MSNBC Interview - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC Interview - Transcript

MSNBC INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR BEN CARDIN (D-MD)
SUBJECT: BUDGET INTERVIEWER: DAVID SHUSTER

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MR. SHUSTER: As you might imagine, there is a contentious budget battle shaping up.

Democratic Maryland Senator Benjamin Cardin sits on the Senate Budget Committee and joins us now.

Senator, as far as the president's effort to try to get to half of the money for health care reform from ending the Bush tax breaks, how is that going to go over? Are the votes there to get it through?

SEN. CARDIN: Well, first, let me congratulate the president for bringing in a real budget with the type of changes that Americans want in the health care system, in energy and the environment.

Yes, this is going to be controversial, but I think the votes are there to get this done. This is within the political realities. The good thing about a budget is once it's passed, you can move legislation by a majority vote; it can't be filibustered.

So I think there is a realistic opportunity to get these proposals done.

MR. SHUSTER: What about the argument that even if you do support the idea of, say, having the wealthy pay a greater share than they are now that in the midst of a recession, it's a bad idea to raise taxes on anybody?

SEN. CARDIN: Well, I think that's a very valid point, and as you know, we just passed a recovery bill that cut taxes. I think the president is being very careful that he doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize 95 percent of Americans who receive their tax cuts. He really is looking at the longer range reform of our tax structure, trying to make it fairer. But I think he's going to be very mindful and I think the Congress will to do everything we can to make sure our first priorities is to get our economy back on track.

MR. SHUSTER: Peter Orszag, the president's budget director was asked this morning about this provision of essentially limiting the tax deductions that Americans can essentially list for charitable contributions, in other words, if you make more than $250,000, there's going to be a cap as far as what you can write off for charitable contributions.

Peter Orszag was asked about that and he said it's the administration's view that people give money to charities because of altruism, not because they want to give less of their money to the government.

Do you agree with that?

SEN. CARDIN: Well, I think there's probably a combination here. I think the tax incentives are important, but what the president is suggesting is that that person who makes over $250,000 a year will get the same percentage incentive as someone who makes $200,000 a year. They're still going to get a significant tax incentive to give money to charity, 28 percent will be basically paid for by the government.

MR. SHUSTER: I want to get back to the issue of health care. The Census Bureau says that 46 million Americans lack any health care at all and there was a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Senators Baucus and Kennedy today, your colleagues, they wrote there's also a moral imperative to follow economic recovery efforts with health reform. If Congress can bail out the nation's banks, surely, we can help families get the quality, affordable health care they deserve.

I would imagine you agree with that, but how difficult will it be to sort of deal with all of the various components in this health care part of this?

SEN. CARDIN: health care is going to be very difficult; it's not going to be easy to accomplish this reform, but I'll tell you, the president when he said we're going to get it done this year, he got a rounding response from the members of Congress.

I think he's within the framework where we can get the votes in Congress and the consensus to get this passed. We are tired of talking about health care reform. We're tired of spending so much money and so many Americans without health insurance.

I think this is our opportunity to get it done, and I think we have an excellent chance of moving forward in 2009.

MR. SHUSTER: Maryland Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin, and Senator, thanks for joining us. Good to see you.

SEN. CARDIN: Thank you.

END.

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