<...>
GREGORY:<...>Senator Kerry, why couldn’t the Obama team be accused in the same way that the Bush White House was criticized after 9/11 when in a crisis atmosphere the Bush administration, in the view of its critics, rammed through legislation that were priorities for them after 9/11 that maybe they didn’t get all the consultation on, maybe didn’t get all of the agreement on?
KERRY: It happens, David, and I think this is coincidence, but it happens in this particular circumstance where our economy is in a crisis as unprecedented as anything since the Great Depression. And the dynamics of what are happening now are complicated, enormous, and they’re going to be very, very difficult to fix quickly.
Given that, it’s inevitable that something like rapid broadband expansion into communities that can’t afford it, which has been a Democratic priority, is going to dovetail with creating jobs.
Likewise, we’ve been pressing for years. We’ve had a $1.6 trillion infrastructure deficit in America. Many of us have been fighting for years to get high-speed rail, to fix community schools. We have, I think, you know, 50 percent -- most of the schools in America, about 50 years old.
They desperately need modern laboratories so our kids learn properly so we can compete in the future global economy. Those are things that dovetail. But...
GREGORY: But it...
KERRY: ... none of them -- but let me just finish. They will, all of them, be put to the test of a vote on the floor of the United States Senate to open debate. None of this is being done behind closed doors. None of this is a secret.
In fact, we accepted Representative -- Republican Representative Eric Cantor ’s suggestion that the entire bill be put on the Internet. Everybody can go look at every provision in it.
We’ve accepted Republican proposals, Arlen Specter is going to put in $12 billion for NIH. One of the largest increases in the bill is the alternative minimum tax fix. That came with the advocacy of Chuck Grassley, Republican Finance ranking member.
So there’s a bipartisan effort here. I think those priorities happen to dovetail with what we need to do to put America back to work. But this is unprecedented. We have to...
GREGORY: All right. But...
KERRY: We have to break a cycle, a downward, vicious cycle where the psychology of the marketplace is locked into consumer contraction, housing failures...
GREGORY: Understood, understood, but if the issue here is the -- you are making the case for long-term spending...
KERRY: I’m making the case for a combination. You have to do both. It doesn’t do any good to spend money immediately, all of the jobs end, then you haven’t laid the foundation for the economy.
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GREGORY: But let’s just stipulate one thing, that -- that there is a big ideological and philosophical divide about whether you need an infusion of government spending or tax cuts, which moves the fastest. Nobody’s got a monopoly on the truth here in terms of what will actually work. Would you concede that?
HUTCHISON: Yes, absolutely, because it is uncharted waters.
GREGORY: All right. But let me, Senator...
KERRY: Actually, I would not concede that. We’ve had eight years of a -- of this experiment of massive tax cuts without investing in America’s future, and the result is we have gone from fourth in broadband to 17th in the world.
The fact is our transportation system is neglected, you can’t move products from here to there as effectively as other places. We waste countless hours of American productivity on roads that are clogged with traffic because we don’t invest in mass transit.
I think the experiment in the last eight years, that’s what this election was about. We just had an election. The American people overwhelmingly voted for change.HUTCHISON: I just -- but I -- but I disagree with that.
GREGORY: But I was asking the narrow point, which is what’s the most stimulative to the economy?
HUTCHISON: I disagree.
KERRY: But -- well, let -- let me come back. In terms of stimulation of the economy...
(CROSSTALK)
KERRY: ... what you need to do now, according to everybody that I’ve talked to who’s smarter than I am and invests every day, you’ve got to break this psychology.
You’re not going to do it with one piece alone. Just this package will not fix this if we don’t also do something about housing to keep people in their homes and stem the hemorrhaging there, and fix the banking capitalization situation so that people will lend.
And I beg to differ with Kay. I mean, if you -- we’ve had these nontargeted tax breaks. There’s no guarantee whatsoever in today’s climate that an investor is going to feel confidence enough to put money into one of these things.moreAt one point in the program, David Gregory plays a clip of Rush Limbaugh threatening Repub Senators, and then asks Hutichson to respond.
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