Sen. Robert Bennett responds
We received hundreds of questions and comments for Sen. Robert Bennett from Yahoo! readers. Thanks to all for your thoughts, and thanks to Sen. Bennett for participating.
Talk to Power host Judy Woodruff presented the questions to Sen. Bennett in his office in Washington.
Sen. Robert Bennett
As with our previous guests, areas of discussion ranged far and wide, touching on issues including the environment and land use, securities regulation, and electoral reform. But the bulk of the questions focused on Social Security and, more broadly, on government finance, so Sen. Bennett spoke mainly to that aspect of questioning. However, as with virtually every featured guest on Talk to Power, there were numerous questions about the war in Iraq, and that was the first topic of conversation.
Below is a question-by-question breakout of the interview, followed by a full transcript.
Evolving Iraq strategy
On Iraq, one reader, self-identified as a Vietnam War veteran, said this: "Leaving out all arguments and blame about whether the war was justified or not, the fact is that we are in the middle of a quagmire and need to find a way out. The time to try a different strategy is NOW. There seem to be about four basic choices.... "Stay the Course..." "Cut and Run..." "Deliver as Promised..." or "Withdraw on a Timetable..." Can you comment on these options, Senator?
See Sen. Bennett's response here. You can also read a transcript of the interview below.
Troop levels in Iraq
Following up on that question, Woodruff raised two questions that have been brought up by numerous Talk to Power readers in previous sessions - the size of the force required in Iraq, and extended deployments for troops there.
Of deficits and debts
The interview then turned to domestic issues, and started with a question about the government spending. A reader wrote: "I would like to know what Congress is going to do about the budget deficit. The deficit has gone up more during the 6 years of the Bush administration than in the first 200 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This is incredibly irresponsible and will burden everyone from our senior citizens to our children and grandchildren. What is Congress going to do to get spending under control?"
The entitlement trap
Woodruff followed up by asking for more detail on the role of Congress in the process.
A dated Medicare system
A self-identified recent college graduate wrote: "In my experience... my generation believes that SS and Medicare, as we know it, is unlikely to exist by the time we retire. In itself, that does not bother me. [The writer compared the situation with that of GM, which has multiple for retirees for each current employee.] My question, then, is what will Congress do to prevent a parallel crisis? What will your generation do to prevent my generation from bearing the heavy tax burden of the underfunded Medicare and Social Security programs?"
Reforming Social Security
That was followed up by a question from another reader: "What can you do as a member of the Senate to focus the effort more toward finding a workable solution [for Social Security]? Frankly, I am not hopeful that we will see a comprehensive solution and merely expect myopic tinkering. Can you offer a positive outlook on this issue?
Planning immigration reform
Further on Social Security, Woodruff paraphrased a concern raised by numerous readers about the possibility of illegal immigrants collecting Social Security after having paid into the system using fraudulently acquired Social Security numbers.
The partisan divide
In previous Talk to Power sessions, readers have voiced frustration about partisan politics and the perceived logjam it creates in Washington, and that continued to be a theme in the comments for Sen. Bennett. One reader wrote: "This question concerns the basic structure of our political framework, the party system. I've come to believe that all candidates should run as independents, with no affiliation. I believe wholeheartedly that the party system stymies progressive thinking and I'm completely fed up with the 'follow the leader' mentality that it creates. Any thoughts?"
The end of big media?
Finally, a reader raised the question of how the war in Iraq is portrayed. "Why can't the news media be required to abide by an equal time rule when it comes to war reporting? What they report has a direct effect on the enemy's perception of our nation's resolve and affects our war effort. Yes, the war is war. It kills innocent people. But there must be more reported on what has been accomplished. Our troops deserve it, the taxpayers deserve it, and the future of our nation depends on it."
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Here is the full transcript of the interview.
MS. WOODRUFF: Senator Bennett, thank you very much for answering these questions -
SENATOR BENNETT: My pleasure.
MS. WOODRUFF: - from Yahoo!'s visitors and readers. Here's - actually there were a number of questions about Iraq, and we pulled one that we think is representative.
