Senator Bob Bennett
16 February 2009
Provo Marriott, 10:30am-12:00pm
NOTE: This is a typed record of a meeting, not an actual transcript. I did my best to capture the intent when I couldn't get the exact words. I may have gotten a few things wrong, so don't take everything in here as a 100% pure representation. Hopefully it will still be useful in providing an overview of what came up and what was said on the topics presented. Assume quality goes down as the document progresses. The meeting went three hours... my fingers got tired.
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Devon: “There are a lot of old people here.”
Me: “Yeah, but don't say that too loud.”
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100+ people
10:34 AM - Start
I apologize for having to reschedule. Harry Reid changed the schedule to have the vote on Friday. I felt had to be in Washington to vote against the stimulus bill.
I get asked a lot: “Why did you vote for the first traunch of money for the financial rescue package?” Yes, I did. Yes I owe you an explanation.
Little history to understand background. Housing bubble was the cause. Human history = economic bubbles. Dutch thought the price of tulip bulbs would never come down. Tulips not indigenous to Holland. Price kept going up. People would mortgage the farm for tulip bulbs. Destroyed Dutch economy for about 100 years. Have been other bubbles. 1990s with dot-com stocks. Oil futures at $140/barrel. Housing did the same thing in the US. People got it in their minds that the price of a house would never go down. People got greedy. “I knew we were in trouble when my taxi driver told me he owned three houses.” Story related by a person in Europe?
Securitization – bundles of houses sold as securities. Liar loans – people lying about income and ability to repay. Sub-Prime lending – loans not as solid as they should be. Getting homes with nothing down. Ambassador from Germany almost in tears “The bank in my hometown is going bankrupt because of the housing market in America.” Had bought mortgages from the US. The securities were ranked AAA by Moody's. Confidence started to unravel.
Think of economy as engine. Doesn't work without lubricant. Credit is the lubricant of the modern economy. The thing that makes credit work is confidence. Banks started to say “I don't want to lend money, because I'm not sure it will be repaid.” Must write down all assets... may have “toxic assets” assigned to them.
First major challenge that hit: Bear Stearns. Invested heavily in sub-prime. Affected all other assets. First impulse was to let them go under. Started looking at connection → would trigger failures throughout whole system. Federal Reserve Board said “we will put some money into Bear Stearns.” Draconian conditions destroyed Bear Stearns as a firm. Sustained the system. Took all BS assets as collateral. On paper, govt would make money or at least get it back. It wasn't enough to stem the tide of the challenge of the sub-prime crisis. One after another started to fail.
Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail as a signal of our confidence that the rest of it was strong enough to survive. We'll let historians decide if that was the right decision. 15 Sept 2008. Bernanke was told there was a problem. His response “I have run out of tools.” “We have 4 days before the entire world credit system seizes up.” When the Fed Reserve says they have no tools left, they had to come to the US Treasury. How big? $500bil. Next morning, $700bil. Secty Paulson “I need complete authority to say I have $700bil from US Treasury.” Bennett talked to some economists who said you can't spend $700bil in that time frame. Fastest is $50bil/month. How about $250bil for 5 mos, then see if it works? We'll authorize $750bil, but we won't give it to you. We'll give you $350bil, but tell everyone you have access to $700bil. We're going to create reporting requirements, oversight, hedges around this so there is accountability.
Warrants. If the stock goes up after taxpayers put money in, the taxpayers get the benefit. Paulson wasn't happy about it, but went with it. Didn't pass the bill in 4 days, but got most of it written out in 4 days. Word spread around the world.
Now, a bit about politics. Nancy Pelosi knew the majority of Americans were against it, so she held back Democrat votes to force more Republicans to have to vote for it. Republicans didn't play that game, and it went down. The stock market lost $1.5tril in about 15 minutes on news that this was going to go down. Under the Constitution, spending bills must originate in the House. Harry Reid found a House spending bill that the Senate hadn't acted on and amended with this change, and sent it back to the House.
Looking back on it now, with the perspective of 4-5 months, it did what was intended and prevented a meltdown. Paulson didn't do everything he was supposed to do, maybe good reasons for that. The Treasury Dept was not as transparent as they were supposed to be. No illegalities, or improper, but not as forthcoming as they should have been. So, when they got the Obama request for the additional $350bil, crisis was over, and Treasury had not been forthright. Voted no on second $350bil.
