MTP Transcript for April 1, 2007

MR. RUSSERT: Would Senator Hatch be an acceptable replacement to Mr. Gonzales?

SEN. LEAHY: Well, I, I—the rumor on, on the Hill this week was he was actively running for it, but, you know, I’m going to have to leave...

SEN. HATCH: Oh, come on, Pat.

SEN. LEAHY: I’m going to have to leave that—I’m going to have to leave that to him. And he shouldn’t—he shouldn’t be upset if he thinks he annoyed me today. I mean, he does that every day, but, but we always get along well. In fact, I got a lovely letter from him—handwritten letter for my birthday.

Thank you very much for that, Orrin, that was very nice of you.

SEN. HATCH: You bet.

MR. RUSSERT: But do you think he’s confirmable?

SEN. LEAHY: I think that—let’s take it one step—let’s take it one step at a time. I, I tell you one thing, I’m not eager to have any confirmation hearing for any new attorney general until we finish this investigation. And the reason for that...

MR. RUSSERT: Whoa, whoa, whoa. So if Mr. Rove did not come and testify before your committee under oath, and Mr. Gonzales stepped aside, you would not replace the attorney general position...

SEN. LEAHY: That’s not what I said. I said I want to be able to get enough from this investigation so that if there is a new attorney general, we can ask questions, say, “Can you tell us under oath not to do this?” You know, when they talk about—and also, Senator Hatch talked about, “Well, there’s only this one case down in Arkansas,’ that’s—that unfortunately falls into an amazing overstatement. The fact is that they used the Patriot Act, something that we’ve now repealed, to replace all of these U.S. attorneys.

SEN. HATCH: No, no, no.

SEN. LEAHY: We have about 20 vacancies for U.S. attorneys around the country. I’m waiting to see them send them up. They have not sent any of these people up for confirmation. The one in Arkansas was a former research assistant at the Republican National Committee. He was a protege of Karl Rove, and there’s heavy pressure from Karl Rove to place him in there, replacing one of the best U.S. attorneys in the country.

MR. RUSSERT: To be continued. Pat, Pat Leahy, Orrin Hatch, thank you for a very interesting and lively discussion.

Coming next, the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee talks taxes, the Iraq war, and his new book, “And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since.” The Democratic congressman from Harlem, Charles B. Rangel is next, right here only on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel on Iraq, taxes, and his new book, “And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since” after this brief station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Chairman Rangel, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS. Want to talk about your book in a second, but let me start with the war. The House voted for funding for the war with a date certain, March of ‘08, to begin a withdrawal of U.S. troops. But in that bill was $20 billion of so-called pork, money for cricket infestation, tours of the Capitol, security at the National Convention, peanut crops. Why would the Democrats put that kind of money in such a serious bill?

REP. CHARLES B. RANGEL (D-NY): Because they needed the votes. That bill, we lost so many Democrats, one, because people thought we went too far and others because we didn’t go far enough. And so a lot of things had to go into a bill that certainly those of us who respect great legislation did not want in there. But the real question was, were we doing something to stop this immoral war and what could we do instead of doing nothing except do what the president asks us to do? I think the most important thing and the worst thing that’s ever happened to this country in recent history is getting involved in the Middle East, and I didn’t care what was in that bill if there was anything to slow down, to, to say what the American people said in the last election, “Get out of Iraq!”

MR. RUSSERT: If you want to stop the war, why not just simply cut all the funding off?

REP. RANGEL: Because you don’t have the vote to do it. There’s some people who believe that if you cut all the funding off, you leave our soldiers and, and, and military people exposed, and that they’d have no money and then we’d go back to the scene we had in Vietnam where we’re fleeing by helicopter. And so it’s all compromised. That’s what legislation’s all about, and you have to make the best moral and conscious decision.