One reader, identified himself as a Vietnam War veteran - we have a variety of ages participating - said, and I'm quoting: "Leaving out all arguments and blame about whether the war was justified or not, the fact is we are in the middle of a quagmire and need to find a way out. The time to try a different strategy is now. There seem to be about four basic choices: "Stay the Course..." "Cut and Run..." "Deliver as Promised..." or "Withdraw on a Timetable..." Can you comment on these options, Senator Bennett?
Evolving Iraq Strategy Response
SENATOR BENNETT: Thank you. I wish it were that easy. I wish it were that clear. If you've been in combat, you understand how confusing combat is and how difficult a war is to understand and get your arms around. There are all kinds of conflicting messages coming out of Iraq. On one hand, the positive side, the Iraqi forces are getting larger and better equipped and stronger almost every day. And, if the fight is going to be won in Iraq, it will be by Iraqi forces with American back-up, American training, American support, but ultimately the final fighting, the final victory has to be in Iraqi hands.
So, this is an encouraging sign. It's not necessarily "stay the course." It's expand the power of the Iraqi military, move it forward in a positive way, and ultimately deliver. The best military advice I can get tells us that the insurgency cannot defeat the Iraqi forces militarily. They can keep them occupied; they cannot defeat them. So, that's the good news.
At the same time, something has happened in Iraq that was not foreseen by any intelligence operation anywhere, and that is, as the government is formed and begins to take control, there are militias being organized by Sunnis and militias being organized by the Shi'ia, and those militias are extra-political in their activities within the Iraqi government. And that is something, frankly, that may be more troublesome than the straightforward confrontation.
So, the answer to your question is, right now, it looks as if we're moving in the right direction, and I'm not yet ready to start talking about a timetable, but I will concede that this thing could still go south on us and be in a situation where we would have to pull out. Right now, we're not there yet.
MS. WOODRUFF: Senator, a follow-up, if you will, stories in the last few days about whether there are enough military forces -
SENATOR BENNETT: Hmm-mm.
MS. WOODRUFF: - to do the job. What is your understanding of how, whether there are enough in the United States Army, in the Marines, to do what needs to be done?
Troop Levels in Iraq Response:
SENATOR BENNETT: Well, there's certainly enough in the Army and the Marines to do what needs to be done. The question is how were they deployed and should we send more to Iraq? Right now, General Abizaid's solution to the challenge in Baghdad is to re-deploy the troops that are there and say we will not have the expected or hoped-for draw-down. We were hoping, based on what we saw earlier this year, that we could start to draw down troops about now. And General Abizaid has said we can't do that, but he has not called for more troops in country. He has simply called for more troops on the ground in Baghdad and is starting to re-deploy the troops in country.
I don't have enough military background to answer that question for you, and I've spent enough time with General Abizaid to be convinced that he's a serious commander, and he's not reacting to political pressure. He is making the decisions based on his understanding of the situation on the ground, and he says, at least at the present time, we don't need any more troops in country. I think if he comes back and says we do, we do have the resources to provide those.
MS. WOODRUFF: And the extended deployments?
SENATOR BENNETT: Well, that's one of the ways that you add troops, because, since the end of the Cold War, we've changed our military stance. We are not as dependent, if that's the right word, on the full-time, regular Army troops. We've changed the nature of the training of both the Guard and Reserves so that they're ready to go in case of an emergency, and we rely on them. And, frankly, the challenge in Iraq has been bigger than we had hoped for, and we've had to rely on them more than we wanted.
In my own state of Utah, the Reserves and the Guard have been called up more - in higher percentages and more time - than any other state in the Union. So, we're very familiar with the challenge of that problem. But, as I say, we'll let General Abizaid make his recommendations and then see where we go from there.
Of Deficits and Debts Response:
MS. WOODRUFF: Senator, most of the other questions have to do with domestic issues, and I'm going to read one that was posted by a Bob McFarland [phonetic sp.]. He asked - he says, "I would like to know what Congress is going to do about the budget deficit. The deficit has gone up more during the 6 years of the Bush administration than in the first 200 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This is incredibly irresponsible and will burden everyone from our senior citizens to our children and grandchildren. What is Congress going to do to get spending under control?"
SENATOR BENNETT: Well, I'd like to sit down with Bob and go through his terms. "Deficit" is the term that means the amount of money that we over-spend in any one particular year. It sounds as if he's talking about the national debt, and "debt" is different from "deficit." "Debt" is the accumulated deficits over the years.
