you were in the middle of temper town, usa. >> next week, they look at the history and life of bend, oregon. >> joining us on "newsmakers," congressman steve scalise the chair of the republican study committee. thank you for being with us. joining us with the questioning is burgess everett who covers congress for "politico" and susan ferrechio, chief political correspondent for "the examiner." i want to talk about your jobs plan unveiled this past week. on the larger issue of how you view the republican leadership, this has put forth for you to run on in 2014. what kind of a grade would you give the gop leadership? >> if you look at what the house has done, i would give them an a. we have started bringing bills to the floor to address the problems that are holding our

economy back. the problem is you have the president and harry reid in the senate who you have to give an f at best. you cannot tell what the plan is. they will not even bring any of these bills to the senate floor for a vote. the president seems to be mia when it comes to a job plan. we know his final four brackets. he has never missed a deadline. we do not know what his jobs plan is. to see a comprehensive bill to address the problems that are holding our economy back, to rebuild with an america that works. that is what the american people want us to focus on. you have seen some really good bills moved through the house. we want to continue to sharpen that focus and put pressure on the president and the senate to start addressing the problems that are holding our economy back. these are bipartisan ideas, many of which are in our jobs bill.

they can get the economy moving again. we just wish they would join us to help solve these problems. andoes the finger-pointing bickering go both ways? >> we have laid out a number of objectives in individual bills. here the republican study committee put our best ideas together in the form of a single bill addressing problems families across the country want us to focus on. how to become independent. so many jobs can be created by opening up the resources that the president has on energy productions. they are killing jobs. the rain check we have in the , it should first have to go through congress.

the representatives should have to pass it if it is sound policy. it should not be up to the discretion of unelected bureaucrats to impose a new job that will kill jobs in america. that is happening right now with agencies in so many other federal agencies including the irs that are killing jobs in america. >> susan ferrechio. >> you have said in recent interviews that the house leadership has been fairly strong in showing what they are against but has a weakness for demonstrating what the palready -- party is more. to blush the party is for. -- what the party is for. given this is includes a lots of the ideas that the republican party has already put forth. how does that change things? they're often opposed to passing big legislation. how will this help show what republicans are for more than what the party has already put

forward? >> what you're seeing here the jobs bill is it a approach that -- is an approach to take the best ideas. there cannot be enough of these. when i talk to constituents back home, a lot of my colleagues talk to their constituent. people really do not know what our plan is. even though we have passed good bills out of the house a lot of , people have not seen that focused agenda. we want to put the ideas into a single package and says this is our jobs plan to sharpen the focus. it continues to raise awareness. it adds to the things the house has already done. we approved the keystone pipeline. our leadership brought this to the floor to approve the keystone pipeline. a very strong appeal across the country. when people are asking us what is our plan to create jobs, the fact that we passed a lot of good bills is important. when we put those into a single

plan it focuses it even more so people can see the things we stand for and contrast them against this failed agenda president obama has doubled down on killing jobs in america. >> what you will need is for the gop leadership to endorse your plan and bring it to a floor for the vote. the house speaker said that he would give no commitment to do that. have you heard from him about it? >> now that we filed the bill, we have over 30 members of congress that have cosponsored this bill. a number of groups have endorsed the bill. people are hungry for the bold ideas. we cannot pass a enough bold ideas to get this back on track. we continue to fight to get our economy back on track. that is why people sent us here. that is why we are in the majority in the house. if the senate is not going to

address these problems, that is going to be one of the big issues in the senate races just like in the louisiana. she's going to have to answer the question on why she supports leadership. why not force a vote in the senate? all of these bills that we have combined into the jobs package are ideas that have been brought forward by our members. we need to continue to show people what we stand for. the president's failed agenda is playing out before our eyes. horrible unemployment numbers. people are given up working for work. people are hungry for the bold ideas. the more that we can bring to the table even better to show we are fighting for the american people. >> talk a little bit about. your party is feeling better about the senate. how does the leadership change if you have all of congress under republican control?

do you have to shift tactics? do you keep going through the strategy with the jobs act? >> the house strategy continues to move forward in focusing on solutions to problems america is facing. the difference would be if we are fortunate enough that the american people said we wanted to switch house and senate majority. we can finally take some of those bills not just to adjust problems with getting the economy back on track but looking at the health care problems. this is a dismal failure. every week he delays another portion of his own law. they refuse to work in a bipartisan way. we have really good ideas. the senate does not want to take them up right now. the president has been shielded from these problems because harry reid does not bring these up for a vote. at least a lot of the things you have seen past the house, we're going to have a budget that

gets to balance within the 10 year window. the senate has never passed a budget that will actually get the balance under harry reid. hopefully you have a willing , partner where we can start bills to thee senate floor for a vote to solve america's problems, to get our country moving again. we can send them to the president to make tough decisions. we're going to finally have to start making the tough decisions. he is going to finally have to start confronting really serious problems. >> do you envision a republican-controlled congress that would put pressure to veto legislation or take a strong position on things that you have been sending him that the senate has not been picking up? >> absolutely. it puts pressure for him working with republicans and democrats. vocus on thele

