E-mail a friendRep. Marsha Blackburn
airdate March 9, 2009
Elected in '02, Rep. Marsha Blackburn is the first female in Tennessee elected in her own right to the House. The conservative legislator began her political career in '77 as a founding member of the Williamson County Young Republicans and was elected state senator in '98. She also founded the Congressional Songwriters Caucus, which focuses on the protection of intellectual property. Blackburn is a Mississippi State grad and a small business owner. Her committee assignments include the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Tennessee congresswoman explains why the GOP is being the loyal opposition and not obstructionists. (2:23)
Full interview. (11:05)
Rep. Marsha Blackburn
Tavis: As the political debate over the president's stimulus package continues in Washington, there is growing public concern about the use of taxpayer dollars for failing banks and other U.S. companies. For more on this tonight I'm joined by Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, the four-term Republican from Tennessee.
She's a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She joins us tonight from Washington. Congresswoman, nice to have you on the program.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn: So good to be with you, thank you.
Tavis: Let me start by asking your take on what became big news this weekend. Two of your fellow GOPers on the Senate side - that would be John McCain of Arizona, Richard Shelby of Alabama - both made news, basically saying let the banks fail. Your thoughts?
Blackburn: Well, what we are beginning to hear from so many of our constituents, you've got the Wall Street issue with the big banks and then you've got community banks and regional banks that are in great shape and that are working their way through this, and here's a great example of this.
In Tennessee, we've got 181 commercial banks and nine of those took TARP funds and the others did not. So what we are hearing from our constituents is look, we had pre-TARP, that was $323 billion; we had $700 billion in TARP, we had $1 trillion in the stimulus package, then we've got an omnibus that is $410 billion, and then here came a $3.55 trillion budget. Where's this money coming from and when is all this going to end?
If companies are too big to fail, then who is going to start deciding that and start putting money into those? Where are we going to draw a line? Maybe if people are in distress, maybe if some of these companies are in distress, if some of these companies are in distress, maybe we need to let the market work in those instances.
And I think that when you're referring to Senator McCain and Senator Shelby, in large part, that is what they're hearing and that is what they're articulating.
Tavis: Is that your point of view, if they fail, they fail?
Blackburn: I think that we need to let the market work here. I think that whether you go back to last March - see, we've been at this now for a year, because last March when you had Bear Stearns and Fannie and Freddie and Indy and AIG, you go back then to working through these problems and you have to say, when is a company too big to fail?
When you look at the investment banks, the nine banks that took the first part of TARP, those investment banks at $350 billion, Tavis, most of us, and even those banks, can't tell you exactly how they spent that money.
Now, we do know that one of the banks that was the recipient of funds spent $6 billion with the Industrial Bank of China, but we have to look at this and say is that the appropriate use of taxpayer money? Taxpayer money, which is hard-earned money and is going to be even harder to earn as we move forward.
Tavis: But it's easy to vote against Obama's - President Obama's stimulus package, but it is true, and you'll recall this, it was your party, your former president, George Bush, your former secretary, Henry Paulson, they started this. This was their idea, to give the banks these monies and not have rules about them reporting back to you about how the money was spent. Didn't this start on a Republican watch?
Blackburn: It did indeed start on a Republican watch, and I was a no vote. And you can go back - it was a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, it was the Frank Dodd bill, and Secretary Paulson, it was supported by the president. I was a no vote on that because I felt like there was a better way to do that.
And you know what is so interesting now, what we are hearing from some of the economists now was the ideas that some of us in the Republican Party brought forward at that point in time, that let's let the federal government be the insurer of last resort rather than the resource of first resort. Let's have these banks that have toxic assets actually bundle their own toxic assets and then have the federal government reinsure those. But that way, the bank is responsible to their shareholders. Tavis, that's the way that it ought to be working.
Tavis: How do you justify to your constituents in your district in Tennessee - and because you are a national player, it's not really just your district. You're part of a Tennessee delegation, so your state - I was just in Memphis literally 48 hours ago and I know that's not your district, but there are parts of your state that are hurting, and people watching this right now are feeling this dour economy.
So how do you justify to your constituents in your district, and voters more broadly in Tennessee, your voting against the stimulus package, which might have brought money to the state of Tennessee.