Developed mentality that Treasury is open for looting. Auto companies came asking for money. Voted against it. Demise of Chrysler is not the same as meltdown of the entire economy. Democrats & Republicans said to CEOs “you're not telling us anything.”
With all of this, we also have the recession. Not the same thing as the confidence crisis. The recession is what we are going through as we adjust to the excesses of the housing crisis. People get laid off, less purchases at retail stores, cars, etc.
The stimulus bill in 2008, $160bil(?). Bennett's economists said “it won't do any harm. It may do some good, maybe not.” The $800bil bill may do significant harm. We didn't have the votes to stop it. How are we going to pay for it? Right now we don't have any difficulty paying for it because the world is in so much trouble. In UK housing loans were 130% of home value, interest only. “Tulip mentality” was worldwide.
There is an instinctive flock to the dollar. Not Russia or China. Want it in strongest, most resilient economy in the world. We are selling treasury bonds at an effective interest rate of virtually zero. 3.5% oversubscription on bonds. People are giving us money simply because they think it will be safer. May be true today, definitely not true long-term. We're going to be stuck with all these bonds. The potential for long-term inflation is frightening. Not to say I'm against all stimulus packages. Every Republican voted for the “fixing housing first” package.
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11:08 AM – Start of Q&A session. Q: indicates person and/or people asking the question. A: Indicates Senator Bennett. Sometimes there are some back-and-forth comments & discussion.
[Interjections in the course of the conversation back and forth are in brackets.]
(My comments are in parenthesis.)
Question: Why is the treasury going this direction? We are 3-4 years behind the rest of the world in dealing with this. It appears that people are calling our debt.
Answer: It's the other way around. People are giving us their money for nothing. People are saying “I want to give you $100.” “But I don't want it.” “I'll give it to you interest free.” “Well, okay.”
Q: In this so-called meltdown, how much was caused by the government pressuring banks to give loans to people who couldn't pay it back?
A: We'll never know the answer to that in concrete numbers. When I joined the banking committee, right after S&L crisis. They were beating bankers about the head and ears. “You're not lending enough money to the poor. Not fair. Only the rich can get loans, letting them get richer.” CRA = Community Reinvestment Act. Banks required to put so much money in risky loans. Banks responded, and started to make a lot more money. Higher risk = higher return / interest rate. Even Pres Clinton has admitted that the Clinton administration were pushing for these.
Q: What is your guess that it might be? Based on your background?
A: The number of sub-prime loans that were toxic to begin with is probably about 5%. However, if you own a package of mortgages, you don't know if your package is 5% bad, or 10% bad. That package is on your books as an asset. What is it worth? $100mil? How do you know? You can't loan money against an asset if it isn't worth that much.
Q: News articles. Why are some of the leadership in these banks still in and getting bonuses?
A: Enrages a lot of people. I don't like the idea of government taking over a business. We fired the leadership of Fannie & Freddie. We can't really prevent it with a private company. They way to prevent it is with outrage from you and me. The only way to control that is for the government to set wage caps. We don't want to be in that business.
Q: Possible solutions. Romney's suggestion of a tax cut on the middle class, those actually paying taxes. Capital gains reduction.
A: Not all tax cuts are created equal. Republicans say that intelligent tax cuts can solve this problem. Democrats' idea of tax cuts is to cut taxes for those not paying taxes. So they sent them a $600 check. Looking back, people didn't spend it. People didn't spend it, but paid down credit card bill instead. People are rational. The right kind of tax cut can be stimulative to the economy. I've run several small businesses, some into the ground, but I've run them. Key is ability to predict the future. Predictability is biggest challenge for entrepreneur. Every businessman/woman pays taxes. Obama's economic guru: “stimulus must be targeted, temporary, timely”. If you're an entrepreneur, temporary makes it unpredictable/unstable. If we're going to stimulate small businesses (where most jobs are created, not big business). They must be permanent, not temporary. THEN they will have a stimulative effect. Democrats give money to people who don't pay taxes and call it a tax cut. Last time they did it, it had no stimulative effect. It won't this time either.
Q: Reverse income tax. Refundable credits. Fraud. Is there anything to be done about it?
