Press Conference with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY); Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)

Press Conference

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID (D-NV); SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY); SENATOR PATTY MURRAY (D-WA)

SUBJECT: PRESIDENT OBAMA'S REMARKS TO A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS

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SEN. REID: All right. Durbin's been kicked out of leadership; that's why he's not here. (Laughter.) He gave us some lame excuse he had something else to do, so he's through. Okay?

Last night, the American people heard something we haven't heard in a very, very long time: honest assessment of where we are as a country. We also heard a strong vision how we're going to work together to make life for struggling Americans better.

Some of you were at an event that Speaker Pelosi and I did before the State of the Union, and I said at that time that every time that Obama gives a speech, the bar gets a little higher and a little higher, and you know, the guy always meets that bar. And he did it last night. I predicted he would, and he did: a stunning speech.

We took a strong step by passing the economic recovery package as we did, and he talked about that at some length. He talked about the three things that we all must focus on: energy, education and health care.

There's so much we need to do, as indicated last night, to help people stay in their homes -- and Senator Schumer will talk about that in more detail; we need to fix our financial system so these abuses don't happen in the future; and pass a fiscally responsible budget that reflects the priorities of the hardworking American society.

We can accomplish these goals, I think, without any question, and do even more, but only if we put progress over partisanship. We've had far too much partisanship, as we've seen in the last little bit.

We're all in this together. These crises don't effect one party more than the other; it affects the American people just the same. If we can pull together, we can lift ourselves out of this hole and help our economy not only recover, but prosper once again.

We are here today to pledge that we are going to do everything we can to work with the Republicans and work with the administration to get things done, and I just hope the Republicans hear our message. We have tried our utmost this new Congress on the Senate floor to create an aura of going back to work the way we used to. Amendments are offered. Votes are taken. We have done this on a bipartisan basis, and that's been shown with what we did with the lands bill, what we did with Lily Ledbetter, what we did with, of course, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and of course what we did with the economic recovery package.

We want to work to move this country. We're -- we don't want the Republicans to continue being the party of "no."

Senator Schumer.

SEN. SCHUMER: Thank you, Senator Reid.

Well, last night, President Obama gave his speech. It was a tour de force. It was one of the best speeches I've heard in all my 28 years in Washington. He didn't flinch from the problems we face, but gave every American confidence that we could meet them, succeed and prevail.

And we're playing on the same team with the president. We know that his agenda is the agenda that will move America forward.

Our Republican colleagues have tried to act like they're cheering for the quarterback, and then nitpick his play calling. Well, President Obama and his agenda are one and the same. You can't separate the man from the agenda. And unfortunately, many of our Republican colleagues are mired in the past. They still think we're in 1980. They still think the only thing you do during this economic crisis is shrink government. They're outdated and they're out of touch.

But we, under Senator Reid's leadership, are going to keep reaching out to them, because what's going to happen is the public and even the Republican electorate is going to push the Republican senators and House members much more towards what we want to do.

I'd like to talk about just two things in the president's speech. The first is housing and his housing plan, and it hasn't gotten the plaudits it deserves. This plan is an amazing plan, and it's going to work, and here's why. He focuses on the servicers and the bondholders. The plans that we passed under Senator Dodd's leadership, the House passed under Congressman Frank's leadership and Paulson's plans, focused mainly on the homeowner. But the homeowner is tied up until the servicer is ready to refinance the mortgage. And now, with the guidance -- specific guidance that has been issued by every one of the regulatory agencies -- the servicers are going to say, okay, we'll refinance. And what that means is -- and by the way -- and this isn't public yet; it should be -- two-thirds of the servicers are the large banks that are part of TARP, and they've already agreed that they're going to refinance now that they're not worried about being sued. And so this is going to make a major change in the housing market. And if we find a bottom for the housing market, the rest of the economy could get better. So that was just one example of how the president really thinks out of the box, with bold initiatives that are not right or left, but rather forward rather than back.

And then just the only other thing I'd like to say is that the president has the intellectual ability, the confidence and the sort of calm personality to both solve our economic crisis and move the country forward at the same time in terms of education and energy and health care. And I just, you know -- I was almost breathless when the speech was over. I just thought it was an incredible speech not only in terms of its content, but in -- but in terms of its taking complicated ideas and being able to explain them to the American people.

The only hope I -- you know, the only thing I'm waiting for is I hope every American saw it, because what it will do is move America forward and bring the Republican Party into the 21st century as well so they can work with us in a bipartisan way, which is what we want to do.

SEN. REID: Senator Murray.

