>> next, "newsmakers". then the contenders. today the life of ross perot. >> this week on "newsmakers," senator mark kirk, republican of illinois. welcome, sir. thank you for being here. two congressional reporters with us. lisa has the first question. go ahead. guest: i guess the big topic here in washington is the payroll tax extension and trying to get it through before congress goes home for the holidays. what dourning? you have voted against a couple different versions, four times now it's come through the senate democratic and republican versions of this

payroll tax extension. it expires at the end of this year. are you prepared to let that happen, to let there be a tax hike? >> i don't think we should cut contributions to social security. this is to take a $260 billion whack at the social security trust fund. under the republican bill which theoretically pays for it, it takes until 2018 to recover the losses to social security. under the democratic bill with the millionaire's tax, it takes until 20 21. so three presidential terms just to make up the one-year deficit to the trust fund. social security is already running in the red. 10,000 americans qualify for benefits each day with the retirement of the baby boom. this would increase losses to the social security trust fund by 20 times.

and the replacement that's put in the trust fund because under this law you wouldn't be contributing very much to the fund, are u.s. government bonds. but seniors know that bonds no longer have a aaa nch credit rating from standard and poors. >> the chief act wary from the trust fund did send a letter to congress this week saying if the pay roll tax holiday is kept for 2012, that there would be no effect on the trust fund. >> my pre-answer, answered that already. what he doesn't say is we would make up the losses with government bobbeds. but he is a political abmall. what he didn't say is government bonds that no longer have a aaa credit raiding. >> under the current pay roll tax extension the difference in -- >> the other thing i would interrupt you. you called it a payroll tax.

which is the white house political code word. in the past we called this contributions to social security. and that was what they were called under the roosevelt administration. it only became the payroll tax deduction two years ago when the white house decided to use social security as a cash cow for economic stimulus. i think we should return the language and you should describe it as contributions to social security which is what it has been for 50 years. >> did you vote last year when congress extended the tax cuts last year and added in this new benefit? >> i did. senator mavenen and i both voted for this because we knew the economy was in free fall and we were willing to do everything possible to help out. but we were told at the time that this was a one year party, that the trust fund would take a hit for only one year and i think it was about a $100 billion hit that seniors took. now, under political times even when the white house claims that the economy is growing

they want to have another $250 billion party on the backs of the social security trust fund. >> other economists have said that doing away with this tax benefit in 2012 would shave up to a percentage point. so gpped is not expected to grow that much next year. >> i would argue actually that it didn't. the economy is not in good shape. i would argue that actually we face much more considerable risk from europe and a recession which is breaking out in europe for affecting the united states. and i don't think temporary gimmicks which undermines the long term strength of social security are wise. >> so is the answer then that in order to protect social security, in order to protect not only today's seniors but future seniors, is the answer to let this payroll tax -- >> you shouldn't call it a payroll tax. >> to let this contribution go back to what it was before? >> it is the right policy.

because one of the lessons of europe is that you can't run retirement security programs without contributions to retirement security. that we should not -- remember, aarp will tell you social security is not a welfare program. it's a retirement security program paid by contributions of its workers and that by shifting social security payments on to the general fund of the government which is substantially in the red and heavily dependent on borrowing from china is something that seniors then would worry about more and more. and i think seniors have enough to worry about as it is without the congress voting on a bipartisan basis to undermine contributions. host: >> number one, are you worried that constituents will be unhappy when they see their paychecks go down a little bit because that tax or that contribution has returned to its original level? and do you have concern about the possibility of breaking the nor quist tax pledge? >> i think first we should run social security so that it is

strong. and this legislation undermines social security by, if you add the $100 billion loss from last year and then another $200 billion this year that's a significant hemorrhaging of social security. as i described the fund is not repaid for two or three presidential terms. and i sent out an online poll to my constituents, 400,000 of them, and said do you think that we should do this in this way? and the answer was we don't. that we strongly support contributions to social security. and for me, there's a long-term goal here which is right now we are in a deficit crisis with a debt crisis raging in europe. the short-term borrowing needs of the united states are accelerated by this legislation. when you underfund social security by 250 billion, that

means that the u.s. government for a temporary time is going to be borrowing even faster. and given the collapse of greek debt, spanish debt, italian debt, portuguese debt, irish debt, the congress should not be passing legislation that accelerates u.s. borrowing. >> so you're willing to violate the pledge -- >> this was a temporary gimmick tax holiday that was imposed only one year ago. and i think the bottom line is as a fiscal conservative, i think the government should be smaller. but i support social security. and therefore, if you support social security you should support contributions to it. and those who say we should try to run social security without contributions i think are undermining the long-term future. >> so it should be smaller in other places. this is a place where it should remain robust. >> i think we have made a commitment to seniors. we know that 10,000 are retiring each day.