A: I don't think they are that serious, that they are bankrupting the whole system, but they're not helping. They way things are going, we're not going to be able to have that discussion. No one is going to talk about it. We hope Obama succeeds for the sake of the country. When they're ready to listen, I have some suggestions.
Q: Bond rating influenced by liquidity of the system. In this rating system, why have we not heard anything about the rating system of Moody's, S&P, etc.? Why isn't anyone putting their thumb on these rating companies? Secondly, why can't we as average taxpayers go somewhere in the world of technology, to find out where these funds you voted for went?
A: Go to the Congressional Oversight program we set up. Called COP = Congressional Oversight ?. I can't control the media reporting of it. We've held several hearings on that topic. They are virtually unregulated at the moment. There will be a change in that regard. They have gotten very comfortable with their relationship in the agency. They are paid by the people they rate. That used to make sense because there used to be some independence. Over the years, that independence has begun to disappear. No one really noticed the cozy relationship until this happened.
Q: You mentioned that you have run several businesses into the ground. That comes from a too-high debt to income ratio. What is going to prevent our govt from running into the ground?
A: The main reason businesses fail is not because they are undercapitalized, but because of bad management. Not that we don't have bad management at the federal level. Here is the number to pay attention to with the national debt. When I took over at Franklin, $75k debt. When I stepped down (Franklin Quest), debt of $7.5mil. If consider only debt, I was not a wise steward. Size of company at $75k debt = $300k revenue, gross margin 0%. No money to pay debt. At $7.5mil, sales $80mil, margins 16%. Had over $10mil cash in the bank. Why not pay off? Had a prepayment penalty. Were using money to grow. So, not size of the debt, but size relative to GDP. At what point in US history, has the debt-to-income been highest? 1946, WWII. Debt/GDP ratio was 150%. If you look at a chart comparing to today, there was no debt to speak of then, but looking at the debt to GDP ratio, was huge. Low of 30-35% of GDP under last years of Nixon into Jimmy Carter. Then went up again. Entitlements drove it up again. 1966 Medicare, major entitlement spending, debt started rising. Got to 60-65% at beginning of Clinton's term. Peace dividend – Cold War ended, stopped spending on the Cold War. Cut in capital gains tax rate (Republicans forced it on Clinton). Happened during the dot-com boom. Got 5 times as much money as was predicted from the capital gains tax cut. That drove the surplus. Then the bubble burst, driving the ratio back down.
Under Bush, deficit was 1% of GDP. Below historic norms. That meant the ratio was coming down. This year, we're looking at a deficit of about 8% of GDP. Add the stimulus, that could grow to 9%. With reduced tax revenue, it could mean 10%. We've got to bring the ratio down. Two ways = increase GDP, or decrease debt. This recession will end. They all do. The long term challenge we face is entitlement spending. If we don't bring it under control, regardless of …? Our long term focus must be on reducing spending on Social Security & Medicare. I reintroduced my plan. Every time I do it, the AARP says “you're cutting benefits. We hate you Senator Bennett.” It finally hit me what we're cutting. We're cutting promises. My revised bill holds harmless everyone who is currently paying, and their children and grandchildren. Bill now does not promise to great grandchildren that they will get benefits. Warren Buffet & Oprah Winfrey will have to get by on their current benefits. Republicans tried to fix this in 1986 when Reagan was President. Lost enough seats that they lost control of the Senate. Republicans don't want to touch it. A Republican leader said we'll do it as soon as you get your first Democrat cosponsor. Democrats said they'd get behind it right after next election... which never comes. Silver lining with deficit is that Democrats have to get serious about entitlement reform. Some are starting to talk about it. Social Security trustees (non-political) have scored it 100% as being able to solve the problem in perpetuity. First time ever for a Social Security reform bill.
Q: I want to touch on the word “integration” among nations. This crisis has been billed as a global economic crisis. The G20 says, “we want the US to join us,” using the crisis to create a global monetary authority. Particularly the EU (book “The Great Deception”) what was billed as a common market became a political union. Used trade threats against the Caribbean to get them to join. Bennett was former Chairman of Trans-Atlantic Policy Union (Network?). NGO? Bennett: Not an NGO. How do we create a common market? Are we going to be co-opted into that as part of a global?
