Today on ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos’

What a show.

Today on our "This Week" economic debate, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, argued the nation’s struggling banks should be left to fail.

"I don’t want to nationalize them, I think we need to close them … Close them down, get them out of business. If they’re dead, they ought to be buried." On Citigroup, the beleaguered bank that has received about $45 billion in taxpayer money, Shelby said, "Citi’s always been a problem child."

Also today, our economic panel discussed President Barack Obama’s sweeping agenda. Are his plans to turnaround the economy and reform health care overloading the circuits?

Shelby said lawmakers have to be careful to not "overload the economy."  But Democratic Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., defended Obama’s plans.

"I think the American people fundamentally understand that he’s focusing on the economy first and foremost," McCaskill said. "On the other hand, George … he’s a great communicator.  And I think the American people know that if we keep delaying the health care discussion, if we keep delaying the cap-and- trade discussion and — and the discussion about our environment and global warming, that that is a very, very bad thing for our grandchildren."

Bayh agreed, arguing, "He’s got to try and do two things simultaneously, George, first, be an idealist, look at the problems that face the country and propose bold changes to deal with those.  He’s doing that.  But at the end of the day, he also has to be a pragmatist, and you can’t insist on more than the system can deliver, although you push for all that it can deliver. My sense of this president is that he’s a very practical person.  He wants results.  And at the end of the day, that’s what we’ll deliver."

Below is a full transcript and video of the economic debate this morning on "This Week."

–George Stephanopoulos

     STEPHANOPOULOS (voice-over):  Good morning, and welcome to "This
Week."

     (UNKNOWN):  I don’t know how I’m going to pay my mortgage.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Economic shock.

     HALL:  We’ve never had four straight months of job loss in excess
of 600,000.

     (UNKNOWN):  We don’t have any feeling whether there’s one more
shoe to fall or whether Imelda Marcos’ closet is about to come down on
us.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  With no bottom in sight, President Obama tries
to spark confidence.

     PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  Throughout our history, we have met
every great challenge with bold action.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  But is Washington meeting the economic challenge
or making it worse?

     (UNKNOWN):  We have to show that the government can discipline
itself.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  What will it take to stop this spiral?
Questions this morning for Democratic Senators Evan Bayh and Claire
McCaskill, Republican Richard Shelby, and the CEO of the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, Tom Donohue, our "This Week" debate.

     Then…

     RUSH LIMBAUGH, TALK SHOW HOST:  Why doesn’t President Obama come
on my show?

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  … Rush and the White House square off.  That
and the rest of the week’s politics on our roundtable with George
Will, Cokie Roberts, David Brooks, and E.J. Dionne.

     And, as always, the Sunday funnies.

     JAY LENO, TALK SHOW HOST:  We gave them $165 billion, now we’re
giving them $30 billion.  You know what AIG stands for?  "And it’s
gone"!

     (END VIDEO CLIP)

     ANNOUNCER:  From the heart of the nation’s capital, "This Week"
with ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos,
live from the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Hello again.
     In this morning’s New York Times, President Obama promises to put
all the pillars in place for economic recovery this year, but his
pledge follows a week in which nearly all signs pointed toward a
recession that could last far longer.  It’s an economic emergency. 

     How to address it is our topic this morning with four key players
here in Washington:  Republican Senator Richard Shelby; Tom Donohue,
CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Democratic Senators Evan Bayh
and Claire McCaskill.

     And let me begin with another headline.  This is the Washington
Post.  I don’t know if you guys saw it yesterday.  And the headline
pretty much gets to the heart of the problem here, "Job Losses Could
Drown Stimulus."

     Senator McCaskill, are we at the point where we can say now that
we’re going to actually have to do more, that it’s time for a second
stimulus package?

     MCCASKILL:  Oh, I think it’s too early for that.  What you’re
seeing is jobs — job loss is always a lagging indicator.  It’s not a
leading indicator in a recession.  And we’ve said all along in the
stimulus, besides the tax cuts, which people forget to mention, a huge
chunk of tax cuts, money going right back into the pockets of the
American people, we’re trying to keep job losses from being as great.

     Even when we were debating the stimulus, we kept saying over and
over again there was going to continue to be significant job loss.
It’s a matter of whether or not we can keep from that job loss being
as severe as it could be had we not done the stimulus.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  But, Senator, by the assumptions of President
Obama and his team are — that we would have 8.1 percent employment –
unemployment all year long, we saw that already this month.  We know
it’s going to get worse, at least the president has said, before it
gets better, so he’s not going to be able to save the 3.5 million jobs
he talked about.

