CBS "Face the Nation" - Transcript
Interview
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BOB SCHIEFFER: We welcome to the studio this morning the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, the speaker of the House when the Democrats had the majority there, Nancy Pelosi. Ms. Pelosi, thank you--
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (overlapping): Good morning.
BOB SCHIEFFER: --so much for coming.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Good morning.
BOB SCHIEFFER: You know, the unemployment figures came out and they were worse than expected.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Yes.
BOB SCHIEFFER: As you know. Unemployment actually ticked up to 9.1 percent but this was just part of the story.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Hm.
BOB SCHIEFFER: A series of numbers that have been really, really bad lately, the number of new jobs created--
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Hm.
BOB SCHIEFFER: --fifty-four thousand, far fewer than expected. Home prices hit a new low in the first quarter of the year. Home sales are down again. Consumer confidence is down. And gas and food prices are up. I have to say, congresswoman, many of the experts thought the recovery would be well underway by now.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Mm-Hm.
BOB SCHIEFFER: But it looks like we're going backwards now, that-- that we may be on the verge of a double-dip recession here. Do you-- do you fear that's what's happened?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, I think we have to take a careful look at those figures to see. The unemployment numbers are obviously very disturbing. Are they an anomaly as some people suggest, because of the disasters in the South and the Midwest and the rest or is this something systemic that-- that we have to accommodate in a different way? But all of it
translates into hardship for America's middle class and they're feeling it very, very severely.
BOB SCHIEFFER: You know Mitt Romney launched his presidential campaign in New Hampshire. And he said basically the President has made the economy worse. Here's-- let's just listen to what he said.
GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY: This is now his economy. And what he has done has failed the American people. And the borrowing and the spending and the 1.6 trillion dollar deficit, these--these numbers are his, they're on his back and it's why he's going to lose.
BOB SCHIEFFER: So are you and the Democrats going to have to come up to an answer to that?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well first of all, I don't stipulate to that set of facts that Governor Romney just said. Mitt Romney has said because the fact is that this deficit came to us largely from President Bush. But it's no use going there. We have to go forward. It's a question of what-- what is the President and what are those who aspire to be President going to do about the future to create jobs, good paying jobs. What are they going to do about the education of our children, the security of our seniors, the strengthening of the middle class, reducing the deficit-- reducing the deficit?
BOB SCHIEFFER: But the President has been there two-and-a-half years.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Mm-Hm.
BOB SCHIEFFER: I mean, why hadn't he done that yet?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (overlapping): Well, he's done a great deal of it.
BOB SCHIEFFER: What's happened?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: I think if he hadn't taken the actions he did that the situation would be worse. He pulled us from the brink of a financial crisis, from an economic crisis. And now we have to dig out of a deep-- a-- a deep debt. And-- and we have to also make it clear that we're not getting into this situation again.
BOB SCHIEFFER: You were talking in a kind of a different way when unemployment went to five percent under George Bush. What you said then that Americans are struggling with skyrocketing energy prices, gas is only three dollars a gallon then. And you said this morning, this is January 4, 2008, "This morning's jobs report confirms what most Americans already
knew--President Bush's economic policies have failed our country's middle class." I mean, aren't Republicans entitled to say, you know, if then gas was three dollars and unemployment was five percent and-- and-- and the President has failed the American people, don't they have a right to say that this President has failed the American people?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, if you want to go into the past, we can talk about the past all you want. The public wants to know about the future. What are you going to do to create jobs, good-paying jobs in our country?
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, what are you going to do?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, as I said what the President has done has improved the situation from where it may have been.
BOB SCHIEFFER: But the fact is the Congress has been in session since January and it's done basically nothing.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well you can talk to Mister Boehner about that.
BOB SCHIEFFER: So it's all their fault, it's not your fault?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, no. I mean, they set the agenda. We have said everyday that they're there, another day goes by and there isn't a jobs agenda or a jobs bill that has come to the floor. But again, it's about how we can work together to go forward. The-- these issues are bigger than politics. They're bigger than elections.