A: Consipiracy theory. N = Network. It's a voluntary network. European involvement in US economy dwarfs any other nation, including China. Trade barriers cost a lot of money. It's a forum to discuss these things. There is no think tank, no staff. [Q: It's behind closed doors.] We close the doors otherwise the air conditioning doesn't work. I assure you there is nothing sinister about it. Let me give you an example. If you sell a car in Europe, it has to meet safety standards. Same as in the US. But they aren't the same standards. If you sell cars in both places, you have to make 2 separate cars, one for each set of standards. If we can get people involved in overseeing those standards, it helps. If you can standardize the standards, Ford can produce a car that can be sold in both places. Before the EU, every country had its own standards. Those standards are good for the economy, good for trade, good for people. Having an organization that facilitates that helps.
[Q: What about the EU? Closed door meetings, tricked people into joining.]
A: I haven't read the book. How this network grows, is by invitation, no dues. The first time anyone talked to me about the EU, I asked them to explain it. I'm a political scientist by trade. They started to explain how the European parliament works. After 10 minutes, I didn't get it. Where is the sovereignty? Where is the... Senator, we can't explain it, it just works. The reality is it doesn't work. It just consists of a series of treaties. No formal constitution. Anyone can drop out at any time. They wrote a constitution. Our Constitution is 4-5 pages? Theirs was something like 490 pages long. And it had to be ratified. The first country that they put it to was France. Chirac was a driving force, (Germany & France are the 2 biggest on block – Like Virginia & New York in our constitutional convention). The French voted it down. Then it went to a referendum in the Netherlands, and they voted it down. It's not the monolithic threat that many of these books paint it to be. It has benefited Europe immensely. The French & Germans are not at each others throats. People can cross borders freely. The EU is a tremendous accomplishment on how it has helped people get together, but it is far from being a unified force.
Q: To pretend that the central bank historically... Could you make a quick comment on what you see, the bigger hand of the people who own the world's wealth?
A: One of the things that we assumed when we put together that first traunch of talk. There was a great deal of private capital. We started out in this nation with a central bank. This was a genius of Hamilton. Jefferson hated it, never understood economics. It was a major stabilizing influence in creating this country. When Jackson became President, he was a Jefferson devotee, and he killed the bank. We then went through wild swings of boom & bust, mad panics. For those who follow LDS history, one was the 1837 collapse of the Kirtland Bank. 1913 saw the creation of the Federal Bank. The Federal Reserve bungled the Great Depression and made it worse. They learned from that, and it has been a stabilizing force since WWII. TARP – working to replace confidence. Means of putting public money in place of private money that was suspect. With the Treasury backing this, it is safe and sound. We can trust the system, so private money would come back in, so public money could then be withdrawn. That didn't happen, so it didn't work. When I talked to Paulsen about this he said “yes, that's it exactly.” There are presumably large amounts of private capital around the world. The concern is that, with the loss of value, there isn't much private capital left.
Q: Claim that we have outstanding loans with Russia, Venezuala, China, etc. What would happen if we default on those loans?
A: As mentioned earlier, our debt is owned by whoever buys our loans.
Q: But what if we default?
A: The US has never defaulted. The problem is inflation. When the bond comes due, we will pay it. Where do we get the money to pay it? If we don't have the money, we print it. This causes inflation. The government is not the same thing as an individual. The government effectively rolls over its debt every week. We pay one debt by creating a new one. That is standard and has been going on virtually since the beginning of the Republic. It's not like the Chinese are going to say “you're not paying your loan, we're going to take your house.” It's not like that. Right now the demand for our bonds, the interest rate is virtually zero. Inflation in the future is the concern.
Q: Government is not an individual. It's the same with taxes apparently. What about people in government not paying taxes? Who is looking out for that?
A: Ref: Obama's cabinet appointments. We don't know how many people are not paying taxes. It becomes an enforcement issue. How much money do you want to pay the IRS to hire investigators? One of the biggest scandals in my view, is that the IRS still doesn't have a computer system that works properly. As a businessman, I look at the IRS and say “it is technically possible that the IRS can figure your taxes.” They get info from your employer and church, they can figure out what you owe and just send you the refund.
Q: Fairness doctrine?
A: I think it's not going to come back. It's so ridiculous. (More about just because Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have listeners then Al Franken should have listeners, too.)
Q: CEOs when they left the company. Have you changed your opinion? (something about a talk he gave.)