     BAYH:  Well, it’s a little soon to conclude that, George.  And we
may need — need to have to recalibrate what we do as we go along as
the facts change.  He did inherit one heck of a mess, and it’s gotten
worse over the last couple of months. 

     The depth of domestic problems was worse than expected.  The
global nature of the recession, with Europe and China now struggling,
was worse than we expected.

     But let’s give this a little time.  I was with Ben Bernanke a
couple of times this week.  He does think that some things in the
credit markets are beginning to get better, but there is a lag between
when you put policy into effect and when it actually starts having an
effect in the real world.

     And the second lag, George, perhaps most important, is the
psychological one.  It does take some time before things — before
people realize that the substance is actually getting better.  My
guess is that’ll start later this year or the first part of next year,
and we’re moving aggressively to make sure that it does.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  The question, Senator Shelby, is, what is going
to create that confidence?  What is going to change the psychology of
the markets right now?  You want to…

     SHELBY:  I believe, if we can straighten out the banking system
and get banks lending again and get confidence in our banking system
– the American people don’t trust the banks.  They know — they’re
not investing in the banks.  The banks aren’t lending.  And without
lending, this — this country’s economy is based on credit, you know,
credit to small business, medium-sized business, and that’s not
happening today.

     We’ve got to do it, and we’ve got to do it right.  TARP certainly
didn’t do it.  I opposed that; a lot of people didn’t.  But — but we
can’t go down that road again.  And what I fear is, is Paulson II or
TARP II or TARP III. 

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Well — well, we’ve seen Secretary Geithner and
the president say that now we’re going to take a middle-ground
approach.  They’ve out the beginnings of their plan on the banks.  You
don’t approve of that?

     SHELBY:  I don’t think it’ll work.  I think that they’ve got to
close some big banks.  They don’t want to do it.  We’re — we’re going
down the same road Japan was going down.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  So you’re in the same place — I had Senator
Lindsey Graham on the problem a couple of weeks ago.  He said we’re
going to have to close, nationalize some of the big banks.

     SHELBY:  I don’t want to nationalize them.  I think we need to
close them…

     (CROSSTALK)

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  So when you say "close," what do you mean by
them?

     SHELBY:  Close — close them down, get them out of business.  If
they’re dead, they ought to be buried.  We bury the small banks; we’ve
got to bury some big ones and send a strong message to the market.
And I believe that people will start investing in banks.  People
aren’t…

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  So you’re talking Citigroup?

     SHELBY:  Well, whatever.  Citi’s always been a problem child.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  You’re shaking your head.

     DONOHUE:  Well, I believe that the TARP thing had a very
important value, and that is, it put liquidity in the banks that let
them meet their requirements.  Otherwise, they would have to be put
out of business.  And they’re holding that money.  They haven’t spent
it.  They’re waiting to find out where the floor is.

     And when they get to the floor, then we’ll be able — on the
economy, then we’ll be able to figure out how to put more money back
in the economy.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Is it practical to talk about closing down big
banks?

     DONOHUE:  It’s not practical to talk about closing a bank that is
integrated throughout the whole global economy.  It is practical to
talk about buying some of those assets away from those banks and
holding them in an institution that would have both public and private
money, but it’s not practical…

     MCCASKILL:  And as a matter of confidence, I think it’s important
for us to point out that there’s two kinds of banks that we’re talking
about here.  The — the commercial banks, the small, local banks,
they’re fine, and people need to realize that.  Your local bank is
loaning money; it is operating as it always had. 

     It may be suffering in its stock prices because of what’s going
on in the stock market, but they are doing a great job.  In fact, most
of the commercial banks, the local banks, have loaned more money in
the fourth quarter of last year than they had the fourth quarter the
previous year.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  But what do you do with these big banks, these
few big banks that are in big trouble?

     MCCASKILL:  Well, I think — I think a plan has been laid out.  I
think — and now they’re — what they’re doing is they’re doing this
evaluation to look at the strength and the weaknesses of each of these
banks so we know what’s there, and then they’re going to have those
capital asset funds available to help them stay liquid, the big banks.

     But I think this is a matter of continuing to look aggressively
at how we can help without wasting taxpayer money.

