INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”

Guest: Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), Chairman, Senate Budget Committee

Reporters: Marilyn Geewax, Cox Newspapers & George Cahlink, CongressNow

Moderator: C-SPAN

TAPE DATE: Thursday, January 24, 2008

AIR DATE/TIME: SUNDAY, January 27, 2008 at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET

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PEDRO ECHEVARRIA, HOST, C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”: Joining us on the “Newsmakers” is Senator Kent Conrad, the Budget Committee chairman, the Democrat from North Dakota.

Our guests to interview the senator are Marilyn Geewax of Cox Newspapers. She’s their national economics reporter. And George Cahlink of CongressNow, the managing editor.

Marilyn Geewax, we’ll start with you.

MARILYN GEEWAX, NATIONAL ECONOMICS REPORTER, COX NEWSPAPERS: All right. Senator, the budget deficit for 2008 is sure to be larger. We already heard this week that it was going to be about 1.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

But with this economic stimulus package coming, the war in Iraq going on, are we going to see a much higher deficit than what we actually are even expecting right now?

SEN. KENT CONRAD, D-NORTH DAKOTA, CHAIRMAN, SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE: The short answer is yes.

The best estimates that we have is – as you know, the Congressional Budget Office says their baseline deficit will be about $219 billion. But that does not include another $30 billion of war costs that the administration is asking for, plus the effect of the stimulus program, which will be about another $120 billion in terms of its effect this year.

So, you can see we’d be well over $350 billion for a deficit for the current year. But that doesn’t begin to tell the whole story, because the debt is going to go up over $600 billion this year.

As you know, the big difference between deficit calculations and the debt analysis is the Social Security – nearly $200 billion that doesn’t get counted in the deficit calculation, but every penny of which gets added to the debt.

ECHEVARRIA: George Cahlink?

GEORGE CAHLINK, MANAGING EDITOR, CONGRESSNOW: Senator Conrad, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the economic stimulus package specifically. There’s a House proposal that’s out today that’s saying there’ll be tax rebates, at least $300 per individual. Also likely some business tax breaks in there.

I’m curious. What do you think of that plan? Do you have a proposal that you’d like to see go forward, as well?

CONRAD: Well, first of all, I think there’s a clear need for economic stimulus. This package, we don’t have the final details, but somewhere in the range of $150 to $170 billion in cost. That’s roughly one percent of the gross domestic product.

Most economists say that’s approximately what you need. But they’re also telling us you need to be timely, you need to be targeted.

And if you look at those two tests, it is targeted in the sense that it is going to people who pay not only income taxes, but payroll taxes as well. And it’s limited to couples earning less than $150,000 a year. So, it’s targeted.

I think the real question is, is it timely? This morning we heard testimony from the head of the Congressional Budget Office, Dr. Orszag, that the checks could not be written until May, it probably couldn’t get out until sometime in June, and that if you look back at the 2001 stimulus package, you saw that the effect of those checks was not felt for one or two quarters.

That would put the stimulative effect actually out in December. And I have a cause for concern about that, because we need this stimulus package to be timely. We need to get that money out there quickly.

GEEWAX: So, can you do anything about that then? Is there any way to speed it up from June?

I mean, we saw after 9/11, when there was an emergency, Congress was able to act very quickly. Why take more weeks to get this done? Can’t you just pass it next week?

CONRAD: Yes, it’s not a question of when Congress passes it. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that we are in a different part of the tax cycle. And so, the IRS in 2001 was able to send out checks immediately. They weren’t in the midst of processing returns. What the IRS is telling us is, their activity in processing returns and refund checks will delay their ability to get these rebates out.

So, it’s not a matter of when Congress acts. It is a mechanical matter of when the IRS could write the checks, how long it takes those checks to actually get mailed out. And what we have learned from 2001 is, once the checks are received, there is a one to two quarter, so a three- to six-month delay in terms of when people actually use the money.

GEEWAX: Senator, not to be too cranky here, because you know I’m not a cranky person. But I just wonder if Congress wasn’t a little bit asleep with all of this.

We know that April 15th is when taxes are due, so you knew that this was going to be their busy season. Last year around November or December, it was clear that the economy was sinking.

Why not pass the stimulus bill back in December, so that you could have gotten those checks out in January, before the IRS got too busy?

CONRAD: Well, I didn’t hear anybody calling for a stimulus package in December. I told my caucus in December that I believed there was a 50-50 chance that we could face a severe recession.

