newly-re-elected republicans for the good of the american people. i wasn t sent to washington to be a democrat. i was sent to washington to work with republicans and democrats to fight for the needs of my district and do what s best for the country, and i think that s what the majority of democrats want. congressman cummings, you are at a fork in the road in baltimore. which way are you going to go? you re saying these are failed policies progressives want to go back to. going back to the article, i think progressives definitely want the president to fight harder. they felt he could have had a better deal with the tax bill. no doubt about it. but the fact still remains that we re going to, you know i think some people have gotten the wrong message about this election, particularly the republicans. i think what the electorate was saying, they want us to work together. they want us to work with republicans when we can to try to make their lives better. they want government to work
of the 25 seats we need to take the house back there are 61 of that have a democratic presence. second point the republicans at their historic high tide, happened four times in history have they reached the numbers they have now. each time they suffered an average 48-seat loss in the next cycle. why? buyer s remorse. i think that will happen again. some of the centrist democrats in the blue dog coalition like you, you re one of the last standing. bill clinton s reaction after the 94 tsunami was to move to the center and in his state of the union in 95 he did that. this president has a state of the union coming up in a couple of weeks. are you looking for a clinton-esque moment? do you want him to move to the center? i think what the president did on the tax cut compromise with the senate and republicans in the house is a model for what he should do moving forward. i know we have a difference of opinion among the democrats at this table on this issue, but i think given the results
that. let s talk about that point on the deficit, governor. earlier in december the president s own debt panel came out december 3rd, erskine bowles said, i am really pleading with you, please make the tough choices. reduce spending. the president came out, quote, we must correct our fiscal course. three days later the president cut the tax deal with the republicans. $800 billion to $900 billion. quote, we have arrived at a framework for bipartisan agreement for the next two years every american family will keep their tax cuts. in the short term you have to try to rebuild the economy. didn t the president throw his debt panel under the bus there? ed, i doubt that. i don t think the debt panel said the best thing for the american economy is let all the tax cuts expire. the tax cuts, if they expired were going to hit low income working people the hardest, in a way that would have hurt the economy, hurt revenues and likely exacerbated the deficit slowing down economic growth but now w
recollection, we lost 63 seats. we lost middle america. we got shellacked in pennsylvania and in ohio and new york and illinois, in michigan. what does dough about that? we know that. what does he do? we have to look at the world as it is. the republicans have retaken control in the house and there s a threat they may overreach and make the same mistakes previous leaderships have made. both republican and democratic. congressman, you didn t like the tax deal. i didn t like the tax deal but i m glad the president was able to achieve what he was able to achieve. the people in my district are happy about the fact that unemployment insurance passed. they are happy about the fica reduction. so all of that is good. my point was i just think that what s going to happen is the republicans are going to come back and propose drastic cuts and the same people that benefitted from all the tax cuts proposals will now suffer, and so, that s my concern. but i applaud the president for achievin
look and say where there s some absolute jobs created of course. those contracts let for what the president now discovers is not shovel ready because there s no such thing as shovel ready when you have years of bureaucracy to move something but those jobs were real jobs, in the private sector, on behalf of government projects. when you look at the effects of the stimulus, we spend $1 trillion, we didn t have net growth and we didn t have net growth because we didn t spend it right and more importantly, we didn t make the kinds of investment we need to make. we could have used that same trillion dollars to tell industry you make investments that make sense, and give you an abatement, if you don t create the jobs, we re not giving you the money. last question, what kind of cooperation are you expecting from the obama administration and if they don t cooperate and i stress if they don t cooperate in some of your investigations are you willing to press criminal contempt of congress charg