PBS Newshour 1/28/2011
Excerpt from transcript
JIM LEHRER (Editor Newshour): Yes, yes, yes.
Speaking of -- back to other issues for a moment here before we go, how does the president's State of the Union address look to you three nights later, sound to you three nights later?
MARK SHIELDS (syndicated columnist): Well, it struck me, thematically, the president was masterful. I mean the American people expect optimism from their leaders. And he projected optimism. He captured the future. Americans want to live in the future. They want a -- they want the country to be forward-looking.
It just strikes me that there are two great problems in this country, I mean jobs and the economy. And we have got an economy where we have got record corporate profits, and we're not producing jobs for our people.
And we have got this incredible fiscal deficit, debt time bomb that is on a very, very short wick right now. And one party, the Democrats, address the first and want to talk about it, at least in terms of the economy, not particularly and specifically jobs but kind of want to go light on the second. And the Republicans only want to talk about the second and basically want to tiptoe around the first.
And it -- we have just got an incomplete dialogue going on.
JIM LEHRER: Do you agree? We have got an incomplete dialogue?
DAVID BROOKS (New York Times columnist): Yes. Well, the country doesn't want to take the tough measures.
And what it takes is a president who not only gives a great thematic speech -- which I agree it was -- but who says, here's the tough measures. I'm going to call for some sacrifice on all of you. I am going to get out in front of you and lead this. And we're going to do some things, not only light-rail -- we're fine -- I'm fine with light-rail -- but maybe a little bigger than that to create real jobs. And I'm going to make some cuts and I'm going to raise some taxes.
That's the only thing that is going to avoid a fiscal crisis, which is imminent. 2019, our debt will be a trillion dollars. Our interest payments on the debt alone will be a trillion dollars. And so that is imminent.
And I think historians will look back on this Congress, both on the Republican side and the Democratic side, and say they gave good speeches, but the fact they weren't grappling with this with both hands at this moment, they will -- they will -- that will strike them as bizarre.
JIM LEHRER: Bizarre?
MARK SHIELDS: Bizarre.
And think about this just in terms of the deficit. I mean, that doesn't -- that doesn't fill a prescription. That doesn't put a book in a child's hand. That doesn't put a plane in the air. It doesn't build a bridge. It's a transfer payment of people of ordinary income paying their taxes to bondholders.
And bondholders are overwhelmingly better off than the people who are paying the taxes. It is a terrible, terrible public policy to run up that kind of deficit. We -- this year, in fiscal year 2011, we will spend 24.7 percent of the gross domestic product of the country, the federal government will, and will collect 14.8. OK?
That's 10-percent difference. I mean, you can't do that. And I agree with David that -- I mean, we have been talking for 10 years about sacrifice. We were talking about George Bush not calling for sacrifice at the time of the war. We haven't had a leader call for sacrifice.
He mentioned it in the speech sort of as an abstract noun, but at no point did he say this is what I am asking of you.
DAVID BROOKS: Bowles-Simpson commission set it up. They put everything on the table. They laid the problem out. And I thought he really could have grasped that.
And we have all sat with interviews with President Obama, and he's always said: Next year, I'm really going to tackle the deficit.
Well, it is Lucy pulling away the football from Charlie Brown at some point. And so I -- I want him to actually say, OK, this is the year we're going to talk about it.
And, so, I guess my reaction to the speech was very positive the first day, but it's gotten a little sour the subsequent days.
JIM LEHRER: Is it the same progression from you? He -- it sounded better the night he said it than he -- than it does now?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, it's -- there is a little bit of the Gary Hart-Fritz Mondale race: Where's the beef?
You know, I mean, the question that Mondale asked of Hart was sort of a, in the future, we have got to get moving. We're a great country. We're this and that. He evoked our great days of the past, gave us a sense of confidence and optimism about the future. But it didn't come down to the action statement. Therefore, this is what I am asking of you, and me, and every American tonight.
And that's what is missing.
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