Look, the administration wasn’t calling – in fact, if you go back to that period, the administration was saying the economy was strong and robust.

So, you know, you can always look back. The question is, what do we do now?

Let me just say, you asked what could be done. Several things could be done.

One, the package could be altered to provide for an extension of unemployment benefits and food stamps. All of the analysts agree that that is the quickest way to get money in the hands of people that will actually be spent, instead of, perhaps, a six-month delay, a two-month delay.

Second thing that can be done is encourage the private sector to have programs like they do for tax refunds – anticipation loans. You know, H&R Block does that for tax refunds. They will give people an anticipation loan, anticipating their tax refund.

The same thing could be done here, knowing that people are going to get anywhere from $300, a family of four as much as $1,200, so that there could be anticipation loans. That would speed up the stimulative effect of this package.

ECHEVARRIA: George Cahlink.

CAHLINK: I wanted to ask you, one of the issues that had (INAUDIBLE) on the economic stimulus package was pay-as-you-go budget rules and whether or not they would be followed on this package. You’ve certainly been a budget hawk and somebody who’s pushed for pay-as-you-go budget rules.

Why don’t they need to apply to the economic stimulus package?

CONRAD: Because in the short term, requiring this to be offset or paid for would kill the stimulative effect. The whole idea here is to put additional resources into the economy, resources that will be spent to give a boost to demand, to improve economic growth.

If you paid for that at the same time, you would obviously kill the stimulative effect.

But let me just say, my own belief is we ought to pay for it over a five- or 10-year period. My own belief is we ought to now pivot once the short-term stimulus is approved and deal with the long-term fiscal imbalances, including the shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security.

Senator Gregg and I have a proposal – Senator Gregg, as you know, the ranking member of the Budget Committee – to have a 16-member working group, a task force, given the responsibility to come up with a long-term plan to deal with these really startling shortfalls that we have in Medicare and Social Security and the fiscal imbalance, the difference between our revenue and our spending.

GEEWAX: When the 110th Congress began last January, certainly, you and Senator Gregg talked a great deal about how progress had to be made, it was urgent. And yet, really, we’re seeing PAYGO rules go out the window. There’s been very little progress made on really …

CONRAD: Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No.

You know, that’s just an assertion you have made that is not true. PAYGO rules have not gone out the window. We still have a positive balance on the PAYGO ledger. PAYGO has been followed in virtually every circumstance.

But in this circumstance, following PAYGO would negate the stimulative effect. So …

GEEWAX: OK. I take your point, sir. Thank you.

But still, there hasn’t been, shall we say, dramatic progress on reducing the nation’s debt.

CONRAD: That is true.

GEEWAX: That part we could agree on.

What about the 111th Congress? I mean, is this now just sort of – given the recession, given the election coming up, is real budget reform off the table for this year? Do we have to look to the future for seeing any real progress on the debt and the deficit in a long-term way?

CONRAD: No. I announced today that I will go to markup on the proposal that Senator Gregg and I have made for a process to reduce the long-term imbalances. And as you perhaps remember, what we have proposed is a 16-member group – eight Democrats, eight Republicans – given the responsibility to come up with a plan to deal with our long-term imbalances, to do it by next year, and that that plan would come to the floor of the House and the Senate for a vote.

I announced this morning that it is my intention to have a markup on our proposal. Senator Gregg announced that the Republican Caucus yesterday decided that they would support that approach. Senator Obama in his presidential campaign has indicated he supports that approach.

So, I think we have a chance to structure a process to come up with a plan to deal with these long-term imbalances, and not just like so many of these commissions, to go sit on a shelf somewhere, but to bring it to a vote in the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate.

CAHLINK: I wanted to follow up on the commission.

Some of the opposition to that plan has been in the House, particularly with some of the committee chairmen. Speaker Pelosi hasn’t seemed to be a big fan of that idea.

How do you get around that opposition? The concern of the chairman was that it would sort of take power from them and hand it to a commission. What options are on the table for fine-tuning legislation to get around that?

CONRAD: A very good question.

Look, what this does is to set up a process to come up with a plan, a plan that would actually be voted on.

But the committee chairmen are the ones who would make up the task force. It would be the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House and the Appropriations and the Budget Committee, and the designees of the speaker. They would be the ones who would make up this 16-member group.

The same would happen in the Senate. There would be two representatives of the administration.

