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July 11, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - July 11

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

SEN DIANNE FEINSTEIN, (D) CALIFORNIA: Who decided which U.S. attorneys to fire, and why were they selected?

SARA TAYLOR, FORMER WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Again, I'm trying to do the best I can, here, and following the president's assertion of Executive Privilege, and determine what is a deliberation, and what is a fact-based question. So I really appreciate--

FEINSTEIN: You are declining to answer?

TAYLOR: Yes.

HUME: And so it went as the Senators tried to find out whether there is something really terribly improper in the President's firing of those U.S. Attorneys, and whether the White House Political Director, that was the job that was formerly held by Sara Taylor, may have had anything do to do with it.

And they didn't get very far because she was testifying under the constraints of Executive Privilege, and said, by the way, that she had never attended a meeting with the president in which the issue had come up.

Some thought on all this now from Bill Sammon, Senior White House Correspondent of the Washington Examiner, Mara Liasson, National Political Correspondent for National Public Radio, and Mort Kondrake, Executive Editor of Roll Call, Fox News contributors all.

There was, of course, also a hearing in the House today on the Scooter Libby sentence commutation, in which the likes of Joe Wilson, whose role in this is well known, testified. Did either of these hearings go anywhere?

KONDRAKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: No. And, you know, the public looks at Washington and sees nothing getting done. No immigration bill, none of the other problems being solved.

But what it does see is more partisan harangues, and this was more partisan haranguing. The Democrats are using their subpoena power to try and their power to hold hearings to try to treat the Bush administration like a piata.

And, so--and Sara Taylor was the one who got the hits today, and she didn't reveal anything. And they are not going to get anywhere unless the courts say that Executive Privilege does not apply and that these people--

HUME: Is there anything to be gotten?

KONDRAKE: Well, that, we don't know. I mean, they have discovered nothing specifically nefarious that these firings had anything to do with, except, maybe, the failure to prosecute voter fraud cases.

But we done even know--

HUME: The firings were about the failure?

KONDRAKE: Yes.

BILL SAMMON, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: The firings, themselves, are perfectly proper and legal, even if they were about the failure of some political--even if Bush said. Look, I don't like these people for political reasons, I'm going to fire them. There is nothing illegal about that.

There is also nothing illegal about him commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby. So both of these, the problem with these two sets of hearings is that there is no illegality.

These are sort of like fishing expeditions, and I agree with Mort in that it gives the public this impression--and, by the way, it is why the public is holding Congress in the lowest esteem in history, because they are not doing anything except investigating.

HUME: It raises the interesting question, Mara, because one of things that was talked about before the election was, and it was used, really, by Republicans to say do you want John Conyers in the charge of the House Judiciary Committee? Do you want Patrick Leahy back in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee? Do you want these people investigating this administration?

And it was widely believed that it would be this administration and its actions would prove to be fertile ground for such investigations.

What do you think so far?

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, not fertile ground in terms of smoking guns, or big new information uncovered. I think it probably is good for partisan purposes. I think the anti-Bush elements, and that is most of the Democratic Party's base, if not all of it, are probably happy that they are holding the administration's feet to the fire.

However, the cautionary lesson of the last Republican Congress is that they did this to the Clinton administration and it backfired. And they were seen as just spending too much time with subpoenas and investigations and, of course, ultimately, impeachment.

And I don't know where this gets the Democrats in the end. I think that in the end they need to produce some legislation, because I think that is what people want them to do, particularly the falloff in the approval rating is because they haven't stopped the war.

But the resolution of this particular fight is going to be in the courts, it's not going to be in a committee room.

HUME: Before we move on to other things, some thoughts now about the death of Lady Bird Johnson, a woman who, while her husband was an extremely controversial figure, she was not. A woman widely admired across the political spectrum died today at 94.

Bill?

SAMMON: Well, I think she arguably changed history by talking her husband out of running for re-election in 1968 because of the Vietnam War. But she was a very loving figure. She softened some of the hard ex edges of her husband, and I think we didn't really appreciate her until maybe even after he was out of office.

HUME: Mara?

