Pelosi: "We Have Come to an Agreement with the Senate as to How We'll Go Forward" with Economic Recovery Bill

Interview

Pelosi: ‘We Have Come to an Agreement with the Senate as to How We'll Go Forward' With Economic Recovery Bill

Good evening. How are you?

We're having a very — shall we say — highly-spirited Caucus right now, people's spirits are high. They're very proud of the work that we did in the House to create up to 4 million new jobs. And do so in a way that builds the infrastructure of America, improves our health care, technology and science, makes our schools, schools for the 21st century for our children, reduces our dependence on foreign oil by our investments in renewable energy and the technology to transmit it.

We have come to an agreement with the Senate as to how we'll go forward and I think people are pretty happy about that. It's always the consideration of what we had in the bill that we wish was still — that we wish was still there. But the fact is that there's plenty there to create the nearly 4 million jobs that the President has set as our goal.

The President — we have been in consultation with him during the day with the Senate. I got off the phone this afternoon with Senator Collins and as you know, the conference is meeting right now as we speak.

I hope that the issues will be resolved soon and that we can take up the bill in the House and the Senate in the next day or two and that the bill will be signed by the President before Presidents' Day weekend, as was our goal.

Q: Speaker Pelosi, what was taken out of the package that you wish was still there?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, there's no question that one of our overriding priorities in the House was a very strong commitment to school construction. That's still in the bill but it's not having its own line item — not to get too much into detail — but it is contained now in the fund that the states have for investments in education.

There's a strong piece in the K-12 part of the governors — the state stabilization fund — and then a higher education piece in another part of the stabilization fund.

I would have liked it to be its own item, but the fact is, is that the outcome that we have is a good one as well.

I'm now pleased to be joined by our distinguished Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer. We've all worked very hard on this package — no one harder than our three conferees who are in the meeting as Steny was just paying tribute to them in their….David Obey who gave a very, very spirited — I guess that's the word of the day — opening in the conference and Henry Waxman, the Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee and Charlie Rangel, the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee.

Q: So has the amount been reduced, or are you just worried that it won't go for what you want it to go for, since it doesn't have its own [inaudible]?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, I'm not worried. We wanted — let me just lay a different predicate here. Much of the money that is in this bill, is in here, is temporary — it is money for the next year or two. It was never designed to increase the baseline, because we couldn't afford to increase our baseline by this much. So it was temporary, in order to get a jolt to the economy through investments in education and infrastructure, science and technology and the rest. And education is one of the places that brings more money back to the Treasury than any initiative that you can name. And in terms of school construction — we're talking about school repairs, not new construction, we're talking about jobs immediately, and an immediate return to the children.

So you afford me the opportunity to say to those who are concerned about this spending: This is not a new baseline and if we had a line-item on school construction, it would not be a new line-item. But it was more of a comfort level for some to move all doubt in that regard and put the money in the stabilization fund as was done. It's a good outcome, we would like it to be more clear.

Q: Was it worth it to hold up the conference for a few hours? They had started their conference and then they said, "Well, we have to leave now…but then we'll come back."

Speaker Pelosi. Yes, of course it was. Because we had to make sure that the investments in education were there. We've been working on this for a very, very long time and it was always viewed that we would have a target for the conference, but that we would not go in before we were ready. And that we would not have it be so long that we couldn't go to Rules tonight.

Q: [inaudible question]

Speaker Pelosi. I think that we worked through — in other words the normal process. We had a bill, the Senate had a bill, we went to reconciliation on it — just figure out, to minimize our differences before we went to conference and sure — I'd like some more money for veterans in the bill, for example, and I'm still hoping that is possible. But I do want to make this point again to those who have some concerns about investments in the bill: a very small percentage of the bill will increase the baseline of our budget. Overwhelmingly, the bill will not, because fiscal responsibility is a very important part of this.

Job creation, economic stabilization, inspiring confidence in the American people that we're going in a New Direction — and that New Direction includes fiscal responsibility. So what's in here is to grow the economy, bring more revenue to the Treasury so that we can do our work for the American people in a fiscally sound way. But I want to dispel any thought in anyone's mind that this was our new baseline.

Q: Speaker Pelosi, what assurances did you get from Mr. Reid and from Senator Collins that you didn't have, prior to those conversations late in the day? What did they give you?

Speaker Pelosi. Well it wasn't a question of what they gave us. It was a question of — you know — when you have a bill and we talk about it here, we're talking in phrases and words that you identify with and when you have to reduce it to legislative language, is when you really get down to the nitty gritty. And we wanted to make sure that the language was there — that was there — was language that spoke to the purpose of the school construction money.

Q: What was that nitty gritty bit?

Speaker Pelosi. Well it was just legislative language — that was really most of it.

Q: The White House has been pushing for a provision allowing them to move money around based upon perceived need… [inaudible]. This is something you railed against the Bush Administration for having in war funding in the last two previous years. Is that going to be in the bill?

Speaker Pelosi. No.

Q: Has that been decided?

Speaker Pelosi. No.

Q: It will not be in the bill?

Speaker Pelosi. No. Well, the bill that went in is not going to have it. The conference will work its will, but that was not something that we supported.

Q: Will it be in the conference report?

Speaker Pelosi. It wasn't in the House. It wasn't in the Senate. I don't know how it could appear there. But all I am saying to you is that I do not support that.

Thank you.

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