Pelosi Remarks Following Meeting with Young Americans on Debt Talks
Washington, D.C. - Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi held a photo opportunity today in the Capitol at the bottom of a meeting with young Americans on their priorities as Democrats work toward a balanced, bipartisan agreement to reduce the deficit. Below are Leader Pelosi's opening remarks and a transcript of the question and answer session:
Leader Pelosi's Opening Remarks:
"Good morning. Thank you all for being here. On behalf of my colleagues--Congressman Jared Polis, Congressman Tim Ryan, Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Congressman Cedric Richmond--we are pleased to welcome some young people, some college students or just out of college students, to talk to us about the impact on the budget and how they see these talks.
"On a regular basis, through the new media we hear from young people across the country about every move that is made in Washington, D.C. We wanted to bring many of them to the table so that we could have a conversation so that when I go to the table later today, I can be fresh and current in what their thinking is and what they're hearing, what they're hearing about the budget, how reducing the deficit is important to their future but creating jobs today in a budget that has growth is very important to them, how Pell Grants and keeping them affordable is essential.
"Well, let's hear from them. First, we are going to hear from Eunice Kwon, from the University of California at Berkeley."
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Question and Answer Session:
Q: Leader Pelosi, can I ask you a question? We've heard a lot of talk about…
Leader Pelosi. Any of these people stand ready to answer. [Laughter.]
Q: We've heard a lot of talk about who should get paid if there's no deal and the government can't borrow money past August 2nd--the military, Social Security checks. Have there been any discussions about which bills shouldn't get paid if we can't borrow money?
Leader Pelosi. Well first, I have a more optimistic view. I believe that the United States will pay its bills, and we will honor the full faith and credit of our country. I salute President Obama for putting forth a grand bargain. This is about the future in a very important way that reduces the deficit well into the future, and we should still strive for that or come as close to it as we possibly can.
So I would hope that everyone is spending their energy on how we get that done rather than who's not going to be paid. I've heard some on the other side say we should pay the Chinese government before we send out a Social Security check. Well, we do have honor our debts, but we have to fight very hard to make sure we don't have to make those kinds of choices.
Q: Can you comment on the McConnell last-chance plan? Is that something you think would pass in the House, and is there any political danger in a clean debt ceiling coming to you for passage?
Leader Pelosi. Well, first of all, as I said, I support what the President is doing; our Caucus does--that we have a grand bargain into the future with a shared participation in the opportunity as well as the sacrifice.
What Leader McConnell has put on the table recognizes that we must pass, lift the debt ceiling, that we must do that. So it has that merit in that it says, what are we talking about, here? We have to pass this. And let's talk about the other things as we go along. I don't really know the particulars in the current state of play [of] Senator McConnell's proposal, but I do know that he has recognized that we must lift the debt ceiling.
Q: Michelle Bachman just said that the President is using the debt ceiling to hold the economy hostage. What is your response to her belief that the debt ceiling should not be raised?
Leader Pelosi. Well, first of all, when I was Speaker--and I am not one to talk about when I was, but when I was Speaker, I didn't approve of a lot of the initiatives that President Bush took, reducing taxes for the wealthiest people in our country without creating any jobs, in fact losing jobs, what he did with the prescription drug bill that gave away the store to the prescription drug industry. Without going into that, five times I voted to lift the debt ceiling. Even though I didn't agree with how we got to that place, it was not even a question that America would pay its debts, that we were a reliable, reliable power in the world. And that's really what we have to be thinking about. Let's do that. Let's reduce the deficit.
These are two different conversations. One is a numerical fact. We must raise the debt limit. It's a mathematical fact. The other is the traditional debate that people with different points of view bring to what should be in the statement of values that we call our national budget. And so, that is a confrontation, as it should be, because we represent different points of view. But there should be no spillover from that debate into whether we lift the debt ceiling.
Do any of my colleagues wish to comment on any of this?
Congresswoman Donna Edwards. Madam Leader, I would only say that I think that--I'm glad that Democrats were united in voting for a clean debt ceiling out of this House, and I think that, you know, I share with you, and you've been at that table with a commitment that we have to honor our debts and our responsibilities and our obligations by raising the debt ceiling.
And it was done 17 times, I think, under President Reagan without controversy, and so I continue to look forward to the leadership of the President to make sure that we meet our full faith and credit of the United States and our obligations by raising the debt ceiling. And then to the extent that there are conversations around our debt and our deficit and our long-term, for these young people here, we have a responsibility to have that conversation.
Leader Pelosi. Let me just say that this is not to lift the debt ceiling so that more spending can be done. This is to lift the debt ceiling so that we can pay our bills, that we can pay our bills. We are committed to reducing, to making the cuts necessary to make sure we don't find ourselves in this situation too frequently, but it has happened many times under Democratic and Republican presidents. Under President Clinton, it only happened four times because of the tough measures that we took then. We took his budgets, went into surplus, and balance--so that only happened four times there, almost twice that when President Bush was president.