We would have the timing change from our proposal last year to include meaningful input from the new administration. They would have two representatives of the 16.

So, if we look back, what’s worked in the past has been this kind of approach, to bring all the major players to the table to come up with a plan – a plan that then could be voted on by the Congress.

ECHEVARRIA: Marilyn Geewax.

GEEWAX: Senator, I’m just curious about some – what’s the lunchroom buzz over on the Hill as far as the recession? This week we heard from Mr. Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, saying that he didn’t think there would be a recession.

What are you guys feeling? Are you really nervous? Or do you think that most lawmakers figure we’ll get through this OK, slow growth? Or when Peter Orszag said that, did you all slap yourselves in the head and say, this guy’s dreaming – we’re on our way to a recession?

CONRAD: You know, like everything up here, there’s a mixed view.

I would say, Mr. Orszag in his testimony was very clear. He thinks we’ve got heightened risk of a recession. He still does not anticipate one. He expects much lower economic growth.

I’ll tell you. In talking to the people that I have high regard for, they tell me they think there is now a 50-50 chance of not only a recession, but one that could be a deep recession. And I think when you’re faced with that heightened risk, then it’s prudent to take steps.

That’s why you saw the Federal Reserve meet in emergency session. They didn’t wait till their regular meeting next week. They took emergency action to lower interest rates by three-quarters of one point. It’s because the numbers they’re seeing have them very concerned.

And what are the things that are concerning them? You saw the unemployment rate increase substantially in December. We know that the retail numbers from the Christmas season were weak, were disappointing.

But the biggest risk is beyond that. The biggest risk is really a lock-up in the credit markets. That is what has got people very concerned.

You saw a major sell-off in European markets day before yesterday. You have seen a deepening concern that legitimate business deals are not going to get the financing they need, and that that will have a ripple effect, slow the economy, lose jobs, create less and less economic growth, perhaps even put us into a recession. And the grave concern is that there is a risk of a severe recession.

ECHEVARRIA: Our guest on the “Newsmakers” this week is Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the Budget Committee chairman. We’re also joined by Marilyn Geewax of Cox Newspapers and George Cahlink of CongressNow.

Mr. Cahlink?

CAHLINK: I wanted to ask you a political question. There’s a lot of talk about the presidential races today, and you are a supporter of Barack Obama.

I’m curious. There’s been a lot of back-and-forth between the Clinton and Obama campaigns this week. I’m curious what your thoughts are on some of the comments, particularly that former President Clinton has made about the Obama campaign, including today, suggesting that he had been the victim of a hit job.

Is there too much sniping going back and forth? And if so, what can be done to stop it?

CONRAD: Yes, there is too much sniping going back and forth. I think some of the comments that President Clinton made were unfortunate. I think after he has the time to coolly reflect, he may regret them.

Look, we need to be focused on the future. This is an opportunity for us to nominate a candidate that can bring people together, which is what I think is so badly needed in the country to reduce this toxic partisanship that has taken over this town under the Bush administration.

You know, this administration, it’s their way or the highway, time after time.

And I think what people are hungry for in this country, and the reason I have endorsed the candidacy of Barack Obama – and by the way, I’ve never endorsed before in a presidential primary. But I’ve endorsed Senator Obama, first of all, because of his quality and his character, but also because he has this message of bringing people together to get results.

And goodness knows, our country needs results on these financial challenges – health care, the war, energy dependence and all the rest. We need the Congress and the White House working together to come up with real solutions to the problems people are facing.

GEEWAX: Given this election that we’ve got coming up – and we have congressional elections, a presidential election. We’ve got so much uncertainty as to whether the economy is going to tank, how bad is the deficit really going to be.

Is it a difficult environment right now on the Hill? How does it feel to be working there, when there’s so many things that you don’t know, if you start today, will you be able to finish it? Or will there be an entirely different environment with new leadership, new, you know, a new economy – a different one, anyway?

CONRAD: You know, my own belief is there’s an opportunity here. Because there is uncertainty, there is concern, I think there is a chance to get people’s attention – for example, on these long-term budget challenges.

And we know – I mean, this isn’t a matter of dispute. Everyone acknowledges we are on a course that’s utterly unsustainable. This administration will nearly have doubled the debt of the United States. They will more than have doubled – in fact, they already have – more than doubled foreign holdings of our debt.

It took 42 presidents 224 years to run up $1 trillion of external debt. This president has more than doubled that in seven years.

