CNBC Interview - Transcript

Interview

CNBC Interview - Transcript

CNBC INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL)

SUBJECT: ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE INTERVIEWER: ERIN BURNETT

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MS. BURNETT: Joining us to do that a man with great influence in the Senate, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican from Alabama and, obviously, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee.

Senator Shelby, it is always a pleasure, sir, and I'm glad to have you here to give the response here. I know what you just heard what Vice President Biden say, I think the bill is good, it will get better and I think you'll see Republicans vote for it. Will he?

SEN. SHELBY: Well, I hope no Republican would vote for it just like it happened in the House, but I hadn't done a vote count, but I can tell you this stimulus package is not going to turn our economy around, infrastructure is important and sometimes political statements are important, but not now.

What we've got to do is attack, number one priority, the problems in our financial system where we have a financial cancer and we've got to do this. We can do this privately and with some government help and I mentioned to President Obama in the Republican Caucus the other day that I thought the priorities were wrong. I will oppose this because it's not going to help the economy; it's going to layer another trillion dollars' worth of debt and we'll be dead in the water.

We've got to do something about our banking system to make it transparent, to let people that got trillions of dollars on the sideline privately to know what's in these banks. Somebody will buy these assets and we will replenish the banks' capital, but this is not the right way to go.

MS. BURNETT: Senator Shelby, and I understand what you're saying, in a sense, but it seems to me that the administration agrees with you, that they're trying to have a major push for transparency through Treasury and the Fed with the banks

SEN. SHELBY: I hope so.

MS. BURNETT: As one track and then the other track is this stimulus plan.

SEN. SHELBY: Well, the stimulus plans if you look at them, they have a checkered past, all the way from the '30s all the way up and I believe this one will be the worst one to come down the pike. It will be a lot of euphoria around it, but at the end of the day, it's not going to do the job.

MS. BURNETT: Sir, I want to follow up, I'm watching here the wires as I'm interviewing you, Senator Shelby, and this wire just crossed, Senator Shelby hopes no Senate Republicans vote for the stimulus.

Sir, I want to let you hear what Rush Limbaugh said to me about what he thinks now about President Obama. Listen to this.

MR. LIMBAUGH: I support the president. I want him to succeed. I support the president. I want him to succeed. I support the president. I want him to succeed.

MS. BURNETT: I just want to make sure, sir, you could hear it, that was a loop. We did play it five times; it may shock you, but you know, I can't fake the voice, that is Rush Limbaugh --

SEN. SHELBY: Well --

MS. BURNETT: All right. So then you said you don't want any Republicans to vote for it.

SEN. SHELBY: I hope they won't vote for it, but I'm sure some of them will, I don't know who they would be because I believe we could do better. We could set our priorities straight and the priorities shouldn't be the stimulus package, it should be straighten up our banking system that would create more jobs than a stimulus would ever dream of creating.

MS. BURNETT: All right. So when you hear Joe Biden saying to our John Harwood, he did leave the door open to more tax cuts, that more tax cuts would occur. Is that something that would make this more palatable to you, specifically on tax cuts?

SEN. SHELBY: Erin, I don't believe it would make it palatable to me right now because I think the priority is wrong. The priority, as I said earlier on the show, should be to attack the cancer in our financial institution, that's number one.

MS. BURNETT: Right.

SEN. SHELBY: And if we don't do this, we can pass stimulus after stimulus and we're dead in the water.

MS. BURNETT: It's a fair point, but I want to make sure I understand as people are listening to this what this means you're saying. Are you saying, you don't want any stimulus at all until we fix our banks? Because that what it sounds like and I want to make sure I'm getting it right.

SEN. SHELBY: The best stimulus in this country would be to straighten our financial system out and to give people confidence to invest private money and to start making loans, taking loans from the banks. That would create more jobs than this stimulus would ever dream of creating.

MS. BURNETT: All right. So for you, it doesn't matter what changes go into this bill. No vote for you.

SEN. SHELBY: Well, I wouldn't say that. I would say if we did a 180-degree turn and did what I and others are saying we should attack our financial system first and do it right with transparency and honesty and integrity and let the American people who have trillions of dollars waiting on the sidelines to invest, if they trusted the banks, they would invest.

MS. BURNETT: Senator Shelby, a final question then. In the form of stimulus as opposed to what the Treasury is doing now and the measures they're going to come up with on transparency, what would you do right now? What is a 180-degree turn in this stimulus that would address the banking problem?

SEN. SHELBY: One hundred and eighty degree turn would be to shelf this stimulus and come with a financial package, private and government to clear the toxic assets off the banks, to make the banks transparent where it would get a lot of private investment. It would work for our economy.

MS. BURNETT: All right. All right. So that sounds a little bit like good bank, bad bank.

SEN. SHELBY: It is. Thank you, Erin.

MS. BURNETT: Senator Shelby, thanks as always. Appreciate it.

END.

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