Transcript of NYT interview with President Obama

[ProSense]

First, excerpts from the NYT: Education of a President

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While proud of his record, Obama has already begun thinking about what went wrong — and what he needs to do to change course for the next two years. He has spent what one aide called “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0” with his new interim chief of staff, Pete Rouse, and his deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina. During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called “tactical lessons.” He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works. Perhaps he should not have proposed tax breaks as part of his stimulus and instead “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” so it could be seen as a bipartisan compromise.

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I asked if there were any Republicans he trusted enough to work with on economic issues. The first name he came up with was Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who initially agreed to serve as Obama’s commerce secretary before changing his mind. But Gregg is retiring. The only other Republican named by Obama was Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman who has put together a detailed if politically problematic blueprint for reducing federal spending. The two men are ideologically poles apart, but perhaps Obama sees a bit of himself in a young, substantive policy thinker.


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Even if such an alliance emerges, though, the next two years will be mostly about cementing what Obama did in his first two years — and defending it against challenges in Congress and the courts. “Even if I had the exact same Congress, even if we don’t lose a seat in the Senate and we don’t lose a seat in the House, I think the rhythms of the next two years would inevitably be different from the rhythms of the first two years,” Obama told me. “There’s going to be a lot of work in this administration just doing things right and making sure that new laws are stood up in the ways they’re intended.”

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The transcript

On what he would tell the Barack Obama of December 2008:
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Now in retrospect, I could have told Barack Obama in December of 2009 that if you already have a third of the package as tax cuts, then the Republicans, who traditionally are more comfortable with tax cuts, may just pocket that and attack the other components of the program. And it might have been better for us not to include tax cuts in the original package, let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts, and then say, O.K., you know, we’ll compromise and give you your tax cuts, even though we had already proposed them.

And if you recall, when we initially unveiled what the Recovery Act would look like — in fact, that a third of it was tax cuts — Mitch McConnell actually was, as he phrased it, pleasantly surprised that sort of traditional Republican idea had been included. But very quickly that pleasant surprise turned into attacks on the infrastructure or the aid to the states or what have you.

I would have told Barack Obama back in 2009 that just be warned, structuring the tax cut the way we did, where people basically got a small bump in their paycheck every two weeks, was the right thing to do economically, but politically it meant that nobody knew that they were getting a tax cut. And in fact what ended up happening was six months into it or nine months into it, people had thought we had raised their taxes instead of cutting their taxes.

So there are a bunch of tactical things that I could have told myself back in 2009, and the truth of the matter is we knew a lot of this stuff. I made a decision that given the severity of the problem, I couldn’t think in terms of short-term politics. I had to go ahead and make the best decisions that I could based on the information available to me. And I actually think that we made the right decisions, and they were the ones that were the best for the country, but they weren’t necessarily the best for our politics.


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On what he anticipates for the next two years:

Well, let me first of all say we’ve got five weeks to go in this election. And I am going to be out there actively making the case that the policies we put in place are moving this country forward and that the other side does not have a serious set of ideas that will solve our problems. I mean, when I look at this Pledge to America, and I’ve got the Republican leadership proposing $4 trillion in tax cuts, they’re going to balance the budget, and they can only come up with $16 billion worth of specific savings, that tells me they’re not serious.

When they’re willing to hold hostage middle-class tax cuts, which makes sense for an economy that is still in a weak recovery, because they want to give $700 billion to folks like me who aren’t going to increase our consumption or our spending one dime because of these tax cuts, since we already have enough, and we’re going to have to borrow that $700 billion and there’s not an expert out there who thinks that’s the best way to spend $700 billion even if you had it to stimulate the economy, that tells me these folks aren’t serious.

When you’ve got a Republican Party that has made as their primary centerpiece rolling back a health care bill that the Congressional Budget Office says will actually reduce our deficit by $140 billion in the first 10 years and a trillion dollars after that, and are claiming that they can make sure people with pre-existing conditions get health care but offer no way of doing it, that tells me they’re not serious.

And so I do think that this election is going to be a gut check for all of us about how serious are we about solving these problems, or are we going to simply fall back into the same tit for tat, back and forth that had led us to put off all these problems over the last 30 to 40 years, while China and Brazil and Germany are moving forward — educating their kids, building their infrastructure and taking a lead on clean energy.

