Mika Brzezinski: Here in the studio we have the Democratic governor from New Jersey
Governor Jon Corzine, as well as Chuck Todd, who joins us live from Washington this morning.
Good to have you both with us.
Joe Scarborough: Let us start with Governor Corzine. Timing is everything. Don’t you
wish you had decided to be governor when you were a senator and then you could switch
over and be a senator now? It is a tough time to be governor out there, isn’t it?
Governor Jon S. Corzine: It is a very tough time on our people. You know, it is okay to
be a politician I guess, but the fact is people are worried about whether they are going to
have their jobs, they see their neighbors losing their homes. I do not feel sorry for myself
the way I think you have to focus on what is going on.
Joe Scarborough: Well sure but still, it is kind of horrid, not horrid, it is very difficult to
figure out what to do with a state like New Jersey when revenue is dropping.
Mika Brzezinski: Unemployment is going up.
Governor Corzine: Everyone in a governor’s position has to make tough choices about
where you are going to cut. We have a 7 billion dollar gap which we have proposed a
budget which is just choices that would be easy to criticize. We do not have the luxury of
going into deficit spending and you have to express what are your most important values,
like education, which we are supporting…actually growing this year even though we are
cutting our budget.
Mika Brzezinski: Governor, I want to talk to you just a moment and put on your hat as
former chairman of Goldman Sachs about the bonuses, but first let us bring Chuck in.
Chuck filed a report for the Today Show about political donations and you report nine
firms who received more than a billion dollars in bailout lending, handing out over 250
thousand dollars in PAP contributions. Chuck, tell us more about that.
Chuck Todd: Well it is sort of an optics issue you go through, in the month of February,
you had a bunch of the biggest firms who had been getting bailout money from the
financials guys like Citi and Bank of America to even Chrysler, who is getting money out
of the TARP in order to keep going and they still are handing out PAC checks.
Now granted you know, most political action committees are supposed to be of the employees
but we know that when you look inside, who gives to these PACs, it is the senior
management and those folks and it is just, you can not believe…I was talking to one
former law maker who told me, I am not sure who is dumber, the financial firm, who is
nervous about how their image is right now, handing out the checks or the politician who
sits there and goes on TV and rails against these bailouts but then takes it.
Particularly some politicians, where frankly the 5 thousand dollar contribution, actually,
unfortunately in our campaign finance system possibly, is not a lot of money but they take
it anyway which makes it just look…everybody’s hands are dirty in this.
Joe Scarborough: Let us talk about the people we have seen on TV the most, of course
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, some of the other members of the banking committee,
did they receive checks?
Chuck Todd: Well some of them did not. Barney Frank stopped doing it, he stopped
taking money from TARP folks. Now, he was nervous about talking to us about it,
because he is like well I do not want to demonize it. And that was another thing, you
know, but a John Boehner and Eric Cantor, they are both taking it still.
Stanley Hoyer, still taking it.
Harry Reid and Richard Shelby got checks but they returned it.
So everybody is trying to come up with their own…
Joe Scarborough: Anybody else in the banking committee that you see screaming
at these banks everyday?
Chuck Todd: We did. 11 of the 26 members of the
House Financial Services Committee took money.
Joe Scarborough: I am sorry, these are the same people screaming and yelling to punish
these bankers and they are taking… Chuck Todd: Almost half, almost half.
Joe Scarborough: Name some names from that banking committee,
especially the ones who scream everyday, self righteous.
Chuck Todd: Well first of all you had Earl Pomeroy, he was one of the guys up there that
said some really rough things about AIG, he is taking money
from some of these bailout firms. So there is a whole slew of these guys
you just sit there and you are like what are you doing? I mean this just does not look
right and I talked to one fundraiser who said one of the reasons why…
look at Eric Cantor and John Boehner, who said no more bailouts, Mike Pence,
no more bailouts, and they are taking money and I say why are they doing it?
They do not need it, they are in leadership and the answer I got was from this fundraiser,
he said to me, “Well, if they stop taking it then Joe, the ranking file member of Congress
will be forced to stop taking it and you know they really need the money.
Joe Scarborough: Well you are talking about Republicans, it is the Democrats who are in
power and the Democrats who are being obtuse.
Chuck Todd: And well they are doing it too, Stanley Hoyer, Stanley Hoyer is doing it too.
I mean it is bipartisan, this is not one of these ways where you are sitting there…
Jim Clyburn, he is taking a lot of money. Mel Watt, Democratic congressman from North
Carolina who is on the financial services, he is taking a lot of money. So you are sitting
there going, it just does not fit right, but Joe, I got a question for Governor Corzine,
he was talking about revenue issues. There is a state senator in New Jersey, Governor,
who I think wants to sue the government.
A law that had been passed about 20 years ago,
preventing other states from having sports gambling.
And there is this attempt I think that New Jersey and I know Delaware
wants to do this to open the door to having legalized sports gaming
as another potential fix for your budget. Where do you stand on that?
Governor Corzine: Well first of all, it is a federal law that limits sports gambling to
Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming and Montana, I think, the four states.
A lot of us who have gaming in our states that it would be supportive of the efforts
we already have in place, if we had gaming.
