MSNBC "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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Let's bring in someone who knows what the speaker will unveil tomorrow. Congressman James Clyburn, whose job as House whip is to count and corral and cajole Democratic votes.

Good evening, Congressman.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: Good evening. How are you, Lawrence?

O'DONNELL: Good to have you on tonight.

CLYBURN: Thank you.

O'DONNELL: Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly and confidently, throughout the year, promised a robust public option in the House bill. How robust will it be?

CLYBURN: It's going to be a very strong public option. We are going to cover with our version of the public option a little better than 10 million more people than the Senate bill will cover. It's going to be much better for children than the Senate bill, as currently proposed.

It's going to be-it is going to be a good bill, strong public option, and the coverage, I think, is going to be great. We are going to start to cover, to close that donut hole for seniors, and we'll do it faster-five years faster than anything that's been proposed thus far. This is going to be a very good bill.

O'DONNELL: Congressman, as you know, it is rare to bring a bill to the floor of the House without knowing that you already have the 218. But it does sometimes happen. Is this going to be one of those instances where you put the bill out there, you're close to 218, and on the floor, you have to whip up the rest of those votes to get to 218?

CLYBURN: I think we'll be at 218 long before we get to the House with it. We plan to roll it out tomorrow. We approached it for 72 hours. And I think that when people look in on this bill during that 72-hour period, there will be more and more people gravitating toward.

As you know, already, more than 60 percent of the American people say they want a health care reform with a public option. When they see this public option, see how strong it is, see how many people it will be covering, I think that we will pick up support. And by the time we get to the floor with this bill, we'll have much better than 218.

O'DONNELL: Congressman, let's get to what could be the more difficult side of the bill, the tax side of the bill. The ways and means committee in the House did what Sherrod Brown just said he would like to do, which was impose a higher income tax rates at the very high earners on the income scale. The Baucus tax is a tax on health care plans-a lot of them union health care plans, eventually covering maybe 40 percent of the union plans out there, which Sherrod Brown is now opposed to. The House has been opposed to it.

What is the tax side of this bill going to look like when Nancy Pelosi unveils it tomorrow?

CLYBURN: Very close to what Sherrod Brown just mentioned. We will be looking at couples who make more than $1 million a year and individuals that make more than $500,000 a year. About 1.5 percent-I forgot exactly what the percentage is. There will be a small increase in their income taxes, which will then take them back a ways, but not far-as far back as they were before Bush gave them the tax cut. They'll still be benefiting from part of the Bush tax cut, but not as much.

O'DONNELL: Now, in President Obama's speech to the Congress, he specifically endorsed the Baucus tax on those health insurance plans. Do you think the president is willing to move in the House's direction toward taxing high income instead of taxing union health care plans?

CLYBURN: I certainly hope so, because I do not want to see anything jeopardize the president's promise not to raise taxes on the middle-class. And that could very well get us there. So, I would hope that he would see his way clear to come toward us on this because we are way over-in fact, twice the $250,000 that he kept mentioning during his campaign.

O'DONNELL: Congressman Clyburn, you know CBO is overwhelmed by the amount of work it has to do on the different bills in the House and Senate.

CLYBURN: Yes.

O'DONNELL: It's going to take them a while to get the Pelosi bill scored. When do you expect to actually get this bill with a CBO score on the House floor?

CLYBURN: Well, I expect to get it, as I said, we'll start the first 72 hours tomorrow. Then after that, we will probably do a manager's amendment and then put that out there for another 72 hours. And so, I suspect that this will get to the floor maybe Thursday of next week, maybe Friday, and who knows. We plan to stay here over into the weekend to get it done if we don't do it next Thursday and Friday.

O'DONNELL: Congressman James Clyburn, the House majority whip-thanks very much for your time tonight.

CLYBURN: Well, thank you so much for having me.

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