divides between republicans and the president. president does not have a relationship with a lot of democrats. when you talk to our colleagues they do not seem to have much of a relationship with a lot of our rank-and-file members on the democratic side. the president has not done a good job of trying to build any kind of relationships with congress to get things done. that is why so many problems are unanswered. people are hungry for solutions. we have a lot of really good ideas. many of them go into the graveyard in the senate. that changes next year. it puts pressure on the president to get engaged with these problems, to work across the aisle. as he promised. he has yet to fulfill that promise, but we want to give him the opportunity. >> take one aspect of the affordable care act that you would change that you think democrats would work with you on. >> there are so many parts. i want to repeal this law and go back. there is a bill with over 30

cosponsors to replace the president's health care law that will put patients back in charge with a lower cost. just look at this 30 hour work week rule. the president has perverse incentives that are forcing employers to drop their workforce below 50 employees and put people into part-time status. the law encourages a 25% pay cut for american families. through the law, the president is incentivizing that. if we had a bill that went through the senate, i guarantee you would have a very strong bipartisan vote to change that and stop these incentives that are killing jobs in america. >> if there is a republican senate and house, the pressure will also be on your palready to come to an agreement on things it has not had to come to agreement on fully. as the head of the republican study committee you talked about

, changing the organization a little bit to make it more amenable to working with leadership and more membership driven. part of that is because there are folks who have not been willing to work with leadership. there has been disagreement within the party leading to our big fiscal cliff standoff. do you think the palready in the house is really ready to work under a republican house and senate? there are still divisions. tell me how you have worked to smooth that over. >> one of the biggest divisions i have seen are more in tactics, not in strategy on policy. our philosophies are very similar. it is the tactics of how it -- the problems start getting addressed. we have 175 members. we are a very large part of the majority. we want to solve problems. our members have some of the

best ideas. they want to solve these problems. we want to move that policy forward. we want to get good conservative policy brought to the floor. some of that has gotten signed into law. the fact that we finally forced the senate to bring up a budget and the house to have a budget that balances and 10 years. we worked very closely with paul ryan. we work closely to get the to show the0 years american people we're willing to live within our own means to make the same decisions they are making at their own kitchen tables. in contrast, the president's budget never gets to balance. the senate goes and does the same thing. they are a rubber stamp for this president. we have gotten a lot of common ground in the last year and a half. two forward the conservative agenda.

>> i am praise for your leadership. majority, do you think speaker boehner should serve another term as head of the house? >> there's all kind of speculation about what happens at the end of this congress. whoever is worrying about what position they will be in in the next congress is missing site of the fact that we have a lot of big challenges. there is a whole election cycle. anybody who starts trying to figure out what the curtains are going to be measured like in the offices, that is when you start running into problems. you lose sight of the main objectives. our main objective is to continue to fight for the american people and bring solutions forward to these big problem's our country is facing. send them to the senate. if the senate will not address the problems, the voters are going to address it in november. we cannot lose sight of what our primary mission is.

that is to work to get the economy on track and create jobs and solve problems people are facing because of the president's failed policies and laws. >> i'm not hearing an explicit endorsement for john boehner coming back. >> if we start focusing on that, as the sight of what our mission and job is. -- we lose sight of what our mission and job is. our job is to fight for the american people. these are the things we need to keep focused on. a number of these have come to the house floor already. we continue to work for these to -- work with our leadership to bring these good conservative solutions to the the house floor. send them over to the senate and get them to start addressing these problems as well. >> based on your conversations with speaker boehner, does he still enjoy the job? is he frustrated?

>> he has challenges every day he faces. we all have challenges we face. it is a challenge that so many people are facing. i just did seven town hall meetings last week throughout southeast louisiana. you have people dealing with real serious problems being created by policies out of washington. years ago, problems might have been different. today the biggest challenges i hear from people in my constituents are about the problems washington is creating for people, impediment they are putting in front of people. that is what we have to keep focused on. whatever problems happen in the beltway with different political factions pales in comparison to the problems they are facing. >> if the republicans take over the senate, let pretend it is january 2014. what is the first item they should take up?

>> all the things we need to do to get the economy moving again. you look at the number one problem people talk about it is the economy. they want to see an economy that works again. they want to see jobs created again. millions that gave up looking for work would love the opportunity to get back into the workforce. we have to go and tackle the problems and bring the bills to the senate and get into the president desk. the president loves bragging that he has a pen and a phone to write new law. he can't write new law. what he could do right now is sign the keystone pipeline. he could create 25,000 good jobs. he has avoided that. what would happen if not only the bill passed out of the house would actually pass the senate? it would be sitting on his desk. then he would have to face that challenge.