     BAYH:  George, the real problem here is this whole concept of too
big to fail.  Some of these institutions — and you can put some of
the big three automotive companies in the same category — if they
were to go down, the problem is, it’s not just them.  They take –
it’s called, you know, collateral damage, a whole lot, hundreds of
thousands of blue-collar working men and women, other smaller
financial institutions who were not involved in these bad decision-
makings, they’d all pay the price, too.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  So you can’t close down the big banks?

     BAYH:  Well, what we have to do is stabilize them for the time
being to avoid the collateral damage, put into effect regulation to
make sure that this does not happen again, and if institutions are
going to get, quote, "too big to fail" so that the taxpayers will have
to come in, maybe they have to operate under a different set of rules.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  And what — go ahead.

     SHELBY:  George, subsidization of anything for very long never
works.  You don’t stop.  The automobile business, those companies,
Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, they’re in deep trouble.  We know
that.  I’ve suggested they go into Chapter 11.  That’s where they
belong.  And they could reorganize.  We could get, you know, money in
place for them.  We could do it if they did it and did it right.
Short of that, the UAW will run those companies and run them into the
ground.

     DONOHUE:  Now, I can get pretty close to that issue.  We need to
do something — I’m not sure all three of those companies — and I’d
like to see the three end up being two — but if there are going to be
any resolution here, General Motors has to be willing to be very, very
tough and take the big step, if they have to.  Otherwise, they’re not
going to get any place with their unions or be able to deal with the
franchise rules in the states on the dealers.

     This is an issue which I believe that all of us have a similar
view about.  I don’t think it’s exactly the same when you start
looking at the banks.

     The senator’s right in the long term.  We have to take some of
these really toxic banks and straighten them out.  This senator is
exactly right that 90 percent of the banks in the country are doing a
great job.  The only thing is, 25 million small businesses can’t get
their money from banks.

     We have to get the asset back — lenders back in business.  We
have to put individuals in the position to do what they’ve always
done, is to lend to small companies.  Those guys create the jobs.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Let me bring this back to the issue at the top,
the congressional agenda right now, spending bill more than $400
billion, more than 8,000 earmarks.  Senator Bayh, you’re one of two
Democrats who’s come out unequivocally against this bill, in part
because of the earmarks, in part because of the size.

     Do you think that you’re going to be able to prevail?  Senator
Reid could not get the 60 votes he needed on Thursday.

     BAYH:  I think ultimately they’ll get the votes to pass the bill,
George, but I think there are substantive and perceptional problems
with this bill.  Substantively, the deficit is over $1 trillion.  Our
national debt is going up more than $1 million per minute.  We have to
borrow most of this money from abroad, which weakens our country.

     I think this is a time to show that we can economize, do better
than across-the-board increases that are many times the rate of
inflation.  So that’s my substantive problem.

     For example, if we were just to continue last year’s levels of
spending for the remainder of this year, we’d save $250 billion over
the course of the next 10 years to help solve our long-term deficit
problems.

     The perceptual problem, which I think is just as great, is that,
at a time when many Americans are having to tighten their belts, many
businesses are having to make tough decisions, it looks as if Congress
is just on auto pilot, immune — immune from the problems that most
people face.

     BAYH:  That undermines confidence in the system.  I think we need
to keep faith with the American people and show we can do what they do
everyday.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator Shelby, you’re one of the few
Republicans who’s actually for this bill.  Why is he wrong?

     SHELBY:  Well, I think he’s wrong for two reasons.  We differ on
some things, agree on others. 

     First of all, this is — these are a compilation of nine
appropriations bills.  A lot of people voted for a stimulus bill, a
TARP.  That’s $1.5 trillion.  Now they say, "Oh, we’d better not vote
for a $400 billion bill to fund the government."  I think we ought to
fund the government and move on.

     Are there some things in this bill that I don’t like, I wouldn’t
vote for if I could?  I voted for amendments, you know, to knock
things out of it, sure.   

     But, overall, I think it’s — it’s — we need to get it behind
us, and I think we will.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Now, Senator McCaskill, you are an unequivocal
opponent of earmarks.  You’ve asked for zero earmarks.  You voted to
strip them out, yet you’re supporting this bill.  I don’t quite
understand that.

     MCCASKILL:  Well, I have done everything I can possibly do to
reject the process of funding — funding projects through earmarks.  I
vote against earmarks when I get the chance, as long as we’re voting
against all of them, and I’ve dropped another bill to reform the
process even further this week.

