Face the Nation Transcript: July 17, 2011
Below is the transcript of "Face the Nation" on July 17, 2011, hosted by CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer. The guests are Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla. You can watch the full show above.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Senator Durbin is in Springfield, Illinois this morning. Senator Coburn is in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Senator Rubio will be along later in the broadcast. Gentlemen, welcome to all of you. Well, the Administration says unless something gets done by August 2nd, the nation will slide into default, and the term "backed by the full faith and credit of the United States," the best guarantee the world has ever known, won't mean what it used to mean. And who knows what impact that will have on not just our economy, but economies around the world. So we'll stipulate everyone hopes that it won't happen, but Senator Durbin, have you seen any hope that a deal can be made to avert that? The president said he was giving everyone 36 hours to come up with something...I think 36 hours is up
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN: listen, the President has done his job. He called us together, we had six separate meetings, he put about 12 hours of his time in this week, listening patiently to both sides discuss this. And he told us when we left, it's time to roll up your sleeves and work this out between you. The good news is that Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Mitch McConnell are sitting down and working out an approach that we're going to try to tackle this week in the United States Senate. There will be a debate on the balanced budget amendment that no one believes there are 67 votes for any version of that, and secondly we're going to be working toward a way to escape the crisis that would come if we default on America's national debt. These are all good things, but they don't get the big job done. The President said he's committed to a big deal, four trillion over 10 years. I'm committed to it, Harry Reid is committed to it, we need some bipartisan buy-in here and I think we can do it.
SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you, Senator Durbin -- that begs the question: you said you're going to spend this week debating a balanced budget amendment that everybody knows has no chance of passing, so why are you wasting time debating it?
DURBIN: Because Republicans are insisting that this debate takes place before anything else will happen, and we live in a divided Congress, the House of Representatives of course under Republican control and the Senate -- 53 Democrats, a nominal majority but not the 60 you need for big decisions. So we have to check the boxes. One of them is to engage in this debate. It's interesting to me if you look back at history, Bob, and you'll remember this, when we had the biggest run-up in America's debt during the Reagan Administration -- it tripled during that 8 year period of time - that was the hottest debate on, about a balanced budget constitutional amendment. We don't need an amendment. We basically need to accept the responsibility to do this job and to lead.
SCHIEFFER: Alright, well, Senator Coburn, let me turn to you. The President said this week that the Congress - and Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary said on this broadcast last week - if you didn't begin to put the components in place to get something done on a big deal this week, there wouldn't be time to get it done by August 2nd, when he says the government is going to run out of money. Is there time? Do you see any hope that anything will get done this week?
SEN. TOM COBURN: Well first of all, I think there's time, without a doubt, to - any agreement, even if we come to an agreement next week, there's still time to get it done. That's not an excuse for not having the rigorous debate that we should have. Two points I'd make, Bob is number one: the President has said he's for four trillion dollars, but he won't lay out in detail what he thinks we ought to do, that's number one. Number two is: why in the world isn't there the votes for a constitutional amendment in the US Senate? That's the question Americans ought to be asking. 67 votes to say we ought to live within our means when we're borrowing 43 cents out of every dollar that we're spending today? I think the American people would like to see us do that. That doesn't mean we have to make those decisions...Dick Durbin has worked real hard to try to build a consensus around 4 trillion dollars, and we have to have something at least at 4 or 4 and a half trillion dollars if in fact we're going to send a signal that we understand our problems and that we're going to continue to reward those who invest in us by paying the bills, but we have to do it in a way that will allow us to continue to borrow the money until we get out of this problem.
SCHIEFFER: Well, Senator Coburn, whether or not we ought to have the votes in the Senate for a balanced budget amendment, when you talk about a constitutional amendment, you're talking about something that could take years to get passed because it also has to be ratified by the states and all of that. The problem that we have now is right now. The government is on the verge of running out of money here and being unable to pay its bills, so why shouldn't that part of it be put aside for a while and concentrate on doing something to get this debt ceiling either raised, and the deficit down now?
