Frederica Freyberg:
Even as Democrats digested the president's budget plan, they moved on bills that had economic impact. Last night the House approved a measure that allows the government to borrow funds that would put it $1.9 trillion deeper into debt. They also passed a pay-go budget rule, one that would require future spending increases to be paid for with real money. Either dollars from program cuts or from tax increases. We go over the house action, the economy and the president’s budget plan now with 2nd-district Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin. Thank you so much for being here.

Tammy Baldwin:
It's a pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:
You were among those who pulled the yay vote lever on raising the debt ceiling. Why did you do that?

Tammy Baldwin:
It's reinstating pay-as-you-go rules. And that is so important. If you look back two decades to the ‘90s, it was pay-as-you-go rules that got our budget back into balance. And, in fact, into surplus at the end of the Clinton years. President Obama has inherited a mess. A mountain of debt and a serious recession. You know, we won't be able to turn around overnight. But I think that with the general direction of his budget which focuses on short term as well as long term job creation and economic recovery, that hand-in-hand with our action yesterday to put a statute, to put into law pay-as-you-go rules. That is what will help build us and move us out of the position we are in right now, which is pretty massive deficits.

Frederica Freyberg:
On the president's budget, he juxtaposes spending more money now and then freezing later. So he's trying to get at this job growth. But how do you respond to Republicans who say that the budget has too many new taxes, too much new spending and too much new debt that will hurt job growth that we need so desperately?

Tammy Baldwin:
Job growth, spurring job creation has to be our number one focus. In the president's budget he does a number of things that looks like job creation both short term and long term. In terms of short term investments, he's helping to empower small businesses who hire half the workforce in this country to be able to create new jobs and expand. There is a focus on infrastructure, which is something that has dual benefits of improving our infrastructure and putting people back to work right away. But looking longer term, the investment we make in education is key. Educating our children as we so proudly do in Wisconsin, and this is a huge priority in Wisconsin. The children are our future workforce. If you want to have our economy come back healthy and stronger with innovation and transformation to a clean energy economy, that investment will pay off. And it's one that's critical to our recovery and balancing the budget in the future.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let me ask you about that while we are talking about education. One of the pieces in the budget calls for a billion dollar increase in education funding for the states. But only in return for Congress reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act which would include some changes. Is that a vote you would be willing to do under these conditions?

Tammy Baldwin:
First of all, his underlying budget includes increases for primary elementary and secondary education as well as college education, regardless of how we tackle the legislation, this is sort of the bonus payment, if you will. And I think those are important reforms that we need to tackle. I heard from parents, from teachers, from school board members of the difficulty and the challenges they faced with certain aspects of Bush’s No Child Left Behind measure. We want to make sure that no child is left behind, certainly. But I think some of those reforms are very necessary to narrow the gaps we see in education across this country.

Frederica Freyberg:
A lot of people might wonder where is the recovery even with all of this kind of recovery and stimulus money coming out of Washington?

Tammy Baldwin:
Well, it's all over. We have to tell the stories more frequently. I just came a few hours ago from a plant in Stoughton that has hired back all of its laid off workers because of the early recovery they are seeing in certain industries they do business with. That's the sort of success that we need to replicate across Wisconsin and across America. I look at university and the number of graduate students and lab assistants and researchers who are at work right now because of the research and innovation funding in the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. There are examples. But as we know, this recession will be worse than we originally anticipated. The biggest challenge our country has faced since the Great Depression. It's not something we can turn around overnight. It will take time. We have been saying that. Certainly it doesn't feel fast enough when you are frustrated and I can tell you, people who are out of work are struggling right now here in Wisconsin. But that's why this has to be our clear number one priority. Putting Wisconsinites and Americans back to work.

Frederica Freyberg:
Banner headlines in this morning's paper in Madison talked about how 100,000 people would be left off unemployment benefits by the end of April if Congress doesn't intervene.

Tammy Baldwin:
We have been on this precipice a number of times because of the severity of this recession. Congress has acted to extend those unemployment benefits at each juncture in the past. I believe we'll do so again. This situation that we are in right now is not tolerable. We can't have a jobless recovery and call it a recovery. We need to take actions now in order to assure both the short term recovery and our long-term prosperity.

Frederica Freyberg:
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, thank you so much.