Money & Politics --- Peter (slow)
i’m peter cook in washington. michael mckee is off today. welcome to “money & politics” and thanks for watching. coming up, our exclusive interview with senator hillary rodham clinton. but we begin today with another day of protests across america over immigration, including one right here in washington. those immigration protests, of course, aimed at members of congress out of town on spring recess. organizers hoped today’s pro immigration marchs across the country will keep the pressure on lawmakers. in washington today, a huge rally culminating in a march on the national mall, which organizers expect to draw as many as 180,000 people when all is said and done. in atlanta, the associated press reports more than 50,000 people in white t-shirts, waving american flags, joined a two-mile march. the a.p. reports as many as 100,000 immigration supporters in phoenix marched to the state capitol there. thousands more marched in philadelphia and dallas and smaller cities like garden city, kansas, and champagne, illinois. protestors say the value of immigrants to american society is lost in the debate over reform.
>> we are going to stand together. we’re not going to be pushed around and we’re going to stand up for our rights because we are americans and the people who are here legally or illegally as immigrants are just seeking what americans have sought throughout our history. immigrants have sought throughout our history coming here to america and that’s part of the american dream.
>> coming up, we’ll talk with one of the house republicans leading the fight against illegal immigration, representative tom tancredo of colorado. president bush is dismissing as wild speculation reports in the “new yorker” and other publications that his administration is moving closer to attacking iran. speaking in washington today, the president affirmed his goal of preventing iran from attaining nuclear technology.
>> the doctrine of prevention is to work together to prevent the iranians from having a nuclear weapon. i know here in washington prevention means force. it doesn’t mean force necessarily. in this case, it means dip lolsy―diplomacy.
>> the “new yorker” article claims the u.s. is stepping up plan for the possible use of nuclear weapons to destroy suspected weapons sites in iran. iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad saying he won’t back down to threats from the west, saying iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. senator hillary rodham clinton says she’s focused on winning re-election in new york this year and hasn’t decided on a run for president in 2008. that’s not stopping her from talking about some national issues. tomorrow, she delivers a speech on the economy in chicago but sat down today with our al hunt. she asked her for her views on the overall economy.
>> well, the economy is working really well for many people and the indicators at the present time, as you say, are positive. but if you look just over the horizon and below the surface, there are some troubling issues. i think our failure to get healthcare costs under control, our failure to have a real energy policy, our fiscal position going into these huge deficits, increasing debt, raising our debt limit, our trade deficit. most economists that i speak to who are not of either the right or left persuasion, but actually look at at―looking at the evidence, are raising yellow flags, if not some red ones, saying we have to get a position where we’re in charge of our own economic destiny. yes, unemployments is 401% -- 4% but it was 4% in the clinton administration and there were more people in the work force. replacement jobs for those that are loss are 20% less in income. the pillars of the middle class with certain benefits if are you work hard are disintegrating. healthcare costs are skyrocketing, businesses are trying to figure out how they’re going to deal with healthcare. the plan in massachusetts gives us hope but we need a national response, and of course energy costs. so many issues we’re pushing to the side, either denying or trying to overcome with happy talk, i think will come back to bite us if we’re not careful.
>> let’s pick up on the healthcare costs. what are the two or three things we could do to make healthcare costs more affordable and accessible.
>> we need a health information technology framework. i have legislation with senator frist that i hope will be passed by the house and signed by the president because right now we’re wasting wils billions of dollars and not practicing medicine with the results we can expect with lowering costs. we need to have a fixed―there is an alternative that i think could create a big pool similar to the federal employees benefit pool to give small businesses a chance to get in and try to provide affordable healthcare. we need to incentivize more wellness, more preventive care and we need both the carrot and the stick approach. we’re trying to do everything from taking foods with no nutritional foods out of our schools’ vending machines to dealing with people’s nutritional and exercise status when they’re diabetic. so those are three things we have to do right now but honestly, we need a national conversation about healthcare. we are letting the financing tail wag the healthcare dog and it is the single issue that c.e.o.’s talk to me about, not only the c.e.o.’s from old industry, manufacturing and others who come in and say the lesacy―legacy costs are killing us, but also the so-called new economy. people are doing everything they can to control costs but how do we get them under control without some kind of consensus.
>> for generations americans have basically relied on employers to provide their healthcare and pensions. that system seems to be breaking down or at least eroding. what replaces it?
>> that’s the debate, al. there are some and mayy of the people i speak to say, look, the market will have to take care of it, all bets are off, we can’t compete in a global economy and therefore employers, individuals are on their own.
>> you don’t think that’s sufficient?
>> i don’t think so. it dramatically scales back the middle class extensions -- expectations of americans. i think that would be a terrible retreat from what has been the promise of prosperity of people who did their part in our society. secondly, it is a race to the bottom. and right now we are competing with companies in countries that do provide some kind of healthcare, pension system, not the kind we would. we need a uniquely american solution. but they have a social compact for the 21th century and against companies in countries that don’t provide any benefits.
>> if china refuses to revalue its currency in that context, would you take retaliatory measures between beijing?
