Republican Policy Committee Website

Included below is a transcript of Senator’s Ensign appearance on Fox News.

Unofficial Transcript / February 3, 2009: Live at Noon on Fox News

Jane: Our guest now is John Ensign of Nevada, on the Finance Committee. Senator, thank you for being here. Let's talk about plans you have out there today. A lot of people have a lot of interest in them, concerning home mortgages. 4% interest rates is your plan. How much would that cost? Are you getting bipartisan support?

Senator Ensign: Our plan, just on the housing piece, would be around $300 billion. When you combine it with the tax cuts planned on for lowering the two lowest tax brackets, 10% to 5%, 15% to 10%, plus the business tax credit, it is around $500 billion, total. There is no wasteful spending in it. This is going to fix housing, and it is also going to stimulate the economy by creating jobs. And that is exactly what we should be focused on right now. We should be focused on fixing the housing industry because it is what has drug the rest of the economy down. And if we do not treat that cancer, we will not fix the rest of the economy. The over trillion dollar spending bill the Democrats have brought forward is a lot of wasteful spending, $200 billion, in new entitlement programs. It is going to cause inflation and higher taxes in the future, and that is the reason we are seeing a lot of the public support slip so seriously.

Jane: I don’t have to tell you what the critics are saying about this idea of this mortgage plan of yours. They think it is too complicated to redo millions and millions of mortgages.

Senator Ensign: It really is not too complicated. All you are doing is having the government guarantee them, and still letting the private sector do it. You are setting the difference between the 10 year and 30 year treasury. That would be a 4% interest rate.  Anybody who would sign up and refinance their homes would get a 4% interest, 450 dollars per month. That would stimulate the economy more than anything in the bill, because it would be like a permanent tax cut. These are 30 year fixed mortgages, so they would have an extra $450 coming in a month, for the next years, as long as they have a mortgage.

Jane: let's look at the broad plan. We are at 888 billion as it stands today, and you and your fellow Republicans have talked about how there is too much spending. What is going to come out of this? Where is the final number going to be?

Senator Ensign: I don’t know where the final number is going to come. The first amendment we will vote on is to add another $28 billion. No offsets. There is so much wasteful Washington spending right now. If they want to create new programs and some of these may be meritorious, we need to eliminate other wasteful spending. Let's not just bring in new programs. Let's not do entitlements, things that will mortgage our children's future and make them pay higher taxes. Not just our children, actually, in just a few years, taxes will have to go up which will be even more devastating to the economy. Let's get back to fiscal responsibility in this country.

Jane: what would the package look like to get your yes vote?

Senator Ensign: It would have to fix housing. The President is saying we have to go to that next. If housing is the problem with the economy that started all of this, if you don’t fix the problem that started it, it is like having a patient that comes into the emergency room with a gaping wound and you put a band-aid on it. It’s not going to fix anything. You have to go to the underlying cause of the wound, fix that, and then fix the other problems with the patient. That is where our economy is. We have a lot of problems, but we need to fix the underlying cancer, and that is the housing crisis. Then you combine that with some tax cuts to stimulate the economy. If we are not giving small businesses incentives to create jobs, we're not going to find our way out of this appeared recession. In the Democratic bill, less than 3% of tax cuts are for small businesses, and that is just not going to cut it.

Jane: We will see what ends up in and what ends up out.

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