Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields

House Speaker Hastert Discusses Bush Tax Cut, Bipartisanship

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ANNOUNCER: From Washington, EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS. Now, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak.

ROWLAND EVANS, CO-HOST: I'm Rowland Evans. Robert Novak and I will question the top Republican in the House of Representatives.

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: He is Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois.

Mr. Speaker, the Democrats in the House are very bitter that you rushed through the tax rate reductions without a budget for the next year and without formal hearings by the Ways and Means Committee. Since the Senate will not take this matter up until May at the very earliest, what was the rush?

J. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), HOUSE SPEAKER: Well, I think it's important, first of all, to start to roll out this tax bill so people understand what it's all about. If you wait for the last 10 minutes of the session and when you can move this and talk about $1.6 trillion, people really don't understand what this does for them. I want to roll this bill out a piece at a time so people understand what the policy is. And on the fact on the retroactive tax part -- cut that is in this bill that we passed yesterday is covered by last year's budget.

We put in 90 percent of the surplus that was in social security and Medicare surplus to pay down the debt 10 percent for tax relief. We passed some tax relief last year, but you know President Clinton vetoed it. The American people still deserve tax relief, and we're giving it to them.

NOVAK: Mr. Speaker, you say you're going to put out this tax program a piece at a time. I understand that there is absolutely nothing in the legislative pipeline on other committees for the next month for the House of Representatives. Do you think you're going to try to bring up some part of the president's tax program over this next month to try to get more of it rolled out?

HASTERT: Well, as -- when you get going in every congress, it takes a little while for things to start to develop to pass the bills through the committee to have the hearings. But we will move several more pieces out, I predict, in the next month. We'll also do some other things. We're working on education. We'll have probably a patient bill of rights out on the floor during that period of time. NOVAK: Can you say which pieces you will roll out in the next month?

HASTERT: Well, there's about five pieces out there. This across-the-board cut was the most important piece. The second piece that we have to look at, and the third and fourth and fifth pieces, certainly will be the child tax credit going from $500 per child to $1,000 per child. We're also going to look at the marriage penalty and $1,400 extra for people that are married rather than staying single. That's a fairness issue. We're going to look at the death penalty and so that people can pass their small farms and family businesses onto the next generation.

So those are all be pieces that we will be moving out. Also, some other thing on pensions that allow people to save for their retirement. Those will all be in that. I can't tell you what the next bill out would be.

EVANS: Mr. Speaker, you made a provocative statement in the Florida House just before passage of the tax bill this past week. I want you to try to explain it to me. You said, "I know that many of you," and I believe you were talking to the Democrats, "really want to be for tax relief, but for political reasons you're now opposed to it." That's kind of an undermining slug at the Democrats.

HASTERT: Well, yeah, that's an appeal to real people. People get elected. They want to do some things. They want to do things for their constituencies. There's a lot of Democrats as well as Republicans that really believe that the tax cuts are right, that we ought to do it, it's great to do for the economy, and when you have a surplus you ought to bring some of those to the people who made that money in the first place, put it in peoples' pockets. But, you know, there's been a lot of pressure to stop the Bush tax bill, to -- if it's not -- this whole idea of bipartisanship - if you don't think exactly like we do, then you're not being bipartisan. So, some of them were stopped from voting on it.

EVANS: Sir, you mean they wanted to kill a bill because it would make the president look bad?

HASTERT: Well, I'm saying that they want to stop that program. They don't believe in tax cuts.

EVANS: No.

NOVAK: Now, Mr. Speaker, in answering my partner's question about what comes next, you did not even mention the capital gains tax. I just want to ask you, your colleague over in the Senate, Senator Trent Lott, the Republican leader, is committed to reducing capital gains tax. Are you going to help him?

HASTERT: Yeah. I think we can do that, but we just need to be careful how many pieces. And the -- they're going to have a little bit different bill in the senate. They'll do it a little different way because the senate rules have one bill. And we'll have to look at that and we'll put both those bills together at the end. EVANS: So, you're saying there's a good chance it will be -- a good chance?

HASTERT: Very good chance.

EVANS: Thank you sir.

NOVAK: Speaker, right after the president made his speech to the Joint Session of Congress you made a statement that chalked a lot of people, and I'd like to play that statement right now.

HASTERT: Sure.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

HASTERT: There are some people who would just have it politically convenient to have a recession because that means that they will have a political advantage. We're not going to let that happen. And by moving that tax cut early and having it in time to kick this economy and kick it up and get it going, we're going to prevent that from happening.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

NOVAK: Mr. Speaker, are you really saying that you think your colleagues in the House of Representatives want to invoke a recession to make George W. Bush look bad?

HASTERT: Well, I think if you listen to the rest of that, and maybe it was a follow-up on that, I think that there's some pundits, I think there's some strategists -- political strategists on the other side that think that they would have an advantage in the 2002 election if there was a recession and there wasn't a successful pulling out of that, especially with house elections. So, I think it's -- my point was it's important to move forward, it's important to get our agenda done, and it's important to try to get some medicine into the sick patient, which happens to be the economy at this time so we get it well.

