MSNBC "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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REP. BOBBY SCOTT (D), VIRGINIA: Thank you, Keith.

OLBERMANN: I want to get your position on the deal as a whole. But, first, about debt transparency--you also support full release of these numbers, correct? And why do they matter?

SCOTT: I do. When we pass--if we"re going to pass these tax cuts, you have to acknowledge that it"s going to be with borrowed money, to extend all the tax cuts we"ll be borrowing $3.7 trillion from all over the world. If we pass just the tax cuts for that portion of your income under $250,000, we"d have to borrow $3 trillion. It"s a hard case to make that borrowing $3.7 trillion from foreign countries that our grandchildren will pay off is fiscally reckless, but we can afford to borrow $3 trillion from foreign countries that our grandchildren pay off and that"s fiscally sensible.

I think the fact is, we need to make these decisions all at the same time. Letting the tax cuts expire would be unpopular. But the other choices we have to make are unpopular, too. I think next year, when we start getting serious about deficit reduction, if we ever do, we"re going to find that the choices we have to make next year are a lot more unpopular than just letting the tax cuts expire.

OLBERMANN: Funny that with our debt to China and not to mention Saudi Arabia, maybe Iran, that you would think that might be a big issue for the right, for the Republicans, for the Tea Party. And yet, it"s odd--I don"t recall hearing a lot about this from them.

Do you know where they are on this?

SCOTT: Well, I have no idea. But the fact is that we would not--we don"t have a sensible policy. We"re going around--we"re trying to do deficit reduction. And when the first thing out of your mouth is tax cuts, you know it"s not a serious discussion.

We need to put the--put all of the decisions we have to make on the table and try to make the best decisions we can. We"re sitting up here talking about trillions of dollars in tax cuts. At the same time, we don"t have enough money for perfunctory cost of living increases for our federal employees.

The Simpson/Bowles recommendation that had taxes on Social Security, Medicare, in the mortgage reduction and a lot of other things that I think would be dead on arrival in Congress, if you add it all up, you would create about $3.8 trillion in deficit reduction--about exactly the same of the "let the tax cuts expire" decision. We need to put all of them on the table at the same time and make a rational choice.

OLBERMANN: The White House we"ve learned is sending Vice President Biden to meet with the Democratic Caucus tomorrow. What will you tell him about this entire deal?

SCOTT: Well, I think the first we have to acknowledge is if the idea is to extend it two years you may as well get it over with and make them permanent, the whole $3.8 trillion. The idea that if you don"t have the backbone to let the tax cuts expire today, you"re certainly not going to do it in the middle of a presidential election when the Tea Party can threaten all the Republicans with primary challenges, and you"ve got 22 Democrats running for re-election in the Senate who would be running essentially against Santa Claus because they"re going to be saying, "Let"s make the tax cuts perfect for everybody," and you"re going to running as Grinch. That"s not a--you can"t expect that to happen.

The fact of the matter is, when we get two years for now, kick the can down the road two years, that at that point, they"ll make it permanent. We might as well do it now and get it over with. We need to put the choices, make them all together, put them all on the table and make the least unpopular choices because they"re not--you can"t do deficit reduction and maintain any popularity. It"s all going to be unpopular.

OLBERMANN: Yes, especially when you"re borrowing the money from who knows where.

Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia--thank you kindly for some of your time this evening.

SCOTT: Thank you.

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