not the case. The way this process works is we have a House of Representatives and a United States Senate. They both are independent members of the legislative body. We pass bills; they pass bills. We try to resolve differences through compromise. That's the democratic process. I'm hopeful that that will happen. My expectation is that it will happen.

And yes, I think we'll constrain ourselves within bounds that we can garner the requisite votes in the Senate and the House.

MS. CAMEROTA: But Congressman --

REP. HOYER: Basically, what we're going to do is pass a bill that will in fact grow jobs hopefully somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million either saved or created jobs over the next two years.

MS. CAMEROTA: Okay, it sounds like the major differences between the Senate bill and the House bill are that the Senate bill included many more tax cuts -- $100 billion worth of tax cuts -- and less money than the House bill did for the states.

How will you ever reconcile those two different philosophies?

REP. HOYER: Well, there are differences and we're going to have to reconcile them if we're going to pass legislation. And we believe that passing legislation is critical. So when you say, how are we going to do it? We're going to compromise.

We believe the states need to have additional resources so they don't layoff teachers, layoff firefighters, layoff police and can stabilize their own governments in an era of very deep fall in their revenues. After all, 49 of our states have to have a balanced budget.

But we're going to have to resolve those differences, obviously, if we're going to pass a bill. Simply talking about what we need to do is not going to be effective if we can't, in fact, do it. So we're going to have to have compromise.

MR. KILMEADE: And I think what I get from this conversation -- I know you're busy and have a million places to go -- is you think you can have something by the end of the day.

REP. HOYER: We hope so, yes. That's our objective.

MR. DOOCY: All right. Steny Hoyer from Maryland, we thank you very much for joining us today.

REP. HOYER: Thank you.

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