NOVAK: Isn't it true though, sir, that most economists believe that this tax cut will have very little stimulative effect on the economy for the year 2001?

HASTERT: Well, they'll tell you the longer that we wait the longer it will to see the economy turn around. And there's two sides to this, both fiscal and monetary policies. So, we have to make sure that interest rates are low and we also have to make sure that we do the tax cuts that give money back to people so they make some decisions. But you got to start and we got to start now.

EVANS: Do you acknowledge surprise and consternation at the fact that only 10 Democrats switched over to vote for the tax cut?

HASTERT: Well, we have thought all along it would be maybe from two to eight, so we were happy to get 10. There was a very, very strong effort put on to stop the Democrats from voting for this bill. Some were threatened to not getting any projects in the appropriation process and on and on and on. So, there was a strong lobbying effort by Democratic leadership not to have people vote on this.

EVANS: All right, now last year the house passed by a 65 vote margin the death tax repeal. Do you expect all the Democrats who supported President Clinton on that effort -- of course, not Clinton so much because Clinton vetoed the bill. But do you expect all those Democrats to support you when that bill comes up this year?

HASTERT: Well, I would think so. You have a hard time sometimes saying you're for something at one time and then against something the next time. So, they have a record on that and they may be able to explain why -- a way why they wouldn't want to do it. Some of them may have voted on it because they thought they're comfortable because the president - they thought the president would veto it but it would become law. But clearly, that's what the American people want and they need to listen to what their constituents say.

EVANS: Very good, Mr. Speaker. We have to take a brief break. And when we come back with Speaker Hastert, we're going to find out is he really bipartisan, or is he one of the more partisan speakers in our history, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, you have expressed a desire to close the partisan divide in the House of Representatives. In line with that, have you conferred this year more frequently with your democratic counterpart Richard Gephardt and -- than you had in the previous couple of years. And, specifically, how much have you met with Mr. Gephardt this year?

HASTERT: Well, we certainly have conferred more, and I've probably met almost a dozen times with him in different types of situations; sometimes just talking with him as we pass in the hallway or on the floor, but mostly in my office and a couple times in his office. So we have met, probably a dozen times.

NOVAK: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Gephardt said, after the House and the Senate repeal President Clinton's regulations on workplace rules, the so-called ergonomics rules, he said that was the end of bipartisanship, as far as we was concerned. Did he give you a warning that if you brought up the ergonomics rules, that this would kill bipartisanship.

HASTERT: He really never mentioned it, but I'll tell you, that's unfortunate, because I think that's a unilateral declaration, and I hope that we can sit down and continue our discussion, but yes, when it really comes to bipartisanship, that means being able to treat each other fairly and honestly,and look each other in the eye and say, you know, we're going to do this, and what's your reaction? -- to have honest and open debate, but it doesn't mean to cave in to one side to another. We still have an agenda. We still have President, that we need to move his programs forward, and we're not going to retreat on that. EVANS: Mr. Speaker, your majority leader, Dick Armey, had a very interesting conversation this past week, with Kweisi Mfume, the head of the NAACP, and that follows a rather sordid record, and one example of which, the NAACP tied George W. Bush directly to the killing of Mr. Byrd, down there in Oklahoma, I think it was Texas. Did he get any satisfaction? That is, did the Majority Leader get satisfaction from Kweisi Mfume?

HASTERT: I didn't really talk to Dick Armey after that discussion. We had a lot of things going on yesterday, obviously. But I think that was a positive step forward. Dick asked for that to happen. We need to have that dialogue. I met with Eddie Bernice Johnson, the head of the Congressional Black Caucus yesterday. We had a good discussion. And she told me there are some things that we think we should be able to work together, that there are some private- sector things that African Americans are interested in, and should work together. So I try to keep that dialogue open. We will continue to do that, and we want to find areas of common ground that we can -- could build that dialogue off of.

EVANS: Given the incredible reaction down in Florida, really spread over the whole country, Afro-Americans claiming they were denied the right to vote in the Florida Presidential election, do you think the Republican Party is going to be able, in any way, to close or narrow the gap that today gives the Democrats 90 percent of all votes.

HASTERT: Yes, or even, this election, probably more than 90 percent. We need to make the effort. We need to find common ground, and I think there is a lot of common ground. You know, last year, I worked with President Clinton to do the Urban Renewal bill. It was something that J.C. Watts had started to develop, along with Danny Davis and Bobby Rush, and some others, and enabled -- enabling to do that, you know, we put zero capital gains into black neighborhoods, so that there could be new development.

We put all lot of work on faith-based organizations, so that those local entities could start to help people that were drug addicts, or education issues, so we've done -- and I think, have a good record of starting that, but we need to continue it.

EVANS: Would you make any kind of a prediction to me on that, now? Looking ahead, looking ahead to 2002?

HASTERT: Right. We're going to make an effort, and I think we need to open the dialogue, and, you know, everybody works and has to live together in this country, and we need to work together as much as we can. We certainly can't be divided by racial issues.