I will keep on making that case, and I think that to point — to quote my vice president — I believe that voters are going to stop comparing me to the Almighty and compare me to the alternative. And when that choice is clear, I think that we’ll do better than people expect.

Now having said that, even if I had the exact same Congress, even if we don’t lose a seat in the Senate and we don’t lose a seat in the House, I think the rhythms of the next two years would inevitably be different from the rhythms of the first two years; first of all because the two biggest legislative battles that we took on — health care and financial regulatory reform — are inherently complicated, contentious, unwieldy, hard to explain to the public, take up a lot of oxygen and generate fierce opposition from very well-funded special interests, whether it’s the insurance lobby, the banking lobby. Those folks can spend millions of dollars not just here in Washington but on the air waves.

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The second thing that happens is that we’ve got to focus on implementation. I mean, I didn’t pass a law just to have a feather in my cap. I passed a law so that it was actually helping people.

So on financial regulatory reform, I want to make sure that this consumer-finance-protection agency is out there changing how your credit-card companies are treating you, changing in very specific ways how mortgage documents are written so you don’t get tricked into buying a house you can’t afford or at an interest rate that’s higher than you could have gotten otherwise. I want to make sure that health care reform works for all the families I meet out there who desperately need some help and that it actually bends the cost curves.

So there’s going to be a lot of work in this administration just doing things right and making sure that new laws are stood up in the ways that they’re intended.

On what issues he would be willing to tackle even if it meant being a one-term president:

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So I guess if the question is, Over the next two years do I take a pass on tough stuff, the answer is no.

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And the big debate that we’re going to have to have as a country is what is important enough to us that we’re willing to pay for it — and then who pays for it? I think Social Security is important and we have to pay for it. I think Medicare is important and we have to pay for it. I think both programs can be more efficient, but I think those provide a core safety net to the American people. I think that our investments in education are absolutely critical to our long-term economic health.

I think we have to have infrastructure that keeps up with the demands of the 21st century. We can’t have a China that has the best airports, the best railways, the best roads, and we are still relying on infrastructure that was built 200 years ago or 100 years ago or even 50 years ago when it comes to things like broadband lines.

I’m going to have to make an argument that if we say we revere our veterans, then when our veterans come home, we’ve got to pay for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. We’ve got to pay for traumatic brain injury. And we’ve got to care for families who have lost a loved one. And all that stuff costs money.

And when you tally it all up, then it turns out that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. And one of the most frustrating things that I see in the political environment right now is the Republican Party is still selling this notion somehow that they can cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires and preserve things that they know poll well like Social Security and Medicare and veterans affairs and this and that and the other, and somehow they’re going to balance the budget.

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Trying to do this when the economy is still very weak and we lost 8 million jobs means that you’ve got to apply the brake and the accelerator at the same time, and that’s a tricky thing to pull off.

On whether there are any Republicans he trusts enough to work together on economic issues:
You know, I think we’re going to have to see how the election shakes out, because there are people like Judd Gregg, who I think are serious about this issue, but Judd’s retiring.

And I don’t know who is going to step into that role of somebody who is fiscally conservative, probably has different priorities than mine, but is still fundamentally serious about these issues.

I will say that the reports I’m getting back from the fiscal commission are that they are working more seriously than maybe they had anticipated. I think somebody like a Paul Ryan who has got a lot of attention is absolutely sincere about wanting to reduce the deficit. The problem is, is that the plan he’s put forward so far is about a trillion dollars short. The numbers don’t add up.

And even with those numbers being fudged, most of his Republican colleagues in the House have not been willing to sign on to what he’s suggesting, in part because he does significantly cut benefits in things like Medicare, which are politically difficult to do.

I give him credit for at least being willing to put out there some tough choices, although, as I said, even there, the numbers don’t quite match up the way they should.

So look, it may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible, either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them; or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.

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[emulatorloo]

1. Seems like a real polite way to call Paul Ryan an idiot

"He's seems absolutely sincere <but his numbers> are fudged." LOL

Thanks for the transcript, doesn't appear to say what some of the summaries have said it says.

[Kdillard]

2. Good interview. I would very much like to see the lessons that he learned

give him the tools for his success and that of the American people for the rest of his term and hopefully into a second one that shines bright.