Obama “off” ou “on the record?”

Without comment, campaign
officials for President Obama this morning released to the Des Moines
Register a transcript of an interview he had Tuesday with Laura
Hollingsworth, president and publisher of the Register, and Rick Green, editor/vice-president
of news. Initially, the White House had asked that the conversation be
considered off-the-record and its details not shared with readers. Its
release comes on the heels of a Tuesday evening DesMoinesRegister.com blog
post by Green questioning why an endorsement interview with the Register
would be off-the-record.

Interview of the President by
Rick Green & Laura Hollingsworth, The Des Moines Register

Q: Good morning, Mr. President
— Laura Hollingsworth, with the Des Moines Register.

THE PRESIDENT: Hi, how are you?

Q: Very well. We haven’t spoken
in four years. We’re excited to be able to talk with you.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’m so
glad to talk to you. And I understand Rick is joining us as well.

Q: Rick Green is right next to
me, our editor, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Great.

Q: Good morning, Mr. President.
How are you sir?

THE PRESIDENT: I’m doing great
and looking forward to being back in Iowa.

Q: Good, see you later this
week.

Q: You’ve been here a lot.
(Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: It’s home away
from home.

But I know that our time is
limited and you guys have a lot of questions. I thought maybe it would be
useful for me to just summarize how I see a second term very quickly, and
then you guys can pepper me with questions. Does that sound okay?

Q: Thank you very much.

THE PRESIDENT: Obviously, I’m
very proud of what we’ve accomplished over the last four years. A lot of it
was responding to the most severe economic emergency we’ve had since the
Great Depression. And whether it was saving the auto industry, stabilizing
the financial system, making sure that we got into a growth mode again and
started putting people back to work, we have made real progress.

But people are obviously still
hurting in a lot of parts of the country. And that’s why last night I tried
to reiterate a very specific plan that we’ve put forward to make sure that
the economy is growing, we’re bringing down our deficit, and we’re creating
jobs.

So, number one, I’m very
interested in continuing to build on the work that we did not just in the
auto industry but some of the other industrial sectors, bringing
manufacturing back to our shores; changing our tax code to reward companies
that are investing here. There is a real sense that companies are starting to
make decisions about insourcing, and some modest incentives I think can make
a real difference in terms of us seeing continued manufacturing growth, which
obviously has huge ramifications throughout the economy, including in the
service sector of the economy.

Number two, education, which
has obviously been a priority for us over the last four years — I want to
build on what we’ve done with Race to the Top, but really focus on STEM
education — math, science, technology, computer science. And part of that is
helping states to hire teachers with the highest standards and training in
these subjects so we can start making sure that our kids are catching up to
some of the other industrialized world.

Two million more slots in
community colleges that allows our workers to retrain, but also young people
who may not want to go to a four-year college, making sure that the training
they’re receiving is actually for jobs that are out there right now. And we
want to continue to work — building on the progress we’ve done over the last
four years — to keep tuition low for those who do attend either a two-year
or a four-year college.

Number three, controlling our
own energy. This obviously is of interest to Iowa. Our support of biofuels,
our support of wind energy has created thousands of jobs in Iowa. But even
more importantly, this is going to be the race to the future. The country
that controls new sources of energy, not just the traditional sources, is
going to have a huge competitive advantage 10 years from now, 20 years from
now, 30 years from now.

So in addition to doubling our
fuel-efficiency standards on cars and trucks, what we want to do is make sure
that we’re producing new technologies here — long-lasting batteries, making
sure that we are developing the wind and solar and other energy sources that
may provide us a breakthrough. In the meantime, we’re still producing oil and
natural gas at a record pace, but we’ve got to start preparing for the
future. And as I said, it creates jobs right now in Iowa.

Number four, I want to reduce
our deficit. It’s got to be done in a balanced way. I’ve already cut a
trillion dollars’ worth of spending. I’m willing to do more. I’m willing to
cut more, and I’m willing to work with Democrats and Republicans when it
comes to making some adjustments that bring down the cost of our health care
programs, which obviously are the biggest drivers of our deficit.

But nobody who looks at the
numbers thinks it’s realistic for us to actually reduce our deficit in a
serious way without also having some revenue. And we’ve identified tax rates
going up to the Clinton rates for income above $250,000; making some
adjustments in terms of the corporate tax side that could actually bring down
the corporate tax overall, but broaden the base and close some loopholes.
That would be good for our economy, and it would be good for reducing our
deficit.

And finally, using some of the
war savings to put people back to work on infrastructure — roads, bridges.
We’ve fallen behind in that area. And we can — this deferred maintenance, we
can put people to work, back, right now, and at the same time make sure that
our economy is more competitive over the long term.

