CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Government Budget and Government Shutdown

Interview

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BLITZER: Sobering words from the longtime senator, John McCain, calling this whole ordeal, you just heard him say it, a shameful chapter. As we're waiting for a Senate vote on the compromise debt and spending deal, let's bring in our Republican congressman from Oklahoma, Representative James Lankford. He's the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee. Congressman, thanks very much for joining us.

REP. JAMES LANKFORD, (R) OKLAHOMA: Thanks.

BLITZER: All right. So, you just came from this meeting in the Republican caucus. You heard the speaker tell everyone he hopes they'll vote for whatever emerges from the Senate. How will you vote?

LANKFORD: Yes. I'm still waiting to actually read the bill itself. The bill tax has not been available yet. We have a few outlines of it and some notes of what's in it, what's out of it, but no one's actually seen the actual text yet. So, I'm looking forward to get a chance to actually read that. I understand it's not very long. Thirty or 40 pages or so, but I'm looking forward to actually going through it.

BLITZER: But if it's the general outlines as all of us have been reporting and members have been discussing, basically kicking the can down the road until January and February, getting House Senate conferees to discuss at least the budget over the next few months by mid-December, hopefully coming up with some sort of agreement, is that good enough?

LANKFORD: Yes. I'm going to have to take a look at it, Wolf. I can tell you, there's a lot of support for it in the House to be able to say a couple things. One is to get this resolved. The other one is we've got to get to a budget conference. We've got to resolve our differences. There's been a push from the beginning to say we've got -- we have to actually sit down and negotiate things together.

If we don't sit down and negotiate things together, we're never going to get this resolved. So, this standoff for the last 2 1/2 weeks has been about the president saying, I won't meet with you until some other time, and us saying, all we want to do is be able to negotiate. So, we need (ph) the budget conference resolve this. Hopefully that will help. We still have a rising debt.

We still have significant issues with the Affordable Care Act, not just what we're saying, but what our constituents are saying about price (ph), about accessibility, about what's happening in their businesses, the hospitals, insurance companies.

There are real problems that are out there and I know everyone wants to watch over that and say it's just partisan bickering. And two, you actually talk with people that are affected and they're having a real problem.

BLITZER: Could you see a similar fight erupting in January or February?

LANKFORD: I certainly hope not, obviously. This was never the intent. This has always been the challenge to be able to walk through this and say, how do we deal with these issues? The budget conference from understanding in the proposal is, the budget conference is to end by the middle of December.

We actually have the CR that extends until the middle of January that gives us some buffer time to be able to get this resolved. So, hopefully, we're not going to run into this again. The interesting thing about this, I actually have a bill that I've had for the last three years that prevents government shutdowns, that does an automatic CR with and across-the-board cuts to incentivize appropriations and so we never have this issue.

So, I've never been supportive of shutdowns. I think it's the wrong way to be able to run government. There is a way to be able to fix that. And hopefully in the days ahead, we'll be able to run my bill. It's actually fixed this in the days ahead.

BLITZER: Looking back, was it a blunder to link the government shutdown to the issue of Obamacare?

LANKFORD: That's actually a tough one, Wolf, just in practical terms. As we approach the October 1, that was actually the beginning of the fiscal year, obviously the beginning of the exchanges for the Affordable Care Act, we spent all of August and September with constituents, just bombarding us, saying, they see there are major problems, they want us to be able to address those.

It all kind of came down to a head during that time period. What's interesting is, our office is flooded with calls saying, hey, they want the shutdown to end, but it's just as flooded with calls people saying, oh, I've never seen signed up until now and I just found out my insurance is $200 more a month or their company just found up they're not going to be able to see with same insurance they have last year.

And so, there are all kinds of issues that are still flooding to our office, that the farther this is gone, the more people don't like the shutdown, but the farther it's gone, we're getting more and more call saying they're finding out that practical effects on their life and their livelihood for the Affordable Care Act.

BLITZER: If you vote, excuse me for interrupting, congressman.

LANKFORD: That's all right. Go ahead.

BLITZER: If you vote in favor of whatever emerges from the Senate, are you fearful that you could be primaried next time you seek re- election?

LANKFORD: No. I think the people in my district want us to be able to resolve this. they also want to see the long-term debt resolved and they also want to see to start to make progress in the Affordable Care Act. So, it's this combination of all those things. I'm going to be able to look and see, are we making progress on long-term debt? That's what the debt ceiling has been about. You mentioned Fitch earlier. Fitch in 2011 did not downgrade us, specifically because in our last debt ceiling fight, we actually came to an agreement that has reduced spending and has started to balance out some of that. That didn't happen in this one. So, while Fitch doesn't like the partisan bickering and neither do we, they also want to see some resolution.

That's not occurring this time period. So, we're just as concerned about a downgrade from Fitch when we don't resolve problems as when we do when we just have problems.

BLITZER: Congressman, thanks very much for coming in.

LANKFORD: You bet.

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