Now you are either going to have to get a law passed, which is highly unlikely through
the Congress, because some of states that have it probably would not
want to see the competition. Chuck Todd: You mean like Harry Reid?
Governor Corzine: Do the analysis. And the only way you can go at challenging that
other than through the legislative fix is probably through the courts, whether this law is
constitutional. So Senator Ray Lesniak is in court trying to sue.
I think that is going to take a while. I do not think that is our budget fix.
I think it is something that will, in the long run,
be supportive of the franchise we have and the destination resort.
Joe Scarborough: And by the way, Atlantic City is on the front page
of the escapes in the New York Times.
Governor Corzine: This is where we want you to spend your weekends and other days.
Joe Scarborough: You need to go down to Atlantic City Governor Corzine: We want to keep you in shape too.
Joe Scarborough: Jon, you know I need to get in shape. Thank god, New York was not
able to pass the fat tax, I would be broke. So tell me about, as a former chairman of
Goldman Sachs, what do you think about all the self righteous anger coming from these
people on the Hill, who you know shake down, Governor, all the time money.
The people they yell at now, as Chuck reports, still taking money now.
Governor Corzine: Well first of all, the perception on both sides of this are not good for
the bankers and they are not good for the politicians. And you know, the whole system,
which is one of the things I think President Obama used in his campaign very effectively,
has got to get squared away. Take some of they hypocrisy out of it by saying, A, I am
not going to take the money and B, the other guy has got to say, we are not going to give
the money particularly under these circumstances that we live in today.
Because perception is really, really important.
You know the 165 million dollars in bonuses at AIG, which you can call out, quote,
unquote outrageous, the fact is the biggest problem is the compensation system.
It is billions of dollars and it is short term oriented and it does not work toward the long run
value of creation for anybody, including shareholders of course as we have seen,
with the deterioration and value of markets. The fact is we got to get changes
in the underlying principles. Why guys want to fix their bathroom at high prices.
It is not the issue that is destroying the financial institutions, over leverage is.
The lack of the understanding of the complexity of the positions that people take on.
These things are just symptomatic of bigger problems and that is true
for the campaign finance issue as well. And you know, not everybody is innocent
sitting around this table too. The charges to come on television to be able
to communicate are unbelievably expensive.
You know, like 50,000 dollars for thirty seconds of communication ability.
Joe Scarborough: Oh, by thirty second ads. Governor Corzine: Ads. Everybody has got to sit down
and break the system down and look at what are causing the various
elements and the challenges.
You know you are in a unique position right now, in the history of this
country with regard to the economic distress we are undergoing.
You ran Goldman Sachs, you were a United States senator, you are a governor,
responsible for day to day decisions.
Governor Corzine: I am going to be the only sitting governor up for election in 2009.
Joe Scarborough: Lucky you! Governor Corzine: You know, I thought about this,
I worked on it for years so that we could have this lined up.
With regard to the proposed new regulations, to further control this mess that we are in
now so that it does not occur again, what do you like, what do you dislike?
Governor Corzine: Well, I think that while the specifics are not in place, I actually like
what Geithner talked about yesterday and talking about making sure that everybody was
registered for the SEC, I think hedge funds should be there, I do not think they should be
reaching. I think people need to understand where leverage is and we need to make sure
we have systematic oversight of the derivatives markets and that is another part of what
his plan suggested. You need somehow to coordinate the regulators. I personally would
just have the Federal Reserve do that, would make this a lot less complicated than setting
up a new institution. I would have the Federal Reserve be the overseer of the various
regulators with the responsibility to make sure that everybody is doing their job and that
we are looking inside the cracks between the silos that exist.
How do you legislate a compensation system?
Governor Corzine: You do not legislate a compensation system but you need to have the
President speaking and they need to be focused on the long term not the short term, you
can not have cash payouts on quarterly, yearly basis, you have to have them over a long
period of time. It has to earn the money by sustainable income not by overshots.
Joe Scarborough: Hey Chuck, you remember great moments in history. Neil Armstrong
walks on the moon, of course and the tragedy of the Challenger accident and Ronald
Reagan’s uplifting speech. Do you figure you will always remember where you were
yesterday when John Boehner unveiled the Republican blueprint from his new budget?
[Laughter] Chuck Todd: Can I just tell you, a budget without numbers, I think…
isn’t that like selling a car without wheels? I mean I just…
[Chatter] Joe Scarborough: Let me read this statement to you Chuck, this is wonderful.
“After 27 days, the best House Republicans could do is come up with a 19 page
pamphlet that does not include a single real budget proposal or estimate.
There are more numbers in my last sentence than there are in the entire House GOP budget.”
[Laughter] Joe Scarborough: It is funny because it is true!
Chuck Todd: Boehner must be in cahoots. If I were a Republican today, I
would wonder is John Boehner secretly trying to help Obama White House. Unbelievable.
Joe Scarborough: Yeah John Boehner must have been working at Freddie Mac at the same time.
Alright thank you so much Chuck. And good luck Governor. This is what
you call swimming against the tide. Governor Corzine: We will make it.
Mika Brzezinski: Jon Corzine, thank you. And coming up next the moderator of Meet the Press.