MR. RUSSERT: In your book, “And I haven’t Had a Bad Day Since”—we’ll come back and talk about where that title came from—but you write this. “The indifference of the architects of our foreign policy to the sacrifice of our youth outrages me so. The president and his men have neither the personal experience for identification nor a relationship with the communities that send young men to war. I ask people who support the war if they would continue to back it if their kids were eligible for a draft. They all say no.” You want a draft.

REP. RANGEL: I want people to recognize that when a nation goes to war, there should be shared sacrifice. Instead, we give trillions of dollars to the richest and make an appeal to those people who have no future in business as we recruit in the areas of the highest unemployment. That is morally wrong.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you be in favor of a mandatory national service?

REP. RANGEL: Yes!  That’s my bill. It’s just that included in that, of course, is a lottery as it relates to the military. But I’m telling you that a mandatory national service first would give us an opportunity to give these kids an education. Why we don’t do it at a time where education is a part of our national security I don’t know. Another thing is patriotism. When you serve and you put that flag on your shoulder, whatever the emblem is, it makes you a better American. It makes you feel that you have a vested interest in the country. Lastly, and most important, is that we need young kids in our schools and our hospitals, at our seaports and our airports, and it gives them a sense that they’re protecting America. We all would feel more secure just seeing them there.

MR. RUSSERT: What happens if the president says, “I’m vetoing this bill because it has a date fixed for withdrawal,” and Congress says, “Well, Mr. President,” then what? You won’t give them the money for the troops?

REP. RANGEL: Oh no. Ultimately, politically, we have to give him money. But we will constantly remind him that no president in these great United States can continue a war that the people do not support. It’s not going to happen. And so as long as he send back bills, we’ve got to send him back bills.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask about the alternative minimum tax, and here’s an article from The Washington Post that describes it. “The Democratic leaders vowed to make the alternative minimum tax a centerpiece of [the] budget debate, saying the levy threatens to unfairly increase tax bills for millions of middle-class families by the end of the decade.”

“The complex and expensive tax was designed to prevent the super rich from using deductions, credits,” “other shelters to avoid paying the” IRS. “But because of rising incomes, the tax” “expected to expand to more than 30 million taxpayers in 2010”—three years—“from 3.8” “mostly well-off households in” last year.

“In simple terms, the” alternative minimum tax “is sort of a flat tax with two brackets, 26 and 28 percent, and few” “deductions.

“By 2010, ‘the tax will become the de facto tax system for filers in the $200,000 to $500,000 income bracket range, 94 percent of whom will face the tax.’” “Half of tax filers making” between $75,000 and $100,000 “will have to pay the tax.”

“Getting rid of the tax altogether would” even be “more expensive. More than” a trillion dollars “over the next decade. Budget experts doubt that Democrats can do it without reneging on their promise to reduce the budget deficit or winning an agreement from Republicans to raise taxes elsewhere.” If you want to eliminate that tax—and you said you did—you admitted that you have to either raise taxes or cut programs. Will that fly?

REP. RANGEL: You got 30 million people that’s affected. If you put them right in the tax code and say that you’re eliminating that burden of $1 trillion over 10 years, you can find the money within the tax code. That’s not increasing taxes, unless you’re talking about getting rid of fat, getting rid of credits that shouldn’t be there, getting rid of loopholes. There’s supposed to be some $345 billion as a gap between taxes owed and taxes paid. That could be a part of it.

But I think the catchy political part is that there are a million people that have enjoyed some $2 trillion in tax cuts. It would seem to me if you admit that 30 million people are paying taxes that they should not be paying and one million are getting $1 trillion in taxes that they didn’t request, that you could rearrange the rates and come out without a tax increase and more equity in the system.

MR. RUSSERT: So roll back the tax cuts...

REP. RANGEL: Don’t say “roll back.” Let’s say readjust the rates. After all, we’re talking about one tax code, and if you have 30 million people receiving a dramatic decrease in taxes, someone has to pay for it.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to presidential politics. You encouraged Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois, to run from president. Why?

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