MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Government Budget

Interview

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Joining us now is somebody who may have a clearer idea of these things, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.

Congresswoman DeLauro, thanks so much for being with us. I appreciate it.

REP. ROSA DELAURO (D), CONNECTICUT: Thank you very much. Delighted to be here.

MADDOW: I know that you`re right in the middle of everything because I can see it happening on our other camera.

DELAURO: Right.

MADDOW: What`s happening right now? And what should we expect over the next couple of hours?

DELAURO: Well, you know, we`ve -- we`re coming back into session. The majority is call into back session. And the presumption is that we`re going to vote on the -- on what they call the Cromnibus. And you know, that is what will happen. If it goes -- it goes down. Then there will be a vote to extend -- there will be is what they call a continuing resolution, which will extend current spending for about three months, for about 90 days.

MADDOW: Do you know how you`re going to vote on that first measure you`ll be ask to vote on which has the --

DELAURO: Yes, I declared early today. I spoke on the Florida House and I will oppose the legislation and I am the ranking member of the Senior Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee for Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. So I worked hard on the bill. And quite frankly, our problem with the appropriation is the allocation we received in order to fund education and health care and worker training and all of this is has been shortchanged over the years.

That being said, that the term very serious problems in this bill and that is what was added in, you know, at the last minute. One, first of all, you`re going to see homeland security, the Department of Homeland Security not funded or not dealt with for about nine weeks. This is really deals with the national security of this -- of this nation. And it`s all because Republicans don`t like the president`s executive order on immigration. So they`re holding up full year funding because of immigration.

Secondly, what has been added with regard to the unraveling of a Dodd-Frank and once again turning people`s lives over to the banks whose transactions, as you know and I know, Rachel, that the jeopardy that families were put in. They lost their homes, they lost their jobs, they lost their savings. And, my God, why would we want to repeat that again.

And then we`re going to see that seniors are going to be shortchanged on pension benefits. These are people who have earned retirement, worked all their lives, and we are putting their security in jeopardy, as well.

And I have encouraged my colleagues to vote against this legislation because I believe that it is -- one of the worst egregious pieces, and I think you will concur with this, is this allows individual contributions in campaigns of over a two-year cycle, $1.5 million. The country already believes that the government is being sold to the highest bidder. And the country is angry about that.

So we are going down a bad road with this piece of legislation. And I will work hard to try to defeat it in the next hour or the next half hour, whatever it is.

MADDOW: Congresswoman DeLauro, I know that you have to get back in there, I just want to ask you briefly.

DELAURO: Sure.

MADDOW: We know that the Republicans don`t think they can pass this alone. That they don`t think that there are enough people on their own side who will vote for this that that will be enough to keep the government funded with this bill. They`ve been counting on Democratic votes to get this done.

Do you have any sense if any Democrat are going to vote with this on the Republicans -- vote with the Republicans on this? Do you have any sense of the Democratic count?

DELAURO: I don`t -- I don`t have numbers. And I -- and I think that is -- you know, I don`t believe that anyone has numbers at the moment. I believe overwhelmingly the Democrats will vote against it. There will be Democrats that vote for it. And I don`t know if that will be enough to make up a deficiency in what the Republicans view as the shortfall in their vote count. And I have no idea what their vote count is.

So it is going to be a very exciting time on the floor of the House of Representatives tonight and I`m sure you`ll be watching.

MADDOW: We will be. And I know you have to race back there right now.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, thanks very much for helping us understand what`s going on. We really appreciate it tonight.

DELAURO: Thank you. Thanks so much, Rachel. Thank you.

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