E-mail a friendRep. Ellen Tauscher
airdate July 30, 2004
Before her election to Congress in '96, California Rep. Ellen Tauscher worked in the private sector for 20 years, 14 of them on Wall Street. She was also an advocate on child care issues and founded the ChildCare Registry - the first national service to help parents verify child care workers' backgrounds. Tauscher is a member of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats and the New Democrat Coalition. Her fiscally responsible, bi-partisan, independent brand of leadership was coined "Tauscherism" by Time magazine.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher
Tavis: I'm pleased to have one of the Kerry campaign co-chair, Representative Harold Ford Jr., one of the rising stars. They keep calling you a rising star. And you've been in Congress for how many years now?
Harold Ford Jr.: I'm 34, been here 8 years.
Tavis: And they still call him one of the rising stars of the Party. Nice to see you Congressman. And Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, on this program before as well, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. I suspect we'll be talking a lot about intelligence and terrorism and security between now and November, just as we have here all this week. Congresswoman, it's nice to see you.
Ellen Tauscher: Thank you Tavis.
Tavis: So Harold Ford, you need to tell me whether or not the Democrats hit it out of the park this week, first base, second base, over the fence?
Ford: Republicans will say we hit a double, which means we won. I'll say the facts will show we hit home runs Monday night with Bill Clinton, Tuesday night with Barak Obama, Wednesday night with John Edwards, and our clean-up hitter came and drove everybody in. He laid out the specifics as to how he'd make America better and stronger, how he'd reduce our presence overseas without reducing our security or making us strong abroad. And I think he made Americans feel good that he understands the challenges and plight of every American family, be it a family in the South, North, East or West. And that he and John Edwards are committed not only to providing rhetoric to the idea of improving America, but creating policies that don't cripple teachers, don't cripple communities, don't cripple hospitals, but actually enable them to do their jobs. This is good week for Democrats, and we've now got to carry this message across the country.
Tavis: Congresswoman Tauscher, you know a lot more than I do, obviously, about these intelligence issues and these security issues. Earlier in this week, we had Senator Joe Biden, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on this program. We had a fascinating conversation about intelligence and about security, clearly a big issue around these parts this week. Clearly, John Kerry spent a great deal of time talking about national security in his speech last night. Since you know more than I know, and knowing what you know, are you confident in this guy Kerry as the leader of our country on issues of intelligence and security and terrorism et cetera?
Tauscher: I'm absolutely confident. As I said Thursday at the convention, John Kerry is of a pedigree, and of a seriousness, and of a lifetime of public service, including volunteering to go to Vietnam in a leadership position, surrounded by veterans. This is a man who understands the very threatening asymmetrical world we live in, how we have to step up in a very different way, how we need to reorganize the government, reorganize the Congress. The 9/11 Commission Report that just came out wouldn't be sitting gathering dust as it is with this administration. It would have been implemented during the hearings that they had just a few months ago. We've now been called back to the House of Representatives during the August work period in our Districts to have hearings on the Armed Services Committee about things that we've known for almost three years. We know that we have a very difficult enemy. We know that it is growing. We know that we have not made ourselves safer at home, nor have we made ourselves and our friends safer around the world. John Kerry's committed to a strong military, and he's committed to a bigger volunteer military and he's committed to make sure that we have friends that are going to help us.
Tavis: When you all get back in that session, what's going to happen ultimately with this 9/11 Commission Report?
Tauscher: My prediction is that the White House is busily right now tearing pages out of the 9/11 Commission Report trying to figure out how to write it up as an executive order. The President's going to implement a few things in the next three or four days to take everybody's eye off the ball, and this huge success of our convention. Things that could have been done and should have been done over the last three years--
Tavis: Three years ago?
Tauscher: --three years, and the anniversary of September 11, as we know, is a month away. So I think that we're going to have 'show' hearings, because that's what we do in the House of Representatives. We're going to have to sit and talk about things. A couple of things are going to get studied, and frankly it's unambiguous what our agenda has to be. We need to be safer at home. We need to have a Director of National Intelligence. Jane Harman, our colleague in the House, Senator Dianne Feinstein, two Democrats, have been calling for this for over a year. But the Republican-led administration and the Republican-led Congress has done nothing.
Ford: One other note, John Edwards offered this idea a year before the 9/11, before we were attacked on September the 11th, as well as Joe Liebermann. So you've had Democrats, because some in America believe that this Party is not equipped and ready to make America safe and strong at home and abroad. Frankly, our Party has furnished most of the national security ideas that this administration had advanced, including the creation of the Homeland Security Department, which was a Democratic idea offered by Joe Liebermann.
Tavis: If this campaign is going to turn on two issues Congressman, it's going to turn on the issue of the war, Iraq, which we've just been discussing now. But it's also going to turn obviously, on the economy. Did you all make the case this week on the economy for how and why Kerry/Edwards can do better than Bush/Cheney?
