'Meet the Press' transcript for Feb. 15, 2009

MR. GREGORY:  You wanted this to be a bipartisan package.  It is not.  Out of 219 total Republicans in the House and the Senate, you got three Republican votes.  Here's a sampling of some of the Republicans' complaints about the bill.

(Videotape)

REP. BOEHNER:  Here we are with 1100 pages.  Eleven hundred pages not one member of this body has read.  Not one.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ):  But unfortunately, this measure is not bipartisan. It contains much that is not stimulative and is nothing short, nothing short of generational theft.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC):  Well, you're going to need a shovel when this bill passes.  Not to build anything, just to get the money out the door.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  The opposition by Republicans; do you think this was principled opposition, or do you think this was a calculated effort on the part of the party to rebrand itself?

MR. AXELROD:  I don't know.  I think they have a point a view.  The point of view was expressed in the economic policies of the last eight years.  Those economic policies have not worked, and that's one of the reasons we're in the mess we're in.  So we had good conversations back and forth with the Republicans.  I think their influence was felt in this legislation.  It may--but, but what we weren't going to do was repeat the same economic theory that...

MR. GREGORY:  All right, so how was their influence felt?

MR. AXELROD:  Well, I think in tax--in terms of tax cuts.  I think the tax cuts reflect some of their, their thinking.  I mean, we agreed with them in terms of tax cuts to help small businesses get through this.  They--their--the AMT is now added.  The AMT fix is now added to this.  The, the, the Web site recovery.gov was suggested by Representative Cantor, the leader of the opposition in the House.

MR. GREGORY:  This is an, an attempt to track the spending.

MR. AXELROD:  Here's something--here's what I--yes.  Here's what I, what, what kind of interests me, though.  For eight years when we were doubling the national debt, I didn't hear many of these people moralizing about, about spending.  I didn't hear them scrutinizing.  We passed--they passed a bill in 2003 to rebuild the economy of Iraq that was nearly $100 billion with no accountability built in, and I didn't hear anybody, any of those guys standing up on the floor and saying this was a mistake.  So to some degree you have to attribute it to politics.  But I also think they have an economic view, which is that we shouldn't be investing in things like energy and health care and education, that we should rely principally on tax cuts, that this bill should have been smaller.  We disagree with all of that.

MR. GREGORY:  But is that fair?  Is it really that that's the view, or is it that you're creating a lot of more permanent government spending, entitlements and investments, in a dead environment, which is very dangerous for the economy of the United States?

MR. AXELROD:  Well, again, I think that this is--it's sort of late in the game to be raising the debt issue for folks who doubled the debt over eight years.  But beyond that, much of this spending, most of this spending is going to spend out very, very quickly.  Yes, we're investing in short-term investments that have long-term value.  In terms of creating--we're going to double our use of renewable energy.  That's going to pay dividends in the long run.  Building--rebuilding 10,000 schools to put our kids in the classrooms and labs and libraries of the 21st century, it's going to have a short-term benefit and a long-term benefit.

One of the reasons we're in the problem we're in is because for--not just for years, but decades, we've been deferring investments in, in, in energy independence, in health care, in education.  And what we're saying is let's put people to work doing the work that America needs done.

MR. GREGORY:  So the lack of bipartisanship in this bill, not a major concern to the president?

MR. AXELROD:  Our concern--look, first of all, bipartisanship isn't just measured by the number of votes you get.  It's measured by the dialogue you have.  He, he meant--he, he...

MR. GREGORY:  You were the ones who said you wanted 80 votes in the Senate, though.

MR. AXELROD:  I wanted 100 votes, David, but I don't think that that is the measure.  The measure is do you move it forward and do you have productive conversations?  President met with members of--Republican members of Congress. He went to both caucuses.  Our staff met with most members, or many members of the Republican caucus.  And, and that is a healthy thing.  But old habits die hard, we understand that.  We're going to keep on dealing with both parties on Capitol Hill and trying to set a standard of civility that we think ultimately will pay off.

MR. GREGORY:  Would you concede that it was a mistake to have House Democrats write the bill, make some of these appropriations?  Some of this spending, it appeared, got away from the White House.