I can't confirm or deny that the debt has gone up more in the 6 years of the Bush administration than it did since the Declaration of Independence in nominal dollars, but I absolutely can deny that it has increased that amount in constant dollars. And those are the kinds of dollars we have to pay attention to. If you look at the national debt as a percentage of the economy, and the economists use the term "GDP," gross domestic product, to describe how big the economy is. If you want the time when our national debt stood at its highest level relative to GDP, you go back to the Second World War: 1945-1946, the national debt stood a something like 150 percent of GDP as we paid for the war. It's been coming down as a percentage of GDP ever since, and right now it's about where it was relatively, oh, the end of President Eisenhower's term. It's right in there in historic terms.
Now, you talk about deficit, the amount we over-spend per year, it is currently below historic norms as a percentage of GDP. And, quite frankly, you say, what are we going to do? This last year, the deficit, that is the amount spent over the amount we took in, was $100 billion less than it was projected at the beginning of the year, and that happened, quite frankly, because revenues are at historic highs. So, if you take nominal dollars, sure, we're spending a whole lot more than George Washington did. But, quite frankly, if you want to look at the fiscal structure of the country, we're in a lot better shape than we were in George Washington's time.
MS. WOODRUFF: And a quick follow-up, Senator: The point about Congress having a role in getting spending under control -
SENATOR BENNETT: Yes.
MS. WOODRUFF: What is that role?
The Entitlement Trap Response
SENATOR BENNETT: Well, Congress has been spending at below historic levels in every area except the war and homeland security. And then, of course, there's the area over which Congress has no control, which is Social Security and Medicare. Right now, the combination of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, what we call the entitlement spending, takes up two-thirds of the federal budget. So, two-thirds of the amount we spend is spent on autopilot by virtue of those programs. The other one-third includes spending for the war and homeland security. So, if you take the war and homeland security out, and say Congress spending on everything else, every social program other than the entitlement programs, everything other than defense and homeland security, we've held the line and we have had increases that have been less than the increase for inflation or less than the growth of the population.
We're doing our very, very best in those areas where we do have an influence, but if we're going to get the long-term fiscal picture under control, we have to have the courage to say let's look at Social Security, let's look at Medicare. And, frankly, the only politician who has had the courage to say that on a national level has been President Bush, and those of us who've tried to support him and move in that direction have been unable to get any support on the other side of the aisle. And this is something that's going to take bipartisan support. Neither one party can do it by themselves.
MS. WOODRUFF: Senator, you mentioned, you brought up Social Security and Medicare, and a self-identified recent college graduate has this to say on Social Security:
"In my experience... my generation believes that Social Security and Medicare, as we know it, is unlikely to exist by the time we retire. In itself, that does not bother me." The writer goes on to compare the situation with that of General Motors, which has multiples for retirees for each current employee.
SENATOR BENNETT: Yeah, yeah.
MS. WOODRUFF: But he goes on, "My question, then, is what will Congress do to prevent a parallel crisis? What will your generation do to prevent my generation from bearing the heavy tax burden of the underfunded Medicare and Social Security programs?"
A Dated Medicare System Response
SENATOR BENNETT: Well, you can deal with it by raising taxes, which some people suggest is the way to go, or you can deal with it by restructuring the program. And I think Medicare, particularly, is ripe for a major restructuring program.
Understand, Medicare, even though it has this hallowed sense around it, that somehow it came down from Mount Sinai, Medicare is the 1960s Blue Cross/Blue Shield fee-for-service program frozen in time, like a bad Woody Allen movie. There are economic incentives in Medicare that are perverse, that cause you to spend more money than you should because that's the way they practiced medicine in the 1960s, and to have the same thing in place, the same incentives, the same restrictions in place 40 years later doesn't make any sense. We don't practice medicine in any way like we did in the 1960s, where the big challenge was covering hospital bills.
Today there are all kinds of interventions that can keep you from going to the hospital that, until we recently passed the drug benefit for Medicare, wouldn't get reimbursed. So, here was Medicare saying, if you do something that will keep you out of the hospital, we won't pay for it, but we'll wait until you get really, really sick and then go to the hospital, and we will pay for that, because that's the way things were done in the 1960s.
