State of the Union: Interview With Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
Interview
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Well, a couple of things.
First, I think the president needs to show leadership. He took about 100 days to engage -- to kick in. And now he's finally negotiating, and I'm pleased that he's doing so.
But I also want to point out that Secretary Yellen's comment about when default occurs potentially as early as the 1st of June, but it could be later. Well, let's have a little leadership. The financial markets are all nervous about this. Is it the 1st or is it the 14th?
A quarterly payment of taxes comes to the federal government beginning on the 15th, at which point the risk of default is averted. So, the president just needs to step up and calm down the markets by being specific. And,lastly, the president has been jacking up spending his first two years of the presidency.
Now he wants Republicans to accept that as a new baseline. I think Republicans and the American people are reasonable to say, Mr. President, just because you have artificially inflated spending for the first two years of your presidency, by the way, given us all kinds of inflation, to boot, does that become the new baseline?
We don't think it necessarily has to. And I think Republicans are reasonable to ask that it be reset back down.
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Well, I think that the 20 -- I have strong feelings about the last election and how that transpired, but, nonetheless, I think that's a totally separate issue.
And let's give a tip of the hat to Kevin McCarthy. The package that he sent to the president, he had Republicans voting for a debt ceiling increase who had never previously voted for a debt ceiling increase. And I don't think we can allow anxiety, existential anxiety, about the future to kind of dictate what is done today.
Once, Kevin said in a private meeting: "Never ask me to do something because you think I can't. Let me first go out there and see if I can."
I think the president needs a step forward, make an earnest effort to meet Republicans and the American people on the issue of lowering our indebtedness. And, if they do so, let's see what McCarthy can do. And I'd like to have more faith in Kevin.
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I'm not an attorney. It does sound like he's kind of squivelling (ph) around a little bit. His left wing wants him to invoke it.
It's one more example of the president taking the constitutionally delegated authority of spending from the House of Representatives and trying to kind of aggregate it into the White House.
I think the president needs to show leadership. OK, House Republicans, American people, you're concerned about spending, I will meet you there, as opposed to finding a dodge that tries to work its way around. And that's a dodge. Meet the -- meet the American people and Republicans where they are. I think we can get to where we need to be.
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Well, first, I think, as I said earlier, I think Plan B might first, when is June -- when is the 1st of June? When is the drop-dead date?
If it's June 15, is there really an issue? That would calm down financial markets if the president and Secretary Yellen came forward with that?
In terms of the Republican Senate coming up with something, this is between the president and the House Republicans. And that's why it's been so frustrating to see the president on the sidelines. If the Senate comes up with something, the House has to accept it, and the White House does. So why not just put them together?
I think Plan B is to get the president engaged.
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I think, if you have a leading presidential candidate, be it Joe Biden, who clearly is saying that, or Donald Trump pretending to the American people that there's no problem with Social Security, then they lack the leadership to become the president of the United States.
By the way, you can fix Social Security, and you don't raise taxes on seniors, you don't cut their benefits. And there's a way to do it that actually improves the program. But there's no leadership like that from Trump or Biden. In my mind, that lack of leadership on an issue so critically to so many Americans is disqualifying.
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Yes, first, to put this in context, insolvency -- when insolvency comes in nine years, people who are currently receiving social benefits will get a 24 percent cut. That's the reason you want to act now.
And if you wait until the deadline, then the cuts are bigger and the tax -- and/or the tax increases are greater. And so, if you want to solve it now without that, you need to solve it now.
And we actually had bipartisan senators and bipartisan group of representatives that were willing to commit to this big idea, again, $1.5 trillion in an investment fund separate from Social Security, and the risk falls upon the fund. If the market goes down, people still get their benefits, no 24 percent cut.
When Joe Biden came out in the State of the Union speech and began to speak about Republicans trying to take away your Social Security, it all fell apart. The president clearly plans to run for reelection, as does Joe Biden -- as does Donald Trump, making Social Security an issue, attacking anyone who comes against them.
They are ignoring a problem which is important for our seniors, important for our nation's indebtedness. I wish both of them would show real leadership.
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Well, a couple of things. I don't think Trump can win a general election, but that's a nice way for him to dis people like Tim Scott, who's a pretty formidable candidate. So, you just have to take this as a competitor trying to dis others. On the other hand, during the last election cycle, we saw that, in all
the swing states, almost all, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona, that Trump's -- that the candidates for Senate that Trump endorsed all lost. If you had taken the votes that went to other Republicans and put them together, those Republicans would have won.
So, I think the president's kind of high-profile endorsement of those candidates actually hurt those candidates, at least in the general election. So, if past his prologue, that means President Trump is going to have a hard time in those swing states, which means that he cannot win a general election.
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Thank you, Jake.
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