Ford: I think if you listened to John Kerry last night, he outlined ways in which we could stimulate job growth, continuous since they restored the prosperity of the nation enjoyed several years ago. Doing it by cutting taxes in the right way. Doing it by making smart investments in science and technology. Miss Tauscher, who came from Wall Street before coming to Congress, knows the advantage and benefit that years of investment and science and technology and medicine, the kind of yield it's had for our economy and the production of jobs and increases in productivity. We've lost that edge over the last three years. The dearth of engineers and mathematicians and scientists who are coming, graduating from American universities, Americans that may be, is not as high as it should be. And frankly, the debate in this country is (inaudible) outsourcing and all types of things when, in fact, if America's going to compete and win in this new marketplace, we have to train and educate and prepare our workforce for the challenges that await them in the world marketplace. And John Kerry spoke to that last night. George Bush has had three years to address this issue, and he's not. His one claim to fame is the No Child Left Behind Act, which he's funded at a little less than half of what he promised, which has made it impossible for states and local governments to live up to it, and, as a matter of fact, some states and local governments have had to raise college tuition and property taxes, just to try to meet these federal mandates we've imposed on them. John Kerry would change that, and that's one of the things I found most gratifying about his remarks.
Tavis: Congresswoman Tauscher, I asked this question, I believe, last night on this program, of two persons who happened not to be members of Congress. Let me ask this question now of two members of Congress. Clearly John Kerry and John Edwards connected in this Hall. They connected in the Hall. Did they connect with the American voter? Did the convention do, did Kerry/Edwards do what they wanted to do to speak to that 10 percent of undecided voters, since the rest of us know where we're going come November?
Tauscher: Well, I use my Mother as an example. She's my 'canary in the coal mine' and my Mom, who is not as political as my Dad is, but certainly listened very intently to be sold, and she believed that John Edwards delivered the other night, a very compassionate speech, one that spoke to her about the two Americas that she's really afraid of. My parents are blessed. We've all done well, and we're going to take care of them, and they've done well and worked hard all their lives. But they have friends that can't pay for their prescription drugs. And are trying to understand how to stay healthy when they're not wealthy. I talked to her about Senator Kerry's speech. She was blown away with Senator Kerry's speech. That's not a John Kerry she'd seen before, a man of humility and of strength at the same time. His tinsel strength, I think, is at its highest right now. And what he's showing to the American people and what people will see frankly, in the next month or so. On September 30th, people are going to open up their 401K statements. Everyone is going to get one whether they had activity in their account or not. And it's going to be bleeding red ink. It's going to have all little minus signs on it. The stock market is jittery because they see that there is change coming in this country. I think that there is a lot about average Americans who have lived over the last three years without pay raises, refinancing their houses four or five times, taking too much equity out, and they know that they haven't won with this administration. And they want change, and I think that's what John Kerry promised to deliver and did so sincerely.
Tavis: This convention as you know, Congressman Ford, was the most diverse convention ever in Democratic history and more people of color at this convention than ever before. Did Kerry/Edwards connect with voters of color this week?
Ford: I think they did and will continue to. I think calling for different strategy in Iraq after our successful effort finding Sadam Hussein helped the Black Americans as much as any. When you consider we're spending six billion dollars a month almost in Iraq, if we could actually attract and bring other members of the world community, including China and Russia, to the table to devote troops and resources, that would free up resources here in America to do a variety of things. If we had a President in office, as I said a few seconds ago, that would actually fund a No Child Left Behind Act, imagine the pressure that takes off school districts and mayors across the country who are struggling with raising property taxes and other fees to meet the needs of their communities. Frankly, when healthcare, when healthcare crisis effects America or afflicts America, the community that's hit the hardest and the fastest are generally Blacks and Latinos in this country. So when he speaks as he did the other night, John Kerry, about healthcare and education, he's talking right to Black Americans. And when John Edwards said so well, my grandmother, I mean, my mother, enjoyed it as well. He said, hope is on the way. If your spouse is in the National Guard and was told they'd be there a year and just had their term extended six months, hope is on the way. It resonated with people. Now, we have the task of taking this message across the country, because the Republicans are going to be very vicious and fierce in their actions and their campaigning. We have to match it.
Tavis: We have about 20 seconds left Congresswoman. I'll give you the last word here. What do you expect from the Republicans now that you all are done here in Boston? What are we going to get in New York City?
Tauscher: Well, you know, it's going to be spin, and there used to be an old line from the 'X Files,' connive, envagel, and deceive, and I think we're going to see a lot of that. And, frankly, their record and their rhetoric don't match. They're going to have to talk fast, and their going to have to talk a lot to kind of get over what average Americans know. We need change in this country.
Ford: Hope is on the way.
Tavis: Hope is on the way, that's why I love Ellen Tauscher, quoting the 'X Files.' Congresswoman, nice to see you. Harold, nice to see you as well.
Ford: I'll quote ‘Biggie' next time.
Tavis: All right. Nice to see you.
Tauscher: Thank you so much.
Tavis: Peter Jennings, nice to see you.
Peter Jennings: Nice to see you again.
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