Fox The Big Story with John Gibson - Transcript

Fox News Network

SHOW: THE BIG STORY WITH JOHN GIBSON (17:12)

HEADLINE: Interview With Tom McClintock

GUESTS: Tom McClintock

BYLINE: John Gibson, Heather Nauert

BODY:
GIBSON: California state Senator Tom McClintock doesn't have the money or name recognition of some candidates. What he says he does have is good ideas on how to run the state and it doesn't involve raising taxes.

Tom McClintock joins me now from Sacramento. Senator, the big question. Why should California choose McClintock when they have the Terminator?

TOM MCCLINTOCK ® CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR: Well, John, I've spent 20 years now in the public policy arena, proposing and fighting for exactly those fiscal reforms that everybody now agrees are absolutely essential if we're going to set our state's finances in order and restore our economy and restore our public works. I was the top Republican vote getter here in California in last year's elections, running down ticket for state controller, I received 103,000 votes more than our nominee for governor. So I feel very confident that we are bringing a solid base of support into this election and that will be the foundation for victory.

GIBSON: Senator, what happens—let's just jump ahead a second—what happens if it gets closer and you can see that between you and Bill Simon and Arnold Schwarzenegger, maybe one other, you're going to split up this Republican vote and hand the job to Cruz Bustamante? Would you pick one of your opponents and throw your support to him? Or would you say, sorry, I'm going to the wire?

MCCLINTOCK: Well, elections tend to sort themselves out very nicely as they proceed. We're still very early in that process, 50 days to the election. If this were a November election, we would actually be a week or so out from Labor Day. I do realize it would be helpful if the Republican field narrows and for that reason, I am prepared at the appropriate time to accept Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement.

GIBSON: OK. Very good, Tom. What about this business of Simon attacking Schwarzenegger as a liberal and, you know, which is a hot button word as you well know among conservatives, as saying, look, Arnold is just a guy who's trying to figure out how to raise taxes. He wants to run daycare programs, he wants to spend more money, he hasn't come up with a tax cutting proposal, he's actually coming up with a tax raising proposal. Is that charge from Bill Simon fair?

MCCLINTOCK: Well, they are very serious concerns with the people that Arnold Schwarzenegger has surrounded himself with, and it's not just Warren Buffett pining for the days before proposition 13 when people were literally losing their homes to spiraling property tax assessments. Before that, Schwarzenegger had surrounded himself with precisely the same team that was responsible for imposing the biggest tax increase by any state in American history in 1991 here in California. It crushed the economy, it turned a recession into a near depression. I do think Bill Simon is playing a bit of a dangerous game there. Just three years ago, he contributed $10,000 to proposition 26, which sought to undermine the two- thirds vote requirement in proposition 13 for property tax increases.

GIBSON: Do you think that Arnold has an unfair advantage, owing to his status as a media star who can just attract a stampede of cameras wherever he goes?

MCCLINTOCK: Well, I think in normal times, perhaps. But these are not normal times in California. I know there is a tendency to concentrate on, what's the polite way of putting it, the eccentric qualities of the candidate pool. But what's really going on in this state is a very, very serious discussion among all Californians over the future of this state. We lost nearly one third of a million jobs in the last two and a half years. We suffered the first net domestic out migration of population in the state's history.

GIBSON: By the way, I was one of them. I looked in that period. The 2.2 million who left California, I was one of them. That wasn't the reason. But how do you get people to go back? It's not a tax issue so much as its this regulation issue that keeps businesses from expanding.

MCCLINTOCK: It is tax and regulations combined. When Fidelity National, one of two Fortune 500 companies left in Santa Barbara county, announced they were moving off to Jacksonville, Florida, their CEO was interviewed on local television. He said, look, this was not a complicated decision. In Florida, there is no income tax. The sales tax is 6 percent. It costs $40 to register your car. Why is anybody surprised that we're leaving? It's a combination of those factors. This state is spending a larger portion of people's earnings than at any time in its history. And yet despite that records level of expenditure, we're choking in our traffic congestion, we have among the lowest rated schools in the country, we're paying the highest electricity prices in the continental United States. Our worker's compensation prices are spiraling out of control, forcing businesses across California to shut down. This is a very serious policy discussion going on here and a lot at stake.

GIBSON: Where are you getting the $38 billion?

MCCLINTOCK: Well, again, bear in mind the state is spending a larger portion of earnings than ever before. For example, if we simply restore to California government the same freedom that every business and every household has to shop around for the best service at the lowest price, there is $9 billion of savings right there across all departments, according to the Reason Foundation's recent study of the state's finances. Streamlining the state's bureaucracies. That means defunding those agencies that are duplicating local or federal jurisdictions, or that have overlapping jurisdictions or that are doing what the private sector should and could be doing anyway. There is another estimated $6 billion of savings right there. Those can be accomplished. $15 billion right there without affecting vital services.

And in many cases, improving the quality of services being provided. You got $2.5 billion in direct savings to state and local government, in addition to all the burdens it would be relieving from business if we simply replaced California's worker's compensation law with Arizonas and brought our worker's comp prices down by two-thirds. There is a great deal that can be done. In a state that spends as much as California and delivers as little, the amount of waste in the system is absolutely staggering. And that is not the fault of the taxpayers for not paying enough taxes.

GIBSON: California state Senator Tom McClintock, trying to bring some sense to the circus. Senator, thank you very much. Appreciate it.