Dante Atkins (left) interviews John Garamendi at NN11 in Minneapolis
At Netroots Nation in Minneapolis, I had the chance to chat with Congressman John Garamendi of California's 10th Congressional District, which is comprised of portions of the East Bay and the Sacramento Delta. Rep. Garamendi won his seat in a 2009 special election following Ellen Tauscher's resignation and acceptance of the position of Undersecretary of State for Arms Control. Rep. Garamendi has also served as California's Lieutenant Governor and Insurance Commissioner, and served as Deputy Secretary of the Interior during the Clinton Administration.
You seem to be one of the few members of Congress who come to Netroots Nation when you’re not running for higher office. What do you seek to get out of the conference?
The main thing is the issues. I ran for Congress because all of the things I’ve worked on my entire 37 years in public policy are going on in Washington, DC. Climate change, water issues in California and the nation. What to do about energy policy. My first legislation was energy conservation, wind and solar system, tax credits, in 1978. I’ve worked on insurance reform. And international issues—I’m on the Armed Services Committee. I come here to talk about the issues I care about and get them more firmly in the minds of the American public, and there are solutions to them. We can deal with the deficit without destroying more jobs. And that’s why we come here and make the contacts we make here, participate in forums on Afghanistan, and talk about the issues. How to rebuild the American economy. All of those issues are alive and well here and to talk to the people that bring those issues to millions of Americans. That’s why I’m here.
You mentioned Afghanistan. We’re seeing a lot of Republicans suddenly concerned about the war powers act and the fiscal impact of war, but only as regards Libya. Does that mean there’s hope of getting Republicans on board with withdrawal from Afghanistan, and what are you doing about it?
There’s more than hope—it’s actually happening. Over the last year, I’ve been working with a handful of Republicans—some conservative, some not so much, some Tea Party folks in the new Congress—about how the war isn’t going well, and it’s costing us a treasure. $120 billion a year, and lives lost, and bodies and minds destroyed. There’s a great deal of concern among many Republicans each day are saying, ‘this isn’t going so well, we’re not doing the right thing here.’ So for example, the annual defense authorization bill, the $700 billion authorization, I introduced an amendment saying that we’re going to reduce our troops there. 25,000 by the end of 2012, and 10,000 by the end of 2013. It started a huge controversy in the Committee. They voted to continue it but then that led to an opening of this issue when the authorization bill came to a vote. And instead of a handful, say, fifty, sixty, seventy, we have over 204 members of Congress saying that we need to change things. That’s my role. Push the envelope and open the door to Democrats and Republicans. President Obama must change the course of the Afghanistan war, and he will lose support in Congress if he doesn’t. He needs to pivot on the success of Bin Laden, use that as a pivot point to focus on the original mission of going after terrorists, wherever they are. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, United States. Wherever they are, go after them. We have the intelligence and military capabilities, and we don’t need 100,000 or 200,000 boots on the ground—
Including contractors in that figure?
No, that would be 400,000, figuring two boots per person. There are 110,000 contractors, 100,000 American troops, 40,000 NATO troops. You need a different tack. Reduce forces, use our special operations and intelligence, and realize that you’re not going to build a new nation. Afghanistan is different. It never had a strong central government—it was more of a feudal system with different tribes and different ethnicities in a loose affiliation with a central government. Trying to build one overrides the historic power of these tribes, ethnic groups and regions. And right now, we have a five-way civil war. We pull back, negotiate, build schools, infrastructure, education, help with the police. And the one thing we want? No terrorists. We’ll know they’re there, and we’ll take them out. So leave a small force to deal with intelligence.
Simultaneously, we have to tell the story of Al-Qaeda, which is a huge problem for the Muslim community. Far more non-American Muslims have been killed by Al-Qaeda than Americans. Perhaps as many as ten times more. So, the jihad has been as much against Muslims around the world as against the United States. The story of America needs to be told. The good of America. And you can’t do that with 100,000 soldiers occupying Afghanistan.
There has been an increasingly strong alliance between the netroots and the labor movement, especially with what’s going on in Midwestern states. You mentioned your focus on making things in America. How do you have any hope of getting something through a Congress that is attempting to systematically destroy the labor movement?
