Stakeout With Senator Mitch McConnell Following The Weekly Senate Republican Policy Committee Luncheon Also Participating: Senator Jon Kyl; Senator Lamar Alexander; Senator John Ensign; Senator John Thune

Press Conference

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SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, good afternoon, everyone. I hope you got away from here for a couple of weeks, and it's good to see you again.

Let me make a couple of observations before turning to Senator Kyl and others. We know we're going to have the supplemental appropriation before the Senate before the Memorial Day recess. Obviously, most all of our members, if not every single one of them, support appropriating money for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, that's an area where I think the president's on the right track and is basically carrying out the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq and keeping the pressure on the terrorists in Afghanistan.

However, I remain, and I think most of my members remain, troubled by the decision to put a date certain on the closing of Guantanamo. What will we do these -- with these people? These are among the most dangerous killers in the world. And even though others have suggested from time to time it'd be a good idea to close Guantanamo, including the previous president and the Republican candidate for president in 2008, no one has ever put a deadline on it, because it's a lot easier to say it than to do it.

And as you know, since the administration's announced a date specific, which I gather would be next January, to close this facility, there hasn't been a rush of people coming up to say, "Oh, we'll take some." In fact, I believe the French have said they'll take one.

So I hope the president will be open to changing his mind about that. We don't want to release these killers. We've had a vote in the Senate, 94 to 3, against putting them in the United States. And the question remains, if you're going to close Guantanamo, from which no one has ever escaped, where will they go?

Issue number two, on spending: We applaud the president for the decision yesterday to ask his Cabinet to save $100 million. Any savings when you're on the kind of spending spree that we've been on is certainly welcome. But I do think it's important to put that in context. We're spending right at $100 million a day on interest on the stimulus bill that we just passed this year. So a $100-million savings is a -- is certainly we -- something you can applaud, but it is a drop in the bucket in terms of the overall problem.

And I'm still waiting for the president to indicate he's still in favor of the Gregg-Conrad proposal, which, as most of you know, is a proposal to provide an expedited procedure by which you could deal with our long-term unfunded liabilities in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which really seriously threatens the financial health of our country.

With that, let me turn to Senator Kyl, wherever you are.

SEN. KYL: As Senator McConnell just said, the direction to his Cabinet to save $100 million is not exactly heavy lifting. But in the spirit of friendship, we have a suggestion as to how he could make that a lot easier, and that's simply not to spend the $80 million that the budget allocates for the closing of Guantanamo. As the leader said, it is a place that has served us well, and it's a lot easier to say in a campaign you're going to close it than to figure out actually how to do it.

I just got back from a trip among other places to Afghanistan, and the information we received there is that people who actually we thought were people who could be released, without harm to United States forces or allied forces, have come back to the battlefield and have either been captured, or killed, or we know have caused additional terrorist activity against our forces and against allied forces. And those are the folks that we actually had vetted and thought were safe to release. You're now down to the hardcore, people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who planned the 9/11 attacks and was planning other attacks following that. What are you to do with somebody like that?

And what exactly does this $80 million comprise? It's broken up into two general categories, one 50 million (dollars), one 30 million (dollars). And of that, part of it is for the release into the United -- the potential release into the United States of these dangerous terrorists.

I think the administration, as the leader said, should have decided what it could actually accomplish that's safe, and how it could do it, before announcing that it would be done by a date certain.

As I said, this is an easy way to get 80 percent toward the goal of saving $100 million. Just don't spend the $80 million to close Guantanamo.

SEN. ALEXANDER: On the president's asking his Cabinet to save $100 million, one major newspaper reported today that the budget analyst laughed out loud when White House -- in the White House briefing room when it was described. Another said, "Well, if you were buying a car for $50,000 and the car dealer offered you a dollar off, would you buy the car?" And the Republican leader has pointed out that $100 million is the amount that we're spending on interest every day on the so-called stimulus bill that was passed earlier this year.

We favor spending -- saving $100 million, and we'll help the president do that. But that's a very small band-aid when major surgery is required. And the surgery's required on entitlement spending.

Senator McConnell, in his first address at the press club, offered to work with the president on reining in entitlement spending. The president himself held a summit, which we were -- in which we were glad to participate, on reining in entitlement spending.