So that’s sort of a summary of
the things I want to accomplish to create jobs and economic growth.
Obviously, there are other items on the agenda. We need to get immigration
reform done, and I’m fully committed to doing that. I think there’s still
more work on the energy efficiency side that we can do — helping to retrofit
our buildings, schools, hospitals, so that they’re energy efficient —
because if we achieved efficiencies at the level of, let’s say, Japan, we
could actually cut our power bill by about 20-25 percent, and that would have
the added benefit of taking a whole bunch of carbon out of the atmosphere.

So there are some things that
we can do, but obviously the key focus is making sure that the economy is
growing. That will facilitate all the other work that we do.

Q: Very good, Mr. President.
First question for you — obviously, we all know that restoring the national
economy is the number-one issue among voters. And here in Iowa, obviously, we
struggle with the same thing. I’ll tell you that our editorial board is
struggling with that same thing. What will — and many believe that we’ve
only engineered a recovery based on more spending, delaying sort of the
inevitable, and that even looking at growth projections for next year, very
weak based on current trend lines. So why will your plan for a second term
yield better results than what we saw in the first four years of the
administration? And how are we going to grow at a faster pace?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, keep in
mind that some of this is us just working through a very, very deep worldwide
financial-based recession. And you guys are probably familiar with some of
the work that’s been done on this. Recessions that follow a financial crash
of some sort, including the popping of the housing bubble, are not regular
recessions. They’re not your typical business cycle recession. And so, in many
ways, because of the actions we took early on, we’re actually ahead of pace
in the typical recovery out of a recession like this.

But the potential for upside
growth remains very strong. Keep in mind that we are growing faster than just
about any other large industrialized country. We’re growing faster than
Europe. We’re growing faster than Japan. And part of the challenge we have
right now — we’ve had a bunch of headwinds because Europe is still getting
its act together. China, its economy has been weakened. And so world trade
generally has been somewhat depressed over the last year.

But despite that, we’ve doubled
our exports. And if you combine a prudent deficit plan, a serious emphasis on
our manufacturing strengths, retraining our workers, a very real energy boom
both in natural gas but also in clean energy, and the infrastructure that
traditionally has not been a partisan issue — we’ve got a lot of deferred
maintenance that needs to be done — even as the housing market is starting
finally to recover — you combine those things, and there’s no reason why we
can’t have a significant surge of growth.

Conversely, if we adopted my
opponent’s plans for a $5 trillion tax cut that he claims would somehow be
paid for by deductions and — closing of deductions and loopholes that nobody
can identify how to pay for, either we’re blowing up that deficit, or what’s
going to end up happening is you end up seeing middle-class families taxed.
That’s the absolute worst thing that could be done for the economy right now.

So I’m actually optimistic that
if you combine the elements of my plan together, we can grow faster and
create the kind of virtuous cycle that allows businesses to start investing
and hiring a lot more aggressively. Keep in mind, over the first — or let’s
say, over the previous two and a half years, corporate profits had been at
record levels. Companies are awash with cash. And what they’ve been missing
are enough customers out there to prompt demand and justify them investing in
more plant equipment and workers. So if we can just trigger that, there’s
enough capital out there in order for us to get on that virtuous cycle.

Q: Great. Mr. President, we
know that John Boehner and the House Republicans have not been easy to work
with, and certainly you’ve had some obstacles in the Senate, even though it’s
been controlled by the Democrats. At the time, whenever — we talked a lot
about, in 2008, hope and change. I’m curious about what you see your role is
in terms of changing the tone and the perception that Washington is broken.
But particularly, sir, if you were granted a second term, how do you implode
this partisan gridlock that has gripped Washington and Congress and basically
our entire political structure right now?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Rick, let
me answer you short term and long term. In the short term, the good news is
that there’s going to be a forcing mechanism to deal with what is the central
ideological argument in Washington right now, and that is: How much
government do we have and how do we pay for it?

So when you combine the Bush
tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place, the commitment of both myself and
my opponent — at least Governor Romney claims that he wants to reduce the
deficit — but we’re going to be in a position where I believe in the first
six months we are going to solve that big piece of business.

It will probably be messy. It
won’t be pleasant. But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the
equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I’ve been offering to the
Republicans for a very long time, which is $2.50 worth of cuts for every
dollar in spending, and work to reduce the costs of our health care programs.

And we can easily meet —
“easily” is the wrong word — we can credibly meet the target that the
Bowles-Simpson Commission established of $4 trillion in deficit reduction,
and even more in the out-years, and we can stabilize our deficit-to-GDP ratio
in a way that is really going to be a good foundation for long-term growth.
Now, once we get that done, that takes a huge piece of business off the
table.