So, look. We’ve got serious, serious challenges facing the country. And we’ve got all these other things, as well.

Our growing dependence on foreign energy, 60 percent of our oil imported. That’s something we could do something about. Health care costs mushrooming out of control.

And, of course, the ongoing war in Iraq. We’ve just seen the president’s request for additional funding for the war in Iraq, substantially above the funding last year. And up, up and away it goes.

ECHEVARRIA: George Cahlink.

CAHLINK: I’m curious on the war spending. There were some reports today that President Bush’s war request for the coming year would actually be delayed. It wouldn’t come over as part of the budget when it’s released early next month. That would be delayed a month or two.

One, is that what you’re hearing? And two, what may be wrong with doing it?

CONRAD: You know, this administration on war funding has been completely irresponsible. They play hide-the-ball. They’ve done it year after year. They don’t include it in their budget, to make their budget look better.

And then they come on later and ask for these massive supplementals. We’re told they’re going to do the same thing again this year.

And it’s a way of hiding from Congress and hiding from the American people their true intentions.

GEEWAX: Sir, in recent years, the U.S. government has issued so many securities that many people overseas all now have gotten dollars. And now they’re coming back and starting to buy U.S. assets of various sorts.

Do you think that there will be much of a rebellion in Congress? Is there much concern, if we start to see U.S. banks, major institutions or real estate, whatever, going into foreign hands? And how much of an issue is that on the Hill right now?

CONRAD: I think there’s a growing concern. I think there’s an understanding that this is, to a certain extent, the recycling of dollars that is a natural consequence of our running these massive trade deficits. Not only do we have budget deficits, we have trade deficits running almost $700 billion a year.

Those dollars are then in the hands of primarily the Chinese, the Japanese, even the British. And as a result, we owe other countries an increasing amount of money. That’s got to be a concern for the long term.

These initial deals that have been made by the sovereign funds of various countries to come in and support, for example, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, in those cases the money is a passive investment. They have not asked for seats on the board of directors. They have not asked for policy control.

So, I’d say there’s less concern about those kind of investments, but a growing understanding of economic vulnerability in this country, because of these massive deficits and debt our country is running up.

Anybody that says, well, that’s a sign of strength, that people are willing to invest here – wait a minute. What we are doing is borrowing hand over fist. That is money that is going to have to be repaid.

And how do you repay it? Well, at some point, you’ve got to be running trade surpluses. And you’ve got to have a budget that is not wildly out of balance.

So, that means we have got to take action here. And the sooner we do it, the better. I think anybody that’s looked at this problem acknowledges, the sooner you deal with it, the better.

CAHLINK: I’m curious. Back to the federal budget.

President Bush delivers the State of the Union address next week. And then we’re going to see the budget rolled out the following week. Then Congress will get into the act of passing a budget resolution. And then some years they pass a budget reconciliation bill, as well. That’s generally hard to do in election year.

Can you sort of lay out the prospects for budget reconciliation this year, and if so, what you’d like to see in it?

CONRAD: I think the prospects for budget reconciliation – which is a big word for something that’s really very simple. What it means is a special budget process that avoids a filibuster.

It is time limited. You can have 20 hours of debate. You can have amendments during that period. But at the end of 20 hours, those amendments that are pending all have to be voted on. But you finish. You aren’t subject to a filibuster. That’s what reconciliation is about.

I anticipate, because of what the president did with children’s health care, where he vetoed an expansion to ensure more American children – because, let’s face it, that’s a good investment. When you improve the health of a child, that’s an investment that pays off over a lifetime.

Passed the Congress overwhelming. President vetoed it. he’s vetoed it, actually, twice now.

I expect that something like that will be a candidate for the reconciliation procedure, which means it will be not subject to a filibuster.

GEEWAX: For the last several years, the budget process has been, shall we say, less than ideal. We get to the end of the fiscal year, and there are still quite a few things that need to be done.

Is there any hope that this year we could actually see a budget process that follows the theoretical timeline, and that all of the budget is passed, all of the appropriations bills are done in time for the start of the new fiscal year?

CONRAD: Well, let me correct you and say, the budget process has worked very well last year. The budget process that I’m responsible for was done on time. The budget process had bipartisan support. And it wasn’t the budget process, it was the appropriation process that follows that was delayed.

GEEWAX: I’m sorry. You’re right.

