MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript
Interview
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Leader, thank you for being here tonight. I appreciate it.
PELOSI: Pleasure. Welcome to Washington, Ed.
SCHULTZ: Well, I have to ask you, have you ever seen the divide in this government as great as it is right now? The atmosphere.
PELOSI: Well, it is a difficult time. No question about that. It was terrible when the Gingrich Republican majority in Congress set out to impeach President Clinton. That was not a very good time, either.
But what`s interesting now is just to see how brazen the Republicans are when we need to have a tax, payroll tax cut for -- that will affect, as you said, 160 million Americans and they are saying not one red cent from 300,000 Americans who make over $1 million a year.
SCHULTZ: How close are you --
PELOSI: It`s stunning.
SCHULTZ: What kind of progress was made today, if any? How close are you to a deal on the payroll tax holiday, the unemployment, and the potential government shutdown?
PELOSI: Well, we`re moving toward agreement. I hope that it will be possible. It always gets harder as you get toward the end. But our appropriators have worked in a bipartisan way. We think the bill was much
improved because the Republicans wanted to avoid having to go to the payroll tax debate. But now they will have to. So, I`m optimistic --
SCHULTZ: Why will they have to?
PELOSI: -- there will not be a government shutdown.
SCHULTZ: There will not be a government shutdown?
PELOSI: There will not be.
SCHULTZ: You`re optimistic of that?
PELOSI: I`m optimistic of that.
SCHULTZ: OK. I hear it on radio all the time, I get a lot of people, people in the Democratic movement, progressive movement, are afraid that the Democrats are going to cave in. What are you willing to give up to get this deal, if anything?
PELOSI: Well, we have to have -- we have to go forward to get the payroll tax cut. And the point is that I think the president and the Democratic members of Congress have made the payroll tax cut too hot for
the Republicans to handle. Remember, in the beginning, they didn`t want to -- they were not even going to hear of doing such a thing. And then they passed a bill which made it practically impossible to enact.
But now, they`ll have to come closer to that.
But we still have to continue to make the fight, because it`s not just about the payroll tax cut. That`s important. It`s about tax fairness. And even if we don`t have the surcharge on those making over $1 million as a pay-for here, we still have to address the issue of tax fairness at some point.
SCHULTZ: Well, tax fairness, does that mean there will be a revenue component in this deal, that you will get the wealthiest Americans to serve up some revenue?
PELOSI: I don`t think so. But I don`t think that that issue is off the table as we go forward. But in any arrangement now to keep government open, you saw that the announcement was made that they couldn`t get 60 votes in the Senate, the obstructionists of the Republicans there.
SCHULTZ: What about pay freezes for federal employees? What about cuts of some 200,000 employees on the federal payroll?
PELOSI: Well, it was interesting that they would say in order to get a tax cut, payroll tax cut, to 160 million Americans, which is very important to those families, $1,500 in the pockets of 160 million working Americans, that injects demand into the economy to create jobs. It`s not only important to the families. It has macroeconomic impact. As do the extension of the unemployment insurance.
But again, don`t touch one hair on the head of the wealthiest people in our country making 300,000 wealthiest families. So again, this -- it`s an issue that we will have with us because we`re on two different paths about fairness and opportunity in our country.
SCHULTZ: What is fairness? What are you driving at here?
PELOSI: Well, what I call fairness is Democrats are committed to reigniting the American Dream, to build ladders of opportunity so that all Americans will work hard, play by the rules, take responsibility, can reach
success.
We have work to do. And we have to make sure that as we build that, we build it on a strong foundation. And that fairness for the middle class cannot come unless we have a change in reform and how campaigns are financed because the role of big money, special interest money in campaigns just snuffs out the voice of millions of people --
SCHULTZ: And I want to talk more about campaign finance reform and what the Democrats want to do. But are you convinced that this will not be viewed by Democrats and liberals in this country as a cave in to the
Republicans? That at the end of the day of this deal, it will be acceptable to the Democrats?
