CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: ACA and Government Shutdown

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Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley sits on the Appropriations Committee, the Budget Committee, and Banking Committee. So, front and center on all of this.

And thank you very much for joining us, sir. Really appreciate it.

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D), OREGON: You're welcome, Erin.

BURNETT: So, let me start off with this question that was on the table, when House leaders said, look, we'll appoint negotiators to sit down with Senate leaders, try to find a resolution. You just heard obviously, your leader Harry Reid saying, no, I'm just not going to do that.

You pass the continuing resolution with no strings attached and then we'll talk.

Is there any way that you would have voted for this going to committee for some sort of negotiations or was that a nonstarter in terms of your vote?

MERKLEY: Well, actually, we voted for that six months ago. The reason we have not had a Budget Committee conference is because the Senate Republicans have been blocking it from happening. They have gone to the floor 18 times and blocked it from being negotiation. The very negotiation they are calling for now.

So, they should go to the floor and withdraw their blockade, let this conference go ahead. But meanwhile, we shouldn't be shutting down the government while carrying on the conversation.

Republicans still have plenty of leverage. They've already said they are going to hold the country hostage once again in just a couple of weeks over the debt limit and probably once again when the existing continuing resolution expires which is only weeks away.

But it makes no sense now to shut down the government.

BURNETT: So, let me ask you, though, because they have raised a couple of points here, which and you know what -- I've been tough on them. Jason Chaffetz has been on the show. He will attest to that.

But he has raised a point I want to raise with you, and that is that one issue that they have with Obamacare is that Congress and the White House get special treatment, right? So regular Americans who earn what your staffers or you earn don't get subsidies and all these benefits from Obamacare that people who are in Congress and their staffs get.

That seems deeply unfair to a lot of people. It's one of the things that the Republicans want to change.

Why wouldn't you negotiate on something like that?

MERKLEY: Well, quite frankly, there's going to be a lot of things that work and don't work in something that takes up a sixth of the national economy. That is health care. But you don't do it by embedding a hostage-taking situation, that we are going to run the economy off the cliff in order to have that debate. And if we endorse this now, there is no end to the trouble ahead.

Let's lots of things I want. I want the Senate to pass a farm bill. We have sent one to them twice, bipartisan farm bill. I want them to pass an infrastructure bill for water resources development that communities need all across America.

But we're not going to hold the American economy hostage to make that happen. There is a policy process and there is a budget process. And, by the way --

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BURNETT: But, Senator, why hasn't this happened yet then? I mean, it sounds like, you know, if you are willing to talk about it why hasn't it happened? It seems like they are put in a position where they have to do these things, seizing these moment, because you guys don't want to talk to them at other times. That's what they would say.

MERKLEY: Well, certainly they would say that. But here's the thing -- if you want to talk health care policy, their health care committee should have been putting out bills that actually do the reforms and sending them to us. Instead, they voted 45 times or whatever it is to shut down access for 30 million Americans to health care rather than actually putting ideas on the table to be discussed.

I mean, here's the challenge. Ted Cruz says he does not want this to go into effect because the American people might like it. They might found out that this actually works. Preexisting conditions are a big problem, is going to be solved and small businesses are going to get a better deal in exchange because they're part of a larger group. He doesn't want America to discover that this will actually work. So, he's got to stop it now.

That's an absurd position to take and a tactic that's absurd as well.

BURNETT: All right. Senator Merkley, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Nice to have you on the show, sir.

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