COBURN: I think the reason why that ought to be concentrated on is we have a terrible track record - Republicans and Democrats alike - of promising to do something to get our spending under control, but yet never doing it. And that's a bipartisan problem. We spend money we don't have on things we don't need, and we continue to do that because it's in the benefit of politicians, not the benefit of the country.
SCHIEFFER: Well let me go back to this plan that Senator McConnell is working on, you talked about it Senator Durbin, basically what this is - it would give the President the authority to raise the debt ceiling and then give Congress the right to disapprove it. And it would then be passed over a presidential veto because we, the thinking is that there are not enough votes in the Senate, Republican votes, to override a veto. Isn't that really just a way of raising the debt ceiling but giving the people that don't want to take responsibility for that, just giving them a way out, a cover story, and why is Congress concentrating on cover stories for people? Why don't - that seems to be kind of the height of hypocrisy to me.
DURBIN: Bob, that's exactly what it is. Let's get it straight. The fact is, what we're voting for in a debt ceiling is to borrow the money to pay for what we've already spent. So those who have voted time and again for us to go to war, or stay at war, or stay longer at war have to pay the bills for the men and women in uniform to keep them safe. That's one example. What we need to do is accept responsibility. The President sat us down in the first meeting and said, went around the table to the 8 Congressional leaders and said, 'how many of you are committed to a big deal? I'm talking about 4 trillion dollars, I'm prepared to put on the table things that Democrats hold sacred - social security and Medicare and Medicaid, let's look at them honestly and keep the programs alive, make sure they have a good strong future, but let's talk about them in honest terms.' He went around the table, and with only one notable dissent people said we're ready to do the big deal. That's what I think we should be doing right now. Tom and I have been involved in this, in the Bowles-Simpson Commission, I've been involved in another group, a bipartisan group of Senators - we know what we need to do. The president doesn't need to spell it out. We need to have the political will to do it.
SCHIEFFER: Well Senator Coburn, you yourself have said, and we quoted you at the top of the broadcast, what's missing here is the political courage to take responsibility for these votes. How does the Congress get itself out of the mode that it's in now?
COBURN: Well I think a couple of things, number one, senator Durbin talked about it, we funded wars, borrowed the money instead of cutting spending here, I mean we have to change that behavior, that's why the balanced budget amendment is so important, we rationalize that we can borrow the money to fund wars rather than make the hard decisions, when we should have, now we are going to make the hard decisions and if we don't make the hard decisions, you know, a two trillion dollar package will do nothing to reassure the world economic community that we get it. It has to be, whatever we do, and Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are planning on putting one point five trillion dollars worth of spending cuts with it, it doesn't do it. It doesn't send, it doesn't fix the problem. The problem is, and Dick Durbin is right, unless we get to a level of about four trillion to buy us some time for the second half of this decade, we are going to have significant interest rates that are going to markedly impact us. For every one percent in interest rates, it's a hundred and fifty billion dollars that we are going to spend. So unless you do four trillion or five, if you have a one or two percent rise in interest rates, we are actually worse off, had we done nothing.
SCHIEFFER: Well Senator, does that mean that you would not support the McConnell plan yourself?
COBURN: I think the McConnell plan is more of Washington not taking responsibility, it's a great political plan, it takes the pressure off of all the politicians, but allows us to pass a debt limit without making the hard choices that this country has to make. You know, Bob..
SCHIEFFER: Let me just interrupt, does that mean that you won't support it, yourself?
COBURN: I don't, I haven't firmly decided, but I'm unlikely to support it at this time. I'm only going to support something that actually solves the problem. And if we don't solve the problem, and not the political problem, I don't care about the politics anymore, if it doesn't solve the policy problem for this country, I'm not going to support it.
SCHIEFFER: Alright, you are going to unveil a plan I think tomorrow, you say will save nine trillion dollars over the next ten years, how can be there any hope of something like that passing when so far they are not willing to support plans calling for cutting much less senator?
