Fox News Channel Interview - Transcript

Interview

Fox News Channel Interview - Transcript

FOX NEWS CHANNEL INTERVIEW WITH VIRGINIA GOVERNOR TIMOTHY KAINE (D), CHAIRMAN OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: PRESIDENT OBAMA'S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS INTERVIEWER: JON SCOTT

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MR. SCOTT: President Obama telling the nation a day of reckoning is at hand, calling on American's to take charge of our future.

The President, speaking to a joint session of Congress last night, talking directly to the American people as well, of course.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From videotape.) Now is the time to act boldly and wisely, to not only revive this economy but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now's the time to jump-start job creation, restart lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education, that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down.

MR. SCOTT: Joining us now, the new chairman of the Democratic National committee, he is Virginia governor, Tim Kaine. Governor congratulations. We haven't spoken to you since you got that job, on this show. Congratulations on that.

GOV. KAINE: Thank you, Jon. Good to be with you.

MR. SCOTT: We just heard the President say that hard choices are going to have to be made. But when you heard him talk about what he wants to do, you know, fixing health care, boosting college education, it's a pretty tall order and some pretty expensive stuff. How do you accomplish all that?

GOV. KAINE: Well it isn't going to be easy, Jon, as he said. I think what the President's focus on is we've got to get the economy going again. And so he talked about three programmatic areas that are needed to get our economy strong; an increased focus on educational excellence, charting a different energy future, and fixing a health care system that is just taking way too high a percentage of our GDP without delivering quality outcomes. Those are not issues that are separate from getting the economy going. They really are part of future economic strength.

And then the President shared his notion that we've got to go through this federal budget line item by line item. And as we're investing in the important things, we need to carve away some of the less important. And he said, you know, that they've already identified savings of $2 trillion over the next 10 years of things they think they can let go in order to focus on the most important priorities to get the economy going.

MR. SCOTT: And let me read you one of the criticisms from a Republican member of Congress. This from Georgia Representative Jack Kingston, he said, we want to do everything we can to work with the President but he's got to stop spending money we don't have. Washington is robbing our children's future. The President needs to back off the notion of centralized government planning. How do you respond?

GOV. KAINE: Well, first, you know, the stimulus package had a huge core in it of tax cuts for working American families. So the notion that it's all centralizing in Washington really isn't a fair representation of the stimulus package, which for American working families who make less than $150,000 is going to put money back in their pockets.

But most economists agree, Jon, and the Republican governors that I was with over the weekend, three quarters of them agree that if we did not do something to stimulate this economy right now we could be going into a period of such steep declines in GDP and economic growth that the deficit issues will be much, much worse down the road.

So, that is why this package of urgency was needed and that is why, you know, I think 80% of American's after the speech last night said, we like the way the President is coming at this economic challenge.

MR. SCOTT: I guess one of the tough things, for him, has got to be the whole question of tone because he has been criticized, as you know, for talking down the economy, for sort of scaring people into sitting on their wallets.

GOV. KAINE: It is, it's a very tough thing. And I don't know how I'd do it, Jon. I mean, I had to give a state of the commonwealth speech a month ago, every other governor has been giving state of the state speeches and we've all been wrestling with the same thing. We want to be candid with people. You know, you can't paint a pie in the sky scenario or pretend that there are not serious challenges.

And yet, at the same time, you want to point out that our people are resilient. We've been through tough times. We know we have the resources to master this situation, though it won't be easy.

I wrestled with the same tone in my state of the commonwealth speech a month ago but I think last night he did a very good job of being, you know, forthcoming about the magnitude of the challenge but reminding us that Americans have been here before. And if we pull together we can climb out of this and be stronger.

MR. SCOTT: Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, the head of the Democratic National Committee. Thanks.

END.

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