SEN. MURRAY: I would just echo that I thought the president gave a right-on message to us here in Congress and to everyone across the nation last night. I listened to it very carefully because at home in Washington state, we are really struggling: WaMu laying off 3,500 people, Microsoft laying off people, Boeing laying off people, Starbucks laying off people. I have friends, neighbors, family members who have been given their pink-slip notices, including a brother who's a reporter for a paper that is going to go out of business. Now, he's a sports reporter, so he's -- (chuckles) -- maybe smarter than some of the people here.

But -- (laughter) -- but --

SEN. SCHUMER: Don't -- don't set such a low standard, Patty. (Laughter.)

SEN. MURRAY: (Laughs.) But this is -- this is personal. (Laughs, laughter.) This is personal. (Laughter, laughs.)

And I know -- (laughs, laughter) -- all right, Chuck. That's enough. (Laughter.) He's going to employ my brother.

SEN. SCHUMER: (Laughs.)

SEN. MURRAY: I will tell you that this is personal to many, many families.

And what we were listening to -- for the president to say us -- to us last night is that he understood what families and people and businesses in our communities are going through, but he had a path forward. It was a positive message, and I like how he ended it: with a young girl who reminded all of us that we are not a nation of quitters; that it is hard work ahead of us; that we need to focus on those challenges that we have failed to focus on for a number of years now, if not decades, whether it's health care or education or energy. These are going to be very tough decisions for us. But we are a strong country. And working together, each one of us, we can get us back onto a path of recovery. I thought that was an excellent message and one we all needed to do.

Now the hard work begins, as Congress works with the White House and this president to move us forward on that path. And it is most important that our Republican colleagues join us with that. The door is wide open. We welcome their ideas. We welcome them to work with us. We want them to turn their applause from last night into actions and work with us, because this country needs us all to work together.

It is going to be a tough road ahead, but I agree with the president that we are capable of what we believe in in this country, if we all work together to achieve that. And I hope that that message was heard here in Congress, at every door of every member, and across the country as well.

So thank you.

SEN. REID: Questions?

Q Senator Reid --

Q Senator Reid?

Q Health care. Do you expect to be able to move this this year?

SEN. REID: I think we've made progress. We all know that there was a setback as a result of Senator Daschle not being the head of HHS. But Senator Baucus has been working for months -- he started working last year -- on a health care plan, and that's moving along just fine. He's had a number of significant hearings. There's even talk about his trying to do something on the floor soon.

Now, whenever we get the HHS in play here -- and it'll be soon -- I think they've got a good place to go to where there's been a lot of work done. So the answer is, by the end of this year, I want to do something significant dealing with health care.

Q Senator Reid, this --

Q (Where'll ?) Kennedy? Where will be Senator Kennedy --

SEN. REID: Well, I hope -- I hope Senator Kennedy is on the floor. I talked to him yesterday, had a nice visit with him yesterday, and he -- one of the things that he -- you know, he gave up his Judiciary Committee slot, but he has not given up his health care slot. He believes in that committee. His committee's working hard. They've been in -- they've been working with Senator Baucus. So I think we're doing quite well. I'm satisfied with our progress on this.

Q Senator Reid, one of the main messages that you heard from President Obama last night was about the fact that everybody's going to have to cut, and he said that the government is going to have to cut spending. He talked about finding $2 trillion in spending cuts. Why not start now? I know you guys are working on last year's budget, but why not start with this budget? Why do you have an 8 percent increase in spending and even an increase -- 10 percent increase -- in the budget for Congress itself? Why not --

SEN. REID: It's very clear that President Obama has said that he's going to look every place he can to save money. But we also recognize that we're going to have to spend some money to get out of this hole. The government's the only body that has any money. That's the reason we did the economic recovery package. That's why we moved into housing. That's why we did TARP.

And as we learned during the Great Depression -- and we're not in a Great Depression; the American people are beginning to feel hope. We're going to work our way out of these problems. And that speech last night was certainly a big kick to get that done. But I think that we have to understand what took place during the Great Depression. There was deficit spending that went on during the Great Depression, and they stopped it a little too soon.

So we -- the president inherited the tremendous financial burden that was created the last eight years. Over 10 years, when Bush took office eight years ago, we had a $7 trillion surplus. He ran up the debt by $5 trillion. This is what President Obama has -- had laid on his shoulders, and we're working with him to get out of the hole that has been dug for him, and we're -- started that.

But I think this isn't the time to talk about balancing the budget. He's going to -- at the end of four years, he will cut the deficit in half. That's a big chore right there.