A: I have no memory of that talk. My position is that government should not set wages. The people who should make the decision as to what the CEO gets is the board of directors.
Q: Isn't that what they've done?
A: If I was a stockholder, I'd be ticked. But the decision should be the board & the stockholder.
Q: But taxpayer money is in there.
A: You cross an interesting line when that happens. (Lots of talking from different people. Something about Boeing.)
Q: We shouldn't be giving them money at all. We shouldn't be on that road at all.
A: We talked about that with TARP. It never occurred to us that they'd be as stupid as they have been. We expected that the publicity would cause some responsibility. We were wrong.
Q: Energy independence.
A: The modern economy runs on energy. It comes in a variety of forms. Primarily electricity. If we go in the direction that a lot of future thinkers are going to (hybrid cars). I've driven one, the technology exists. 8-9 month wait to get one of these cars. You can buy a Toyota Prius that can be plugged in at night, getting 40 miles on battery alone. Who wants a car that only goes 40 miles? The average commute is 10 miles. But sometimes you need to go farther. A hybrid with gas tank gives a 40 mile battery, with a 300 mile range when you need it. People who own these get 180 mpg. This is available now, with no additional research. The sooner we can get these on the streets, the sooner we cut the demand for oil, but that brings a tremendous demand for electricity.
It will take 15 years to replace all the cars on the road. Now we're talking theory. Nuclear is the only one capable of producing the massive amounts of electricity we need. People get upset about spent fuel rods. History – the reason they are so radioactive is because they are still full of energy. If you can take that energy out, they are totally spent and harmless. Jimmy Carter stopped it. “We would have weapons-grade plutonium, causing proliferation, and we're not going to do that.” France reprocesses spent fuel rods. When done, the temperature is hot, but not nuclear hot. It takes 3-5 years to cool down. When cool, they break it up, but in a canister with broken glass, then they heat it and the glass melts, and it is solidified forever in the glass. Then they store it in the green building. What about when that gets full? “Then we'll build another building.” It's about 4% of the mass we're talking about at Yucca Mountain. It's absolutely crazy that we don't do that. Then we can tell Saudi Arabia and Venezuela we don't need as much of their oil.
Q: Maternity system is by far the most costly, inefficient, intervening. Where is the health care reform system going?
A: Absolutely, that is where we need to save money. I've talked about entitlements. About 1/3 to ½ of the money spent on Medicare is wasted. ?? amount of GDP is spent on health care. If we can cut that by 17%, it would be significant. I've worked on this my whole time and not gotten anywhere. Inertia isn't just physical phenomenon. It is also a political one. I dropped out of the health care debate out of frustration. Medical records was an orphan issue, so I took that up. Senator ?? approached Bennett asking for him to sponsor it. “I'll look at it.” About as firm a “no” as you give in politics. A staffer recommended a closer look. There were lots of things I didn't like, but the core I did like. Most money spent is either government money, so they decide, or insurance money, so they decide. You who are getting the service don't have any control over the service, so you don't have true market forces.
We are where we are because of the tax laws. Those control how health care is paid for. You won't change health care without changing the tax laws. Louen Group said “we'll cover everybody.” Congressional Budget Office has said Widen-Bennett will be revenue neutral in the first two years of transition, then we'll save money, though no amount is given. This time we have 13 co-sponsors. Tom Daschle had a poison pill he wanted to put in it. Daschle is no longer in the picture.
The biggest cost containment force is quality. Higher quality means lower cost. This is counter-intuitive. Best health care available is in Seattle, WA; Rochester, MN; Salt Lake City, UT. If everyone got health care in SLC, it would be 1/3 cheaper. Currently there is no economic incentive to stay healthy. It's most cost-effective when acute. Tried to build into Widen-Bennett, incentives for staying healthy.
Q: We have the most outstanding military force in the world. Obama is talking about making a sub-military all over the country. Sounds like Hitler in the 30's – Hitler youth. My concern: is government taking control of the banking system, cutting authority? Moving into socialist system? Other concern: Retired military from Korea & Vietnam were promised free medical for the rest of their life. This never happened until Clinton [A: We drove that in the Republican Congress.] Q: They are talking about increasing dramatically the cost of military.
