MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "MORNING JOE" INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR MARK WARNER (D-VA)
SUBJECT: PROPOSED HOUSE GOP BUDGET INTERVIEWERS: MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MIKE BARNICLE, DONNY DEUTSCH

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MS. BRZEZINSKI: With us now, Democratic senator from Virginia, Senator Mark Warner.

Very good to see you again, Senator.

SEN. WARNER: Good morning, Mika. I've got to tell you, I'm wondering about my positioning in the show. I'm right after Screamin' Jim Cramer and right before Smokin' Joe Frazier. I'm not sure where that puts me, but -- (laughter) -- thanks for having me on.

(Cross talk.)

MS. BRZEZINSKI: It's all about placement, baby, and that's not bad.

SEN. WARNER: That's right. I'll take it. I'll be the filler in between.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Oh, no, you're great. We're glad to have you on.

I want your reaction to the GOP budget. But I'm not sure it's fair to call it an April Fool's joke. I do believe the budget -- and tell me if you disagree -- raises good questions about, well, the math adding up and spending and just how much spending should be happening in the crisis that we're in.

SEN. WARNER: Well, listen. I think what the House GOP put out yesterday -- I'm not even sure the Senate GOP's going to put it out -- basically flatlines spending. It's kind of more of the last eight years of the Bush administration approach. It's not where we need to head as a country.

I think the president's laid out the right priorities -- energy, education, and health care, but also deficit reduction. And I was part of the group on the Senate Budget Committee that tried to actually ratchet back some of the president's initial spending to make sure that we can, at the end of the five-year period, get down the deficit to under 3 percent of the GDP. (Inaudible) -- to go further.

Candidly, I support the bipartisan effort that Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg have said let's put in place a bipartisan commission to look at entitlement reform. We've got to take on long-term systemic spending if we're going to get this deficit under control.

The domestic discretionary spending, overall, that's where we fight. But that's not what's really driving these deficit numbers, long term.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Senator, Donny Deutsch has a question for you.

Donny?

MR. DEUTSCH: Hey, Senator. Look, I thought it was kind of a joke yesterday also. It's pretty much more of the same -- let's get rid of cap gains for two years, let's take care of the rich, let's screw the middle guy.

Having said that though, if you look at the president's budget, even Orszag said that basically if we go on the premise that we're going to get even 4 percent growth over the next five to 10 years, even that bankrupts us. And frankly, 4 percent I don't think is happening.

So what do we do about that?

SEN. WARNER: Well, listen. I agree. I've got to tell you, having been a governor before, we actually had to make our budgets balance. This exercise in Washington is a little bit new for me.

I do think we're going to need to take on entitlement reform. I think we're going to have to take on tax reform -- you mentioned earlier in the show that Paul Volcker's going to be heading that up -- both important.

I also think one of the things the administration could do more on is how do we bring greater efficiency to government? Let's take the stimulus package, for example.

The administration promised a lot of transparency. I think the Recovery.gov Web site was a good first step; I think it needs to be more robust.

But look at the areas where we're doing something. I think needed spending around things like weatherization, around things like health care IT, around things like smart grid, we're ramping up programs very quickly.

We've got to put some metrics in place to make sure that these dollars are spent efficiently.

On this budget going forward, I really hope the administration goes ahead and names that chief performance officer. And whoever it is, let's give them some real juice. Let him go in there and shake up how we do government spending across the board, look for efficiencies.

Part of that is eliminating programs, but part of it -- I spent 20 years in business, and when I was governor of Virginia we were named the best managed state because we looked at long only basically vertical reform; we looked at horizontal reform.

How do you look at government procurement, health care -- I'm sorry -- government procurement, IT, HR? Define long-term sustainable savings. We really need to bring about greater efficiency in how the government spends.

MR. BARNICLE: Hey, Senator, real-world, real-time here, you were a very popular former governor of Virginia. This particular proposal by the Republicans calls for a cessation or a cap on spending right now, going forward.

Nobody likes more spending. Nobody likes to look at their pay stub at the end of the week and see the huger and huger bite in taxes coming up.

But what happens on a state-wide level if spending, federal spending, is capped, as the Republicans want it to be?

SEN. WARNER: Well, what it ends up doing is it trickles down to -- that means that you might not see folks who are on Medicaid get the kind of safety net that I think we've all decided we need. You might see -- end up -- cutbacks on education spending.

One of the things the president proposed is a dramatic increase in our veteran spending. I think all of us would say these returning vets need not only the kind of world-class education that Jim Webb and others got them last year, but world-class health care.

I'm not sure even the Republicans would say we ought to be cutting back on our benefits for our veterans at this point.

So let's look at how we can, long term, look at spending in terms of entitlement reform. Short term, let's try to actually bring some better efficiency to how government spends.

The American people want to make sure that we don't waste their tax dollars.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: All right. Well, we're going to still ask the questions, though, about how to sustain this thing.

Senator Mark Warner, thank you so much.

MR. BARNICLE: Senator, you won on points today. Don't worry about Smokin' Joe Frazier coming up. (Laughter.)

SEN. WARNER: I know. Frazier and Cramer. I don't know why I'm in between them, but I'm glad to be here.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: You're in a good place. We're glad to have you. Thank you so much.

END.

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