Rep. DeFazio Pushes Back at Erin Burnett's Fearmongering Over 'Fiscal Cliff'
I've seen a number of interviews with Rep. Peter DeFazio over the last week or so and all of them were very good, but this one was one of the more satisfying, because CNN's Erin Burnett finally got a little push back with her fearmongering over the "fiscal cliff" and playing concern troll for Wall Street. I was happy to see DeFazio get a chance to make a lot of very good points about these negotiations and what we should be focusing on to solve our deficit problems, and number one on that list is jobs.
As DeFazio rightfully noted, if we want to actually solve our deficit problem, we need to be getting Americans back to work and contributing to our tax base. And he did a really good job laying out the fact that raising the age for Medicare enrollment would, rather than save money, probably end up costing American taxpayers more, because you'd just be shifting costs from Medicare to the subsidies for the private insurance exchanges.
I was also happy to see him push back at the hysteria that "the markets are going to react badly" if some deal on this "fiscal cliff" isn't reached soon. As he noted, if there's real value there in those stocks, any changes in the market are going to be temporary and Congress should not be reacting to their threats out of fear as they have in the past.
Full transcript below the fold and more with his appearance on Ed Schultz's show earlier this week as well.
