'Meet the Press' transcript for October 18, 2009

MR. DAVID GREGORY:  This Sunday:  cost, coverage and compromise.  Inside the healthcare debate in Washington.

(Videotape)

PRES. BARACK OBAMA:  We are now closer than ever before to passing health reform, but we're not there yet.

(End videotape)

GREGORY:  What will it take to form a coalition large enough to pass legislation?  Will the president have to referee between the liberal and moderate wings of his party?  And will Republicans remain united in their opposition?

Plus, outrage at Wall Street.  Banks prepare to pay record bonuses.  Should the government step in?  We'll hear from two key voices on the Hill:  a senior member of the Health Committee and chairman of the Banking Committee, Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut; and Republican Whip, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona.

Then, a seismic shift in the makeup of the American work force; so says a new report from Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress.  By the end of the year, for the first time in history the majority of workers in the U.S. will be women.  What impact is this having on American life?  This morning we kick off NBC's weeklong series exploring A Woman's Nation with the first lady of California and NBC guest editor Maria Shriver; the president of the Center for American Progress, John Podesta; and senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, who chairs the White House Council on Women and Girls.

Finally, our MEET THE PRESS Minute from September 10, 1972.  A very different era and the fight for a very different notion of a woman's nation.

(Videotape, September 10, 1972)

MS. GLORIA STEINEM:  What kind of choice is it, after all, to be able to go out and earn half as much as a man for doing the very same work?

(End videotape)

GREGORY:  But first, with the view from the White House, the president's senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.

Welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

MS. VALERIE JARRETT:  Well, thank you, David.  It's a delight to be here.

GREGORY:  Good to have you here.  Let's first talk about the economy, and here was a headline that played prominently this week from The Wall Street Journal: "Wall Street On Track To Award Record Pay," expanding bonus pools and raking in big profits.  And yet here's a picture of what is now called the Obama economy, since he's come into office, and let's show it on the screen here. The debt is up 12 percent, it's now at $11.9 trillion.  The deficit's now at $1.4 trillion.  Unemployment at 9.8 percent, up 36 percent since he took office.  And jobs, 4.2 million jobs lost since the president has taken office. Wall Street's healthier, but the American worker is not.

MS. JARRETT:  Well, that's right.  And--but I think we have to take a step back, David, and let's remember the conditions that the president inherited, a global meltdown, and we now realize that it was actually far worse than we realized at the time when he came in office in January.  And what the president did is take very serious steps to get our economy back on track.  He has pulled us back from the precipice and as a result of that--we were losing 700,000 jobs a month, that has decreased steadily over the course of the last nine months, and we are beginning to see signs of hope.  But the unemployment rate is still much too high, and the president will not be satisfied, as he has said time and time again, until every single American who wants to work has a job.

GREGORY:  But what's he prepared to do in a--what looks to be a jobless recovery, to make sure that jobs do get created to say he--the way he say he--says he wants?

MS. JARRETT:  Well, first of all, first of all, he's already done a great deal.  The recovery bill that was passed by Congress in record speed really staved off a disaster, and we saved millions of jobs around the country.  And we're on track.  We're already--we're fully on track with the recovery bill and the spending that's going forward.  But we've only spent about a little less than half of the money, and so we still have a ways to go with the recovery bill.  We know unemployment is a lagging indicator.  We've always known that.  But what we're doing is making sure that we have the process in place so that we can bring those very important jobs back.

GREGORY:  But is--does there have to be a second stimulus, something done to specifically target job creation?

MS. JARRETT:  Well, I think we have done many things to target job creation. I think it's too soon, it's premature to say is a second stimulus needed. There is this conundrum:  You've got this huge national deficit, and we've got to do what we can to bring that down, at the same time as it's important to stimulate the economy.  And the federal government has to do its part.  That's why the recovery bill was so important, that's why many of the measures that the Treasury Department has taken since then, whether for housing or small business, are all very important in stimulating the economy.  So let's wait and see.  Let's let the recovery bill do its, do its job and then we'll see.

GREGORY:  No commitment on a tax credit for employers, for instance?

MS. JARRETT:  Well, every morning, as you know, the president meets with his economic advisers, and the first thing he says to them is, "What are we doing to tackle the unemployment rate?" There are a range of suggestions that are being considered right now by his economic team, and we'll see what we come forward with.  We're consulting with the business community, we're consulting with everyday Americans who are struggling.  We're trying to figure out what can we do to create an incentive to invest in our country and make our country strong again.

GREGORY:  So, so, so the idea of some kind of additional stimulus to create jobs is on the table, fair to say?

MS. JARRETT:  Everything is on the table.  As you know, President Obama is always interested in what can we do to make our companies strong so that they're going to grow and invest in our country.  So he's, he's willing to look at all possibilities; but he's also saying, "Let's let the recovery bill that was passed by Congress work." And we're not even halfway through that yet.

GREGORY:  All right, let's turn to health care.  The president in his radio address yesterday took on the insurance industry and some of the studies that they have submitted this week to, to challenge his version of reform.  This is what he said.

(Videotape)

PRES. OBAMA:  It's smoke and mirrors.  It's bogus, and it's all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, "Take one of these and call us in a decade." Well, not this time.

(End videotape)

GREGORY:  What's striking about this is that the insurance industry, all along in this process, has been the president's partner.  That's what we've been led to believe.  And now we have the president taking on the insurance industry. Is this a sign that he believes the insurance industry is on the verge of killing reform?

MS. JARRETT:  Well, I think it's a sign of his frustration that at the very last minute they would come up with a study that has been--widely been debunked over the course of the last few days, including by the people who actually prepared this study.  At the same time, you have the Business Roundtable come out with a study by Hewitt that shows how costs are escalating and how the time is right now to take on this issue.  So I think what you saw was the president express, expressing his frustration that at the last minute the insurance industry would try to potentially tank this bill.  And it's not going to happen this time.  And I think that the message that we've seen from the president and the huge momentum that is moving through Congress shows that the American people are ready for healthcare reform and they're ready for it this year, and nothing's going to stop that.

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