Hi. I have to say this is the best interview or speech of Dennis Kucinich I've ever heard. The most comprehensive, as well. It's great to hear compassionate and insightful musings, absent the often angry tone and demands. An outstanding read. Below is part 1 of the interview. Tomorrow, I'll send you part two: On the Violent Society, and the Culture of Peace Ed http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/28/dennis_kucinich_on_the_fiscal_cliff Dennis Kucinich on the "Fiscal Cliff": Why Are We Sacrificing American Jobs for Corporate Profits? and Much More. Democracy Now: 12/28/2012
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: President Obama is set to meet today with congressional leaders at the White House just three day before a year-end deadline to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. Obama and congressional Republicans remain at an impasse over the Republicans refusal to allow tax hikes, even for the wealthiest Americans. If an agreement is not reached in time, $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases will go into effect on January 1. But the tax increases would not necessarily be permanent. The new Congress could pass legislation to cancel them retroactively after it begins its work next year. AMY GOODMAN: While the so-called fiscal cliff has dominated the news headlines, the Senate is also preparing to vote today to continue a controversial domestic surveillance program. In a blow to civil liberties advocates, the Senate rejected three attempts Thursday to add oversight and privacy safeguards to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Joining us from Washington is Democratic Congress member Dennis Kucinich. This is his last week in Congress after serving eight terms. Since 1997, Kucinich has been a leading progressive voice on Capitol Hill, introduced articles of impeachment against George W. Bush for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He voted against the PATRIOT Act and advocated for ending the war on drugs. Dennis Kucinich ran for president in 2004 and 2008, vowing to create a Department of Peace. Hes also former mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. Congress member Kucinich, welcome back to Democracy Now! REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Thank you, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: Your term would be over, except youve been called back on Sunday, is that right, the House, to deal with the so-called fiscal cliff? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, Ive been in Washington waiting to see if Congress would be called back into session, as it should be. And there really is no reason, no legitimate reason, why the country should be facing serious tax increases for middle class and also spending cuts that will further slow down the economy. You know, Amy, weve made all the wrong choices. We should be talking about jobs, having more people involved in paying taxes. We should be talking about rebuilding Americas infrastructure. China has gone ahead with high-speed trains and massive investment in their infrastructure. Instead, were back to the same old arguments about taxes and spending without really looking at what were spending. We just passed the National Defense Authorization Act the other day, another $560 billion just for one year for the war machine. And so, were focused on whether or not were going to cut domestic programs now? Are you kidding me? JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Congressman, the recent election was seen by many as a mandate from the electorate to finally begin to tax the wealthiest Americans to deal with some of the deficit. Your sense of whether President Obama and your fellow Democrats in the Senate and the House will stay the course on this or will eventually compromise in a way that many progressives would regret? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, first of all, we have a divided government. President Obamas election sends one message; the election of a Republican House of Representatives sends another. They're actually working at odds here. You have Republicans who will not raise taxes for anyone whos making more than a quarter million a year, and theyre looking at entitlement cuts. You have Democrats who say, lets have any tax cuts that come up for those who make under $250,000 and no cuts to entitlements. You have a force here that isnt movable right now. Again, I want to say that weve been going in the wrong direction. Why havent we been talking about stimulating the economy through the creation of jobs? Weve seemed to accept a certain amount of unemployment as being necessary for the proper functioning of the economy, so that for corporations it will keep wages low. That is baloney. Were creating our own economic vice that is entrapping tens of millions of Americans, and I just find it unacceptable. Its like this whole fiscal cliff thing is a creation of people who are unimaginative and locked in by special interests. AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Kucinich, the issue of Medicare and Social Security, what it means for President Obama to so-called compromise on these issues, can you talk about this? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, theres no reason whatsoever to bring Social Security into this discussion. And the fact that the White House has done it on numerous occasions should give everyone pause for concern. If Social Security has a problem down the roadyou raise the caps on the income thats accessible to Social Security. But you dont talk about cutting benefits. You dont talk about cutting cost-of-living increases through this chained CPI, which is just a way to force seniors into a lower standard of living over the long haul. We need the White House to stand up for Social Security and Medicare. And, you know, unfortunately, were looking at a situation where, because Republicans want entitlements, you know, as they like to call it, in the mix on any budget discussions, the White House has yielded. Now, that may not happen in these negotiations in the next couple days, but you have to watch whats happening in the 113th Congress. So, we really have to decide who we are as a nation. Were spending more and more money for wars. Were spending more and more money for interventions abroad. Were spending more and more money for military buildups. And we seem to be prepared to spend less and less on domestic programs and on job creation. This whole idea of a debt-based economic system is linked to a war machine. And its linked to Wall Streets concerns rather than Main Streets concerns. We need to shift that. We need to get governmentgive government back the ability to create jobs. Private sector is not doing it. AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about <http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/14/dean_baker_the_biggest_myth_in> Dean Baker, the economists comments, we had on a few weeks ago. He said this whole fiscal cliff issue is way overblown, that come January 1st, yes, well be subject to higher tax withholding rates, but not a lot of people are paid on January 1st. "If theres a deal worked out somewhere in the first, second week of January," he said, "well probably never [see anything] extra deducted from our paycheck, and even if we do, [well] get it back in the second paycheck." Whats your response to that, Congress member Kucinich? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, Dean Baker is right, as he often is about these things, but lets be clear about one thing. If the White House understands one thing, its behavioral economics. Theyve basically cut their teeth on behavioral economics in coming in and trying to induce people to believe that things are better than they are, when theyre not. This whole fiscal cliff discussion, while it might have its imaginary dimensions, does have a real effect. Youre already seeing a decline in consumer confidence, in investor confidence, that there is going to be a slowdown in the economy. Now, it is true that the country can cobble together a deal in the new year, but in the meantime, there will be a lag in which youll see an economy thats already weak further weaken. But I just want to go back to something, Amy. We have to start creating jobs. This debt-based economic system, where were having thethe next discussion is, were at $16.4 trillion, and so are we going to go not only over the cliff, but are we going to go into default? Wrong discussion. Why arent we creating jobs using the governments inherent power under Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, so that we spend money to rebuild the infrastructure, put millions of people back to work. You create new taxpayers. You dont have to worry so much then about unemployment benefits, which are due to expire, that we have to worry about if youre not creating jobs. Its the wrong discussion were having. And so, I think that as we look into the new year, weve got a couple things going here. Theres a decreasing confidence in government. This isnt about Democrats or Republicans anymore. Its about the failure of the government to respond to the practical aspirations of people for jobs, for housing, for healthcare, for retirement security, and for the education of their children. And were still there. Yet we still are pursuing wars abroad. We still are doing military buildups. And this is the direction America is going in, and its the wrong direction. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Congressman, I want to ask you, your colleagues, your Republican colleagues in the House, obviously have a different perspective. Speaking on Fox News, Republican Congressmember Mike Mulvaney of South Carolina blamed the Democratic-led Senate for the impasse in the negotiations on the so-called fiscal cliff. This is what he had to say. REP. MICHAEL MULVANEY: The House has actually extended these tax rates for everybody in the entire country, which is exactly the correct policy, as we see it. We sent it to the Senate; the Senate has simply refused to take it up. The Senate could fix this today, if they wanted to. I understand that while Harry Reid is in the well today in the Senate complaining about Mr. Boehner, he has not scheduled a debate today on the fiscal cliff, which is just absurd. So, if theres one message to go out there, its that the House has actually done its job, and the Senate could fix this today if they wanted to. AMY GOODMAN: That was Mike Mulvaney of South Carolina. Your response, Congressman Kucinich? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, it has to be translated. You know, what the Republicans want to advocate is a continuation of the Bush tax cuts, which, as everyone knows, added a trillion dollars to the deficit by helping to accelerateand helped to accelerate the wealth of America upwards. We cant do that anymore, although were seeing that some elements of the Bush tax cuts are remaining, you know, depending on the income distribution, for those who are in the middle class. But, you know, how is it we can be talking about tax cuts at the same time we have this massive deficit? You know, were getting the American people to believe that we can cut taxes, increase military spending, and balance the budget. Thats kind of what they talked about during the Reagan administration and ended up with a huge hidden deficits, beginning to balloon once new administrations came in. We have to change our economy. We have to emphasize job creation, and then investors can come back in, and then you can start to see consumer confidence building. But right now were limping as a nation. And our politics are being translated into some kind of Punch and Judy show between Democrats and Republicans. We dont need that; its irrelevant. Weve got to solve the real problems of people. Weve got to help keep people in their homes. We have to do everything we can to get not only the unemployment benefits passed, but get the people back to work. Why arent we emphasizing that? And this is why this whole debate about a fiscal cliff, as Dean Baker said, has elements of it that are chimerical. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Congressman, in your prior response, you linked the whole issue of the continuation of the war machine to the battles at home over domestic spending. Could you talk about your efforts, together with Congressman Ron Paul, to demand an inquiry into the justification for drone attacks? REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, absolutely. You know, this whole idea of drone wars being proliferated across the world, without Congress having anything to say about it, without any accountability whatsoever, is against the Constitution of the United States, and its against international law. If any other nation sent a drone over the United States, they would have hell to pay, because wed see it as an act of war. Yet were increasingly committing acts of war against other nationsYemen most recentlyand we arewere not seeing any accountability at all. And Congress does have a role to play here, both on the budget side and constitutionally. So were just trying to get the administration involved in giving information to Congress so we can see the extent of the exposure that the American people have to this proliferation of war. And as news articles have written, and Glenn Greenwald wrote about this yesterday, were actually strengthening al-Qaedas hand with these attacks. Were making it more difficult to meet the challenge of terrorism by creating more terrorists. I mean, what is this about? Were increasingly dysfunctional as a nation because of our unwillingness to challenge the military-industrial complex, which Dwight Eisenhower warned about generations ago. And so, we really have to look at Americas role in the world. We have a right to defend ourselves, but we have no right to aggress. And were continuing to aggress. And thats coming at a cost to our domestic priorities here, this idea of guns and butter. We are now thoroughly mired in an economy thats based on guns. We are not providing for the practical needs of the American people. And this budget and this fiscal cliff does in no way get into that debate. AMY GOODMAN: We want to ask you about another bill, the FISA bill, but were going to go to break and then come back to Democratic Congressmember Dennis Kucinich, who served eight terms in Congress. This is his last week as a member of Congress. This is Democracy Now! Back in a moment. _____ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.2805 / Virus Database: 2637/5975 - Release Date: 12/20/12 Internal Virus Database is out of date. 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