Rep. Tim Ryan on the $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Package

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, the American rescue plan, which is the $1.9 trillion stimulus package to help those hit hardest by the pandemic, has passed the House of Representatives. The economic recovery package has President Biden’s top priority since he entered office. Democratic Congressman, Tim Ryan, voted for plan. He also ran for president in 2020 and he’s now eyeing a Senate run in 2022. Here he is talking with our Michel Martin about his role in investigating the capitol riot and the challenges ahead in the Senate for the COVID relief bill.

MICHEL MARTIN: Thank you, Christiane. Congressman Ryan, thank you so much for joining us.

REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH): Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: Two months ago, your workplace was invaded by an armed mob. You went through impeachment and, you know, now, your workplaces is still surrounded by a barbed wire and fencing. And I’m just wondering what the vibe was like. I mean, you still have certain number who are either minimizing what the experience was like or saying it wasn’t that big of a deal or still in denial about who was actually responsible and I just wonder what — how that affects the working relationships.

RYAN: Yes. I mean, look, it’s not good. There’s no real way to sugarcoat it. It’s not good. There’s not a good relationship because you either have members, I think, on the Republican side who, in many ways, were complicit, continued to try to incite what happened on January 6th, came right back to the capitol after the insurrection and business as usual. And then you have people that looked the other way, which, you know, is aiding and abetting just, you know, through their inaction, through acts of omission, instead of acts of commission. And that is frustrating, because it gets hard to try have a working relationship with those people. And, you know, there is a lot of denial in the Republican Party right now, and that makes it difficult to work with them.

MARTIN: I wanted to point out that you are heading one of the committees that’s actually investigating the riot because you’re the chair of the subcommittee that has authorization over the Capitol Police. So, you’re looking into that part of it and I just wanted to — you know, you just had a hearing a couple of days ago, have you learned anything?

RYAN: Well, we learned that the threats are ongoing, that there is still a lot of chatter about, you know, taking over the capitol and assassinating politicians and those kinds of things, which is obviously deeply troubling for members of Congress, their families, their friends, their staff, our staff. So, that’s, you know, been difficult. But we’re also moving forward with what we are going to do to protect the capitol and to protect members of Congress. So, we are gathering that information. We’re working very closely with the General Honore who is putting the strategy together for us on how we move forward. So, you know, we’re just trying to piece it altogether right now.

MARTIN: There was evidence presented at the hearing that the Capitol Police leadership did try to get additional help and, you know, whether they asked soon enough, whether they took it seriously enough that’s all part of what you’re trying to sort out. But there is evidence that they called for additional help and they were denied in part because the Pentagon, political appointees there did not want that to go forward. The point of view of the Capitol Police to testify was it they didn’t want the optics of sending the National Guard in to confront people they perceive as their supporters. But those people are gone now. And if that’s the case, what do you do about that?

RYAN: Well, I think you try to figure out what is a better chain of command. And again, look, we were dealing with leadership from executive branch that we have never seen before in the history of this country. So, it was a very unique situation, where the president incited these folks to go down to the capitol, said he was going to go join them, and all of the things that you all have reported on and everybody knows had been going on through December and January to lead to this. So, I think, from the information flow standpoint, command and control standpoint, there may be some other ways we need to look at this. But, look, in my estimation, this rests at the sergeant at arms who kept denying the requests from the Capitol Police. And then I think the Capitol Police is to blame as well, the leadership, because they didn’t push hard enough. I mean, if you kept asking for more National Guard, we need another — you know, not hundreds but probably thousands of troops, and they were not giving them to you, you needed to raise holy hell about it, because we were relying on you. And I had a call with the chief of police and the sergeant at arms the night before and it was a bunch of happy talk, that we’re covered, everything is fine. Now, they should have come to me as chair of the committee, they should have come to other members of Congress who overseed this stuff, and say, look, we have a real problem. The sergeant at arms, they didn’t even bring this request to the Capitol Police Board for an official vote. The chief of police should have pushed for that, said, at least give me a vote so I’m off the hook here and we get the board to approve or disapprove of it. So, there’s a lot of mistakes all in the leadership. The rank and file did everything that they were asked for and they were really exposed to a lot of danger because of the lack of preparation. So, within the reforms, we’ve got to make sure that the chain of command, the Capitol Police Board, and if there is any approval needed from the Department of Defense, that’s very transparent and teed up and ready to go as well.

