Broadcasting live today from the Health Action 2010 conference put on by Families USA.
Thom Hartmann: I don’t disagree at all. Hey, Paul Begala just walked up. Paul you wanna hop on the radio here?
Paul Begala: Sure.
Thom Hartmann: OK. Let me open your mic and let’s see if we can get a camera shot of ya.
Paul Begala: Oh my goodness,
Thom Hartmann: Yes indeed, we are live on Free Speech TV, on Dish Network and of course on the web. As well as on radio stations from LA to Boston, Detroit to ??
Paul Begala: Outstanding.
Thom Hartmann: Anyhow, Paul Begala, the former advisor to the Clinton administration and political pundant. Paul, first of all your just, your take on the speech last night. Nice words?
Paul Begala: Well it was a really good speech at a really important moment. I, the part I liked best was when he set the historical context for the deficit. A lot of polling says independent voters are very concerned with the deficit, Republicans run around saying the Democrats are spending too much. Well he explained: look the steps it was created by, one tax cut for the rich which was 1.3 trillion dollars then a second tax cut for the rich which was 1.2 trillion dollars, then a war in Afghanistan which Democrats supported and voted for but Republicans chose not to pay for, and then a war in Iraq that the majority of Democrats opposed. Too many supported, in my mind.
Thom Hartmann: Well, the majority in the House actually voted against it. Which seems to be forgotten in the American political…
Paul Begala: If you add together ?? the Senate Democrats the majority of them voted against it. Now many of my party's leaders, to their shame, voted for it. But all that got put on the credit card too and then the prescription drug benefit with huge corporate welfare.
Thom Hartmann: Right, Billy Tauzin.
Paul Begala: 800 billion dollars. So he walked us through that, I thought that was good. Had it been me I would have broadened the indictment though, because right wing economics didn’t only cause the deficit. They also caused the casino economy where Wall Street was playing Russian roulette with our lives. And he left that piece of the indictment out. He doesn’t, I understand this and I find it in some ways elegant and admirable but in other ways annoying, he doesn’t like to point fingers.
Thom Hartmann: Right. Well, he’s trying to be above it, he’s trying to be the nice guy, he’s trying to be post partisan.
Paul Begala: Right.
Thom Hartmann: Hasn’t worked so well for him for the last 11 months, I think he thinks he can pull a rabbit out of the hat.
Paul Begala: Yeah.
Thom Hartmann: I mean, you’ve been around the block on this thing, 16 or 20 times.
Paul Begala: Right.
Thom Hartmann: You’ve seen the good and the bad and the ugly of it. Do you think that it is possible for him to continue to be Mr. nice guy?
Paul Begala: No.
Thom Hartmann: I keep waiting for Franklin Roosevelt to come out...
Paul Begala: Right.
Thom Hartmann: ...and say, "I have earned their hatred and I am proud of it".
Paul Begala: Go, man, yeah. Exactly.
Thom Hartmann: And you know, why not? What am I missing here?
Paul Begala: Yeah. He does have to be who he is. And every time I talk to my friends who work for the President that is one of the things they say. Look you don’t want to you know make the guy look like a phony and yet he believes in a myth that you just named. Post partisanship.
Thom Hartmann: Right.
Paul Begala: First off, what would post partisanship look like? North Korea? You know I like partisanship. I like having two vibrant parties.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. Absolutely. My team your team, yeah, let’s do it. Or even three or four. Let’s have instant run off voting and do like Australia and have five parties.
Paul Begala: Yeah, I kind of prefer two, tell you the truth. Just because, we’re such a diverse complicated country, I want diverse complicated parties rather than simple mono parties. But that’s just…
Thom Hartmann: We can debate that another time, but this is what we’ve got.
Paul Begala: But I want partisanship. I want partisanship. Because the truth is I actually believe in a set of ideas pretty close to where the Democrats are in the main, that’s why I’m a Democrat. I disagree on this or that, but those ideas oughta be debated out. And the notion that the truth lies somewhere halfway between, you know, Jim DeMint, you know, and the late Teddy Kennedy, is nonsense.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. It is, it absolutely is. Speaking of the truth and gray areas and things like this. In 1791 Alexander Hamilton proposed his "Report On Manufactures", I’m sure you’re familiar with it.
Paul Begala: Mhm, right.