and that already the program is running approximately $10 billion in the red. if you pass this legislation cutting contributions to social security as the president outlined, we won't run $10 trillion in the red. we will run $270 trillion in the red. ar it's not just as the president has outlined. house speaker boehner and your leader mitch mcconnell in the senate are all in favor of extending this benefit because they say it's not the time to hit americans 160 million working americans with a thousand dollar tax hike 234e6ked year. so you consider yourself as an outliar. in your party. even the candidates have said while they might have problems around the edges of it, they believe the tax should be extended. >> that's why joe mantion and i have teamed up. democratic senator and i as a

republican both say we should not undermine seniors this way. we should not try to run social zuret without contributions. and that a piece of legislation which increases social security losses by 20 times causing those losses to replenish with u.s. government debt that doesn't even have a aaa rating from standard and poors any more is just irresponsible. >> we can move on, but it isn't being replaced with debt in the proposals. >> you're totally wrong on that. you are factly completely wrong. >> they're paying for it with sputs elsewhere in the budget. >> no, you're totally and utterly wrong. >> ok. >> part of what you need to do is learn about this more. because if you ask cbo how are the losses replenished, you will see that under the republican plan for can you tell us to make up for this, the cuts don't replenish the

trust fund until 2018. you need to know that. you don't know that but you do need to know that >> i realize it's under a ten year repayment plan. so a one-year benefit for a ten-year. >> and remember, the benefits is paid with what? additional borrowing. who does that? you have to ask these questions. who does that borrowing? the u.s. treasure rifment and what is that borrowing called? government bonds. and are those government bonds aaa rated any more? no. so do you feel more secure as a senior knowing that we've gone from paid contributions to government debt and knowing that that government debt no longer is seen as the highest quality debt according -- you absolutely need to know these details because this is part of your economic future as well. >> it sounds to me what you're saying is that the president and mitch mcconnell and john

boehner are basically willing to rob seniors for the benefit of people who are working right now. >> well, i voted four times now against both republican bills and both democratic bills that made this proposal. and joe has voted four times against this as well. i think we have a growing number of members. i think the last time for example we had 20 republican senators vote against the republican bill that did this to social security. and i think we are widely concerned that you cannot run a retirement security program without contributions. >> if i can follow up on the leadership question of it. because some have said that your leadership in the senate, mitch mcconnell, is out of step with his rank and file. that he came out before that vote where 20 republicans said no and said i've got a majority sentiment for this. but there wasn't. >> clearly, the republican conference is divided now. and i think the true fiscally

responsible position is to defend social security, to say that we can't run a retirement security program without contributions. and we should not increase losses to the trust fund by 20 times. that we realize the actuary probably ordered to say that and technically he is right. he is paying benefits by increased borrowing by the united states. but as we all know, u.s. bonds simply don't have the quality according to standard and poors that they used to. >> did you have a conversation with your leader? >> we did. and on the floor there's a difference of opinion here. but my hope is that a growing number of members look at this and say the long term financial future of the country should be on not on shrinking the size of government where it needs to be reduced but for those areas of the government that you support -- for example, i support having a department of defense, i support having social security -- then you should adequately resource it so you

are not increasing the deficit of the united states. and as we see the lesson so clearly in europe, the europeans have tried to run retirement security programs with tremendous amounts of borrowed money. that is exactly what the president is calling for and i think that is a mistake. >> if we could switch for a moment to another topic, take you to where you're in the minority to one where you're in the majority. the overwhelming unanimous majority, you had an amendment passed for iran sanctions, 100-0 i believe in the senate. that is now moving into a conference. if you could explain for the viewers what that amendment does and why the administration's fighting you so hard on it. >> what that amendment does it's the amend dezz-kirk amendment that passed 100-0 in the senate. in these bipartisan times, when do we have a 100-0 vote? and it was over the objection of the obama administration. iran was cited by the atomic

energy as getting close to a nuclear weapon. enriching uranium far above the 5% necessary to run a reactor. having a separate stream of nuclear materials to their military. of designing a war head that had an electrical generator on board. a normal war head has a spark that nishyates the explosive. an electrical generator on board a war head is only needed for a nuclear weapon. on top of that, we know of the iranian support for terror hezbollah and hamas. we know iran is now the central pillar of the final days of the syrian dictatorship in damascus. we know of 330,000 who have all been kicked out of school. the interior ministry is has registered all of their houses. this is a movie we've seen wearing different uniforms in a different country and we're worried about the same outcome. so what we've said is we should take the strongest nonmilitary means possible and that is to

