MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D), CALIFORNIA: Ed, it`s good to be with you.

SCHULTZ: The numbers don`t lie. How do we turn this around?

GARAMENDI: We`re going to have to create jobs. We`re going to have to create those good middle class jobs that have disappeared. You take a look at the manufacturing sector in America. It`s lost 40, 45 percent; 20 million jobs 20 years ago; just over 11 million now.

So we`ve got to turn that around. We can. We have all the tools. We just have to employ those tools, which means Congress has to act. We`ve got to get the laws and the policies in place. Fail to do that, that`s
going to get worse.

SCHULTZ: Well, the middle class Americans have the disposable income. And if you see that, a number that`s being depleted year after year, how`s the economy going to turn around, if families, majority-wise, don`t have disposable income?

GARAMENDI: They won`t. It won`t. It will continue to go downward and will continue to be a second-rate country. But we can turn it around. But the policies are being written in Washington right now. You take a
look at the super committee. What the super committee Republicans are proposing is to make that chart worse. Because they want to give more tax breaks to the super wealthy.

They`re covering it up in many, many ways. And at the same time, charge the middle class and low income more money for their health care, more money for their education. It goes on and on. It is dead wrong.

SCHULTZ: I want to mention some of the effects of the grows income segregation that`s taking place in America. The gap in standardized test scores between poor and rich kids is 40 percent bigger today than it was in 1970. This is about resources. The gap between poor and -- rich and poor kids in college graduation is up more than 50 percent since the early 1990s.

So the high income -- the number of high income college grads has risen from about 33 percent in the early 1990s to now 50 percent today. For low-income kids, it`s only risen from five to 10 percent. So this --
this is really the conservative social change that they have been working for.

GARAMENDI: Well, the wealth is going to fewer and fewer. Those people are able to pay for a good education. They`re living in good places, in schools, and they can go to the best colleges. The poor,
they`re going downward. They`re going into those schools that are not performing.

They`re being pushed out. And you take a look at the tuition for education across the United States. It`s gone through the roof. And who can afford that? The rich. Can the middle class? They`re getting pushed
down. They can`t afford it.

We have to change that. And you can`t just do it with loans. You`ve got to do it with tax policy, so that those who have enjoyed extraordinary wealth over the last 10 to 15 years, it`s time for them to pay their fair share. And yet the Republicans are going to exactly the opposite way.

They want to reduce the amount of taxes that the super wealthy, millionaires -- a million dollar income. Good heavens. Enough already.

SCHULTZ: John Garamendi, great to have you with us. Congressman from California, here on THE ED SHOW. Thanks so much.

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