NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Budget Negotiations

Interview

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DAVID GREGORY:
Welcome, both of you, to Meet the Press. Thanks for having me to the room. This is where Republican and Democratic peace was actually achieved, in this room?

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
This is it.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
In the center of the Capitol.

DAVID GREGORY:
So, what does this represent? Is this a breakthrough or a sign of how little can be accomplished in this environment?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
I guess it depends on your perspective. What do you think?

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
(LAUGH) I think it's a step forward that shows that there can be other breakthroughs and compromise if you take the time to know somebody, know what their passions are, and know how you can work together.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
That's exactly right.

DAVID GREGORY:
Because there's been a lot of government by crisis.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
That's right. We spent a lot of time just getting to know each other, talking, understanding each other's principles, and we basically learned that if we require the other to violate a core principle, we're going to get nowhere and we'll just keep gridlock.

So, then we spent a number of weeks finding where the common ground existed. You know, we went through this budget. You know, where's the waste? Where's the corporate welfare? What reforms can we do? What do we agree on? And then, we put that together and that's what this resulted. So, we also wanted to try to make this divided government work, at least at a minimum, basic functioning level. And, so, we had that impetus to do that.

DAVID GREGORY:
Do you feel like that's a change for you, for the conservative caucus? I mean, you said on the floor that you've been at each other's throats, elections have consequences, you were on the ticket to try to defeat the president, you felt you needed something different.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Well, sure. I wish I could go back and change the result of the election. But it is what it is.

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
But no, we disagree on that.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Right, that's where we disagree. But government has to function. And we saw the specter of two possible government shutdowns in 2014, one in January and one in October. I don't think that's good for anybody. It's not good for the country.

DAVID GREGORY:
Liberals and conservatives are both upset. Liberals say, "Look, you're negotiating on Republican terms."

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
They couldn't I believe I walked into a room with him.

DAVID GREGORY:
For a starting point. But, I mean, Republicans have dictated budget negotiations over the last couple of years. We're talking about these across-the-board cuts. There's nothing in here, big spending programs to get the economy going, that Democrats think are really important, and jobless benefits don't get extended.

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
Well, we didn't get everything we wanted. But I'll tell you what we did get, is certainty for the next two years. We have a point now where we're not going to tell everybody that we're going to throw the economy in a tailspin because we have to have something.

And importantly, a budget agreement really is about how we can manage this country's resources so we can have the things I do care passionately about, whether it's education or health care or transportation infrastructure. We were not managing our country in a way to get the things I cared about.

DAVID GREGORY:
On the Right, my colleague, Kelly O'Donnell, spoke to your colleague Marco Rubio. He calls this an un-American deal. There are other conservatives from outside groups who are saying, "Look, you and others made a promise, across-the-board cuts. You're going back on that promise now and there'll be consequences," they warn.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Well, my reaction to that is the Budget Control Act which created this sequester, these across-the-board cuts, said to replace the sequester one for one, a dollar of mandatory savings from this autopilot setup spending for a dollar of sequester. We've exceeded that. This results in net deficit reduction.

DAVID GREGORY:
But not much.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
No. We're not saying this is a massive agreement. It just gets government working. But it has $85 billion of savings from what we call mandatory spending, the autopilot that Congress all too often ignores, to pay for $63 billion of sequester relief, half of which goes to defense, which is a big concern of many Republicans. And, so, you don't get everything you want in a divided government.

DAVID GREGORY:
But when Senator Rubio says it's un-American, is that just because he's running for president?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
I'm not going to go into what Marco's rationale is, or his motivations are for that. I know what I think. And I know what I think is the right thing to do. Getting a budget agreement that reduces the deficit without raising taxes and prevents two government shutdowns from occurring in 2014, in my opinion, is the right thing to do and it's a good thing to do.

DAVID GREGORY:
There does seem to be this revolt on the Right. The Speaker of the House really teed off this week on some of these outside groups.

SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER (ON TAPE):
You mean the groups that came out and opposed it before they ever saw it? They're using our members and they're using the American people for their own goals. This is ridiculous.

DAVID GREGORY:
Lot of people saw that and said, "Why now? Why didn't he lay down that gauntlet before?"

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Well, look. I think John just kind of got his Irish up. He was frustrated that these groups came out in opposition to our budget agreement before we reached a budget agreement. I was frustrated, too. But I think these are very important elements of our conservative family. I would prefer to keep those conversations within the family. And I think he was just basically voicing his frustration with their opposition before we had reached our agreement.

DAVID GREGORY:
But do you share that? Are you going to keep pushing those groups and say, "No. You've got to compromise more. We've got to work with our colleagues across the aisle more on some of these big things"?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
I think these taxpayer groups are indispensable to keeping taxpayer interest accounted for, keeping people accountable. And we sometimes have difference of opinions on tactics. We all believe the same thing with respect to our ultimate goal. With the budget I passed in March, that's what I really want. Balance the budget, pay off the debt, don't raise taxes.