CONRAD: And what was the reason for that? The reason for that was intransigence by the White House on negotiating with the Congress of the United States. And that’s what we have seen throughout this administration.

You know, only when we got to the very end would they agree to a negotiation that led to an accommodation and a compromise and a result.

And at least this last year, all of the appropriations bills were done before the next year. You’ll remember when our colleagues – our colleagues on the other side – were in control, they did not finish 10 of the 12 appropriations bills during the year for which the appropriations were to be made. They kicked them all into the next year.

So, last year, the appropriators had to not only deal with all of the work for last year, they also had to deal with most of the work from the previous year.

GEEWAX: Is there anything that you on the Budget Committee, though, can do to help spur the appropriations process? Can you finish your work even more quickly? Or whatever it takes …

CONRAD: Yes.

GEEWAX: … to get them to move the whole process up, so that the entire budgetary process, from the budgeting through the appropriations, can be done in a more timely way?

CONRAD: Yes. We met our deadlines in the budget process. And the appropriators in the Appropriations Committee, they met all of their deadlines. In terms of in the committee itself, they got all those bills passed on time.

It was when it came to the floor and our colleagues on the other side delayed, in order to improve the leverage of the White House – or at least that’s what they thought they were doing – led to the result last year.

Let me just say this. I have told my colleagues on the Budget Committee that I intend to report a budget out about a month ahead of the required time, to try to give even more time to the appropriations part of the process.

So, instead of waiting for our deadline, which is in April, to move that up. My intention is to get the budget done in march.

ECHEVARRIA: George Cahlink. We have about a minute left.

CAHLINK: I wanted to ask you on another topic altogether, but you’re on the Senate Agricultural Committee. And I wanted to ask you about the farm bill, which is currently being negotiated right now. Both chambers passed it last year.

What do you see the prospects for getting that farm bill done? There’s been some opposition from the Bush administration on how it should be funded.

CONRAD: Well, let me say that in the Senate, I am very proud the Senate Agriculture Committee reported a bill to the floor without a single dissenting vote. There are 21 senators on the Agriculture Committee.

On the Senate floor, we passed the bill there by a vote of 79 to 14. There were four senators missing, who announced in favor of the bill. That meant that we would have had 83 votes. You have to go back very far in history to find stronger bipartisan support for a farm bill than the one we had last year.

We are now in conference committee to work out the differences between the House and the Senate, but we are under the threat of a presidential veto. Once again, the White House is saying that it has to be their way or the highway. I don’t think that’s a reasonable way to proceed.

They are questioning the revenue provisions that are in our bill that passed on an overwhelming, bipartisan basis out of the Senate Finance Committee, 17 to four. It passed on the floor of the Senate, 79 to 14.

So, I think the White House needs to be constructive. And I think they need to get realistic and abandon the sort of veto threat position that they’re in.

ECHEVARRIA: Senator Kent Conrad is the Budget Committee chairman, the Democrat from North Dakota. Thank you for your time, and thanks for joining us on “Newsmakers.”

CONRAD: Enjoyed it.

ECHEVARRIA: Marilyn Geewax, we covered a lot of ground. But of all that, what did you get from it?

GEEWAX: Well, I guess his seriousness of a purpose. I mean, he really does want to have a legacy where he balances the budget. And he’s worked really hard as a budget hawk. And he keeps trying to push this process forward, but gosh, you know, you just keep running into things like the economic stimulus package that is just going to make his job that much more difficult.

It’s really – he’s in a tough position. He tries and tries to bring seriousness to the budget process, but the appropriations process breaks down. Things happen like economic stimulus.

He’s just in a tough position.

ECHEVARRIA: And in the current day, George Cahlink, you run up against a wall called PAYGO.

CAHLINK: Right, and pay-as-you-go budget rules that say, for any new spending you have has to be offset by cuts elsewhere. So, that’s become an issue.

Now, folks like Kent Conrad, budget hawks, really want to keep those rules in place. But again, when you have things like the economic stimulus package, popular tax breaks, they inevitably seem to get waived. So, that’s an obstacle, too.

And I think perhaps the most interesting thing he talked about is this notion of an entitlements commission. Whenever you hear budget experts talk on Capitol Hill, they often talk about how Social Security and Medicare out in the long term are headed for a fiscal disaster, and something needs to be done on that.

What Conrad is proposing, as well as Judd Gregg, is creating a commission that would be nonpartisan, that would look at that – quite similar to the way they did the military base commission in recent years.