MARTIN: So, let’s turn around and turn our attention to the COVID relief bill that was passed by the House over the weekend. It’s a big bill, you know, $1.9 trillion, wide-ranging. There’s money for employment benefits, there’s money for improving school infrastructure, for COVID testing, providing PPE, there are provisions for, you know, child care. You know, it’s just way too comprehensive for us to go into all of the details here. So, I just want to ask you, what do you think are the most important elements of the bill?

RYAN: Well, taking care of the economic situation in the country. So, the extension of unemployment until September is really going to give a lot of breathing room to millions of Americans who just can’t find work. The jobs aren’t available. The help for rent and utilities so people don’t lose their home. The $1,400 payment to help people kind of weather the storm a little bit here. Those are really the critical pieces of this entire thing because it takes care and making sure that the people don’t go bankrupt, make sure they don’t destroy their credit. Because if you’re a working-class person, you destroy your credit, it could take you 10 or 15 years to climb out of that. And so, we want to prevent that from happening because if we’re going to have a robust recovery, then it’s going to mean people are economically secure, they’re able to go back to work and they got a few bucks in their pocket to go out to spend at those restaurants who have been crippled. You know, we’re going to need people to go back out to dinner and out to the bars and out to venues and keep those places going. And then the schools and the local governments are also going to get a good shot in the arm with this thing. And these communities need to get rebuilt. So, we’re going to come out of this thing, I think, potentially a lot stronger than we went in, because these communities are going to have some money, and hopefully we can get a little wind at our back with the economy.

MARTIN: Is another — I mean, you’re already hearing, you know, not just initial Republicans saying, those numbers are too big, but they’re even some Democrats in the Senate that are saying the numbers are just too big. Where are you on that?

RYAN: I think it is just fine. I think that $1.9 trillion is a good number. It is a solid number. You know, I am old enough and got enough gray hair, I was around in 2009 when we did a stimulus bill. And at the time I was saying that it wasn’t big enough. It is not big enough. And the economy dragged on, slow recovery around wages, around workforce and unemployment just dragged on because we didn’t make that initial investment robust enough. We are not going to make that same mistake here. And I think this is a good number that is going to be a good shot in the arm for the economy and it is going to allow us to have the kind of recovery that the American people expect us to have.

MARTIN: So, the two Schools of Thought seem to be, as I understand it, that, look, if you — let’s say you had a flood, and your — all your kitchen was damaged or all your appliances were damaged and two Schools of Thought seem to be on the one hand fix what was broken, right. The appliances or what’s damaged, what’s damaged is that focus on that. The other School of Thought seems to be, why don’t you fix what you didn’t like to begin with? So, how do you argue that point?

RYAN: Well, the idea here is to help the economy for everybody. And this is an opportunity, it’s about public health for sure, it’s about vaccination and testing and all of those things, but it is also about an economic recovery that everyone can share in that recovery. And those that are the investments that are included in here. And I think that they’re in hand and glove. I mean, I just don’t see those as separate because the idea really is how do we have an economy that can thrive post pandemic and communities that can thrive post pandemic? And yes, the pandemic did some damage but there was a heck of a lot of damage before the pandemic ever hit. And this is an opportunity for us to plug these communities in, clean these communities up and allow them to participate in the growth that is going to come. So, the bigger strategy is, if you take a step back, is hopefully after this, we have a robust infrastructure bill where we really start rebuilding the country. I mean, our country needs rebuild, water lines, sewer lines, roads, bridges, schools, infrastructure, ports, on and on and on. So, this is a first step into that by getting money to the local communities. I think it’s a first step in a broader package to rebuild the United States of America, which is what Joe Biden promised he would do. And the COVID bill here is a down payment to make sure that every community can participate in that. And that — this has been 30 years. I mean, I just get a kick out of these, you know, folks who are saying like this — you know, this has nothing to do with the pandemic, it’s like, OK, we’ve got communities that have been completely left behind by globalization, by automation, you know, by inequality, by terrible trade and tax policies that left people behind, and the government had absolutely no response to help them. Now, we are trying to take steps to repair that. And this COVID bill is an opportunity to take that first step.

MARTIN: And the $15 minimum wage, what is going to happen there?

RYAN: Well, the parliamentarian in the Senate has ruled that it is not germane to the reconciliation process. So, we will come back and, I think, at some point have a vote on the $15 minimum wage that we scale up. I do think we have to be sensitive to what small businesses are going through in the middle of the pandemic. So, we’ve got to do this over time. But if the minimum wage was indexed for inflation, since 1968, it would be at $22 an hour. You know, so, people — this — we have — the average person — average family has really fallen behind and this is our attempt to plug them back into the game.