     But I don’t think I can sit on the sidelines on every budget,
though, because I’ve got to tell you, George, you talk about a habit
that’s deeply ingrained and a culture that’s very hard to get rid of,
these guys love these earmarks.  They love the ability to have the
power, you know, to pick out projects to fund.

     And, you know, some of the earmarked projects are great, but the
process, I think, is fundamentally flawed.  That’s why Evan and I were
the only two Democrats that voted to strip every single one of them
out.  And as long as we have a chance to keep reforming it, I think we
need to keep moving forward and get the government funded.
     BAYH:  And just one distinction from what Richard said.  The TARP
vote was about stabilizing the financial system at a moment of crisis
last September or October, when the economy, according to the chairman
of the Fed, was about to collapse.  And hopefully we’re going to get
most of that money paid back.

     The stimulus bill, the job-creating bill, that was focused or was
supposed to be focused like a laser on stabilizing the economy at a
time when you pointed out in the headlines, it is in terrible straits.
This is just general government spending, and it’s increasing many
times the rate of inflation.

     What are we, as members of Congress, going to do to sacrifice, to
show the American people that, in the long run, there is some fiscal
discipline around this town if we can’t keep restraints into place for
just one year?  What does that say to the marketplace?

     So I think this is an important part of re-instilling confidence
and, frankly, helping the president, who wants to get the deficit down
and wants to remove these earmarks.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator Shelby, you have more earmarks in that
bill than just about 40 other senators.  Can you defend the process?

     SHELBY:  Absolutely.  I can defend every earmark.  Every one of
my earmarks have been released to the press.  Every one has — has, I
think, been vetted in the committee and publicly in my state.

     I don’t want an earmark that has no merit, but I do believe that
we ought to have the power to appropriate things with merit.  And
that’s what I — that’s one of the reasons I’m voting for this bill.

     MCCASKILL:  Yes, I think it’s important to point out that a lot
of the senators that stood up with righteous indignation on the
stimulus bill, talking about earmarks in the bill and earmarks in the
bill, are back two weeks later for a huge chunk of earmarks. 

     And this is an equal-opportunity sin, George, as you pointed out.
The — every single member of Republican leadership is participating
fully in the earmark process.

     So what I hope people quit doing is using earmarks as a partisan
fight, because it is not partisan.  It’s about…

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Although Senator Shelby is consistent, to be
fair.  He’s consistent that he’s for earmarks and he’s for the bill.

     MCCASKILL:  He is.  He is.  He is.  He’s a loyal appropriator.

     SHELBY:  And not only that, I’ll tell you, the stimulus bill was
loaded with earmarks.  There was one coming out of Illinois, $2
billion…

     MCCASKILL:  That was competitively — that was competitively
done, George.

     SHELBY:  Oh, yes.  Nobody believes that now. 

     MCCASKILL:  But it was.  It was a five-year…

     (CROSSTALK) 

     SHELBY:  It was competitively done because the president wanted
it, and he’s the biggest earmarker of all.

     MCCASKILL:  No.

     SHELBY:  Bush was the biggest earmarker.  All of them are
earmarkers.

     (CROSSTALK)

     DONOHUE:  If we talked as much about jobs as we talk about
earmarks, we’d be better off.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Well, I actually want to move to health care
right now, because you were part of a health care summit this week
that President Obama convened.  Here’s President Obama speaking at
that summit.

     (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

     OBAMA:  Nothing is harder in politics than doing something now
that costs money in order to gain benefits 20 years from now.  It’s –
it’s the single hardest thing to do in politics, and that’s part of
the reason why health care reform has consistently broken down.

     (END VIDEO CLIP)

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  And, Mr. Donohue, you were at this summit.
There’s been something of an evolution at the Chamber of Commerce.
You were at the summit saying you support the president’s goals.  You
believe we can get something done this year.

     DONOHUE:  Well, what I did say is, in comparison to the previous
big debates on health care, all of the parties are somewhere else.
For the longest period of time, you knew where big business, small
business, the docs, the hospitals, now they’re all over the place, and
they are for a very simple reason, is that health care has become not
only very expensive, but very complicated and very much driven more
and more by the government, who are, you know, engaged with 45 percent
of paying for what’s going on in the health care business.

     So I do believe there is a sentiment, a willingness to listen and
willingness to see what we can work out here.  Of course, you know,
that’ll fall part at one point when everybody finds out where their
car happens to be parked.