The second thing I’m confident
we’ll get done next year is immigration reform. And since this is off the
record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I
will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican
Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country,
the Latino community. And this is a relatively new phenomenon. George Bush
and Karl Rove were smart enough to understand the changing nature of America.
And so I am fairly confident that they’re going to have a deep interest in
getting that done. And I want to get it done because it’s the right thing to
do and I've cared about this ever since I ran back in 2008.

So assume that you get those
two things done in the first year, and we're implementing Wall Street reform,
Obamacare turns out not to have been the scary monster that the other side
has painted. Now we're in a position where we can start on some things that
really historically have not been ideological. We can start looking at a
serious corporate tax reform agenda that's revenue-neutral but lowers rates
and broadens the base — something that both Republicans and Democrats have
expressed an interest in.

I've expressed a deep desire and
taken executive action to weed out regulations that aren't contributing to
the health and public safety of our people. And we've made a commitment to
look back and see if there are regulations out there that aren't working,
then let’s get rid of them and see if we can clear out some of the underbrush
on that. Again, that's something that should be non-ideological.

My hope is, is that there’s a
recognition that now is a great time to make infrastructure improvements all
across the country. And we can pull up some of the money that we know we're
going to be spending over the next decade to put people back to work right
now at a time when contractors are dying for work and interest rates are
really low.

And, again, that's something
that even John Boehner — John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, they’ve got a
bridge linking Cincinnati and Kentucky, and the bridge is so broken down that
folks are having to drive an hour and a half of extra commuting just to get
across the Ohio River. There’s no reason why we can't work on things like
that and put people back to work.

So I just want to contrast with
what happens if Mitt Romney is elected. I know that he likes to talk about
his Massachusetts record. The truth is there really were two Mitt Romneys.
There was the Mitt Romney who initially got elected, passed Obamacare, and
was interested in being the governor of Massachusetts. After his second year,
it was the Mitt Romney who was running for president and abandoned all his
previous positions.

And the problem you’ve seen in
this campaign is he’s made commitments — his first day he’s got to introduce
a bill to repeal Obamacare. And that's a commitment he cannot back off of.
That is a huge, messy fight. His first day in office, he has to make some
commitments in rolling back things like the Consumer Finance Protection Board
we put in place on Wall Street reform. His budget — the Ryan budget —
there’s no way that, if he’s president, he can avoid having a showdown on a
budget that his running mate introduced, or a variation of it, because he’s
committed to cutting spending by 20 percent across the board on discretionary
and increasing defense spending by $2 trillion.

Q: Yes, that begs a question
from us, Mr. President. Some say you had a super majority in your first two
years and had this incredible opportunity, but because of what you were
talking about, as you were running, you had to go to get Obamacare done. Do
you have any regrets taking on some of the economic issues, some of the
issues that we're talking about for your second term, that when you had the
chance, so to speak, during your first — do you have any regrets that you
didn’t do that at that time?

THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely not,
Laura. Remember the context. First of all, Mitch McConnell has imposed an
ironclad filibuster from the first day I was in office. And that's not
speculation. I mean, this is — it’s amply recorded. He gave a speech saying,
my task is to defeat the President.

So we were able to pass
emergency action with the stimulus, but we had to get two votes from
Republicans. One of them essentially was driven out of the party — Arlen
Specter, who recently passed away. We then — because Al Franken hadn’t been
seated, didn’t have 60 votes until essentially — there was a four- or
five-month span. But at that point, we had already put in place the Recovery
Act. We had already moved forward to help states avoid teacher layoffs and so
forth.

And we were already in the
process of stabilizing the banks. We had already engineered the process that
would save the auto industry. And there was not going to be any appetite
among Democrats or Republicans to take additional actions until we saw the
progress that was making — that needed to be made.

And our health care system is
one-sixth of our economy. And if we have a situation where spending on health
care at every level is going up at 6, 7, 10 percent a year, and we’ve got
millions of people without coverage or inadequate coverage, the suggestion
that that’s not a central economic priority for the country is just something
that I wouldn’t buy.

And the suggestion somehow that
if we hadn’t pursued Obamacare, somehow we would have gotten additional
stimulus out of the Republicans, for example, that we could have primed the
pump more, that’s just not borne out by any of the evidence.

In fact, the first stimulus,
when we were contracting at 8 percent a quarter, as I was on my way up — a
month after I’d been elected, or two months after I’d been elected — as I
was on my way up to meet the House Republicans to share with them my ideas
about how we should pass this Recovery Act, they already said they’d vote
against it.

Now, it was a political
strategy that won them back the House, but it wasn’t good for the country.
And I think the country recognizes that. So what I want to do — now we’re in
a different position, and I genuinely believe that one of the best things we
can do for the economy is to settle this issue of government spending,
entitlements, and revenues so that we can provide the kind of certainty that
I think businesses and individuals are looking for.