The solution to your long-term problem is a restructuring of the Medicare around the way we practice medicine today and, frankly, a very simple kind of tweak in Social Security that I've been pushing, which the Social Security Administration has now looked at - and in Washington-speak, they've "scored" it, that is, they've said, yes, Senator Bennett, this will solve the problem.
It will go away, not just for 75 years, it will go away permanently, and Social Security will be available for you even though you're a new college graduate, if we make these kinds of changes and tweaks.
But if we leave everything as it is and say no, no, it's sacred and we can't touch it, then you're right - we're going to be faced with a huge tax bill to pay for it, and that's pretty stupid. And I'm hoping that Congress will come to its senses, Congress and the president come together, both parties come together, and say, okay, we've had our time of political rhetoric; now it's time to do the right thing. And, frankly, the solutions are there.
MS. WOODRUFF: Senator, you've actually gone on to answer the next question which I was going to pose, someone asking about Social Security and asking if you can offer a positive outlook. And it sounds as if that's what you're doing, if certain steps are taken.
Reforming Social Security Response
SENATOR BENNETT: Sure. And let me try to simply describe what my program would do. And there are those who are going to scream, well, it's cutting benefits! Well, sure. Anytime you change a program from something that people expect, it's cutting benefits. But Washington's the only place I know where, when you pay somebody more next year than you paid them last year, it's called a cut. We're paying, my program would pay everybody more than they're getting now; it would just pay them a little less than they expected. But we balance it out so that the people who get less than the current program would promise them are the Warren Buffetts and the Oprah Winfreys of the world, and we've structured it so that the people at the bottom 30 percent, who really need every dollar of Social Security, would not see any change whatsoever from their current expectations, and the people in between those at the bottom and Oprah would see a graduated adjustment of what they would get. So that if you're closer to the bottom, the adjustment would be very, very minor. If you're just behind Oprah, then you're just going to have to get by with a Social Security program that is tied to actual cost of living, instead of a cost of living plus, which is frankly built into the present system.
I think you'll be able to do that, and in that process, you'll be - the entire system can be saved for everybody and Oprah can still get her benefits. So can Warren Buffett, if they fall on evil times and feel that they need it.
MS. WOODRUFF: Senator, there's a related question to Social Security. It's actually tying in the question of immigration. Many readers have written in to protest the possibility of illegal aliens having the right to collect benefits having paid into the system on fraudulently acquired Social Security numbers. They're asking if you would comment on this.
Planning Immigration Reform Response
SENATOR BENNETT: The way to solve that, of course, is to resolve their status, and the president's program on immigration is one that I support. We have roughly 12 million people in the United States right now who are in an illegal status with respect to immigration. Fully half of them came to the country legally. The stereotype that you get about people coming across the Rio Grande, packed in trunks or the backs of trucks to sneak into the country so they can get on the welfare system, frankly, isn't true. Most of the illegal immigrants, as I say, came here legally, and now they've overstayed their visas and they've gotten jobs and they're paying into the Social Security system, many of them on fraudulent Social Security numbers. That means the money is going to subsidize you and me. The money is there in the fund, and they won't ever be able to draw any of it out.
The way to resolve this is to resolve their status. The president's program would say, okay, you're here illegally: Come forward, pay a fine. You know, if you're speeding down the highway, you're driving illegally, and if the policeman picks you up, you pay a fine. And then say, okay, from now on, you obey the law. You're here illegally: Come forward, pay a fine, register, get a legal status for the job that you hold, and then you can get a Social Security number, and then you can draw benefits based on what you have paid in legally. And that's the way to resolve this issue.
Those who've paid in illegally, I agree. I don't have that much, I don't have that much sympathy for them. But we're not going to round up 12 million people on the point of a bayonet and march them back across the border. Everybody understands that. That being the case, let's resolve their situations. Those that are drug dealers, criminals, terrorists - let's get them back across the border, but those that are here as productive citizens, working and paying taxes, let's get them registered intelligently and have this problem go away.
MS. WOODRUFF: Senator, two final questions, and I'll try to make these brief. Different subjects. Many of our visitors to the site have received questions and comments reflecting frustration, or may have made comments reflecting frustration, with the perceived lack of bipartisan cooperation in Congress. Here is one comment:
"This question concerns the basic structure of our political framework, the party system. I've come to believe that all candidates should run as independents, with no affiliation. I believe wholeheartedly that the party system stymies progressive thinking and I'm completely fed up with the 'follow the leader' mentality that it creates." Do you have thoughts on this?