PELOSI: Well, I certainly hope it will be because it is -- we have to have the payroll tax -- we said we were not going home for the holidays unless we had it. Now, we`ll have to have some form of it and continue,
and continue the fight.
But this issue of -- you have to give the Republicans credit. They really stick with the guy what brung them to the dance.
SCHULTZ: Well, they protect the wealthy.
PELOSI: People making over -- they protect the wealthy. And it`s hard to understand because they have said, well, these taxes at the high end, they`re going to create jobs. They didn`t. We had all of this during
the Bush years.
And think of this, Ed. In the second year of the Obama administration, more jobs were created in the private sector than in the eight years of the Bush administration combined.
SCHULTZ: The Republicans eventually want to get the Bush tax cuts permanent.
PELOSI: Yes.
SCHULTZ: Is there any way you would ever agree to that?
PELOSI: No.
SCHULTZ: So they will expire and that won`t be a part of this deal?
PELOSI: No. The fact is I was disappointed that they were extended for the --
SCHULTZ: Last year.
PELOSI: -- period that they were. But the fact is, is that this is the end of that. Well, of course, we have to elect President Barack Obama president of the United States, and we have to elect a Democratic Congress
that I feel confident we can.
But even just electing the president, the president has said this is a centerpiece of his campaign. The tax cuts will not be extended. They don`t create jobs. They increase the deficit. It`s totally unfair.
And again, necessitated in order to be fiscally sound, cuts in investment in the competitiveness of our country and the education of our children.
SCHULTZ: But if there`s not going to be a revenue component on the extension of the payroll tax holiday and the unemployment benefits are going to be extended and you`re confident that they are and there won`t be a government shutdown, where`s the money going to come from?
PELOSI: I didn`t say there wasn`t going to be a revenue component. I said there wasn`t going to be a surcharge for the people making over $300,000 --
SCHULTZ: So where would that revenue component come from?
PELOSI: We`ll see now, won`t we? That`s what`s going on in the Senate right now, between Senator Reid and Senator McConnell -- Leader Reid and Leader McConnell to see where they can get 60 votes, because as you know, a majority doesn`t really count unless you have 60 votes in the Senate.
SCHULTZ: Do you see any scenario being played out where middle-class Americans might have to pay a little bit more?
PELOSI: Well, I certainly hope not. But I also think that as we approach -- what we had hoped the super committee could do was to address the entrepreneurial spirit of America, create jobs, invest in small
businesses, education is central to innovation, and all of that. And that everybody would take some responsibility for reducing the deficit.
SCHULTZ: Yes.
Leader Pelosi, we talk about this chart a lot on THE ED SHOW -- the income gap. Over the last 30 years in this country, we have seen the blue line is wage earners of America, the middle class. The red line, of
course, is where the top 2 percent has gone over the last 30 years. Census shows one out of every two Americans are now poor or in low incomes.
PELOSI: That`s stunning.
SCHULTZ: Seventy-seven percent of Americans say that the top 1 percent and corporations have too much power. What do you tell these Americans? I mean, what has to happen to turn that around? If the Democrats continue to extend tax cuts and seem to cave in with what the Republicans want all the time.
How are you going to turn this around?
PELOSI: I don`t subscribe to that characterization of what the Democrats -- we are here fighting the fight. That chart that you had has a big gap. It`s immoral. And it has gotten greater and greater. And it`s happened at the same time as productivity has increased in our country.
So you think wages could at least follow productivity to a certain extent. But they haven`t.
And the statistics that came out today, that the number of people in poverty or low-income, near poverty, is a stunning one. But that`s what -- that`s the decision that elections are about, the two different paths that
we`re on.
And that gap undermines our democracy, undermines the middle class, and undermines our democracy. This is a bigger issue than just one`s view of economics. It`s about how you sustain a middle class, which is the backbone of our democracy.
PELOSI: OK. House Leader Nancy Pelosi, stay with us. We`ll have more with Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi after this. You`re watching THE ED SHOW on MSNBC.
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