MSNBC "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" - Transcript
Interview
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REP. JAY INSLEE (D), WASHINGTON: You bet. Thank you. Thanks for being on the job.
OLBERMANN: You have been whipping the Democratic Caucus to vote this deal, how come?
INSLEE: Well, we spoke loudly that this deal should not come to the floor of the House because it"s a bad deal for three reasons.
Number one, it"s just a bad deal. We got taken to the cleaners for this negotiation and we"re not going to stand for it.
Second, this perpetuates the Bush tax cuts. This perpetuates the Bush trickle-down economics. This deal, you might as well build a statue to George Bush on a white steed on Capitol Mall to perpetuate the failed policy of that terrible administration.
And third, this thing over the long term really does not strengthen our country. We are adding $850 billion of debt without educating one student, without building one bridge, without inventing one new technology.
For those three reasons, the House Democratic Caucus spoke very loudly the other day, taking an unprecedented step of saying this deal should not come to the floor of the House. It"s not a good deal for this country.
OLBERMANN: The extraordinary statement, speech, Bernie-buster, by Senator Sanders today, 8 ½ hours about this, which was an extraordinary. Anybody who saw any of it realize it was essentially a year"s education in recent American history.
INSLEE: Bernie should get be paid for the hour.
OLBERMANN: But--it was--all of it compelling, but what do you think it accomplish if anything?
INSLEE: Well, I think it"s the recitation of what we"ve been going through and it"s the reason when I walked up to buy a Christmas tree at our grocery store here in Washington state, six people stopped me and said, look, don"t let them force this, don"t let them take hostages to force us again to enter into bad bargain where millionaires get 1,000 times more benefits from this package than working families.
And Bernie was right to say that people ought to register how they feel, and you can go to notaxdeal.com, that"s notaxdeal.com, if you"d like to the register your position on this, but people have an intuitive understanding what we"re doing here is digging ourselves further in debt, and not standing up to the hostage-taking of the Republican Party.
And, you know, here"s an interesting point, not following the bipartisanship that we do, people want bipartisanship. They want consensus. We have consensus to extend the middle-class tax cuts at least a certain period of time during this hard economic time. But instead of embracing that consensus, the Republicans took that consensus hostage to go forward with these incredibly pathetically unfair tax breaks both in the estate tax and the higher income tax breaks. And that is not what the American people are for.
Now, people who said this is the best deal we can have, wrong, and I"ll tell you why. The American people are with us in this regard. When you go out there to poll, by two to one margins, Americans believe that we ought not to finance this deficit spending with further tax cuts for the wealthy and follow the Bush administration trickle-down economics.
They knew it did not produce one single net job during the Bush administration and they know that we cannot borrow our way and tax cut our way to prosperity. We have got to build our way to prosperity, and this doesn"t do that. So, we need to change it dramatically.
OLBERMANN: Congressman Jay Inslee of Washington, one of those leading the House fight against the tax deal--great thanks. Have a good weekend.
INSLEE: Thank you.
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