But I know that in this divided government, I can't get the budget and she can't get her budget that she passed. To her credit, she passed a budget. She can't get that into law. We know that. So, we could either just keep doing this and have shutdowns, or we could look for common ground and get something down and keep things moving.

DAVID GREGORY:
All right. So, there's a lot of what we haven't seen much before, right? I don't know. This is quite the Kumbaya moment. But it passes, for one, from what we've seen on Capitol Hill. So, people watching this have to say, "Okay. That's a start." But now, let's talk about the big, hard stuff. Because, as your other colleague Rand Paul said, "This doesn't solve the debt problem, over $17 trillion. This doesn't even deal with the debt ceiling. It certainly doesn't deal with our entitlements that are drivers of the debt." So, you haven't taken on the hard stuff here, Senator.
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SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
I think what both of us feel very strongly, and I know I do, is that we can't take on the tough discussions unless we can learn to use the word "compromise" so that we can have that be a respected, trusted word in this Congress. I come here with passionate things I care about. I know that Chairman Ryan comes with passionate things.
But if we just sit in our corners and yell at each other and that's all we get rewarded for, we'll never get to those big discussions about tax reform, or strengthening our entitlements, or how we fund things in the future, or immigration reform, or any of the other really big challenges of our country. So, what we're trying to do is bring some respect to the word "compromise." And if we can do that, I think it does pave the way for other people to do what we've done.

DAVID GREGORY:
So, surprise me. Meet in the middle on something really hard. Maybe it's Medicare, which you've worked hard on, or tax reform. Where could you two reach common ground on something that you would at least mark as a starting point.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Well, first of all, we're actually starting to talk to each other, which is kind of new for this day and age. I think that's step number one. Step number two, this isn't a large agreement, but this is a symbolically large agreement. I would love to throw a few more zeros at the end of these numbers.

But the fact that we're doing this, prevent shutdowns, passing bipartisan legislation, it passed the House-- 332 to 94, majority of both parties. That's a good step in the right direction. You gotta, you know, crawl before you can walk before you can run. I'm hopeful, as a Ways and Means member as well, that we can start moving tax reform legislation. I think --

DAVID GREGORY:
But Republicans don't seem to want to move on it.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Yes, we do. Tax reform? Watch the Ways and Means Committee in the first quarter of next year. We're going to be advancing tax reform legislation because we think that's a key ingredient to getting people back to work, to increasing take-home pay, to --

DAVID GREGORY:
Again, I--

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--grow this economy.

DAVID GREGORY:
Is there something that would surprise me? Is there something on tax reform that you could agree with Chairman on?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Well, I would agree with the chairman that we do need to do tax reform. Ron Wyden, friend of yours, said the other day that the tax code is 100 years old and it looks like it.

DAVID GREGORY:
And could you actually raise money from tax reform and actually bring down the debt?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
We'll have to disagree about that.

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
Okay. So, where the divide comes is what you would do with any revenue that was generated from that. But that doesn't mean we couldn't ever find a compromise with that. It would be an intense discussion. There was intense discussions in here, in this room. But yes, you can find that ground.

DAVID GREGORY:
So, what's going to happen on the debt ceiling? Because this comes up again in a few months.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY:
And we'll--

DAVID GREGORY:
Another fight over that?

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
Well, we agreed that the debt ceiling would not be part of this. I don't think that our country wants to see another crisis and to send our country into a tailspin. And, so, we'll take that road when we get there. But, you know, I'll defer to you (TO RYAN).

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
You're asking things that are unresolved. And the reason we did this agreement is we didn't want to bring those controversies into these talks.

DAVID GREGORY:
Right. But I guess one question is whereas I talk to people around Capitol Hill, there's a sense, probably truer among Republicans, that the chance for a grand bargain, if this is a mini bargain, is probably not going to happen with this president, especially with the overhang of health care and how divisive that still is. Do you think that's fair? You think that's accurate?

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
I think the grand bargain, you know, puts everything in a whole lot of tough votes on the table is impossible to find at this point. But I do think that we can take steps toward reaching a point where we deal with those tougher issues.

