TRANSCRIPT: Meet the Press
Sunday, November 20, 2011
DAVID GREGORY:
In The Wall Street Journal, editorializing, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page, wrote this on Friday: "How could Democratic leaders defend deep reductions in the military and cuts in the domestic programs as they are vital investments, when they block reforms that would reduce the growth rate of the major entitlements, which, even under the House GOP plan, would still grow by more than 50 percent over the next decade? Sooner or later, Democrats must confront the reality that their unwillingness to slow entitlement spending will require shrinking everything else the government spends money on." Senator, my reporting tells me that, in fact, Republicans offered Democrats to miens test Social Security and Medicare as part of this discussion, that would actually hit the rich, and Democrats said, "We don't want to do that."
SEN. JOHN KERRY:
Not true. Not true. We accepted. We not only accepted that, David, we put every single sacred cow on the table. They know, they know, that they could have had many things that a lot of us, you know, hate to even talk about publicly, because we're going to get-- people are going to say, "What? You guys were thinking of doing all those things . . .?"
There's only one-- let me repeat this. I want America to understand this. There's one thing standing between us and avoiding a sequester and doing $1.2 trillion, and that one thing is the Republican unwillingness to not push for the Bush tax cuts to be extended now. We've even talked to them about guaranteeing them a fast track for tax reform.
We'll do tax reform before next December. We'll do tax reform for business. We could lower the corporate tax rate. We could wind up with a major initiative that will create jobs and do our country well, avoid the sequester, show that America works--
DAVID GREGORY:
Okay.
SEN. JOHN KERRY:
--
if they will just back off insisting that the Bush tax cuts be extended now.read entire interview:
http://thepage.time.com/2011/11/20/transcript-meet-the-press-2/