One more. Well, two more. We'll do you, and we'll do you.
Q: Leader Pelosi, we just left a news conference with Congressmen King and Gohmert and Bachman, who effectively said the President is giving bad information and is demagoguing priorities such as veterans' benefits and seniors and so on and so forth. How do you react to that? Also, your colleague on the other side in the Senate, Senator Rockefeller, has raised some key flags about possible phone tapping scandal by News Corporation, possibly violating U.S. laws. Are you familiar with that?
Leader Pelosi. No, I am not familiar with that. But on the first point, let me say of the President, how blessed we are to have him there. On this subject, if we are just talking about this subject, I have never--and I have said this to my colleagues at the table, and I said it at a press event yesterday with the women Members who were talking about what the impact of these cuts are to women in our country, and very severe.
This President has extended the respect and the courtesy to bipartisan House and Senate Members to listen, listen, listen, and listen to them, talk about what their concerns are, their priorities, what they're suggestions might be. Thursday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now, Wednesday--unprecedented in terms of a president listening that much, bringing to the table complete knowledge of the subject. Nobody can out debate him or out statistic him on this information. So I would say that they should be encouraged that our President is very well informed, chapter and verse on the particulars of the budget. But more important than that, very elevated in his thinking about what this grand bargain should be in terms of a grand vision for our country that reduces the deficit far into the future, honoring our responsibilities to the next generation, to do so in a way that does not harm their opportunity in terms of education, the freedom to have health care so that they can be entrepreneurial and the rest.
And when I ask my kids, "What do you think young people care the most about?" They said, "Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs." And his commitment to making sure that whatever we do there does not harm our economic recovery, and, in fact, will encourage job creation. I'm very proud of him.
One more.
Q: You said you are optimistic, but we are hearing from negotiators and aides that there hasn't been a lot of progress made, that negotiations are still hung up on tax cuts, and there has been a lot more pessimism that we are hearing in the last 24 hours…
Leader Pelosi. I don't see it that way. I don't see it that way. Perhaps to an inexperienced eye that might be the case, but what I see it as, is an elimination of some possibilities, and that's progress, elimination of possibilities. Okay, narrowing the path that we may go down. But I think that the President has led the discussion, and again, in a values-based way with specific knowledge of what is possible and is eliminating some paths to focus on others and that is what I would call progress.
Now, I want to tell you young people something. When we first won the Congress, we went to the White House to have a discussion with the President about drawing down our troops in Iraq, because that was a big issue in 2006 election, as well as meeting our responsibilities to the people of Katrina, which had happened. Mr. Richmond, you may recall that there was real concern because they were saying, will they hold the domestic budget hostage to what the President wants to do in Iraq? All those kinds of conversations. The President came into the room for our discussion on the subject. He said: "This is what I want to do." No. "Hello, this is what I want to do. Goodbye. Take it or leave it."
Now, contrast that--and I love President Bush. As I told the Members at the meeting the other day, I sent him flowers for his birthday last week. I don't know if any of the Republican leaders did that. [Laughter.] It's nothing personal about this. It's just, that was what he considered a negotiation.
This President has shown so much respect, paid so much time, and then not just the time at the table, in terms of following up on their suggestions and bringing back perhaps agreement or perhaps another way to honor the goals that they have. So he is a remarkably patient man, a remarkably patient man. And I think that that patience will take this to a consensus, which will lift the debt ceiling, will put us on a path.
But a 10-year path means everything to you. It's not a six month C.R. like we did earlier. I didn't vote for it. That was six months. That's until September. This is 10 years into the future. This is a pact that will have a very big impact on your lives. That's why we want to have the strength of your arguments and your personal experiences that you have shared with us so we can speak with authority.
Yes, sir.
Congressman Cedric Richmond. I was just going to say, on the demagogue question, I think the President has gone out of his way not to demagogue on this issue. But I think he has an obligation to the public and the American people to talk about the sinful ramifications of the Republican proposal. So it is very hurtful to me, and I think that it is very detrimental to the country to have, to answer a question about whether we think Social Security checks will go out on August 3rd. Just think about what that does to our seniors. The fact that that comes up in the conversation is not demagoguing. It's just a realistic assessment of the sinful ramifications of an irresponsible proposal.
But what the President is doing is continuing to talk, and what our Leader is doing, and she is doing a fantastic job of, is making sure that we talk to all the stakeholders. And this is the best group of stakeholders that we could assemble as we talk about the future and their investment in the future. So, I want to thank the Leader again, and to make sure that people understand that we are working day and night to make sure that we get the debt ceiling raised and we live up to our commitment and we continue to show and lead by example that as Americans and as leaders in this country, that we live up to our commitments, we pay our debts, and we do what we say we are going to do. So thank you again.
Leader Pelosi. Thank you, Congressman Richmond. Thank you all.