MARTIN: The bill was scaling it up. So, the question, I think, for some people is, where’s the spine of the Democrats, you know, when the Republicans didn’t like the ruling of the Senate parliamentarian, they use their authority to replace the parliamentarian. The other alternative is the vice president could use her vote to ignore that ruling. And some people look at that and say that’s just an excuse not to do it. What do you say? Is that true? Is it an excuse not to do it?

RYAN: Well, you’re asking me to understand the Senate trickeries that happen over there, and I just don’t — I don’t. I agree, we need to push as hard as we can for this. I would hope that even if it is not germane to this particular procedure that we should be immediately bring it back and have a vote. It’s supported by 60 percent of the American people. I think if you do it in the appropriate way that allows for businesses to roll in, I think even small businesses will begin to absorb it. Because here’s the thing, if Walmart starts paying $15 and hour, the mom- and-pop shop up the street who may have a handful of employees that they now have to pay $15 an hour, there’s going to be a hell of a lot more consumers that have a lot more money in their pocket that can go to the mom-and-pop shop. So, this is basic demand side economics that I think would be good for smaller businesses in the long run.

MARTIN: Well, but the other side of it, of course, is that the argument is that this advantage is employed at the expense of the unemployed. And that people — it doesn’t do anything for the job creation per se that it puts more money into the crimes of people who are employed, but it doesn’t do anything, as, you know, you pointed out with small businesses who may have only a handful of employees to begin with, it doesn’t give them any way or any room to sort of add more people. And if that’s the bigger crisis right now when you got, at least, 10 million people unemployed, people say that’s probably actually more than that, how does that help them?

RYAN: Well, I think if more people have more money in their pocket, the people who are unemployed — or the people who are employed who now are making more money, they now have more money to spend, people who are making $15 an hour pretty much spend everything they have. There’s not a whole lot of savings there. But they’re going to go from $10 or $11 an hour to $13, $14 or $15 overtime, that’s more money that they have to go out and spend in the economy which will increase demand, which will increase employment overtime. An I think that’s the appropriate thing for us to do. But again, you know, this is not — our — I don’t think that the Democratic economic policy come down to where we’re just for an increase in the minimum wage. We need to have robust investments into infrastructure, we need to make sure that we are going hard for building electric vehicles, building batteries, building charging stations, really dominating the new economy, that’s where the significant jobs are going to be created. And we’ve got to have a focus on that, because those jobs pay $20, $25, $30 an hour, and that is where we need to be. We are talking about the minimum wage. And I think with Joe Biden and his team want to do is rebuild that middle-class around those industries of the future that can really pay, and that’s in addition to the increase in the minimum wage.

MARTIN: But for some people I think that the minimum wage is more sort of a metaphor for the Democrats’ willingness to just really fight for things that they believe in or that they say they believe in. And you could disagree with the Republicans in what they believe in, but with the argument goes, at least they are willing to fight for it to the mat, they’re willing to take it to the mat. I mean — and do you think that that’s true? I mean, some people say that that’s the problem here. Do you think that’s true?

RYAN: Well, again, I don’t understand the inner workings of the United States Senate. But if we’re going to hold up the COVID relief bill, which has unemployment and all those other things that we talked about, and that’s going to held up while people, in the coming days, are going to lose their unemployment benefits, you know, what is fair, you know? So, I mean, we’ve got to get this package out the door. And — because it is going to help millions of people who are unemployed and may miss their rent payment and may destroy their credit and on and on. So, we’ve got to get this out the door. I mean, it’s frustrating in Washington, because you’ve got all of these issues coming at you at same time. And while I am an advocate for $15 minimum wage, let’s bring it back up. You know, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to pass the increase in the minimum wage. And if we’ve got to get the COVID package out of the door and come back to do it, we control the House, we control the Senate, we have the White House, there should be no excuse for us to bring that back. And so, let’s help everybody. But the most timely thing right now is to help these people who are unemployed.

MARTIN: So, you have said several times that you don’t understand the inner workings of the Senate. Would you like to understand those —

RYAN: I’m interested in the inner workings of the Senate and learning more about it. Yes, there’s an open seat in Ohio and we’re looking very, very closely at it. It’s, you know, I think that another working-class voice in the United States Senate is needed. You mentioned the minimum wage, with the middleclass, health care. You know, there’s a lot of communities that have been forgotten in this country and a lot of people that have been forgotten. The country hasn’t been great to them. And I really take a lot of pride of giving some voice to those people. And so, we are looking closely to, you know, potentially doing that on the floor of the United States Senate. I think that voice is missing. So, we’re going to look real closely at it.

MARTIN: Congressman Ryan, thank you so much for talking to us today.

RYAN: Thanks for having me.