Q: One question — as you watch
voters here and just everyday interactions with people that are so undecided,
so fearful of either choice — I found people becoming even more ambivalent
and even voters making statements such as it really doesn’t matter who’s
President anyway because of the problems in Congress and really that’s what’s
going on — what would you say to a statement that somebody was saying, it
doesn’t really matter who should be President?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, what I’d
say is that it will matter to millions of Americans who may or may not have
health care. It will matter to millions of seniors who maybe — or soon-to-be
seniors who may be faced with the prospect of a voucher system for Medicare.

It will matter to young people
all across the country who were born here, pledged allegiance to our flag,
went to school here, and are Americans in every way except they don’t have
documentation and would continue to be at risk of deportation.

It will matter to middle-class
families who are going to find themselves locked out of the discussion in
terms of how we balance our budget, or at least reduce our deficit, facing
the prospect that things like the tax credit we put in place for kids going
to college, the earned income tax credit, a whole bunch of things that make
sure working people stay out of poverty — that could all go away.

The consequences on just about
every indicator out there would be enormous. And so if the question is, will
the economy drastically improve, are we going to get back to — are we going
to get to 4 or 5 percent growth if I’m reelected versus Mitt Romney — there
are some big global economic issues that are being worked through.

But the question I think for
voters, in addition to what’s going to be good for me and my family tomorrow,
is, what’s going to be good for America five years from now or 10 years from
now. And if we have not built an education system that works and makes sure
that college is affordable, if we have not won the race for future energy
technologies, if we’re slashing funding for things like basic research, if we
are not rebuilding our infrastructure, then 5, 10 years from now we are going
to be a weaker nation. And that has huge consequences.

Now, obviously, if somebody
believes that the government has been the problem and will remain the
problem, and if we just strip down government to defense spending and Social
Security and some watered-down version of Medicare and Medicaid, and we
shouldn’t be doing anything else, then obviously Mitt Romney is the
candidate. There’s no indication, based on either historical evidence or
what’s happening around the world, that that’s the recipe for long-term
sustainable economic growth.

Q: Mr. President, we’re very
sensitive to your time. I know you’ve got a busy schedule. But we just had
just one last question here. As we close in on the final hours of this
campaign — it’s been a long one. It’s been exhausting. It’s been very, very
expensive, as I know you know. Why should the Des Moines Register offer its
endorsement to you, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you guys
have seen me up close. I wouldn’t be on the national stage had it not been
for the people of Iowa. And if you look at what I said to you this time four
years ago, and the commitments I’ve made, I have kept and met those
commitments, or I have worked really hard to keep them and meet them.

I said that I’d cut taxes for
middle-class families — I did. I said that we would make sure to make
college more affordable — we have. I said I would clean up the financial
system and pass the toughest Wall Street reforms since the 1930s, and we
have. I said that I would make sure that people don’t go broke in this
country because they get sick — we did that. I said I’d end the war in Iraq
— I have. I said we’d got after al Qaeda and bin Laden — we have. I said
we’d begin a process where we could initially blunt the momentum of the
Taliban and then a process in which we’d begin transitioning out — we’re in
the process of doing that.

So across the board, I’ve done
what I said. And this is in the midst of I think what everybody would agree
were some pretty historic circumstances. And the criteria by which I’ve made
these decisions has always been what’s good for America’s families, how do we
build our middle class, how do we grow the economy in a way that broad-based
and sustainable.

The notion that somehow we’ve
been bad for business is obviously contradicted by the evidence. Corporate
profits have been at record levels up until maybe last quarter. The stock
market basically has recovered all its losses that it experienced from the
financial sector. The auto industry has come roaring back. Our exports have
doubled.

For the people of Iowa that are
so dependent on the agricultural sector — the agricultural sector has never
done better than it has under my administration. Even in the midst of this
year’s drought it’s still doing well.

When it comes to clean energy
that I talked about so much back in 2007-2008, we’ve doubled our production
of clean energy. And we’re starting to see the costs of that energy come
down, the number of jobs it generates go up.

I got to tell you, I feel very
strongly that I have a record that justifies a second term. But I guess, more
importantly, what you also know is that I’m somebody who keeps my word, that
I don’t read the polls, that I do what I think is right for the American
people, even when it is profoundly unpopular politically. And I think that’s
worth something. I think that’s the kind of leadership the people of Iowa
want.

Q: Very good.

Q: Thank you so much, Mr.
President, for your time.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, guys.
I appreciate you taking the time. I want your endorsement.

Q: Thank you so much.

THE PRESIDENT: You’ll feel
better when you give it. (Laughter.) All right? Bye-bye.

Q: Appreciate it.

Q: Best of luck, Mr. President.

THE
PRESIDENT: Thank you. Bye-bye.