COBURN: oh, I wouldn't expect to pass, but I would expect people to look at it. We've spent thousands of hours going through every program in the federal government. We have nine trillion dollars worth of savings that are achievable over the next ten years, pick half of them, half of them solve our problems.
SCHIEFFER: Well give me a couple of points that you are going to make, what's the big news in your plan?
COBURN: well, we can save a trillion dollars at the Pentagon over the next ten years, not hard, it's difficult but it's not super hard. It's common sense. Discretionary spending, we can save over a trillion dollars. Other government agencies, we can save $500 billion, we can increase revenues by adjusting the tax code and lowering it, Dick Durbin's very familiar with this, we can save over a trillion dollars doing that. We can fix Medicare. We can fix Medicaid. We can fix Social Security where they are viable and still provide what seniors need and save trillions of dollars. So we can, and if we do all of that, we'll save a trillion dollars in interest just in the next nine years, so.. all I'm saying is people just choose, just choose what you want.
SCHIEFFER: Senator Durbin, let me just ask you quickly, do you think there are going to be able to meet this deadline and get something in place by August 2nd?
DURBIN: let me tell you when the doors close and the cameras are off, every leader sitting down with the President said we cannot default on America's debt. If we call into question the full faith and credit of the United States for the first time in our history, interest rates will go up and this recession will get worse. We'll lose jobs and businesses will fail. When you open the room, people make all kinds of statements before the cameras, but I'll tell you this, the bottom line is we can do it, we need to it on a bipartisan basis. Tom and I are committed to a long term solution. There's some hard choices here but let us not default on America's debt for the first time in history and cause this economy to go further downhill.
SCHIEFFER: Alright, well Gentlemen, thanks both of us for bringing some insight from your respective points of view. We're going to talk to Marco Rubio and get an entirely different take, I suspect, when we come back.
BOB SCHIEFFER: And joining us now, Senator Marco Rubio who is in Miami this morning. Senator, of course you are one of the first candidates to win who had the backing of the tea party. You are not part of the Tea Party Caucus in Washington, but you do know the thinking of a lot of people on that side of the street. I want to ask you, do you take seriously these dire warnings that the Obama administration is putting out about what will happen if we don't make this deadline August 2nd.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Well certainly the debt limit is an issue, but I think the bigger issue here is the debt. And I think what troubles me Bob is that no one is focusing on the real problem here. The real problem here is not the debt limit; the real problem here is the debt, and a lack of a credible plan to deal with the debt. And it's not me saying it, it's the rating houses saying it. If you read the S & P report, they made it very clear that simply raising the debt limit is not enough. It needs to be accompanied by some serious effort to credibly deal with America's debt problem. And if that is not what we are going to do we are going to have a big problem, perhaps bigger than anything the administration has been talking about.
SCHIEFFER: Well, would you support this deal that we were just talking about with the senators just now that Mitch McConnell is working on with Harry Reid which basically gives the President the right to raise the debt limit, and then allows the Senate and the House to vote to disapprove that. Basically just a way that nobody has to take credit for raising the debt limit. Are you going to vote for that?
RUBIO: Not as I understand it. The way the deal is currently structured right now it gives the President the ability to raise the debt limit, but as I said already, the debt limit is not really the problem; the problem here is the debt. The debt limit is actually the easiest part of the problem, it's one vote away from being solved, but if all we do is raise the debt limit, and it's not accompanied by a credible solution to America's debt problem, we are in big trouble. And I don't believe this plan, as it's been outlined to me, is a credible solution to the debt problem.
SCHIEFFER: You have been very, very tough on President Obama, and especially lately. Last week you actually accused him of bringing the government to the brink of default on purpose. Here's how you put it on Sean Hannity's broadcast on FOX -
SOUND CLIP: (Marco Rubio appears on FOX News's "Hannity" July 11, 2011)
"This is not a surprise. This didn't sneak up on us in the last couple of weeks here. We've known about this since the day I got to Washington. I've been talking about it. I think they deliberately let this thing go along because they were hoping to get to a last minute situation where they can force us into a take it or leave it proposition like they tried to do with a government shutdown earlier in the year, like they did with the stimulus package back in February when he first took over. The reality of it is, none of these policy prescriptions the president has written has worked. Every aspect of life in America today is worse than it was when he took over. Unemployment is higher. Interest rates. Everything is worse."