Thom Hartmann: In 1793, in pieces, it was adopted by the legislature, it supported nascent industries, growing industries.
Paul Begala: Right. All of the silk mills of Patterson, New Jersey are there because of that. Because of Alexander Hamilton. I’ve been there.
Thom Hartmann: Exactly. In fact I would say 80% of American manufacturing is there because of Alexander Hamilton and today, front page of the Financial Times 3 days ago, the average import tariff into India right now, which GE likes to hold up since Jack Welch opened, you know, outsourcing pink and white collar jobs to India, the average import tariff, 40%. China, 22% import tariff on US made cars.
Japan has the equivalent of import tariffs that run around 30, 35% when you include all of their content laws and you must be a partner laws and everything else.
Paul Begala: Wow.
Thom Hartmann: Ours, 2%. Much of this started with, some of it started with Carter actually, he was drinking the koolaid the last two years. Ronald Reagan you know really kicked the door open, but really it was your guy, Bill Clinton with NAFTA, WTO, what has now become CAFTA, the World Trade Organization. That has…
Paul Begala: Permanent most favored nation status for China.
Thom Hartmann: Right. In my opinion this has destroyed American manufacturing. Are you ready to repudiate that?
Paul Begala: No.
Thom Hartmann: Why not?
Paul Begala: Because we are in a global economy. Because of communications…
Thom Hartmann: We’ve always been in a global economy. We were in a global economy in 1793.
Paul Begala: You know, a lot less. When you had to risk your life and spend three months just to get to England, now you can do it in five hours. Because of global telecommunications, global finance, global transportation, we are in a global economy. The question is, and I think the president had a good point last night, will we use our leverage. We’re still a pretty big market, although in comparison to our …
Thom Hartmann: How can we have any money if we don’t make anything?
Paul Begala: I’m all for that. If we can use our market as leverage to try to ratchet down those trade barriers then we’re on to something. Now I did think it was interesting that when he was a candidate, when Bill Clinton was a candidate, he ran around the primaries and said, 'I’m for NAFTA'. I was with him.
Thom Hartmann: No, I, you know we all watched the ??
Paul Begala: Flint Michigan in the primaries, and he said, I’m for NAFTA. That took a lot of stones. And I admire that. I’d say in the campaign that we just had in ’08, President Obama went around the country and said, 'I’m gonna renegotiate NAFTA'.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah.
Paul Begala: And how’s that working out? Last night again he gave a full throated defense of free trade that sounded like my old boss Bill Clinton.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah and this is my problem with it, you know.
Paul Begala: But at least Clinton ran on it.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah at least Clinton was honest about it.
Paul Begala: He was honest about it in the primaries.
Thom Hartmann: And you’ve got to give him that I suppose, even though I think that he’s responsible for the loss of millions of American manufacturing jobs.
Paul Begala: No, he created 23 million. Here at home, not …
Thom Hartmann: Yeah, 'you want fries with that?' jobs. He had a nice little bubble economy there, Paul.
Paul Begala: No no. Absolutely not at all. You’re buying into the right wing rhetoric here Thom. Median family income, income, moved up under Clinton more than any President since FDR.
Thom Hartmann: Sure, it always does during bubbles.
Paul Begala: No it didn’t at all during Reagan, not at all. Not at all. We moved more people out of poverty into the middle class, More people out of the middle class into prosperity than any presidency in American history. That’s not a bubble. That’s sustainable economics.
Thom Hartmann: And do you think that that was a consequence of doing away with tariffs?
Paul Begala: No, I think that trade was a part of it but the more important part of it was that we started putting our fiscal house in order, which some of the Democrats weren’t particularly well known to do.
Thom Hartmann: Sure. You guys raised taxes on the rich.
Paul Begala: We raised taxes on the rich. We cut some spending. And we got the country righted. We had huge investments in education, innovation, technology.
Thom Hartmann: Those are good steps. All good steps.
Paul Begala: We know what we’re doing and I think it’s a lot of what Obama oughta be doing.
Thom Hartmann: Paul Begala. Paul is there a website you want to plug?
Paul Begala: CNN.com, I work at CNN, I don’t have my own website.
Thom Hartmann: There you go, thanks a lot Paul. Thanks for dropping by.
Paul Begala: Thanks Thom.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