It’s an interesting idea. It’s yet to be seen whether Congress has the political will to pursue it.

ECHEVARRIA: When it comes to the …

GEEWAX: I guess …

ECHEVARRIA: Oh, go ahead.

GEEWAX: As a taxpayer, the thing that sort of worries me is, both Senator Gregg – who is the highest-ranking Republican on the committee and who used to be in charge of it – and Senator Conrad are serious people. I mean, they really take the budget seriously. These are not guys who are just hogging the spotlight. They want something done.

And they’ve tried everything. And it just – it’s like the process is just incredibly difficult to try to move towards fiscal responsibility. And if you can’t get two guys who really take it seriously to make very much progress – I don’t know, not an inch in the past year, in my opinion.

Really, don’t you think so little has happened that is anything that is real progress? You know, you really wonder what’ll happen down the road, if you can’t make any progress.

ECHEVARRIA: And what do you make of the willingness to talk about progress and being fiscally responsible, but then adding to the overall national debt by their terms of a stimulus package?

GEEWAX: Well …

CAHLINK: Yes, I mean, that’s the challenge. I mean, an economic stimulus package that gives everybody at least a $300 tax rebate is going to be incredibly popular politically.

It’s election year. I mean, nobody’s going to go up on the Hill and say, “Hey, don’t do this. We need to be fiscally responsible.”

ECHEVARRIA: But did you see that the CBO …

CAHLINK: This is not a popular position …

ECHEVARRIA: Go ahead.

CAHLINK: That’s sort of the challenge of what we’re talking about. It’s, you know, being fiscally responsible isn’t necessarily politically popular. And that’s the challenge that folks face in trying to do that.

GEEWAX: Well, you know, it’s very – it’d all be a lot easier if we knew exactly what the future held for us.

But right now, let’s say checks do come in the mail in June. Well, you know, I’m from Ohio. And I’ll tell you, there’s a whole lot of folks back in Ohio, that if a husband and wife suddenly show up with a check for $600, that means you can make the car payment that month. That means maybe you don’t miss that mortgage payment. Maybe you can actually get the bill collector off your back for a little bit. And that gives you a little bit of breathing room.

If it staves off a recession – and some economists really do think that economic stimulus like this, including Ben Bernanke, who spoke in favor of it – you know, if you stimulate the economy just enough to hold off a severe recession, the deficit will be in better shape.

If you go into a severe recession, this $140 billion, or whatever, on a stimulus package will be chump change compared with what could happen to the deficit in a severe recession.

So, Congress has a tough call to make. Do you try to stimulate the economy and hold off the worst scenario of a deep recession? Or are you really just throwing away – you know, it’s like – is this Mardi Gras, and they’re throwing candy to the crowds? I don’t know. Is this candy and beads? Or does this save us?

ECHEVARRIA: But this also depends on if people actually spend it. The last money that went out, a lot of people paid off debt, or a lot of people have put it in savings. And the point was to spend.

GEEWAX: But are we closer to the edge now? In 2001, we had just come off a long good economy throughout the ‘90s. And really, you know, people maybe weren’t as hard up then. That was a business recession in a lot of ways. Tech companies got killed. Corporations were hurting, profits were down. But a lot of consumers weren’t really in that bad a shape.

This time around, it looks like a consumer’s recession, where between the foreclosures and the credit card debt, the slow wage growth that we’ve seen in recent years, now you have people who are saying, I’ll tell you, there’s a whole lot of households that I could think of where a $600 check means the difference between do the kids get back-to-school clothes this summer or don’t they.

And that could make a difference for the economy, for retailers. Now, maybe not, but we’ll see. But I think Congress has a tough decision to make here.

CAHLINK: Yes. The question also becomes, what else do you include in this package?

There’s talk of some sort of business tax breaks or credits that’ll be included. There’s talk of, especially among the Democrats, extending food stamps, unemployment benefits.

Some lawmakers actually suggest more money for federal transportation projects, because that would allow for more jobs. So there’s a lot of ideas and options on the table.

And the question becomes, at what point does it become sort of fiscally irresponsible to propose those ideas and put them into the package?

ECHEVARRIA: Got to leave it there. George Cahlink with CongressNow, and Marilyn Geewax of Cox Newspapers, thanks for joining us on the “Newsmakers.”

GEEWAX: Thank you.

CAHLINK: Thank you.

END