NOVAK: Mr. Speaker, the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana, is moving forward with his investigation of the Clinton pardons. At a time that President Bush says we should move on to other matters, would you like Mr. Burton to discontinue that investigation.

HASTERT: You know, I haven't talked to Dan about that. I think Dan's gone through -- he's done his investigation, certainly unfettered, and I think, probably from my point of view, about all that information is going to come out, has come out. And there are other agencies and prosecutorial groups that are, could take over, if they wish, from that point on. But I think this is kind of winding down on its own.

NOVAK: Are you going to talk to him about this?

HASTERT: I haven't had any plans to. I think the eventually we'll probably have a discussion.

NOVAK: James Trafficant, the Democrat from Ohio who voted for you for Speaker, has been kicked out of the Democratic Caucus. Again, on Thursday, he voted for the Republican tax cut. He has no committee assignments. Are you going to do something for Jim Trafficant, to give him a committee assignment, even though he still calls himself an independent Democrat?

HASTERT: Yes, we'll give him a committee assignment.

EVANS: Mr. Speaker, on another question, with the Democrats, led by organized labor, apparently backing off campaign reform a little bit, do you think that kills campaign reform for this year?

HASTERT: No, I think it's alive, and certainly is going to be moving in the Senate, first. They've set aside time to do it. All that I ask is that whatever happens, it's not a unilateral retreat by one group or another, that campaign reform, whatever the rules are, that everybody lives by the same rules.

EVANS: But you admit the Democrats have backed off a little bit?

HASTERT: Well, the have, because they've raised more soft money than anybody.

EVANS: Last question, Mr. Speaker, on a totally different issue. Do you -- that shooting in Santee school, out in California, was a terrible event. You've never been pro gun control. Did that shooting change your mind one bit on the question of gun control?

HASTERT: Well, you know, obviously, the kid shouldn't have had a gun.

EVANS: It was his father's gun.

HASTERT: His father's gun, and we don't know whether it was locked away and the kid stole it, or what happened. But, you know, what we need to do, is to put better controls on how we prosecute gun laws in this country. I really believe that. We've saw that happen in Richmond, Virginia, where gun deaths went down were prosecutions went up. And we need to do a better job.

EVANS: We're going to take another break, Mr. Speaker, and when we come back with Speaker Hastert, we'll have "The Big Question," in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

EVANS: "The Big Question" for Speaker Dennis Hastert, particularly in view of the fact that you're number two in succession to the throne, here, in the White House, do you think Vice President Dick Cheney, in view of his hear problems, should reduce his work load just a little bit?

HASTERT: I think, certainly, he needs to do what his doctors tell him to do. But, I think his doctors said, you go forward and do what you're doing. And, you know, that situation was with stent that didn't work the way it was supposed to, and they repaired it, and he should be able to go -- has a fine blood supply to his heart, and I think he is unfettered in what he should do.

NOVAK: Mr. Speaker, the Constitution of the United States says the Vice President, as the President of the Senate -- says nothing about the House of Representatives -- you have given Mr. Cheney an office in the House. Is he helping you make House strategy, helping you get votes, helping you count heads?

HASTERT: No, but I just think it's obvious that Mr. Cheney's going to be in the Congress a lot more that probably any other Vice President in recent history. He needs to have a place to have some meetings, to work with people, and just a place to get away a little bit. The place over in the Senate is very nice, but it's ornate, and it's right in the middle of everything. And we thought it was appropriate to do that.

NOVAK: Speaker Hastert, thank you very much.

HASTERT: My pleasure, great to be with you, Rowland, nice to be with you.

EVANS: Good to see you, sir; thanks for coming.

NOVAK: My partner and I will be back with a comment, after these messages.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

EVANS: Well Bob, we got the schedule for the next 100 days in the House of Representatives from the speaker: it's going to be taxes, taxes, taxes and more taxes. Marriage penalty, death taxes and, believe it or not, even a reduction, possibly, in the capital gains tax. That's what he told us.

NOVAK: Speaker Hastert has sent a message to Dick Gephardt he says please don't say that bipartisanship is over. I still want to talk to you even though we forced through a change in the work rules. But believe me, the idea of bipartisanship between Dennis Hastert and Dick Gephardt -- the difference -- a great difference on how they look at it.

EVANS: And Bob, you know that little meeting between the majority leader, Mr. Dick Armey and Kweisi Mfume, the head of the NAACP, here on the Hill last week, this past week to try to get the Republicans deeper into the heartland of the black community could have some real repercussions in the next two years.

NOVAK: Dennis Hastert is a -- considered a softer figure than Newt Gingrich, but he is pretty tough. He pulls out -- he pushes hard for the conservative agenda. He doesn't want Dan Burton to continue with the pardon hearings. He's a pretty tough guy beneath the soft exterior.

I'm Robert Novak.

EVANS: I'm Rowland Evans.

NOVAK: Coming up in one-half-hour on "RELIABLE SOURCES," are the media addicted to former President Clinton? And at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, the "CAPITAL GANG" talks New York politics with Republican Congressman Peter King and Media Mogul Michael Bloomberg.

EVANS: And that's all for now. Thanks for joining us.

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