joining me now are democrat congressman peter welsh of vermont and former secretary of labor robert reich, professor at the university of california at berkeley. representative welch, assuming this bill makes further progress in the united states senate, which is not at all certain at this point, what are the prospects of some kind of action in the house of representatives? well, it s pretty uphill, because we re having this debate as though extending unemployment benefits is going to solve the problem. what it will do is mitigate the impact on individuals and on the economy, but, in fact, what we should be doing is incorporating a discussion about what job creating policies will help, things like building our infrastructure, best time we can do that is now. it increases employment and demand. second, subsidize job program that was a partnership between republican and democratic governors in the administration and employers that put people to work.
procedural vote i understand with the important vote coming sometime today between 5:00 and 8:00. is that what you ve heard. that is what i ve heard. we re seeing that the republicans, it s like they re at the alamo. they hate this health care bill and opposed it in congress and lost and then opposed it in the supreme court and lost and opposed it in the last presidential election and lost. and now what they are saying is that we ve got this strategy default on the debt and shut government down and we think we ll get our way. it s a strategy, frankly, that s doomed. eventually, they do have the power to shut the government down and default. they can do that. it s reckless and unwise. but once they do that, the markets are going to react violently and quickly. ha they ll pistol whip this congress into doing that which it should do then. we should be doing it now. representative welch, as i look at part of the plan we believe will be coming from the republicans, it delays the health
yours is called over 80 members, a super gang. how is your group s approach different this time around? peter and i are part of the organization no labels problem solvers if you follow us on twitter and putting together and agenda of nine bipartisan bills that can move this country forward everything from how we are handling procurement issues to energy efficiency that the congressman welch and i are working on together. i think we are going to take those words and turn them into action because this is more than just simply saying this is what we are going to do. this is about actually getting it done. you know, no labels as you have self-named yourself recently as you were saying put out the nine different bills called make government work. now just list several of them that are on that list, including getting rid of duplication agencies and programs and stopping year-to-year budget increases and noofg a two year budget process here that is some of the nine out there at the moment
representative gardner why these nine and how are you going get this done different than other groups have? i think it s recognition while we have arguments over spending and have arguments over what to do on the economy or the environment that there are areas of common ground and i said at the announcement that common ground leadership leads to common sense solutions and that is what these nine bills represent. representative welch, go ahead. we are at stall speed in congress and not talking to one another. cory and i come out of state legislatures we were dealing with republicans and democrats and dealing with people we disagreed with and cory and i disagree on a lot of top line issues. if you re going to be a politician and legislate move people ahead, let s move ahead. the thing we are both hear from people we represent is why don t you guys get together and get something done. when i was senate president in
go back to talking about job creation, the wars and all of the structural dysfunction that you re clearly familiar with? well, i think you ll be working this weekend, i regret to say. basically, we do have a choice now between a really bad boehner plan and a damage control reid plan. that s really what 2 boils down to, but in both case, the republican agenda has been successful. there is no revenues. it s all cuts, and the difference between boehner and reid is essentially that one is short term, and the other is long term and gets us through the election and would give us at least some space to try to create the opportunity to talk about jobs and building our economy. representative welch, appreciate your candor. i agree with a lot of how you frame this problem. and am regretful we re not actually having a debate about bank reform, trade reform and tax reform. right. exactly. i don t know the answers but i shoe know we need 20 to be talking about it. thank you, congressman.