Here's the second part of last Friday's interview I had with Peter Welch. Part 3 will be out Friday.
JD: It seems that as one looks at the political struggles through history, there always seems to be some sort of tipping point. There's this conventional wisdom that we've had to deal with since Reagan, at least, the whole “government is always the enemy” thing. Do you see – there's this thing, I like to call it “free market fundamentalism” in that it's completely faith-based…
PW: That's a great phrase… They've totally, completely, and utterly failed. Those free-market fundamentalists are now coming hat in hand to the government.
JD: Yeah, like a corporate socialism…
PW: …asking to be rescued.
JD: Any time it seems we look at any regulation, it's “Wahh!!! Free market, free market!” How do you see this changing the game, if we have, well, a Democratic President, huge majorities.. are we getting to a situation where you can finally throw this up in their face, and say, “No, there is no free market like that anymore”? Does this give you the leverage that you need, are you even thinking about that at this point?
PW: I am thinking about it. I'm thinking about it a lot. You know, the American people are going to make a big decision this year, and I think a major part of it will be to choose to have a government that's much more activist and on the side of smaller business and average Americans. And that requires an activist role for government, one that's been rejected.
Here's an example. You know, I'm in these oversight hearings, you know these trillions of dollars on derivatives? All of these securities… trillions of dollars of business. You know how many people we had in the enforcement follow-up division of the SEC? One under George Bush. One person. Okay? On the Consumer Product Safety Commission? You may remember that story about the Chinese toys? Lead paint? Millions and millions of toys being imported here, and they're subject to inspection. You know how many inspectors we have in that organization?
JD: One?
PW: One. Bush had contempt, utter contempt for government. He didn't care about being competent, as we saw with Katrina. He actually wasn't even willing to be competent about policies he cares about, like the war.
JD: As I was listening to him speak today, I kept thinking, “This guy is so in over his head, it's not even funny.”
PW: Yes. So, we've gotta restore that and revive it. We have to have consumer protections, in protecting us against bad products, protecting us from the predatory conduct of Wall Street, protecting us against the unbridled arbitrary power of the credit card companies. One thing after another requires and activist response and I believe the American people are seeing the price of a free check.
JD: That leads me kind of where I wanted to go next, and that's… when I was out in Denver, I spent a day down at Civic Center Park where the protests were going on… did you read the book that Markos [Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos] gave you [Taking on the System]?
PW: I started to, it's amazing, actually.
JD: One thing in it that made sense to me… he talked about how some protest methods are a bit outmoded or outdated in today's environment, and I've always thought, in today's day and age, where we've been fighting this conservative infrastructure that's been in place since, I dunno, Goldwater? Watergate? You know, the Heritage Foundation and those other right-wing think tanks, that we're in a war of information and ideas, more than anything else. Controlling the narrative.
PW: Right.
JD: And we're fighting this entrenched idea, and by no means do I believe all Americans believe this, but this entrenched idea that you know, you're on your own, you know what I mean? And the frustration and the cynicism is likened to battered wife syndrome with the Democrats.
I'm looking for your thoughts on this… it seems like even since the Dems have taken over the House, you know, we've gotten the FISA capitulation, the war's still going on, we didn't get the renewal on the ban on offshore drilling, Leahy came in there in 2006 saying “Bush should be terrified!”, and Bush doesn't exactly look like he's shakin' in his drawers about anything, because he just ignores the rule of law, and there's little, if any, follow-up.
I'm just curious, how, we have a President who, I often like to say is about as popular as a spring-thaw dog turd on a warm late March Vermont morning, and what we just don't understand, especially those of us not in the Democratic Party but definitely on the left end of the spectrum, is time and time again, this letdown. Again and again. It usually starts out with Pelosi saying something really tough and strong, ant then it gets watered down more and more. The Republicans have been effective, simply by sticking to their guns. Maybe it's a lot harder to get liberals to all agree on something, and I think there's something to that, but what is it that keeps the Democrats from playing that hardball consistently?