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, yes.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: It's about the country that we will live in. And that-- what you'll see in the election as we-- we go forward is one vision of America that's encompasses the Republican budget plan that-- that abolishes Medicare, that-- that makes college almost unaffordable for nearly ten million chil-- people, and the young people in our country. That takes
us deeper into debt and does not create jobs, or you can talk about an agenda that is about making it America, investing in education, innovation and the rest. And that's what campaigns are about. But I-- I-- I completely agree with you. Five months of this new Congress we haven't
seen a jobs agenda come forth from the Republicans.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you think you're any closer to coming some kind-- some kind of agreement with the Republicans on anything right now than say, you were in January?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, I would certainly hope so because we--
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): And when would be that be?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, we have what-- what it has to be and then we can work back from there. What it has to be and what the American people want from us, they-- you know, you keep going back to "05 and this and that and I-- and I'm-- you want me to respond to that and I respond.
BOB SCHIEFFER: I'm asking you about now with-- with respect--
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (overlapping): Yeah, no but you went back to "05.
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, yes.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (overlapping): So the people don't want to hear about "05.
They want to hear about the future and the-- as you know--
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): I think they want to hear about the now.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (overlapping): They want to hear about the future.
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): I think they want to hear about the now. I think they want to know why aren't you doing anything now. I mean we keep talking about well we don't want to talk about the past. We have to talk about the future. But in the meantime in between time, nothing is getting done.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (overlapping): Well, it--
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Nobody is agreeing with anybody on anything.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: I understand that. So we're not in the majority in the House. And so you're saying to me why haven't we brought something to the floor to create jobs? I think that's a better question asked to the Republicans because they control the agenda.
But what we do have to do and we can engineer back from there, we must not default on our loan. So we' going to have to raise the debt limit.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Moody's bond rating service warned this week that America's credit rating can be downgraded if a deal on the debt ceiling is not reached in a matter of weeks. Could you come to an agreement with the Republicans on debt reduction if they took Medicare off the table?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: There is a-- a bipartisan discussion going on that is civil and constructive. And that they've come to some areas where they can possibly reach agreement. But that nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. But I'll-- I-- I-- I welcome this line of questioning because this is a place where we are looking to how we go forward with
a-- a sound fiscal policy to reduce the deficit. And-- and I-- I could never support any arrangement that reduces benefits from Medicare.
BOB SCHIEFFER: All right.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (overlapping): Absolutely not.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you a little bit about Medi-- Medicare. Obviously as we all know the House Republicans want to replace it with government-subsidized private insurance. Can Democrats win in 2012 by just saying no to that?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: I think the party is going to say to the American people, to middle class, we want to create jobs, good-paying jobs so that you can provide for your families. It's about M--the middle class, about Medicare.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Mm-Hm.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: No reduction in benefits in Medicare.
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): But--
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: And it's about make it in America again about jobs for the middle class, good-paying jobs for the middle class. I think that is an agenda that can win. The--
BOB SCHIEFFER: Don't you-- let me just interrupt you. Don't you have to though give some plan or some idea of how you're going to reform Medicare because we all know it can't sustain as it is.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, we in our health care bill as you probably know saved half a trillion dollars in Medicare. We had a half a trillion dollars in savings there which we plowed back into improved benefits for seniors in terms of prescription drugs but even more important than that, we made it stable for about ten years into the-- added ten years of solvency
into the future.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Mm-Hm.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: That was-- that was a big start. The Republicans want to overturn that. That's one of the fights that we are having because we want to have those savings to keep Medicare solvent.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Is what you're telling me you've already done what needs to be done in Medicare.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, I think that we can-- I give the secretary of HHS the power to renegotiate for lower prices. That would save billions and billions and billions of dollars.
I think that any fraud that is associated with Medicare has to be addressed. But that's already a given. We didn't prevail in the bill on negotiating for lower prices. But that's a very important place to go to do that. So if you're talking about lowering the cost, what ideas do people have?
We have some. If you're talking about reducing the benefits, that's a non-starter.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, you've got some interesting days and weeks and months ahead of you.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Yes.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Miss Pelosi, we always enjoy having you here.
And we'll be back in a moment with some final thoughts.
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