Q But why does Congress need a 10 percent increase?

How is that going to help -- (inaudible)?

SEN. REID: We had a situation and you should direct that question to Senator McConnell because we had trouble organizing this year. They wanted to maintain a lot of their staffing even though they had lost huge numbers and the only way we could get it done is do what we did.

So you could direct that question to Senator McConnell.

Q (Off mike.)

SEN. REID: Right now, there are three things we want to do with energy. The first thing we need to do is an energy bill. I've had conversations with Senator Bingaman; he is working with Lisa Murkowski, the ranking member of the Energy Committee, to come up with a bill. I have got all the chairmen who have some jurisdiction over things dealing with energy and we all agreed, let's start with Bingaman's committee and come up with something dealing with a renewable portfolio standard, some real good conservation measures in buildings and things of that nature.

Once we get that done, we need to move to what Nobel laureate Stephen Chu said at a big event that we had Monday where he said, let's stop talking about a smart grid, nobody understands what that means. He said we want to start talking about is a highway to transmit electricity to where it's needed. That's the next stage of legislation we need to work on and then we're going to do something dealing with climate change specifically. It will make it so much easier to do that if we get rid of the energy stuff, the so-called low hanging fruit, we get something done with transmission, then Senator Boxer, Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and others having jurisdiction, including Senator Baucus, will be able to move in expeditiously and get that done.

Our goal is to do it before this year is ended.

Q Senator Reid, when would you expect a bill on energy, on global climate change and on health care to come to the floor? Do you have in your mind a timeline?

SEN. REID: Well, I've talked about the energy thing. It's very possible. I hope we can get the first phase of energy done this work period and then you asked me, health care, health care, health care, I've already talked about that that is something we need to do. I'd like to get health care started before the August recess. And on global climate, which we have to do as a result of what's happening around the world, this is something not only important to Nevada, Washington, New York, every state in the union, but also the world.

And so we're going to work on that. As far as giving you a definite time, I can't do that, but our goal is to get it done this year.

Q (Off mike.) Can you talk about Treasury -- (inaudible).

SEN. SCHUMER: Yes. On the first, Secretary Geithner is working on filling in the details of his plan, and I think there's a general view that nationalization, a so-called federal takeover of the banks should be avoided at all costs. It should be a last resort.

There have been times in the past, the FDIC comes in and takes over a bank, cleans out the management. The shareholders lose their value, puts a new management and leaves. That's a lot different than long-term ownership and it's when people talk about even nationalization as a last resort, they go to the second, not the first.

So we should be clear about that. No one intends ever to have the government running these banks or insurance banks for a long period of time to come in, clean them out, take out the bad assets, put in new management. That's what's in mind.

In terms of bankruptcy, it was part of the president's housing plan. It is needed with two-thirds of the servicers willing to go along with refinancing, they're going to do that whether we have bankruptcy or not and sort of force the bondholders who won't come to the table to come anyway, but you still need it for the other third and I know that the president and I think Leader Reid has put that on our agenda for this work period, I think the House is doing a bankruptcy bill along with a few other issues, putting into legislation the $250,000 FDIC, a safe harbor for the servicers, which would guarantee they couldn't be sued and a few others and I think the hope is to move that. Senator Reid will make that decision, but to move it as quickly as we can.

SEN. REID: One last question.

Q (Off mike) -- use of congressional earmarks -- (inaudible). How do you expect them to be resolved?

SEN. REID: First of all, we are a separate branch of government and since we've been a country, we have had the obligation as a Congress to help direct spending. We cannot let spending be done by a bunch of nameless, faceless bureaucrats buried in this town someplace to take care of the needs of the state of Nevada, Washington and New York.

Now, there is no question and President Obama is right that the earmark situation has been abused. The Republicans did this and it's no better stereotype than what happened with Jack Abramoff, but things have changed. We led the most sweeping ethics and lobbying reform in the history of this country, we did that and as a result of that, the issue dealing with congressionally-directed spending is transparent. It's there for everyone to see.

And I think that what we've done in the omnibus is very significant. What we've done is cut earmarks by 50 percent in numbers and by amounts by some 75 percent, but I'm here to tell everyone that we have an obligation as members of Congress to help direct spending to our states and I have - sometime in the near future, if I have an extra four or five hours, I think I would like to write a little short piece on what has happened with me in congressionally-directed spending over the year, how these have been things that have helped our country significantly.

So I'm here to say that I'm going to do everything I can to maintain the viability of the branch of government we call Congress, the legislative branch.

Thanks, everybody.

END.

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