END CLIP
SCHIEFFER: Do you really mean all of that literally, Senator, that everything in America is worse? And I take it that--
RUBIO: --sure
SCHIEFFER: --it is all Barack Obama's fault?
RUBIO: Well, first of all, every president has to be judged by the times in which he lives. This President's been in charge for two and a half years. He has increased federal spending by 28 percent, Washington went along with his prescription for joblessness, which was the stimulus package, and unemployment is higher than it was when he took over, significantly higher. In fact, we have not had unemployment this high for this long since the Great Depression with no signs of it getting better. Over 20 million Americans today, as they watch this program are either unemployed or underemployed. And none of the things he's said we need to do, in order to turn that around, have worked. As far as waiting long to deal with this-Here are the facts. I came to Washington in January we already knew this debt limit was upon us, nothing happened during the State of the Union, he proposed a budget that was so ludicrous that even the democrats in the senate would vote for it, a budget that increased the debt, not solved it. Months went by, weeks went by and up until very recently, the President was completely disengaged, from this debt limit debate. And I do think that in the context of politics, there was a strategy to leave this until the last moment so that there would be a take it or leave it scenario like what some are painting right now. And I repeat this is not a game. This is a very serious issue. People watching at home, they don't care who's going to win this debate. They want to know how come they can't find a job? And the answer is until America has a credible solution to its debt problem people will be afraid to invest in America's economy and create jobs here at home.
SCHIEFFER: Well, aren't you're going to have to concede, though, that, Senator, maybe the previous administration might have a had a little to do with the bad economy
RUBIO: --sure
SCHIEFFER: --that the President inherited when he came into office I mean and the other part is--
RUBIO: So when does it start getting better, Bob?
SCHIEFFER: --well, let me just ask you this. You keep saying that this is a surprise to everybody. I mean the Treasury Secretary has been warning for months that we needed to do something about this. I'm not sure it's factually correct for you to say that the President has surprised everybody.
RUBIO: Alright, so where's the President's plan? I've never seen a piece of paper with the Presidents name on it that's his plan to solve this problem. I've seen press conferences. I've seen lectures that he's given to Congress. I've seen these press avails where the camera comes in and takes a bunch of pictures. I haven't seen a plan. Where's the President's plan?
SCHIEFFER: Well, where are the concessions that the Republicans are willing to make? I heard the President just this week say, "Yeah he'd be willing to talk about means testing for people on Medicare." I don't hear any concessions from people on the other side, they just say no taxes, and that's their negotiating posture
RUBIO: Well, I don't think that's an accurate reflection. I can only speak for myself. I come from a state that has a massive number of retirees and I've stood before cameras like this and made it very clear, if we don't do something to save Medicare and Social Security, they will bankrupt themselves and bankrupt our country. Those programs are unsustainable as they are currently structures. That we are going to lose those programs unless we do something to deal with it. I did that during the campaign and everybody told me I'd lost my mind in terms of talking about these issues, so I think as far as I'm concerned, and many like me, we have stepped up and talked about some of these issues that face America. Senator Ryan, sorry I mean Representative Ryan, Congressman Ryan has paid a terrible political price early on this year for even offering a potential solution to some of these problems. So I'm not sure that's a fair assessment.
SCHIEFFER: What is your plan to save Social Security, Senator? Are you ready for means testing of social security, raise the premiums, what is it you're for here?
RUBIO: Well Social Security doesn't have premiums.
SCHIEFFER: You're correct I misspoke. What would you do?