     But we’re going to participate in this debate and listen.  There
are things we all agree to.  We have to do wellness.  I mean, what’s
going on with young people in this country is crazy.  We have to do
I.T.  It’s the only industry, 60…

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Information technology.

     DONOHUE:  Yes, 16 percent of the economy, and it’s the only
industry that basically doesn’t use it.  We have to do things about
getting those people covered who are not.

     You know, everybody talks about 49 million not covered.  A third
of them could be covered tomorrow if we took them by the hand and
down, signed them into the programs that are available.  A third of
them can’t be covered, and we have to do something about that.  So
there are many things we can find common ground on.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  But does that mean, for example, that business
is ready to sign on to a requirement to provide health care to all
their employees?

     DONOHUE:  Well, I don’t know that that’s going to come apart –
around at this time.  See, there is a basic issue that’s more
fundamental, as we look at health care, as we look at CO-2, as we look
at what we’re doing in labor.  We’re trying to hold this economy
together. 

     This president, who we need to make sure he succeeds — I mean,
this country has to succeed — but he wants to put more things one on
top of the other faster than I think we can assimilate it.

     I’m prepared to bring the business community to a legitimate
discussion on health care.  I’m prepared to bring them to a discussion
on CO-2.  But if we jam all this stuff at once, if you look at what’s
going up on regulation, on taxes, on costs, you see that job number
and those job pictures, it’ll be worse.  So let’s do it in an orderly
fashion.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Senator McCaskill, he does bring up an important
point on revenues and — and — and timing here.  And from what I
could tell this week in my reporting, talking to Republicans and
Democrats on Capitol Hill, it was almost impossible to find anyone who
would support the president’s plans to pay for this health care by
shaving the deductions for wealthy Americans.

     MCCASKILL:  But he gets credit for saying he’s going to pay for
it and laying out a plan to pay for it.  I mean, we did Medicare D.
And — and — and Bush lobbied for it and gleefully signed it into law
with not any way of paying for it, no means test, billions of dollars
into the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance
companies without a second thought of public money.

     So I think the fact that this president is showing the discipline
to say, first of all, we’re going to have an honest budget, no more
cooking the books.  We’re going to put all of this stuff on the budget
so the American people know how serious the problem is.  And the fact
that’s committed to paying for the way we get health care reform…

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  But can you sign on to the plan, for example, to
shave the deductions for wealthy Americans to pay for this?

     MCCASKILL:  I mean, it’s — we’re talking about somebody who
makes $4 million a year, instead of getting a $350 deduction on $1,000
contribution, getting a $280 deduction on $1,000 contribution.  Does
that really sound like something really tough?

     DONOHUE:  Well, that’s a — that’s a fundamentally different
issue than the question that George asked about the tax rates.  The
issue of shaving the deduction for people that are at this time, in
this economy, from people that are putting money, willingly and
voluntarily, into the needs of others is not going to fly.  It’s dead
on arrival.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  You agree with that?

     BAYH:  Well, first, I think the president is confronted with a
lot of these simultaneously because the world has confronted him with
them.  He didn’t ask to have to deal with the recession and the global
warming and the health care crisis.  He’s been confronted with that,
so he has to deal with a lot of these things.

     With regard to budgeting, I think Claire’s right.  At least –
remember Vice President Cheney, George, said deficits didn’t matter?
And they pretty quickly took the largest budget surplus in history and
turned it into the largest deficit.  Now we have a president who wants
to get the deficit down.

     I think we need to go through a progression on health care,
first, look for ways to — to economize within the health care system.
By just looking at the way we practice medicine in different parts of
the country, there’s a lot of money to be saved.  That’s number one.

     Secondly, maybe there are some other parts of the budget that we
can economize to help pay for some of this.  That’s why I’m opposing
the omnibus, $250 billion over 10 years?  That’s real money by just
tightening our belts for one year.

     And then, finally, the issue of revenues may have to be
addressed, but I think you have to do that last, not first.  And the
question is, do we extend with additional tax cuts to the most
affluent among us?  Perhaps that’s something that has to be…

     (CROSSTALK)

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  But you said do it last, not first.  If you
don’t have the reserve fund in there, can you really make the upfront
investments you need to make in health care, for example, building on
what the president did in the stimulus package on information
technology?