PW: Well, I think it's two things. First of all, the Republican philosophy, the Washington Republican philosophy has been to basically to tear down government, okay, under the guise of talking about the individual, but do everything that helps the powerful individuals.
JD: But they wrap it up in a little mantle of populism.
PW: They wrapped it up like that, yeah. And so, they're anti-government, anti-tax, anti-regulation, and there's a certain simplicity and appeal to that. The reality is none of us like being regulated. The bloggers don't like it. It's a very diffuse process. So there's a lot to not like about it, especially when government can obviously overregulate, or it can overtax, so there's been a simplicity. And then, when the economy's been juiced up on the steroids of this credit bubble, then it can look like things are going fine. So shareholders who see their IRA's are going up don't get that upset about what's going on with some corporate executive ripoff pay. But we are now seeing the inevitable consequence of this “you're on your own” approach, with hollowing out of government and deregulation, so I think people have a different point of view on it now. I think the challenge for the Democrats is to focus on practical economic policies to start helping them.
The other thing that's tough is, of course, the way our government works under the Constitution. It's a very conservative document, the Constitution, because it makes accomplishing something extremely hard. So in the House, we actually have a working majority. And leaving FISA aside for a moment, I'll come back to that, on the economic agenda, you know, we've passed pretty progressive legislation. We've passed legislation to get rid of tax breaks for the oil companies, but it dies in the Senate. Passed economic stimulus, dies in the Senate. We passed price negotiation on prescription drugs, dies in the Senate. We rolled back these special premiums for the insurance companies on these Medicare advantage programs, dies in the Senate.
So, a lot of people who are citizens look at this and say “What's Washington doing?” They don't say “What's the House doing?” or “What's Peter doing?” They say “They're all the same”. So that's just something that I have to labor under, but the Senate doesn't have a rules committee, and they have a filibuster, so it's very slow to move and conservative, and the President's got the veto power.
JD: But still, maybe this might change, but I've had this feeling over the last two years that the Republicans are still in charge of things, and I'm not alone in that sentiment. The blogger Atrios recently said something that was kinda snarky the other day, “The Democrats sucked as a minority party. They suck even more as a majority party.”, and I think there's a lot of people that can relate to that.
PW: Sure.
JD: Because, it's still, even though Bush is sitting there with his deer-in-the-headlights look, to many of us, it doesn't feel like the Dems are running the show. The Republicans are still calling the shots. I mean, the Jay Rockefeller thing, with FISA, again. I mean, you have something in the Senate, the GOP stomps their feet, and it gets stopped. And I know, you're not in the Senate, but in general, there seems to be this timidity that our side seems to have that the Republicans don't. I think a lot of people, even without party affiliation want to support Democrats, but they see that, and…
PW: Well, I understand that, and a lot of times people will express to me their frustration with what's happened and I'll sit down and explain what I've done, and they're okay with that. And I share the frustration with them that it dies in the Senate, but when you have a filibuster that's been institutionalized so you don't even have to go through the ordeal of standing up and debating until you fall asleep… Any Senator can say they're going to filibuster, and it takes 60 votes to overcome that.
You know, a lot of us on the House side really wish that the Senate would really make someone who says they're gonna filibuster, actually make 'em do it. Make 'em stand up there for three or four days.
JD: Can they?
PW: Yes, that's the Senate.
JD: Well, then why don't they?
PW: I don't have the answer to that question. I mean, you gotta ask the Senators that.
JD: Personal hunch? Gut feeling?
PW: I really don't know. I mean, on the House side… You know we got great Senators, with Bernie and Patrick, but the institution is very, very slow. And on the House side, there's often frustration that our legislation doesn't even get taken up. The filibuster's a rule. It's not a Constitutional provision. In the Senate, it's amazing. You know, in the House, if somebody wants to propose an amendment, they have to get permission from the Rules Committee. And it's got to be germane, in other words, it's got to be relevant to the particular bill, so if it's a highway bill, you can't come in with an amendment on healthcare, let's say. It's got to be related to the highway project.