RUBIO: Well I talked about this on the campaign. First of all we don't have to do anything for current beneficiaries, people like my mom or people near retirement. I do think we have to look at the retirement age. I do think that people like me, I'm 40 years old, just turned 40 a month ago, people like me have to accept the fact that there will not be a Social Security for us, unless we are willing to retire a little bit later. That's and people in my generation are going to have to accept that and I'm open to other people's suggestions, absolutely I'm open to other people's suggestions because I want to save Social Security and I want to save Medicare. As far as our solutions are concerned to the overall problem I think a credible solution to our debt problem has to have two components, it has to have budgetary reforms, in essence a decrease in spending of at least 4 trillion dollars or more and it has to come with some sort of growth enhancers. something that helps grow our economy. You cannot yourself out of this debt problem at 9% unemployment with over 24 million Americans either unemployed or underemployed.
SCHIEFFER: Are you ready to say that you are not ready to vote for anything that lets the government go into default on its debts are you willing to let that happen?
RUBIO: Well I think that if all we do is raise the debt limit, that's exactly what we're doing. The full faith and credit of the united states is in danger if all we do is raise the debt limit and it's not accompanied by a credible plan to begin to deal with this debt issue and it's not me saying it, it's Standard and Poor saying it, it's the rating houses saying it. I think people every time they cite these reports in the media outlet, they need to read the full report because if you read the full report, it will say yes we're concerned about the US not raising its debt limit but we're really concerned that the United States and its government does not have a credible plan to deal with the debt and the only credible plan to deal with the debt is not simply raising the debt limit you must also have budgetary reforms put in place that show how you're going to save money and pro growth strategies that show how you're going to grow your economy. If we don't do that we are in a lot of trouble.
SCHIEFFER: Can you have meaningful reform here without increasing revenues in some way, closing what some people say loopholes, eliminating what others call deductions. Aren't you going to have to have some way to increase revenues? that goes beyond just cutting taxes?
RUBIO: I think everybody in Washington would like to see more revenues, the question is number one how are you going to get more revenues and number two what are you doing with it? I think more revenues should come from economic growth and I think it should come from that because I think it's impossible for it to come from tax increases. None of the tax increases the President is imposing solves the problem, they don't raise enough money, in fact they make it worse. They kill jobs and by the way I don't trust Washington because they have shown time and again that any time they get their hands on their own money they don't use it to pay or avoid debt, they use it to grow the government. So that's what I'm in favor of, I'm in favor of more revenue that comes from economic growth, the creation of new jobs and if you talk to job creators, not politicians, not Presidents, if you talk to job creators they will tell you that what they're looking for is a fairer and simpler tax code so I do support tax reform and I think there is a lot of support for tax reform in Washington and they're looking for some regulatory reform as well because they think these regulations that are being imposed make America a more unfriendly place to do business. When people tell you communist China is a better place to do business than America, you know you're in trouble.
SCHIEFFER: Okay, well Senator we have to stop it there the clock's run out. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCHIEFFER: It has taken awhile but we have finally done it. We have created a Congress incapable of doing what it was designed to do: improve the lives of its citizens. It's as if Detroit made a car with a fine radio and piercing headlights and comfortable, beautiful seats but couldn't do what it was created for---move forward. Here's how it happened. The cottage industry that has grown up around Congress-the consultants, the commercial makers, the pollsters-has made the cost of running for office prohibitive. So those who do run must spend most of their days calling people and begging for money. It takes an overwhelming ambition for office to be willing to do that. Most people want no part of such a life, so the talent pool of candidates has shrunk to not bad people, but not always the same kind of people who used to run. Even worse, in order to raise the vast sums needed, a candidate must sign off with so many special interest groups before getting to Washington that once here, positions are already set in stone. They can't compromise on anything. So we have what we have-a legislative body unable to reach agreement on anything. The founders forged both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution through ingenious compromises-ingenious compromise and courage. Today, compromise is no longer seen as a virtue but as selling out and political courage has given way to schemes to raise the needed money. We keep asking...is the system broken? Short answer, yes. The larger question-can it be repaired? Not without a large injection of political courage. Right now, I don't see much of that.
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