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The “Make it in America” agenda is very much associated in economic terms with the labor movement, which used to be strong in the manufacturing sector. Automobiles and what not. But as that manufacturing moved offshore, that portion of the labor movement declined. Steel, electrical workers, the United Auto Workers. But the “Make it in America” agenda isn’t just about labor, it’s about the middle class of America. As you look at the manufacturing sector decline, you see the labor movement and the American middle class decline. In order for this country to have the appropriate economic structure, we have to make things, not just be inventors and service industry workers. Those things just process wealth. They don’t create it. The manufacturing really matters and there are things we can do to rebuild it. Part of it is tax policy. The tax system gave multinational corporations reductions in their taxes when they moved jobs offshore. Why in the world would you do that? I don’t know, but that was and still is in the tax code. We reduced it, but we still haven’t eliminated those breaks. To a person, the Republicans opposed the repeal of that tax break, and we’re going to work on that. We think that American taxpayer money should be used to buy American equipment. We have an excise tax on gasoline and diesel. Much of that money is being used to buy foreign-made buses, foreign steel. The San Francisco Bay Bridge was built using Chinese steel. Our tax money, buying Chinese steel. Why? So I have legislation coming up that says that our tax money should be used to buy our equipment. Same with solar cells, wind turbines. We get a tax break when we put a solar system on our houses. Great—but use it to purchase solar systems made here. That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about. An infrastructure bank to finance the infrastructure that we need. A good, solid investment that will create lots of jobs. And that’s what the “Make it in America” agenda is about. It’s very broad, it’s about rebuilding the American economy from the bottom up, manufacturing up.
There’s a big congressional fight coming up about the debt limit. Boehner says they won’t raise it without massive cuts, and yet not raising it would be catastrophic. Who’s going to blink first?
The default crisis is real. This is about default. The debt limit is a tool that’s used to prevent default and this is not where you play brinksmanship because you don’t know when you’ve tipped over the edge. It could be days before the default occurs, or it could be weeks. We do have a deficit issue and we need to find a resolution to it. But we must not use this as the lever to achieve a goal. Nevertheless, it appears that the Republicans are going to do it. But we can’t solve the deficit in one or two or three years. It took us a decade to create it. And remember, Bill Clinton left George W. Bush with a surplus, and had we followed those same policies, there would be no debt in America today. George W. Bush came in with two massive tax cuts, most of the benefit going to the super-wealthy, two wars using borrowed money, a Medicare Part D drug benefit using borrowed money, and the collapse of the American economy, which occurred because of a lack of regulation. All on W’s watch. That resulted in 700,000 jobs lost per month in the last six months of the Bush Administration. So that’s a deep hole and getting out of this will take some time. We will have to increase taxes by eliminating loopholes, such as those of the oil companies. That’s close to $20 billion in subsidies if you add them all up, and it’s already the wealthiest industry in America. $1 trillion of profits in the past decade. General Electric paid no taxes. And your tax money and mine, some of it went to them! So we need to make sure that we have a fair tax system that closes loopholes, where the super-wealthy pay a fair share of taxes, and that corporations that have been successful in avoiding taxes can’t do so.
And on the cuts side, we can do that too. We can negotiate with drug companies for Medicare drug companies. That will save billions. End the war in Afghanistan. $100 billion a year. There is a need for efficiency in every program, and we should be looking for efficiencies, and there are undoubtedly some programs that are no longer useful. The overall military budget beyond Afghanistan needs to be looked at in terms of eliminating unnecessary weapons systems. All of these things need to be done and we need to take a long view on the deficit. Look for further cuts, hold spending down, and plan on seven or eight years to bring the deficit to appropriate levels.
You seemed to have no problem placing blame where it belonged, but it seemed like the Administration chooses to selectively look forward. Does the Administration need a stronger message?
I think one of Obama’s strongest and best moments, in policy and politics, was when he said, forcefully, on television, “I will not allow Medicare to be terminated.” Strong, very cogent, powerful argument he made then about American values and strength. He’s a great messenger when he shows his strength and determination. But he also searches for accommodation. And he has been kicked repeatedly as he searches for accommodation. And I have suggested to White House staff that he should stand firmly on the principles he has enunciated. You will not mess with Medicare, or Social Security. That kind of strength is his best position. And when he does it, the American public responds positively. And it’s when he searches for the middle ground, he gets in trouble. The Republicans have no interest in a middle ground. They are determined to end Medicare, privatize Social Security, continue to provide tax benefits for big corporations and the super-wealthy. They don’t vary from it. They stay on that agenda. Just this week, we had the agricultural appropriation bill. Food for hungry kids—decimated. School lunch programs reduced. 325,000 pregnant mothers will no longer get the care they need to deliver a healthy child. Why? Food for peace programs, starving people around the world who will riot if they don’t get food. They cut those programs. Agricultural research programs to improve our systems here and around the world—gone. Foreign agricultural service: decimated. The fundamental programs that keep the world and Americans with food on the table, food safety programs, defunded. 48 million Americans get sick every year from unsafe food, costing us a fortune, and we won’t spend a few million on food safety. The Republican agenda makes no sense whatsoever. Cuts can be made. But you have to be careful where you’re cutting. And every time you cut, you’re cutting someone’s job. That person is no longer a taxpayer; they’re a tax taker. They’ll get unemployment. They may lose their insurance, and end up at the emergency room, and we all pay for that.
What is the intent? Do they really think these are the best policies?
I believe they do believe it is the best thing. They’re caught up in an ideology that dates back half a century: that government is evil and somehow 380 million people can build a transportation system without a central government. That we can police ourselves if everyone has a gun. At the end of the day, that’s their philosophy. And we’re all paying the price.