Washington, D.C. - Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson, Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Xavier Becerra, Congressman David Cicilline, and Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa held a media availability this morning following a Democratic Caucus meeting in the Capitol Visitor Center. Below are the Leader's remarks and a transcript of the question and answer session:
Leader Pelosi's Opening Remarks:
“Thank you very much, Vice Chairman Becerra. Thank you, Chairman Larson, for bringing us together this morning.
“Before I join with my colleagues in associating myself with their remarks and expanding on them, I want to once again express the sadness and the sympathy that we have for the people of Japan. We are watching closely to see how we can be helpful in a humanitarian way and the Administration has sent help in that regard. Also, in the technical way as far as the nuclear plant there. It is very, very, beyond biblical proportions--the loss of life, the change in the economy, in the society there. We wish them strength. We want to help them as friends. And again, our sympathy and our support go out to the people of Japan.
“My colleagues have said that when President became President, we started creating jobs right away. It is so. President Obama has been a job creator from day one. Recognizing the recession, near depression, that our country was in at the end of the Bush Administration, in his inaugural address, the President called for swift, bold action now. One week and one day after the President's inaugural address, the House of Representatives passed the Recovery Act, a Recovery Act which created or saved 3.5 million jobs. Not enough, we need more, but we were going in a very strong, new direction.
“By contrast, here we are--what is it 11 weeks? 7 weeks? We are in the 11th week of this new term in Congress, and we haven't seen one sign of job creation. In fact, we are going in the opposite direction. Whether you are talking about one economist or another and whatever their measure is, it's always what the, the direction the Republicans are taking us in now will harm our economic recovery, will not create jobs but will lose jobs. And the Speaker says hundreds of thousands of jobs: ‘So be it.' So be it? No, I don't think so. What we must have is job creation.
“Actually, the only job creation that has been on the floor of the House in this 11 week period are Democratic initiatives: Build America Bonds, to build the infrastructure of America in a strong way, Make it in America' and other legislation to stop jobs going overseas by reversing the tax breaks for companies taking jobs overseas. So those are the only initiatives and the Republicans overwhelmingly voted against those initiatives.
“So all we've seen in job creation has come from the Democrats. What we've seen from the Republicans is taking us in the wrong direction. We have made in clear that we will extend a hand of friendship, as Congressman Larson said. But we will judge every initiative that comes to the floor by three criteria. One - does it create jobs? Two - does it strengthen the middle class? Three - does it reduce the deficit? All of them on par with each other, all of once piece.
“What we see with the reversing of the economic recovery of the bill is not an initiative that will reduce the deficit. Instead, we see false economies that must be stopped. Now, we have proposed, we saved $41 billion at the end of last year, $41 billion dollar cut in President Obama's budget. Only one Republican voted for that. So far, the Democrats have cut $41 billion from the budget with only one Republican vote. And the Republicans have passed $4 billion with a bipartisan vote. 10 to 1 difference. I hope you will take note of that because most of deficit reduction by 10 to 1 has come from the Democrats.
“So again, create jobs, reduce the deficit, strengthen the middle class--we are there with them. We haven't seen any evidence of that so far.
“I am very pleased that we are joined this morning by two of our new Members, fresh from the trenches of campaigns, and from different sides of the country but very strongly committed to the middle class. First you will hear from David Cicilline, a new Member from Rhode Island.”
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Question and Answer Session:
Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson. Questions? We'll take a couple. Yes?
Q: Mr. Hoyer said last week that this was the last temporary measure that he's going to vote for. I wonder is that kind of the sentiment in the Caucus? That after this one you'll be more united in opposition to another short-term fix, and if in your discussions also with the White House and the Senate, that is their feeling as well?
Chairman Larson. I certainly think that's the growing sentiment in the Caucus.
Leader Pelosi. Many of us didn't even vote for the first one.
Q: Do you anticipate that most of your Caucus will vote for this one today?
Chairman Larson. I don't believe they will.
Leader Pelosi. I don't--we aren't whipping this, people are just voting as they want to convey what this is. That we support cuts, yes. That this is, as the gentleman said, as far as we're willing to go, but for some of us we don't even want to go that far. But how the Democrats vote on this, is not what we should be watching. Where we go from here, is what is going to be important.
Chairman Larson. Many feel that this is a ruse, that this is just a matter of death by a thousand slashes and somehow, as we said, as Xavier pointed out two weeks ago, what the American people are looking for, is the idea of certainty. And what we've created here is this aura of uncertainty, and with the constant cloud hanging out there in the future that they continue to project that they will shut down the government. And so this is of grave concern to the American people and certainly to Members of our Caucus.
Congressman David Cicilline. We heard last week from military leaders about the kind of instability that this budget approach is causing. We hear it from our constituents, the anxiety that is accompanied with this every two weeks. So this is really I think an important issue to raise. We need resolution to this in a comprehensive way. We need a budget resolution. This every two weeks is really destabilizing for the government, causing incredible anxiety with military leadership, with civilian leadership, contractors. It's just not a way to run a government.
Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa. I think the most important part of it is--and I sit on Armed Services. So what you do recognize is that when you start to tweak one part, and it's done in this very almost, let's just find blocks of money and let's cut it. Then you don't know what the consequence is.
Right now, we do know for the Pacific in particular, the role that the military needs to play in attempts to help stabilize and help rebuild, is going to be critical, very critical. But they will each begin their testimony before Armed Services with the statement that the CR is just the worst thing for them. It just does not give them a sense of security. They don't know how to plan. You have people who are saying, well if the cuts come through it means they're just going to have to shut down.
One of things for example, if you talk about economic growth and creation of jobs, Hawaii will host APEC in November of this year. East-West Center is the lead agency to do that. East-West Center is cut in the first CR to $10 million. Now if it goes through like that, what's going to happen--and they cut it to zero by the way, but that did not go through. If it continues, guess what they shut down. What happens to APEC in this very critical time, especially when we're looking at what is it that are great partner Japan is now going to do? What will happen? That's probably something that they can look forward to, to help build. These are the kinds of cuts that are going through. That's not the way for us to act here.
Q: Leader Pelosi, the Republicans are still complaining that your colleagues on the Senate side are not reaching out to them. The Vice President went abroad after that first meeting. Is the White House doing enough to make sure we get passed these short-term Continuing Resolutions?
Leader Pelosi. Yes, I'm very satisfied with the leadership of the White House on this. We had the meeting, the leadership in the House and Senate, bipartisan--in a bipartisan way--with the Vice President. We had a course of action that came out of there. It was positive that more works needs to be done. We'll continue are work together and that's what we will do.
But let me say as we go into this, continue in this debate. We're talking about cutting here and cutting there and what the impact of it is. We're talking about trying to find middle ground. I think that may not be enough. If middle ground is to say that 6 million seniors who are home bound will no longer received Meals on Wheels, but we can just compromise at 3 million, I don't think that's an appropriate debate. I think the debate is on a higher ground. Not just middle ground, but on a higher ground of our values. It's not just about the dollars, it's about the values and again we can cut in a way that does not undermine our values. It's not, again, about money. It's about the morality of what we are doing.
And this debate in the public about who we are as a country; how we keep the American people safe; how we continue the economic growth and the creation of jobs; how we educate our children; how we protect people in their neighborhoods; how we keep our country strong in measuring it in the health and well being of the American people--that's where the debate has to be, not is misrepresentations about this cut or that cut or is this wasteful.
The GAO gave us a road map to cut waste, fraud and abuse and we're all for doing that. We thank them for the timeliness of their report. The Fiscal Commission gave us a direction on how to reduce the deficit, but cautioned that you can't make these cuts right away early in domestic investments, because you will harm the economic recovery. So this is bigger than some of these individual cuts, even though they are illustrative of the damage that is going to be done.
I think we have an opportunity now for the President and the American people and the Congress, to engage in a debate on the direction we want to go, certainly fiscally sound. And when we talk about fiscal soundness, it's not just about cuts. As the Fiscal Commission talked about, it's about what they called revenue earmarks as well, tax breaks that are within are tax codes that do not belong there. We need to cut those too. And I'm so pleased that the President in the State of the Union address once again said that we cannot afford tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our country.
So if we are talking about fiscal responsibility, we want to cut waste fraud and abuse, duplication, obsolescence? Of course. We want to do so in a fiscally sound way that again upholds are values. But we also have to look at tax breaks at the high end, which do not create jobs, but do increase the deficit.
I just want to say in closing that President Obama, this past year a million and a half jobs were created in the private sector. That was in 2010. In 2009 the first year of the President's term in office, he created more jobs in the private sector than President Bush did in the eight years of his term in office. So it's really important for us to put on the table what the President inherited in terms of a near depression, how the President pulled us from the brink of that and a financial crisis, and that we have a big hole to dig ourselves out of. And we don't do that by taking us in the opposite direction of economic growth as the Republican proposals are doing now. And then saying when economists say it will lose hundreds of thousands of jobs say, ‘So be it'. No. How can we change it? Thank you all very much.
Chairman Larson. Just want to conclude on behalf of the Caucus and say this. Watching the events that unfolded out in Wisconsin, there is an analogy here that is very disturbing. Even after the unions were prepared to give back and did and met the Governor more than halfway, it was clear that he had one objective in mind. It had nothing to do with the deficit or the givebacks. It had everything to do with collective bargaining.
As we watch this budgetary process unfold here, it was equally alarming to us, as we continue to reach out and put on the table substantial cuts, that it is not about those cuts in reaching out. But it's doing away with the very entitlement programs that are the core of this party, including programs that are paid for by the American people like Social Security and Medicare. And so Democrats in our Caucus stand firm on Social Security, Medicare and the education needed to drive innovation in this economy, to out-innovate, out-education, and grow this economy. Thank you very much.