>> i would much prefer we work together on this. obviously, we’re in a bind, in part because of our deficit. we go every month into the capital markets and borrow billions and billions of dollars―about $60 billion a month―in order to have the interest on our debt paid by having countries like china buy our debt instruments. so i’m well aware of the fact that we are in a mutually dependent relationship right now and when i travel around upstate new york and people say to me, senator, why can’t we get tough on the chinese? they try to steel our intellectual property, atey don’t follow trade rules and manipulate our currency, i often say, how do you get tough on your banker? we’ve ceded some of our capacity to deal with these problems so there can’t be an abrupt change but my conversations with representatives of the chinese government as well as with american manufacturers and exporters, i’ve made it very clear that we need to grow this relationship. i’m one of those who hopes we can have a friendly competitive relationship. we’re going to have a competitive relationship. we’re too very large countries. they’re growing dramatically. i want them to grow. i want them to have a very positive economic future. but i don’t want us to be played for a sucker. that’s my concern about this.
>> you cited fiscal discipline erp earlier and i know you advocate rolling back the bush tax cuts for the very wealthy. do you think the 15% capital gains tax rate is too low?
>> i think we have to look at the whole package. i believe in fiscal responsibility and i know there are some who come on your shows and say that’s outdated, we don’t need it. i think that’s a very dangerous position to take. we need to figure out what? is it we’re trying to achieve and we have to look to see on both the spending and taxing sides how to get there.
>> that would involve a higher tax rate?
>> i don’t know.
>> if you roll back the bush policies?
>> if we returned to the clinton policies, it would. i think the combination of fiscal responsibility and economic growth proved to be very positive for our country.
>> what about corporate taxes in general? too low, too high, about right? the level?
>> there’s a great debate on this. it’s hard to answer because even what’s on the books isn’t often paid. there are so many loopholes, i mean, what is the effective corporate tax rate for the moving average american company? i don’t know. how many more companies can be jammed into that little building in the bahamas that serves as the corporate headquarters for these companies so they can evade even what’s on the books for the corporate tax rate.
>> coming up, senate clinton talks about the standoff with iran.
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Listen Interview: Senator Hillary Clinton
>> more, now, from al hunt’s exclusive interview with senator hillary rodham clinton of new york, starting with her thoughts on the collapse of a bipartisan immigration deal in the u.s. senate last week.
>> i think comprehensive reform is good for the country.
>> you liked the deal?
>> it wasn’t my first choice but it was a decent compromise, it was a republican compromise. senators martinez and hagel hammered it out. the bipartisan coalition in favor of comprehensive reform stood behind it and it was torpedoed, i think, under pressure from those members of the republican caucus who don’t want any deal, even one that was scaled back in a way that kept border security paramount but did have some kind of path to earned legal celebration. • legalization. this is another example of the denial i see afflicting washington right now. it’s part of what i call turning warinto an evidence-free zone. the evidence is clear that our borders are not secure and we have 12 million immigrants, we don’t know who they are, what they’re doing, they’re out there. we’re not enforcing employer sanctions, we have the worst of all worlds.
>> came out a couple of days ago that “scooter” libby revealed that president bush authorized the leaking of classified information to bolster his case on iraq. seems he clearly has the authority to do that, but was that the proper use of the classification process and was that proper politically?
>> no, it was not the proper use. obviously, it was done not just for political reasons, which sound kind of everyday washington politics. it was done to protect the decision makers from being held accountable for some of the information they used in the run up to the invasion of iraq. our system is such a wonderful balance, the checks and balances that our framers put into it, the accountability that the congress is suppose to provide, the courts having an independent view of what happens. but there’s another element to this, al, and that is the discipline, the habits of a white house in the sense of public policy. presidents should know not to go too far. we saw it with richard nixon, claiming national security to break into daniel elsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, to break into the democratic national committee. here we have a president at least giving an implicit go-ahead.
>> is this analogous to what nixon did?
>> we don’t know, but we do know that for political purposes that really used national security to score political points and to protect decisions and decision makers, material was declassified. and clearly it was aimed at undermining joe wilson who had been a distinguished diplomat in the services his country for many years.
>> you’ve seen reports that the united states is considering a military option against iran if it won’t relinquish ambitions to nuclear weapons. the “new yorker” said we’re considering using nuclear -- tactical nuclear weapons. should those options be on the table when it comes to iran?
>> i have said publicly, no options should be off the table. but i would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table and this administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven’t seen since the dawn of the nuclear age. i think that’s a terrible mistake. secondly, when it comes to iran, i think the administration needs to engage in a process with iran. they outsourced this issue of whether iran would go nuclear to the europeans of the i thought that was a mistake then. i’ve said it on numerous occasions since. we dealt with the soviet union who had thousands of missiles on hair trigger alert pointed on us and we lived with that threat and never stopped negotiating and engaging in a process with our most implacable foe for decades, someone who had been a country, a system that was dedicated to destroying us.
>> coming up, we’ll talk to another leading democrat, party chairman and former presidential candidate, howard dean, with bold predictions on democrats’ chances in the midterm elections. first we head to houston where former enron c.e.o. jeff skilling took the stand today in his own defense. is he sticking to his story? we’ll find out coming up next.