A: I'm unaware of the first thing you talked about. I've not heard of anything resembling Hitler youth. That would surprise me.
Q: Domestic Protection Force. It's on the Internet. (Oh boy... it must be true!)
A: We're working on the veterans thing. He kept Bush's Defense Secretary. Interesting that Jim Jones is National Security Advisor. I met Jim Jones as European Command. If John McCain had won the election, he probably would have named Jim Jones as National Security Advisor. The National Security Agency office is 5 steps away from the Oval Office. The Secretary of State is a 10 minute cab ride. Jim Jones has announced an expansion of the duties and responsibilities of the National Security Council. That sort of power is a zero-sum game and it has to be taken from somewhere. Those powers will come from the Secretary of State. Around the world, the one thing that is absolutely certain, the Secretary of State's credibility is entirely dependent on the relationship with the President. History lesson of Al Hague as Secretary of State and Ronald Reagan. George Schultz replaced Hague when Hague went against Reagan. Jim Jones will not be a party to weakening the US.
Q: The homosexual lobby are doing a variety of things to curtail free speech, etc. What are you doing to protect our freedom?
A: This has not surfaced at the federal level. You talked about hate crimes. I voted for a provision that would allow the FBI to cooperate with local law enforcement when asked. What triggered it was a homosexual in Wyoming who was tied to a fence and shot. They asked for help, but under the current law they were not allowed. As far as I'm concerned, that is about as far as it ought to go. Murder is murder. Leave it to the local authorities to handle that, and don't create a special category.
Q: What is your take on Norm Coleman vs. Al Franken? Also, how do we keep you in the Senate?
A: Send money! (laughter) Coleman, has maybe a 50% chance. You'd have to see the local papers to see if it's better than that. Under MN law, the Secretary of State cannot issue a certificate of election until every avenue of appeal has been exhausted. Norm has a reasonable & viable case. Norm: “We've had to educate the courts on how the electoral process really works.” They made some rulings against the law. Relevant federal law, I'm not a lawyer, is Bush vs. Gore. In 2000, the Supreme Court laid down the law with a 7-2 decision, not a close political decision, that Florida was wrong. Don't let anyone tell you that it was a close, partisan 5-4 decision. Then the question is, do we send it back to the state and tell them to fix it, or step in? Breyer vs. Souter. 7-2 decision that you can't count votes on two different standards. You must have same statewide standard. Norm Coleman has a compelling case when the same standard is applied statewide.
As for me, I'm just doing the best I can.
Q: Political cynicism with the federal government. There's the feeling that we can't impact anything. We have no influence in the Senate, House, Presidency. How are we going to get Republicans back in that we can trust to look out for “we the people”?
A: We could talk about the history of how we got here. Let's look at the future. In the House, go back to a statement by one of the Speakers. “The minority have the right to draw their salaries.” That's true to a point. But not completely because the legislative process is not just votes on the floor or in committee. Take the example of the stimulus package. I'm opposed to it because I think it won't work and it will do harm. I can stand on the floor and give a speech, but it won't make a difference. No one changes their vote based on what is said on the floor. So where can I make a difference? I'm on the Energy & Water Subcommittee. The bill has to come through that committee. I notice that they have a loan guarantee program that they are shortchanging. It's a stupid thing to do. It will cost more money. So I draft an amendment & go to my counterpart. I convince Byron Dorgen that it's the right thing to do. The amendment goes in the bill with Byron's endorsement. They trust Dorgen, so it gets through. Why did it get cut? It would have a beneficial effect on nuclear power. Friends of the Earth saw it and attacked me for it. This amendment was for any kind of non-fossil energy. They are so anti-nuclear that they would kill something beneficial if it helped nuclear, too.
Q: Amnesty bill. Caused problems for you.
A: Where I am on immigration. When I explain it, lots of people say “oh, I didn't realize.” The current realities of immigration. 1) We need the labor. If you think that all the sheets in Deer Valley, crops that are picked, the roofing in St. George. [Q: At what point are wages being depressed?] A: That is one argument. Story: Rancher in Idaho. “I have cold, dirty jobs. I have 15 employees, all illegal. I've advertised the jobs at $30k/year, plus housing, and no one takes the job.” We used to have a guest worker program. Every year for the harvest it was primarily agricultural workers. After the harvest, they'd go home. The unions hated it, because they hated the idea of any labor force they didn't control. John F. Kennedy was not the Union's choice for president. He wanted to curry favor, so he went to the Unions and asked what they wanted. Unions wanted the program killed. Under the Bracero program, we had 1 million workers per year, with 45,000 arrested illegally. Now we just have 45,000 arrested illegally. We need to have a tall fence with a 2-way gate so they can go home when the ski season is over. We need a biometric card.
