Pelosi Remarks on Economic Recovery Act Following Democratic Caucus Meeting

Pelosi Remarks on Economic Recovery Act Following Democratic Caucus Meeting

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Contact:Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. â€" Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a media availability following the Democratic Caucus meeting in the Capitol this afternoon. Below are the Speaker’s opening remarks and question and answer session:

On House Priorities in House-Senate Conference Committee on Recovery Act:"Our Members have one thing at heart: the creation of jobs to relieve the economic strife and stress that America’s families are experiencing right now. So they know, as President Obama cautioned the nation: ‘We cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the effective, and of the necessary.’ And we will not."

Good afternoon. It is a pretty exciting day.

I just had the privilege of speaking to the House Democrats about how we are progressing on the economic recovery package. We took great pride in the brilliant presentation that President Obama made last night to the country and that he has presented to Floridians today.

"Here, back in the Capitol, we are moving in a forward direction. Momentarily, we will be appointing conferees on the floor of the House in order to go to conference later today to put together the reconciliation between the House and the Senate.

Hopefully, that will be done as soon as possible because tens of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs every day -- 600,000 of them lost their jobs in the month of January. We cannot lose any time in stopping that, by passing the economic recovery package.

Our colleagues are excited about the prospect, concerned about some of the differences between the House and the Senate. And we promised that because our bill â€" the House-passed bill â€" produced more jobs, to go to conference to fight for those jobs.

In addition, some of the other business of the meeting was that I told our colleagues that because of the condition of our economy, and the financial crisis that our country is in, that the leadership will be instructing the Appropriations Committee not to include a COLA for next year in the Appropriations bill that is being put together for fiscal year 2010.

Also, I spoke to our chairmen â€" I spoke with them this morning at the chairmen’s meeting. But I reported to our Caucus that we are asking, our leadership is asking the chairs of our committee, in the spirit of Mr. Tanner’s legislation â€" for fiscal accountability. Asking our chairmen to hold hearings on the issues that the agencies of government that are before them â€" how the tax dollar is spent, what the results are.

Again, in the interest of fiscal soundness, we will be looking at everything from entitlements to defense spending. Again, student loans to every dollar that the federal government spends. So, we are hard at work, eager to end the conference on the recovery package, and look forward to sending it to the President’s desk hopefully before the end of this week."

Q: Madam Speaker, could you describe the tenor of the meeting and address the possibility of any danger of your left-wing particularlyâ€"any defections on that part in terms of not going along with the bill, with some of the cuts that the Senate..?

Speaker Pelosi. The tenor of this meeting?

Q: Yes.

Speaker Pelosi. Our Members have one thing at heart: the creation of jobs to relieve the economic strife and stress that America’s families are experiencing right now. So they know, as President Obama cautioned the nation: "We cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the effective, and of the necessary." And we will not.

Any one of us can write the bill that we like better. Isn’t that the way it always is? But we built consensus; we’re proud of the product that we put forth. And it has a strategic vision, a strategic mission â€" so all the parts of it have to come together in a way that keeps the promise that we are making. A bold, swift, action to create jobs. I think that we are in good shape with our Caucus.

I think we have time for one more. I have to get to work.

Q: Senator Reid sounded confident this morning after your meeting with President Obama that it would take about another 24 hours to bridge those differences. Do you share that timeline and do you hope to have a path forward to bridge those differences?

Speaker Pelosi. I hope that that is so. You know what the regular order is. The House has passed this bill, the Senate has passed it. Usually you go to conference and split the difference between the two Houses â€" that may not be the case here. At these conferences, my experience has been that the White House has a seat at the table â€" that they weigh in. So there is not a physical seat â€" but that they weigh in on it. And we have a clear idea of what the differences are and hope to resolve them as soon as possible.

Q: What are you going to do about the three Senate Republican votes? To what extent do they play in role in your calculus here at Conference â€" ensuring that those three GOP Senators will be on board the eventual consensus?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, our responsibility on the House side in our conference will be announcing on the floor â€" Mr. Obey, Mr. Waxman and Mr. Rangel. They’re speaking for our House Democrats. Mr. Boehner had not informed me yet who the conferees are â€" perhaps you know â€" on the Republican side. We’re there to fight for the jobs. The Senate conferees will advocate for their position and they will be responsible for what the Senators think, or vote, or what. But that is not my responsibility.

Q: I’m talking about Collins, Specter and Snowe. Will they play a role in your calculus because they need those votes to…

Speaker Pelosi. As I say, that’s part of what the Senate will bring to the table. We’ll bring the hopes, aspirations of the American people for us to create as many jobs as possible in the most fiscally sound way and the most transparent way to stabilize the economy and that is what our responsibility will be at the table. We have some particular suggestions on how we can get more jobs out of this conference than are in the Senate bill and we hope that they will be well received.

Q: What are those suggestions? Can you just mention the suggestions that you made. Can you articulate what they may be?

Speaker Pelosi. The issues that the President talked about in his speech last night are priorities that we share. The President talked about school construction and how that is important for children, but it creates jobs immediately. He talked about the greening of America’s federal buildings, how that was important to our environment and economy, it created jobs immediately. He talked about Health Information Technology and how that made health care better, more affordable, fewer errors and how that created jobs immediately.

There are some others: the extension of COBRA and Medicaid piece that goes with that on the tax side, on the Energy and Commerce side of that is important tax credit for children, the refundable tax credit for children is important. I’m not going to give you the whole list, but all of these stimulate the economy, create jobs, are fiscally sound, and are part of a strategic mission for this bill to create jobs, to bring stability, to inspire confidence.

And now I have to go to work.