Blackburn: Right, and I do have part of Memphis and Shelby County in my congressional district, and I was there about 48 hours ago also, so -
Tavis: (Laughs) Fair enough, fair enough.
Blackburn: Right. And this is how - and my constituents have overwhelmingly been supportive of my no vote on the stimulus, on the omnibus, because this is what they're looking at. They'll say, "First of all, where is the money going to come from?" It's going to come out of their pocket, and those are hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
They are not the federal government dollars. And what is the appropriate use for those dollars? And as we are looking forward to the budget, they're saying you have got to start with the federal government making priorities.
And Tavis, a budget document should reflect the priorities of the federal government and of the people that send us here. And one of the concerns of my constituents is that we are spending too much, that government is not going to be the only solution on this. That what we have to do is realize government has caused part of the problems on this, and the private sector can help work us through this.
And what we have to do is to continue to bring forward ideas on a different way to go about this. You can spend money by growing government programs, or you can spend money by allowing taxpayers to keep their money in their pocket and never bringing that money to Washington in the first place and deal with the slowdown on the economy on the Main Street level.
Tavis: How do you respond, Congresswoman, to those who would say to your suggestion now that we tried that for eight years? For eight years, we gave tax breaks to the rich and the lucky, and that's how we got here. Clearly, eight years of tax breaks isn't the answer.
Blackburn: Well, what you have to also have - tax reductions and tax incentives are a great way to grow new small businesses, and we know that. What we also have to do is have the federal government spend less and prioritize where it is going to spend.
Every year, I file three bills. One is a 1 percent across-the-board reduction in federal government spending, one is a 2 percent, and the third one is a 5 percent across-the-board spending reduction. Now Tavis, I think I am at an all-time high on co-sponsors for this bill - for these three bills. I've got about 38 co-sponsors on those spending reductions.
But that is where it's got to start, and that means we have to make some hard decisions. We have to look at programs that have outlived their usefulness. We have to be good stewards of these dollars, because they're not the federal government's dollars. These are the dollars of the men and women that live in our districts that we represent.
Tavis: I don't think anybody, Congresswoman, would argue you on the notion that our money ought to be spent well and that those who we send to Washington, including you and the president and others, ought to be good stewards of our money.
I guess here's the exit question for me. You've explained your vote; you've explained yourself clearly in this conversation. The larger question I want to close on is this: How does your party, the Republican Party, position itself as the loyal opposition to the president - nothing wrong with that; nothing wrong with people having different views in Washington - how do you position yourself properly as the loyal opposition on these spending issues and not as obstructionist?
Blackburn: And that is a great question, and Tavis, I wish every individual in this country would ask themselves that question and then would turn to us and say, "Tell us what you're going to do. What are your ideas?
And I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about some of our ideas, because whether it was pre-TARP or TARP or the stimulus bill or the omnibus, we have had a different way of going about that and have put ideas on the table and have said, well, these are ways that we can address it - through a group of spending reductions, regulatory relief, leaving money with the taxpayer, making certain that the federal government makes choices and priorities in order to address what the federal government spends and does that wisely, requires performance and outcome from the dollars that we spend.
Because we know America is hurting, we know that we are in a recession. Our constituents know that you cannot spend your way to prosperity and that you cannot build prosperity on a foundation of debt. And men and women in our district are saying let's look at what is going to happen with future generations.
I have a 9-month-old grandchild. What kind of legacy am I leaving for that grandchild? Is it going to be - for our nation, is it going to be a legacy of strength and freedom, or is it going to be a legacy of defeat, of dependency?
So those are questions that I think so many men and women are asking now, and I appreciate that they are. Our challenge is going to be to bring forward workable solutions to these problems and to be bold, take action. Not sit around and talk about, but take some action and say, "Let's work together to solve these problems."
Tavis: We will continue to watch this, of course, in the coming days, weeks, and months as the White House and Republicans seem to battle, at least over these spending issues.
Honored to have on the program Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican out of Tennessee. Congresswoman, thanks for your insight. Glad to have you on.
Blackburn: Oh, so good to be with you. Thank you so much.
Tavis: My pleasure.
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