     BAYH:  By that, George, I mean, the president was right to put
that issue on the table, but I think we as Congress first have to see
what else can be done to get the revenue and then only raise the issue
of whether you raise taxes last, not first.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  What can you and your Republicans colleagues
sign on to here?

     SHELBY:  Well, I — I think that what we’ve got to do is
straighten up the economy first.  We’ve got to go to banking.  That
will help.  If we take on all these programs, this country is going to
be in one heck of an economic mess.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  So put off any discussion of health care this
year?

     (CROSSTALK)

     SHELBY:  Well, I think we can discuss it, but how are we going to
fund it?

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  So you’re for no — no revenue increase?  The
president says he’s not going to have the revenue increases until
2011, but you’re saying not even debate it now?

     SHELBY:  Well, I think we’re going to debate it.  We debate it
every day.  But we should be careful in what we’re doing.  Let’s do
not push this economy and the jobs losses even further down.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  How — how do you address this question, Senator
McCaskill, of scale — and both Mr. Donohue and Senator Shelby have
talked about — and — and priorities?  You say the president didn’t
choose to put himself in this position, but is it — is it appropriate
at this point to scale back and say, "First things first.  Let’s focus
on the banks.  Let’s focus on this job situation"?

     MCCASKILL:  I think the American people fundamentally understand
that he’s focusing on the economy first and foremost.  I think there
is some confusion.  You know, things happen quickly.  Obviously, the
TARP situation was an emergency and it was everyone — frankly, it was
a remarkable moment when I saw the candidates for both parties come
together on that, realizing we had a crisis of liquidity that — and,
you know, I think he’s going to continue to focus on the economy.

     On the other hand, George, as — as Evan said, he’s a great
communicator.  And I think the American people know that if we keep
delaying the health care discussion, if we keep delaying the cap-and-
trade discussion and — and the discussion about our environment and
global warming, that that is a very, very bad thing for our
grandchildren.  And, also, we have to keep focused on deficit
reduction.

     But what you’re seeing is a president that’s not afraid to take
on all these issues that he knows the American people want reform,
they want reform on this.  So it’s tough.  We’ve got to communicate
clearly.  We’ve got to make sure that we bring the American people
with us, but I think we’ve got the right communicator to do it.

     BAYH:  He’s got to try and do two things simultaneously, George,
first, be an idealist, look at the problems that face the country and
propose bold changes to deal with those.  He’s doing that.  But at the
end of the day, he also has to be a pragmatist, and you can’t insist
on more than the system can deliver, although you push for all that it
can deliver.

     And my sense of this president is that he’s a very practical
person.  He wants results.  And at the end of the day, that’s what
we’ll deliver.

     SHELBY:  I think we have to be careful, not overload the economy.
Our thrust should be turning the economy around, and we do that
through banks, getting people back to work.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  Another issue that’s going to come up before the
end of this year — and we only have a couple of minutes left — Mr.
Donohue, you’re going to spend about $10 million, I’ve read, to try to
defeat this Employee Free Choice Act, which would give union — unions
the ability to organize at a plant if they could a majority of the
people at the plant to sign up.

     And, Senator McCaskill, let me bring you in on this.  Is there
anything you can say, you believe, right now, that’ll convince Mr.
Donohue to back off that?  And do you have the votes to get this done
this year?

     MCCASKILL:  I’m not sure that we have the votes, and I have no
hope of backing Mr. Donohue off.  I would say that I think it would be
fair that we have a secret ballot for decertification of unions.
Right now, businesses can go with a card check. 

     There is no secret ballot to get rid of a union, but there is a
requirement of — of that for people to be able to organize.  And to
me, that seems unfair.  Let’s — let’s — what’s good for the goose is
good for the gander.  Let’s put people on a level playing field and
have both businesses have to have a secret ballot to decertify.  Until
they do that, I’m not sure they’ve got a lot of room to complaint.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  You get the last word.

     DONOHUE:  That is another — the loss of the secret ballot and
the 16 other issues that labor unions want is another weight on this
economy.  What we need is a defibrillator that shocks this economy
back into private — positive action.

     This president, this Congress, and the business community have to
talk about positive things and a bright future.  We need to stop
letting everybody watch the president and all of us talk this economy
into the can.  Watch the market.  The market goes down; liquidity goes
down.  We have a real challenge here, and we ought to seize it.

     STEPHANOPOULOS:  I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today.
Sorry, Senator.  Thank you all very much for a great discussion.

     END