If people knew they could come and go with the economy, we wouldn't have the problem of people staying beyond the visa expiration. The realities of e-Verify, it sounds wonderful, but they haven't solved all of the problems. (Some discussion back and forth.) I don't want to turn my back on the realities. I don't want to just say “Yeah, round them all up and lock 'em up.”
Q: Do you feel any pressure from the LDS church to take a soft stand on this?
A: I am the sponsor of a law that was passed. A religious organization who has volunteers who perform activities on behalf of the organization, cannot be held accountable for actions of those volunteers. This was meant for LDS missionaries. Now Tom Tancredo will say that we opened the door to al Qaeda to sponsor terrorists. However, if the Church extends a call to someone whose citizenship is in question, currently President Hinckley would be responsible (as of the time of writing the bill). The Church asked for the law and Bennett assisted. The Church doesn't want to have to police citizenship of mission applicants. This was not done under cover of darkness. We went to Mark Chertoff to ask about the implications. We explained the situation. Chertoff said “Senator, we have so much more important things to worry about that we're not worried about Mormon missionaries.” So, if he is picked up, he will still be deported, his status as a missionary does not protect him, but the Church is not liable. In all of my cases of dealing with the Church, they have never leaned on me. They do not try to put on any particular emphasis.
Q: I've done energy studies my whole career. I'm a chemical engineer. Prudhoe Bay, first oil barrels. Growing consumption, no increase in production. (Blah blah engineering background stuff... not to the point yet.) Tar sands. [A: Canada has made a fortune on tar sands.] (More technical stuff on why Canada's tar sands are different... water or something.) Is there funding available for companies who are developing these new technologies?
A: That will depend on what the Energy Secretary decides to do with the money we gave him. We gave him way too much. The stimulus is overkill on spending, but the Energy Secretary will have to decide.
Q: In the healthy Americans act, it was music to my ears for you to enunciate the need for quality. Under the act, HMO enrollment will go from 30% to 70%. A personal example... (some long personal example).
A: On paper, HMOs are a good idea. HMOs have become a synonym for cost containment. Why? Because the people who fund HMOs want to save money. Your problem was only partially because you were with an HMO, but also because you had no control over the money. If people can take their money from Kaiser to another HMO, when Kaiser starts losing patients, they'll clean up their act.
Q: But that takes an educated clientele.
A: Yes and no. When we conducted hearings... (Sorry, slowing down on typing. There's more here. Examples, etc.)
Q: I don't see the leaders being treated the same as the citizens.
Q: “I'm with...” (lots of Republican women's groups. Reads like a campaign donor list, all with the word “Women's” in them.) We've had talks with the Governor. Nuclear is a safe, wonderful boon to the economy of Utah and our tax base. We took the Governor through plant. Jim Matheson would not come and look. The Governor went back to the legislature, but would not support it. How can we pressure Governor to support it?
A: I agree with you as to the validity of the situation. I'm not in a position to tell the Governor what to do. He and I are free agents with respect to each other. I think you're on the right track to pressure him with your group. I'm not going to get involved between you and the Governor.
Q: Social Security & entitlement reforms. Where do you derive the Constitutional authority for the entitlements in the first place?
A: This is as entrenched an American tradition as anything can be. It's been in place in 60+ years. I don't know of any attempt to challenge it in the courts. Any attempt to overturn that would result in a political outcry. If it was successfully challenged, a Constitutional amendment would pass in a heartbeat allowing it. (Some additional talk about some challenge to something or other, that was upheld in the courts.)
Q: I'm a senior citizen. I just lost 45% of my money in the stock market. You've helped the very rich with the stock market, what about us?
A: John Rich had his severance cancelled because of the outcry. (There was a little more with this, but it was not consequential and the meeting was winding down.)
1:26 PM – End.
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Me: “So, what did you think?”
Devon: “The first couple of hours were interesting. Sort of.”