pick up on what the obama administration has said that the central bank of iran is the central money laundering for terror and for nuclear proliferation by the islamic republic of iran. and the menendez-kirk amendment says if you do business with the central bank of iran, you may not do business with the united states. it's forcesed to trigger every financial institution in the world to choose between the $300 billion iranian slinking economy and the u.s. economy. but we worked with the administration, especially senator menendez, he put two critical waivers in the amendment that said if oil prices are constricted, the president can delay sanctions. and then we put a catch-all kind of get out of jail free card national security waiver. but surprisingly, after the administration won these concessions from senator menendez and i, they turned right around and opposed

senator menendez in an open hearing. and secretary geithner wrote to the congress saying we don't think that you should support the menendez-kirk amendment at all even though it has the waivers a and not one senator stood with them. >> it is fascinating to see that 100-0 vote a week ago thursday. it's so unusual in these times. i think secretary geithner's letter he did also mention the oil price fights that you mentioned but also i think he was concerned about congress not having a full picture of the diplomatic efforts and the international efforts that the obama administration was doing on this issue. and he warned in that letter that he was worried that this measure, this amendment would interfere with those and send the wrong message to allies and other that is the administration is working to

impose sanctions on iran. what is your response to that? clearly congress disregarded that. but what is your response? >> well, the "washington post" put it best. on friday the "washington post" had a stinging editorial blasting the obama administration basically saying you are concerned about the iranians getting close to a nuclear weapon, the arms race that it would trigger, the statements about wiping israel off the map. and yet every time you describe any difficulty imposing a policy which would cause pain on the iranians, thent you don't want to take action. i think the senate saw especially the attorney general of the united states eric holder describe a plot by senior iranian leaders to blow up a georgetown restaurant in order to kill the saudi arabian ambassador of the united states, by the way killing dozens of americans as well, and they mean action. we're not talking about military reaction but we're talking about effectively economic sanctions.

the amendment has waivers. the amendment also takes weeks if not months for the actual sanctions to be imposed. and when you look at international oil markets there's several big themes. number one, the war in libya is over and libyan production is scheduled to double just in the next six months. the war in iraq is largely over and iraq being the number two oil producing nation is also expected to increase. number three, we're expecting a pretty deep recession in europe now so demand is going to go down as europe goes through a debt-driven recession. and number four, oil markets appear to be responding to significantly higher saudi production. probably done exactly to hurt the iranians. and the saudis have reached out for example to the chinese saying we would like you to unhook from iran. we will meet your needs. i think as we see a recession in europe, increased libyan production, increased iraqi

production and increased supply, the concerns that the administration have don't look like they're well grounded in market reality. >> we have about five minutes left. have passed sanctions worked ond iran and how would these be different? >> past sanctions have only limited effect. ironically, according to the imf the iranian economy grew faster than the u.s. economy last year. and so i do think that we need stronger action. but there are those who have said you can't get a country to forgive nuclear weapons and let go. but that shows an ignorance of the historic record that south africa gave up nuclear weapons, carsic stan, ukraine, argentina, brazil, taiwan, all decided to go away from the -- or maybe more directly libya gave up on its nuclear weapons production. so i think we ought to take the strongest nonmilitary means. otherwise, our kids inherit a very dangerous 21st century.

and remember, the president of iran ahmadinejad, he's the only head of state of a u.n. member regularly talking about wiping another u.n. member off the planet. of the over 170 members we don't have a head of state talking about destroying another member of the u.n. this directly. this is fairly unique. >> if israel decided it wanted to strike, would the united states' posture be to discourage, to encourage? >> israel is a fellow democracy and they're going to take action to protect their future so that israel survives the 21st century we saw israel eliminated the iraqi program in 19 1. and far less but just as dramatic mission they eliminated the syrian program in 2007. this is going to be one of the most hotly debated issues in the israeli cabinet. but i think why have the

israelis -- why give them only one option? a millry option. that's why the menendez-kirk amendment with 100-0 votes in the senate with the strongest nonmilitary means is the best way to make sure that our kids don't inherit a 21st century awash in nuclear weapons. >> if we could move on to appropriations because we have a continuing resolution that's expiring. >> i was going to ask. if we could shift from the middle east to another contentious area, the republican presidential primary. are you ready to endorse mitt romney? >> we did the illinois pre-presidential primary poll, first ever for our state. it was bigger than ohio, florida, california. mitt romney won the in-person voting. ron paul won the on-line voting and that was part of the effort to recover the strength. remember, the average illinois

congressman is a republican even though it's barack obama's home state. and we have certainly seen the white house with deteriorating numbers even in illinois. >> so let me ask you, are you planning to make an endorsement? because your local papers and tv stations think that you're on the verge of endorsing mitt romney. >> i haven't made any endorsement. >> will you? >> my principle focus is the congressional delegation. so for example, we had a major announcement on thursday that congressman walsh will be running in a new congressional district. >> you're supporting him? >> for me he made a major announcement and we'll have one of the earliest primaries in the countries in march. and we still don't know what the congressional map is. the federal court is reviewing a case and has now made the decision to delay filing which appears to indicate that the court is preparing to overturn the democratic map. so we've got a couple of stories to go.