We favor passing the Gregg-Conrad legislation that would set up a procedure like the base closing procedure so that Congress could go vote up or down on how to control major entitlement spending. We need major surgery on a very serious problem for our country's future and not a band-aid.

SEN. ALEXANDER: In the recently passed budget out of the Senate, in the budget that the president proposed, there was a, quote, "down payment," on health care reform of 634 billion (dollars). Most estimates are well over a trillion dollars.

We just had a presentation in the policy lunch by Steve Burd, who is the CEO of Safeway. In the last four years, they have actually -- compared to the rest of the country, they've lowered their health care costs by 40 percent. Forty percent is significant. Can you -- and how they did this, basically, is they have financial incentives for healthy behavior -- if you quit smoking, if you actually get your weight under control, if you control your blood pressure with the proper medication, if you control your cholesterol.

Very few diseases cause most of the problems with health care, most of the expenses with health care in the United States. So instead of just spending massive amounts of money, we could actually save huge amounts of money if we would apply those same principles that Safeway has implemented to the rest of America for our private insurance, but also if you apply those same kinds of principles and incentives for healthy behavior to Medicare and to the Medicaid populations.

After all, I think it's 75 percent of the diseases that are in this country are actually caused by behaviors that people choose. They're not caused by genetics; they're not caused by some contagious disease; they're caused by poor behavioral choices. So if we put in the proper incentives, instead of spending over a trillion dollars more on health care, we could actually save money on health care, insure the uninsured and actually be better off financially in America.

SEN. THUNE: I want to join my colleagues in congratulating the administration on their willingness to try and find a whole $100 million of savings. I think the president is hearing what most of us who travel in our states heard when we were home, and that is people are upset.

And reason there were so many people who attended many of these protests -- we had 3,500 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, come out to protest the fact that the federal government is spending too much, taxing too much, borrowing too much. And unfortunately the budget that was passed and the stimulus bill that was passed all call for more spending, more borrowing and don't do anything to address the fundamental problem that Senator Alexander highlighted, and that is mandatory spending, the runaway growth of entitlement spending. We need to -- some focus on entitlement reform.

A hundred million dollars, in the overall scheme of things right now, as Senator McConnell says, that's one day's interest on the stimulus bill that was passed earlier this year. So it is a minimum effort, but I'm glad to hear that they are getting the message that we're getting and people we represent around this country, and that is that the American public is fed up with Washington's spending habits.

SEN. MCCONNELL: We'll take a couple of questions, if there are any.

Q Senator McConnell, President Obama is now leaving the door open to prosecution of Bush administration officials who created interrogation policy. Your reaction?

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, the president's chief of staff just said on Sunday -- on one of the Sunday shows -- that we were going to look forward and not backward.

The president's apparent contradiction today is a bit surprising. And we're sort of interested to know what is the policy or the position of the administration, because now it seems to be somewhat confusing.

Q The disputes over nominations suggest that relations -- (off mike).

SEN. MCCONNELL: You mean with the nominations we have on the floor now?

Q There are these and others from the State Department, I believe.

SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah. Got you. I don't think that the dispute over nominations is much of a dispute. I mean, in the Senate we frequently have debate on nominations. We frequently have votes on them. We did back during the Bush administration. I don't think it's been any more common this year than it was, say, last year.

Q Senator McConnell, President Obama also left open the possibility that he wouldn't oppose the congressional appointment of an independent commission to investigate (detention and interrogation policies ?). How would --

SEN. MCCONNELL: I don't know. We'll have to take a look at whatever legislative proposals are made. The president made big deal, after coming to office, about looking forward and not looking backward. And I wish there were as much focus in this administration on policies that will keep us safe here in the United States. I think it's important to remember, from 9/11 until the end of the Bush administration, not another single attack on the U.S. homeland. We were obviously doing something right. It wasn't just good luck. And to the extent that the president wants to alter the fundamental policies that have kept us safe for the last eight years since 9/11, it's a matter of some concern.

Q (Off mike.)

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, you all are tired of hearing us say it, but I think that what characterizes the first hundred days is this administration is spending too much, taxing too much and borrowing too much. If I had to just sum up the domestic program, that's what I would say about it.

Thanks very much.

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