MR. AXELROD:  I think that if you look at the bill, the president said coming into this discussion that he wanted a bill in the neighborhood of $775 billion.  And we hit it almost on the nose.  He said he wanted to make investments in energy, in health care and education, put people to work in advancing those goals.  We're doing that.  He said he wanted to give significant help to people who have been--lost their jobs in this economy, with unemployment insurance and health care.  We're doing that.  He said he wanted to help states get through this disaster so they don't have to lay off critical personnel and police and fire and teachers.  We've done that.  I think this bill accomplishes much of what the president set out to do, and we're very, very pleased with it.

MR. GREGORY:  What does this experience tell you about how you should approach the rest of your agenda and approach Republicans?  Do you slow down? Do you try to compromise more?

MR. AXELROD:  Well, look, we're faced with an economic emergency here, and we're going to have to move forward quickly on, on a number of things:  on financial regulatory reform, so we have some rules of the road governing the markets; on financial stability, we have to move forward on that.  There are a range of things we have to do, because the country's in trouble right now. And so we want to move deliberately, thoughtfully.  But we can't drag our feet, because people are counting on us to act in the midst of this crisis.

MR. GREGORY:  So keep moving forward and move forward strong?

MR. AXELROD:  Yes.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me ask you about a few agenda items in the stimulus that have become controversial.  Here was a complaint from a Republicans, and it had to do with some of the health care provisions that we included.  The AP reported it this way:  "Some Republicans ...  focused their criticism on a new federal council that will coordinate what's called comparative-effectiveness research--when doctors and statisticians sift medical records to determine which treatments work best for a particular disease.  The government already spends hundreds of millions of dollars on such research.  Democrats will greatly boost that spending, but they also establish a 15-member council whose members will annually report on the state of comparative effectiveness research and make recommendations.  Republican lawmakers claim the council will become a `governing rationing board' that will make life-and-death decisions about which treatments doctors will be able to use.  `Congressional Democrats are using the cover of an economic crisis to advance an agenda that will destroy the doctor-patient relationship and set us on a course for government-administered health care,' said Representative Tom Price," from Georgia, who is "a doctor." Is this going too far?

MR. AXELROD:  Well, of course that's hyperbole.  The reality is that we spend an enormous amount of money on health care each year, the government does and individuals do.  The costs are out of sight.  And one of the reasons is that we have a lot of duplication, we have a lot of inefficiency.  One of the things we had in the bill was computerizing our medical records so we're not duplicating tests, we're reducing medical errors and improving care.  We have to get a hold of this issue of cost.  It has nothing to do with the, the patient-doctor relationship, it has to do with making our health care system more efficient so it doesn't implode.

MR. GREGORY:  But what...

MR. AXELROD:  And I think most Americans want us to do something about that.

MR. GREGORY:  But what's the role of this council?

MR. AXELROD:  Council is going to be looking at best practices, at, at, at what, what is working and what isn't and, and making recommendations about how we proceed, particularly within the, the, the federal system.

MR. GREGORY:  Let's talk about another agenda item, the Buy American provision.  This survived in the package despite some concerns that the White House had.  And what it basically says, a lot of the stimulus spending, a lot of these projects will have to rely on the use of U.S. iron and steel.  The president said he didn't want protectionist measures in there.  A lot of our trading partners think that's exactly what this is.

MR. AXELROD:  Well, first of all, we want to promote American businesses, we all agree on that.  There is--there was language added to that provision that I think that respects our international agreements, and that was something that we wanted in there.

MR. GREGORY:  All right.

MR. AXELROD:  Because the last thing we need in the midst of a worldwide economic slump is, is a trade war.  And I think that's a concern everyone has.

MR. GREGORY:  But this provision would exclude China and India from bidding on these projects.  Is that the message we want to send?

MR. AXELROD:  As I said, the, the, the, the language in the bill is consistent with our international treaties.  And we insisted on that, and that's the way it is.

MR. GREGORY:  But there are major trading partners, like China and India, who are excluded?

MR. AXELROD:  The language is consistent with our treaties.  We--but we...

MR. GREGORY:  All right, but that's a fact.

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