>> on the continuing resolution set to expire next friday, appropriators meeting set to announce some sort of deal monday, tuesday of next week. where is it headed? >> i think we have two major pieces of legislation left to go. i do think that congress will be until the 23rd. and the two major pieces of legislation i would regard as the appropriations bill which i call the smom bus. and then congressman you wanten called the other piece of legislation the hag as which is extenders, unemployment insurance, possibly the cuts to social security contributions, et cetera, in there. because the smom bust is a conference report, it is privileged, cannot be phil bustrd in the senate and only needs 51 votes. therefore, the politics of the house are far more interesting of the politics of the senate on that bill. for the hag as it's anybody's

bet where that goes. >> all right. how do you feel about the key stone? is that at all a lure to you to potentially support that? >> i'm in favor of it. i hope that it goes through. we'll see what the final legislation looks like. i do think it would be a tremendous political mistake by the white house to veto legislation simply because it authorized one of the biggest job-producing energy projects in the country. >> could you see yourself voting for a final package if it has enough? >> at this point it's so undefined. and especially its pay for. a number of special interest tax provisions. also remember, i think any member of congress should be inclined to vote against legislation if it is more than 100 pages long and it's coming hot off the zero ox machine. and you only had an hour to

read it. at that point you should be tending no. >> we have to leave it there. thank you for being our "newsmakers." >> thanks, guys. >> we're back with our reporters. john and lisa, so let me begin with you. we heard from senator kirk he is not for what he calls decreasing contributions to the social security fund. what others are saying it would be a tax hike on the payroll tax if you let it expire. so what is the reality though in the house and the senate? does it go through? >> the reality is they are going to extend this tax cut that president obama wanted last year. the question is whether it happens in december so there's no political pain for anyone or in january which is political pain for everyone who allows that to happen given that people's pay checks will go down. you'll see your paycheck reduced if you work in this country. so if it gets to that point

they will quickly be back here passing the payroll tax cut. my guess is it will happen before they leave town. >> i think what we saw with senator kirk is this divide in the republican party. i snow speaker boehner and senator mcconnell have been working really hard to try to get support for extending this tax provision into 2012 and they've been faced with a lot of resistance. one of the obstacles they've had to overcome is exactly what senator kirk was talking about, which is how this impacts social security. i know speaker boehner at his meeting last week, yesterday i guess it was or last week, was trying to make the point to rank and file republicans that they don't think this will impact social security. but clearly others like senator kirk think it will. >> so it's not just on the senate side. there's difficulty on the house side, too. >> absolutely. and we did see a lot of shift

when speaker boehner unveiled his latest proposal that has all these extra policy provisions that republican lawmakers support like the keystone pipeline project that was mentioned. and so you are seeing the house republicans begin to coal yes, sir and will have their vote tuesday. >> i think the bottom line is that if you are going to do this payroll tax cut you're going to see a reduction into money going into social security or you're going to see debt increase because there's got to be something to pay for it. and i think that's the point that he is making and you have people in washington who like to talk about the rising debt but like to give benefits to people back home. and this pits two things against each other that tax and social security benefits potentially. so we're no different a place now than we were ten years ago, 20 years ago. there's a limited set of budget options. you've got to do one of those

two things. >> and senator kirk was expressing the deep skepticism that these here in washington we call pay fors. you're going to pay for something over a ten-year budget horizon for a tax break that is going to happen just in this next year. a lot of rank and file republicans don't buy that. they don't think that those spending can you tell us will happen. and that's why you're seeing that resistant. it's a politically difficult issue. >> if you give me 100,000 a year for the next ten years i'm willing to pay you back over the next 100,000 years. that's kind of what goes on there. as you point out, a one-year benefit and a ten-year pape. so that's an amazing dichotomy. >> and you're seeing the pushback and i i think that's the difficult climb that speaker boehner and senator mcconnell have in trying to get

what they've decided politically is the right course for them and their party to do. >> we'll leave it there. thanks. >> thank you. >> next, the c-span series the contenders on key figures who have run for president and lost but changed political history. today, the life of ross perot. after that the news debate from des moines, iowa with the republican presidential candidates. >> which part of the u.s. constitution is porpt to you? that's our question in this year's student cam competition open to middle and high school students. make a video tockmentry five to eight minutes long and tell us the part of the constitution that's important to you and why. be sure to include more than one point of view and video of c-span programming. one point of view and video of c-span programming.