This is a rush transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” January 6, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: In a private meeting on Capitol Hill yesterday, Vice president-elect Joe Biden compared the current economic crisis to the 9/11 attacks. A spokesman for Biden later clarified the statement saying he was referencing how the government came together for the sake of the country in the aftermath of the attacks.
The harsh comparison came as Barack Obama made a push for his $775 billion stimulus package to pass in Congress.
Joining us, Stephen Moore from the Wall Street Journal and Alexis Glick, FOX Business News, host of “Money For Breakfast.”
ALEXIS GLICK, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: Nice to see you once again.
It is great to see you.
• Video: Watch Sean & Alan’s interview
COLMES: And Stephen, welcome back to the show. It’s been a while. Good to have you back with us.
STEPHEN MOORE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Hi, Alan.
COLMES: It seems to me conservatives are lining up to blame Barack Obama for adding to the deficit saying this is a giveaway, and yet whether President Bush wanted to do things like tax credits, I didn’t hear that kind of criticism.
So is there a double standard here?
MOORE: Well, Alan, I remember when I was out on this show last year, and you were hollering and howling about Bush deficits, and now that Obama wants to double the deficit, you don’t seem to have any problem with it.
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: You haven’t heard me howl yet.
(LAUGHTER)
MOORE: I think we have to get back to very basic economics here. A lot of people don’t understand what’s going on with respect to what the economists are saying. And here’s the point. That over the last eight years we’ve had the biggest expense of government spending in history. The federal budget has gone from $2 to $3.5 trillion…
COLMES: Under a Republican president.
MOORE: Right, Republicans and Democrats did this. Tomorrow the budget deficit is going to be reported to be over $1 trillion, and these nitwits come in and they say, you know what we need to do to make the economy grow faster, we need to grow the — the budget by another $1 trillion and go another trillion dollars in debt.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
COLMES: And you just want to keep cutting taxes and keep — and that increases the deficit and debt, too, doesn’t it?
MOORE: Well, look, I am very much in favor of a big supply side tax cut. If Obama really wants to help the economy one thing he could do that would cost him nothing is just say, look, we’re going to keep the low capital gains and dividend taxes in place.
COLMES: All right.
MOORE: That would, that would really help the stock market.
GLICK: I’m so excited.
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: Alexis, why are you — listen to her reaction here.
(CROSSTALK)
GLICK: OK, listen.
COLMES: (INAUDIBLE)
GLICK: First of all, first of all, look, President-elect Obama so far, as far as I’m concerned, gets an A rating here. He is doing…
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Oh, good grief.
GLICK: He’s doing a very good job on the economy issue.
HANNITY: What?
COLMES: Talk to me.
GLICK: He actually…
COLMES: He’ll be up. He’ll have his time in a second. Go ahead.
GLICK: He has Senator Mitch McConnell actually saying you know what, you are — you have legitimately gone to the left and the right, you were talking about.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I have Mitch McConnell’s statement.
COLMES: Alexis, let me ask you about…
GLICK: And you’re talking about incentives.
COLMES: Let me ask you something.
GLICK: Yes, go ahead.
COLMES: When I hear these Republicans complain and whine about the fact he wants to give tax credits, they didn’t whine when Republicans wanted to do the same thing. They called it a tax break. But when he does it, they want to blame him for a giveaway to the poor.
GLICK: We have elected a Democrat who is proposing tax incentives over the next two years which are higher than the two largest tax incentives that President Bush put in order in his first two years and in 2004 and in 2005.
COLMES: Right.
HANNITY: Wait a minute, Alexis, though.
GLICK: To the tune of an additional $100 billion. I mean.
HANNITY: Here — but there’s one point, though. If you look at, for example — the bottom 50 percent of wage earners in this country pay 2.9 percent of the federal bill. The top 25 percent pay 85 percent of the bill.
What — Obama is literally talking about giving money, tax cuts, he calls them, to people that don’t pay taxes. That’s welfare. That’s not a tax cut.
GLICK: Well, wait a second. This is addressing the middle income tax credit which he talked about the entire time along the campaign trail.
HANNITY: This is new and different.
GLICK: He is — but here’s the only thing. Let’s not forget, though, he is also agreeing that the Bush tax cuts that were put into effect that are set to expire in 2011 will remain in effect. So he’s not going out there.
HANNITY: I like that part.
GLICK: … and increasing taxes for you like he did talk about on the campaign trail.
HANNITY: Let me bring Stephen back in here.
MOORE: Hey, Alexis, can I ask you.
HANNITY: All right.
GLICK: Go ahead.
HANNITY: You be the host.
MOORE: Let me ask you a question, Alexis. We did this a year ago. We did the tax rebate checks a year ago, exactly this time, about $200 billion tax rebate checks, and guess what? They didn’t stimulate the economy at all.
There are good tax cuts, Alexis, as you know.
GLICK: Yes.
MOORE: And there were bad ones.
GLICK: And you know what, Stephen.
MOORE: What we need right now is a tax cut.
HANNITY: You talk without saying a word.
MOORE: We need tax cuts that brings down.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Let me see if I can do this.
MOORE: … on businesses so they hire more workers.
GLICK: OK, wait, wait. Here — let me bring up a point. I did a lot of homework today because I was working on predictions for 2009, and Stephen is going to know this. One of the biggest things that happens during a recession, if you look at the two largest recessions that we have had since the Great Depression is the savings rate in this country explodes to double digits.
HANNITY: All right. Here’s…
GLICK: In May of last year it got as high as 5 percent. It…
HANNITY: We’re running out of time.
GLICK: Yes.
HANNITY: Let me get this in. Obama predicts…
GLICK: Problem is will we spend?
HANNITY: … $1 trillion deficits for years to come.
GLICK: Absolutely. We are not going to be able to pay this off in the short term. This will go on. We’ve already sent trillions of dollars.
HANNITY: Then why, why welfare, Alexis? Why are we going to give income tax cuts to people that don’t pay income taxes?
GLICK: I am — look, I am not disagreeing with you that there are certain parts of this plan that are not perfect, but we’ve got to figure out in a swift way how to turn this thing around. With the thing I’m concerned about is if you get them.
HANNITY: It’s redistribution.
GLICK: Will we spend the money? I think we’re going to save it, not spend it.
MOORE: Alexis…
HANNITY: We need freedom, liberty, and capitalism.
MOORE: That’s just the budget deficit.
HANNITY: All right. Let me practice this, Alexis.
MOORE: … huge trillion dollars if we do that.
HANNITY: I’m going to do this, Alexis, again.
(LAUGHTER)
GLICK: That was my version of calling an NFL call. It was John Madden. I’m on the sidelines.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: We just gotten a few X’s and O’s in here.
Alexis, good to see you, and Stephen, it’s always good to see you.
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