MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript

MSNBC "MORNING JOE" INTERVIEW WITH GOVERNOR MARK SANFORD (R-SC)

SUBJECT: ECONOMIC RESCUE PLANS, REPUBLICAN PARTY

INTERVIEWERS: JOE SCARBOROUGH, MIKA BRZEZINSKI, CHUCK TODD, MIKE BARNICLE

Copyright ©2009 by Federal News Service, Inc., Ste. 500, 1000 Vermont Ave, Washington, DC 20005 USA. Federal News Service is a private firm not affiliated with the federal government. No portion of this transcript may be copied, sold or retransmitted without the written authority of Federal News Service, Inc. Copyright is not claimed as to any part of the original work prepared by a United States government officer or employee as a part of that person's official duties. For information on subscribing to the FNS Internet Service at www.fednews.com, please email Carina Nyberg at cnyberg@fednews.com or call 1-202-216-2706.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Let's bring in right now Republican Governor from South Carolina Mark Sanford.

Mark, we were saying nice things about you before -- in the last segment.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Yes.

GOV. SANFORD: Remember, I'm hearing it.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: And I'm sorry about that. We had no idea that you were there listening.

GOV. SANFORD: (Chuckles.)

MR. SCARBOROUGH: I want to ask you a question, because Newsweek talked about how America was rushing toward socialism. You're a Republican, I'm a Republican; you're a conservative, I'm conservative. But you tell the truth about what's been going on.

Can you explain to America that if we are marching to socialism, this started a year ago with the Bush administration and the billion- dollar bailouts and the reckless spending and the $7 trillion Medicare plan.

Isn't this a Republican problem as well as a Democratic problem?

GOV. SANFORD: Yeah. There's plenty of blame to go around.

If you look at the total tab on last year's spending, by the time you include Fed activity, Treasury activity, bailouts, stimuluses, you're looking at a tab of somewhere between 7 (trillion dollars) and $8 trillion.

So yeah, the march in that direction certainly began a year ago.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: So what do we do, moving forward? What's -- is the biggest problem the bank problem right now?

GOV. SANFORD: Well, certainly, credit markets are still seized up. But I think that one of the biggest problems is what has happened out of Washington, D.C., has been a series of different ad hoc proposals. There's one after another.

I was reading in the Wall Street Journal this morning about yet another proposal designed to get consumer credit flowing.

And what I think has happened with all these different proposals is nobody has any clue as to what the rules are going forward, and that has frozen up the real driver of our economy, which is private capital.

So I'd say some level of stability as to what comes next, some level of predictability out of Washington, D.C., is going to be absolutely vital to get the economy going.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: And is that the biggest problem, that Wall Street doesn't know what's coming next?

GOV. SANFORD: Well, I don't think it's just Wall Street. I think it's Main Street, I think it's the average guy.

You talk to people in little hamlets across South Carolina and, again, everybody has no clue. So I think it's more than just Wall Street that has been hit by the uncertainty as to what comes next.

I don't think that that's the only answer. I think that there are a number of other answers, some of which is tied to the larger notion of sustainability. At some point, that which is stimulated has to be done within the context of that which is sustainable.

And clearly, the track we're on right now is an unsustainable track which raises this larger specter of debt and deficits.

You look at the numbers. We're going to hit 12.5 percent of GDP, or thereabouts, this year. Those are -- those are banana republic kinds of numbers that you normally wouldn't expect to see here in the United States of America.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Chuck Todd.

MR. TODD: Hey, Governor, in our latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, a majority -- it's a bare, a slim majority, but a majority said they want government to do more, not less, to fix some of these problems.

Where do you fall on this line, on the simple -- I guess the Reagan litmus test of is government -- should government be part of the solution or is government just always going to be part of the problem?

GOV. SANFORD: Well, I think it's -- there's probably a middle ground, which is -- it's my belief, and shared by a lot of other conservatives, that government is there to set the foundation to the free enterprise system. It's not to run the free enterprise system.

And whether it's with AIG that you all were talking about just a moment ago, and just gargantuan-size infusions going in there, or whether it's the big auto companies or whether it's banks across this country, increasingly government is moving into the role of actually -- if not running things, certainly holding awfully significant stakes that basically lead them to run things.

MR. TODD: (Inaudible.)

GOV. SANFORD: So I'd say -- I'm sorry. Go ahead.

MR. TODD: No, go ahead. No, no, no. Finish your thought there. I'm sorry.

GOV. SANFORD: No, but I was just saying -- so I think that it's not as simple as is government the answer or not answer.

I think what we need to get back to is the basic of government, in fact, created a big part of this problem. And it's sort of weird if government gets both sides of the argument -- you get to create part of the problem and you also get to be the savior to the economy.

I think what we've got to do is slow down, take a deep breath, and -- basically tell the American public the truth, which is debt grew at three times GDP over the last 15 years. We're going to go through a de-leveraging. It is going to be painful.

And we can stick a bunch of band-aids on it, but it's just going to prolong that pain and, in some ways, make the problem worse.

MR. TODD: Is there such thing as a pro-government conservative, and should there be?

GOV. SANFORD: (Pause.) I think that there were a lot of pro- government conservatives at the time of World War II when we were fighting for our lives and people recognized that there was a clear objective and they recognized what we had to do about it.

I think it's very murky right now, and I think liberal or conservative alike, a lot of people have legitimate questions about the route we're taking.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Mike Barnicle.

MR. BARNICLE: Governor, I know you've had your issues with the stimulus package. You were just talking about band-aids supplied by government.

But if the stimulus package money comes as a band-aid to South Carolina in real terms, in real time, what does it do for South Carolina, like almost immediately, next week, next month, whenever the money gets there?

GOV. SANFORD: Well, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a lot of the money doesn't reach our financial bloodstream for six months, 12 months, 18 months and, in some cases, two years.

So I'd say it depends on which category of spending. Some of it will indeed be immediate. Some of it will alleviate budget shortfalls that we would otherwise have at a state government level.

But a lot of it's going to dribble in over time, and that's the bigger question of the catch-22. People are saying we've got a crisis, we've got to do something about it right now, but at the same time offering a proposal that doesn't get you money for 18 months.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: All right. He's a player. He's smart.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: All right. Mark, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it.

GOV. SANFORD: My pleasure.

END.

Source