DAVID GREGORY:
You said earlier, because you were just nodding, you didn't think the president was willing to moderate. Is that still your view?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
It actually is. I don't think --

DAVID GREGORY:
He's behind this, though, right?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
He is behind this. And I think it's because we made this a common-ground agreement. And we're not tackling the really big challenges, which we have been offering budgets to do that for years now. I just don't think that it's his interest to do that.
I don't think he wants to do that. But I would rather not focus on the fact that we're not going to agree on these things. And that's why we talk about tax reform. Max Baucus and Dave Camp, a Democrat and Republican, are trying to work on tax --

DAVID GREGORY:
But let me press you on this one point --

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--reform. There are a lot of things we're trying to find where we can get things done. And what we're looking for is get a foundation under this economy. Get a foundation under this economy, create some stability--

DAVID GREGORY:
But here's the challenge. But here's the hard thing --

REP. PAUL RYAN:
--see where we can work together, and then we'll agree to disagree on these other things.

DAVID GREGORY:
February of this year, you were on Meet the Press:

PAUL RYAN ON TAPE: Here's the issue, if we keep kicking the can down the road and we don't face up to these great fiscal challenges we have, we have a debt-fueled economic crisis ahead of us. And if we don't address them now, then it gets ugly like Greece and then you have to impose the kind of austerity that they're imposing in Greece. We're saying let's, let's fix this now where we can do it on our own terms.

DAVID GREGORY:
Here we sit in December. That was February. That hasn't happened.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Far from it. I'm worried because the Federal Reserve is going to start tapering, we call it. They're going to start going back to normalizing their policy. Interest rates have a tendency to rise under those kinds of situations. And that makes our fiscal situation even worse.

So, I'm very worried about that. There are two ways of tackling this fiscal problem. One, grow the economy, get people back to work, and solid through economic growth. Two, do this kind of comprehensive entitlement reform that we've been long advocating, but we have a huge difference of opinion on.

DAVID GREGORY:
Were you too alarmist about this? You hear a lot of progressives saying, "These guys have been warning about this, this austerity where they become Greece. It hasn't happened yet." You can talk so honestly to each other now.

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
I'll tell you what people I know feel and businesses I know feel, is the instability caused by Congress to not even find a path forward together creates uncertainty in their families. They've been furloughed because of sequestration. They don't know what we're going to do. Businesses, I have a lot of really important businesses in my state, tell me that our credibility globally has been damaged by governing by crisis. And I think that people want us to focus on that.

DAVID GREGORY:
Health care is the big battle still between Republicans and Democrats. 50% of those in our poll think it's still a bad idea. How does this survive politically?

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
I am not one of those rooting for the failure of Obamacare. I think it's incredibly important. I can tell you as chair of the Budget Committee that we get a handle on our health care expenditures in the future, this is an important step forward. No one wants to go back to the point of having our insurance companies decide whether or not we get health care or not. I'm rooting for us to be able to make this work.

DAVID GREGORY:
Understood. But how does it survive politically? 50% in our poll, they're not necessarily rooting for failure. They just think it's a bad idea.

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
This is an area where we will disagree. But I will tell you this: I think as it is implemented and as people do, like a woman told me last weekend, that for the first time her 29-year-old son with a disability has insurance. She said, "For the first time in a long time, I sleep tonight."

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Look, I think we have to replace this law. I believe we can have a system in this country where everybody has access to affordable health care, including people with preexisting conditions, without a costly government takeover, with more freedom. But we didn't yell at each other about this issue because we knew we would never agree on this issue.

DAVID GREGORY:
But do Senate Democrats go down next year, especially in the South, on this issue?

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
I do not believe they will. I think people will see the results of this law, meaning more security for themselves, in terms of their own health care coverage.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
And on our side of the aisle-- we like the fact, for the economy, no shutdowns. We also don't want to have shutdown drama so that we can focus on replacing Obamacare, so that we can focus on showing better ideas than what this is coming in. Because we don't think people like this law.

We don't think it's going to get any more popular. We don't agree on that. So, each of us gets something out of this agreement the we think is good. But most importantly, the country is not going to see these shutdowns and Congress is going to get back to the business of paying the bills and prioritizing spending.

DAVID GREGORY:
You had a chance to interact with each other differently than a lot of legislators now have a chance to do. You can disagree about football and you can talk about fishing and things like that. And you do that.

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
We do disagree about football.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
On that, I mean, the Seahawks are doing a lot better than the Packers. But we found common ground in Russell Wilson. You know, because he played for Wisconsin, we like him.

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
That is true.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
So, there's something we agreed on.

DAVID GREGORY:
But what else did you learn in this process that you'd like to drive forward?

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
You know, I think one of the things that doesn't happen and hadn't happened in a divided Congress is people listening to each other. One of the things we had to learn to do is to listen to each other and to respect each other and to trust each other. A lot of the discussions in this room, either one of us could've taken out and blown up and killed the other person on politically. We agreed from the start we wouldn't do that. Very important to where we are today.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
That's right.

DAVID GREGORY:
You agree?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Yes. She's right.

DAVID GREGORY:
Thank you both very much.

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY:
Yes.

DAVID GREGORY:
Appreciate the time.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN:
Thank you.

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