LIASSON: Yes. She certainly was from another era of first ladies-- mostly in the background, but also did a lot of good things, and beatified America's roadsides with all those--.

SAMMON: That was her cause.

If you read the Robert Carroll biographies of Lyndon Johnson, he was a very tough man to be married to. But she did it with charm and dignity. And ultimately he came to appreciate her talent and advise.

HUME: I knew her myself, slightly, an exceptionally gracious woman.

When we come back with the panel, the shrinking budget deficit and the battle over domestic spending. More analysis with the all-stars in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BUSH: The message is unmistakable. America's economy keeps growing. Government revenues keep going up. The budget deficit keeps going down. And we have done it all without raising your taxes.

REP JOHN SPRATT, HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN, (D) SOUTH CAROLINA: Today's forecast shows that over the period of 2007 to 2012, getting worse by $98 billion, arose(ph) since last February.

HUME: Well, this whole budget deficit thing depends, to some extent, on how you look at it, and when you date your projections from. But the most recent projections, and the most reliable projections are in, and it shows the budget deficit on something on the order of $40 billon less than they thought it would be February, considerably less than it was last year, and still more less than it was the year before.

So, the picture on the deficit is improving. So the question arises, is this an issue of any substance, and what is the reason behind it?

KONDRAKE: Well, this strikes me as a he said she said thing between the White House and the Democrats. And there are different ways to look at it.

But I think the correct way to look at it is, where did it come from? It comes from revenue growth based on corporate profits going through the roof, and on very rich people getting very much richer and paying more taxes as a sequence, even at lower rates.

It does not represent significant economic growth that benefits the whole population. The growth rate during this recovery is about 2.9 percent per year, and the 40-year average of growth rates and recoveries is 3.1. And wage growth is not is lower than it has been in previous recoveries.

LIASSON: Yes, I don't think the small shrinkage in the deficit is going to change the economic debate that we are having.

HUME: Well, I know. But, Mara, the deficit is down to something of half of what it was. We had this promise that he would cut it in half, and looks like he is going to make that.

LIASSON: Yes. Look, it's good. It would be a lot worse if it wasn't this way. I'm saying--

HUME: But isn't it remarkable that with all the spending that has been going on. The president is hammered for spending, and with some justification. And with the spending on this--on the Iraq spending, which is staggering, that the budget deficit could be coming down. It seems amazing.

LIASSON: I think this is part of his message to say to people, I'm getting this thing under control. He has been taking a lot of heat from his own base about spending. A few vetoes would probably be helpful, too.

SAMMON: You can't complain when he cuts taxes that it is going to balloon the deficit, as the Democrats did, and then say now that it has shrunk, well, it's just because the rich were trading back and forth and making more revenue.

This shows that, one, the economy is strong--

HUME: Wait a minute, weren't these tax cut supposed to just benefit the rich? It wasn't supposed to force them into paying more taxes, was it, Mort?

KONDRAKE: Well, they are paying more taxes because they are getting so much richer.

HUME: Are the paying a larger share of the nations taxes?

KONDRAKE: They are paying a larger share because they are making a larger share.

SAMMON: He proves that tax cuts shrink the deficit, and that the economy is strong. Two points that Bush never gets credit for from the press or the Democrats.

KONDRAKE: Look, is it good? It's good. It does not solve the long- term budget deficit problem that is created by the baby boom generation, which is a result of entitlement spending. We have done nothing about that.

It is a bipartisan problem, not just Bush's problem. We have not doing anything about Medicare or Social Security or Medicaid, and those things will balloon in the future.

HUME: And do we have any reason to believe, based upon the candidates that are running in both parties for the upcoming election, that Social Security, Medicaid, and the other major entitlement burdens, which are about to hit us, are going to be tackled by anyone?

LIASSON: Well, we haven't heard anything from any of them yet about a big fix for any of those entitlement problems.

HUME: Because Bush did try on Social Security.

LIASSON: He certainly did, and we haven't heard Republicans saying I'm going to take up private accounts again.

But there is another conversation going on in this country about the economy that is not just about deficit and spending, it is also about middle class economic anxiety, and I think it is what has fueled a lot of opposition to the immigration bill.

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