The Partisan Divide Response
SENATOR BENNETT: That's what the Founding Fathers hoped would happen, and that's why there's no reference to parties in the Constitution and no provision for them. And if you have a quarrel with the creation of political parties, take it up with Thomas Jefferson. He was the first one to create a political party, the first one to gather people around a particular philosophy. And if you want the nastiest presidential campaign we've ever had in terms of the mud-slinging and the personal attacks and the violence of the rhetoric that occurred, go back to the presidential race between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. We think of both of them as Founding Fathers and put them on pedestals, where they belong. I think it was tremendous, the work that they did, but when it came to politics, they were very practical politicians, and Jefferson was the first one to say, if I'm going to seize political power, I have to have a form of a party behind me. And one of the things that Abigail Adams hated the most about Thomas Jefferson was his party activity, and she told him so, when he tried to reconcile with her husband after they were both out of the presidency. She wrote him a pretty strong letter about that.
So, under the first amendment, you're free to say whatever you want, you're free to do whatever you want in organizing a political party, and it's been part of the American tradition for a long, long time.
Frankly, I've seen a lessening of the party atmosphere in this current Congress, and I attribute that - you may not agree with this, because of his public rhetoric - but I attribute that to Harry Reid's attitude as the Democratic leader. Harry Reid has a respect for this institution, and some of the things he says publicly about the president and the Republicans to the contrary notwithstanding, Harry's somebody you can sit down with and work with. And I think we ultimately, regardless of our history of partisanship that, as I say, goes all the way back to the founding of the republic, we have politicians in both parties, Republican and Democrat, who are determined to do the right thing, and one way or the other, we muddle through and get it done.
If I could end with this quote from Winston Churchill, he said, "The Americans can always be counted upon to do the right thing, after they've exhausted every other possibility." And you're objecting to the process by which we exhaust every other possibility. But I remain an optimist that we're going to come through. We always have, and I'm convinced we always will.
MS. WOODRUFF: Last question, Senator.
SENATOR BENNETT: Sure.
MS. WOODRUFF: Very quickly. And this is circling back to Iraq: "Why can't the news media be required to abide by an equal time rule when it comes to war reporting? What they report has a direct effect on the enemy's perception of our nation's resolve and affects our war effort. Yes, the war is war. It kills innocent people. But there must be more reported on what has been accomplished. Our troops deserve it, the taxpayers deserve it, and the future of our nation depends on it."
The End of Big Media? Response
SENATOR BENNETT: Well, the government cannot dictate to the media what they will report. If we ever get to that point, where President Bush is saying, okay, there will be so many minutes of this and so many minutes of that and you can't have any more minutes of the other thing, we will be on the road to a dictatorship and a tyranny that nobody wants.
Every president complains about the media. John F. Kennedy complained about The New York Times - I don't think maybe as much as George W. Bush does, and I don't think he had as much reason to as George W. Bush does. But that comes out of the first amendment and the Constitution, and the best way to deal with it is simply talk back. Complain to the media yourself.
And in today's world, with the Internet, this kind of a program itself demonstrates that the monopoly that the three networks used to have on news is being broken. Right now, the three networks have much less influence than they did, say, in the days of Walter Cronkite. In the days of Walter Cronkite, when he was the most trusted man in America, when he spoke at 7 o'clock in the evening, that's virtually the only place Americans went to get their news. Now, when his successors speak, it's what, 7 percent of Americans? something less than that, that pay attention to CBS News or ABC or the rest. They're on cable television. They're on the Internet listening to bloggers. They're on Yahoo! looking at a program like this. And there's no way, I think, the government can ever step in and dictate to anybody in the media, however mad they make us. And I tell you, the media makes me very mad from time to time with some of the things they say about me. But that is one of the significant and important things we have in America and it's one we want to hang on to.
MS. WOODRUFF: Senator Bennett, on behalf of all of the viewers of Yahoo! and Yahoo! itself, Yahoo! News, thank you very much.
SENATOR BENNETT: It's my pleasure.
MS. WOODRUFF: Appreciate it.