Well, I favor that, because it allows you to get work done. And it allows, I think, voters to have more accountability, because when I vote, there's much more clarity on what I'm voting on. It's more specific, so you get to know, yes or no, where I stand on that.
JD: Yes or no?
PW: Yes or no, yea or nay.
JD: Yes or no?
(laughter in the background)
JD: I was making a reference about your meeting in Barre last winter. We'll get to that in a bit.
PW: Oh, right….thanks. That's funny.
But in the Senate, any Senator can put a hold on the bill, any Senator can make as many amendments as they want on any bill, and they can make them on any subject, so if they want to make a healthcare amendment on a highway bill, they can do it. It's the rules.
JD: And the House doesn't have this..
PW: Free-for-all…
JD: …this mechanism to just bring things to a grinding halt if they wanted to.
PW: That's right, and I actually think that the majority has to rule, and people have to get some clarity about where we stand as individual legislators on the major questions of the day, and if they don't like what the House or Senate is doing, they can replace the members.
JD: Let's talk for a minute about the bipartisanship that we hear tossed around so much. When I look at the extremists that control the Republican party right now, I don't really want to compromise with them. I know there's the reality of the numbers and everything like that, but it seems so often that instead of, especially on things not of massive urgency, like FISA…we could have let the provisions expire.
PW: Fine with me, as you know.
JD: Exactly. And, I'm just kind of at a loss, with the messaging,and the feigned outrage of the Republicans, they're the master of the feigned outrage. They'll get out when something goes down, they'll have a press conference, next thing you know, it's all over the news. We're seeing it a little more but we're generally not seeing that kind of thing coming from the other side of the aisle, and there's a lot of frustration out there because of it.
PW: For me, it's about, “How do you get things done?” So, if I can work with somebody to get something done, I do. It's that simple. You know, I actually reached out to some Republicans to try to get them to agree to my stabilization fund on the bailout. The Republicans came up with this so-called “insurance plan” that was not workable, because they didn't have a way to pay for it. But the idea of it was similar to my notion of the stabilization fund paid for by the financial services industry to get us through this crisis. So I went over to some Republicans, and I said, “Look, this idea is really very similar in concept to the insurance proposal, whadya think?”
And I got a lot of them who were quite interested. Now, ultimately it was unsuccessful because by this point it was totally politicized and even if some members wanted to work with me, their leadership wanted a different agenda. So, for me, it's a pragmatic thing, just like it would be if, you know, I lived in a town and we're trying to figure out how to get uniforms for the kids on the baseball team, and here's a bunch of parents with different points of view, but you want to solve a problem, so you work with people on the same page to get things done.
JD: But do you think…I remember early on, one of the big criticisms of Obama being the “kumbaya candidate” and all that stuff… Issues like single-payer healthcare, for example. I don't know of too many Republicans that are going to support something like that.
PW: No.
JD: Well, how do you sit at the table with those people, then? Do you reach a point where their ideas are so antithetical to progress that… how do you do that?
PW: Well, there were a lot of people in the Vermont legislature and there are a lot of people in Congress who I just never get to common ground with. But, it's a case-by-case situation.
Down in Washington, there's been a lot of, like your phrase, free-market fundamentalism, and it just gets in the way of making any practical progress. Folks that believe that are against any solution that includes government. And, obviously, there's not much common ground there, so for me it's kind of a case-by-case kind of approach, you know? And it's really about – take your issue, like on regulation: I really think we have to be regulating the financial services industry. I think we should be putting much more limits on credit card companies and what they can do. Well, if somebody starts out and is flat out against doing anything, well, there's just no common ground. On the other hand, if they have some concrete proposals, and they say, “you know, the way you're doing this, can we do it this way? And here's why.” I listen to that. And if there's some way to essentially achieve the underlying purpose that I set out, but in a way that's somewhat different, and that can get more support, there's some political benefit to doing that.
JD: The compromise.
PW: Well, there's a difference between compromising principles and compromising on tactics, or specific means by which you accomplish a given goal.