would he veto it or sign it? we ought to give him that opportunity. i think he will have that opportunity come january. >> you were dismissive of the president and senator reid's agenda in the senate. they laid one out that we should extend unemployment benefits. they have set up some issues to keep the senate. what do you make of the plan? do you think there is any common ground with republicans? is this just messaging? >> the president is not serious about tackling problems. he is focused on dividing the country so he can win elections. they are very divisive issues in this country. they are not issues that unite our country. he promised in 2008 he would be a different kind of president that would unite. it seems everything is designed

to divide america down the middle. that is not the kind of america they want to embrace. if you look at the bills we are talking about bringing forward, many of these other bills that are leadership brought to the house floor. they unite our country. you can see that through bipartisan votes on the bills before the house. seriousresident was about tackling these problems, he would be picking issues that unite us. i not talking about unemployment am benefits. the best unemployment benefit you can have is a good job. he will not do anything to get this. his policies have helped create this slow economy. >> with everything we have talked about today, how would you size up his leadership? >> it is hard to tell what his leadership plan is. the president has failed in so many areas. our own allies are critical and concerned about america's place

in the world. they want us to be a strong nation. you have a president apologetic american strength the fact that president obama has allowed him -- putin to become the world leader, it is an embarrassment. people want america to be the leader of the free world. they do not want the old soviet union to be rebuilt. look at iran moving toward a nuclear weapon any of a president saying we should just all get a long. it would be great. it would be great if everyone wanted to get along. there are people that do not like us and want to hurt our friends. look at what iran wants to do. they want to eviscerate israel off the face of the earth. will we stand behind our strong ally or support policies that help iran develop a nuclear weapon? there has been such a leadership void. it is one of the reasons why our economy is hurting so bad.

millions of americans have given up looking for work because they do not have the confidence. >> with regard to ukraine and russia, what specifically should the president have done that he has not done? >> he should have paid attention to the telltale signs months ago. i am not sure what the diplomacy has been all about. this is not something that just happened overnight. you had leaders like condoleezza rice warning about this months and years ago. in one of the debates, you had met romney talking about russia as the number one threat in the world and barack obama dismissed it. he made a joke about it. i do not know if he just missed it or he does not get foreign policy or if he is ok with the soviet union being rebuilt again. he has created these problems so long it has created uncertainty throughout the world. >> one thing i did not hear you talk about was the repeal of the

health care law. is that becoming secondary or republicans? it seems like the big priority for voters, way ahead of the health care law our job in the -- our jobs and the economy. do republicans feel it is time to just focus on that and put aside the repeal efforts? >> i talked about repeal earlier. i specifically talked about the health-care bill that starts by repealing the president's health care law and replaces it with reforms. i do not think it is good enough to just repeal the health care law. there were problems before obamacare. the problems are much worse today. the cost is too high. costs are dramatically higher after obamacare. access is limited and is worse today. we need to go back to the basic things that put patients back in charge of health care. allowing people to buy insurance across state lines. having more say over the decisions that are made.

getting bureaucrats like irs agents out of the decisions. it is one of the biggest problem's that companies are not hiring today. when i talk to small businesses, their biggest impediment to job growth today is the president 's health care law. because of the perverse incentives that encourage people to reduce their workforce. what kind of america is it where you are encouraging people to lay people off of work and reduce their hours? it is one of the big part of an agenda they get the economy moving again. >> i want to ask you about your colleague running for the senate against mary landrieu. buzz feed posted him at a fundraiser. he described the uninsured as less educated and illiterate. i wondered what you thought about those comments. >> i've not seen them. bill cassidy is a medical or

-- medical doctor that treats the uninsured. he understands the problem in health care. senator landrieu was the deciding vote to pass obamacare. that has been a problem for her. people do not like what it has done. i have met so many people in my district who have lost the good health care they had. everybody knew it was in the bill. we warned when it was moving through congress in 2009. we predicted people would lose the health care has a big mandates. it is happening today. it is hurting real people. one of the things i know he has worked very hard on as a health care provider directly addressing the problems in health care. he will be able to do that in a way we have not seen. >> i know it is early. any favorites on your part in

the 2016 republican nomination? >> i was looking for ronald reagan. he is not available. i want someone with the bold vision that lays out the conservative agenda that solves problems and shows people how conservative solutions can work to get our country back again and re-create the american dream. people want optimism. a lot of people were drawn into barack obama's campaign message in 2008. he talked about uniting people. he failed to deliver. he let a lot of people down. i think you will a strong republican field. i think we will have one of our strongest in years. i think that is a good thing. having a number of different republicans running, your art strongre already seeing candidates with a bold vision. this is what i am looking for. i know america's best days are

ahead. i know we have real problems that are not being addressed today. having different candidates proposing solutions, that is what people are hungry for. i am excited about that opportunity. >> your current governor in the louisiana is one of the candidates. what is your relationship like with him? do you think you could be supportive of a run for president from him? >> he held the seat i have today. i got elected to congress after he was elected governor. i've known him for a long time. he is very smart. he is one of the people that is being mentioned. a lot of people are talking about him. the more good, strong republican candidates we can have talking about conservative solutions to get our economy moving and going to inspire people. people are hungry to be inspired. they have been let down by this president with the promises he has broken.

so many of the opportunities that he has that he failed to fulfill. i think you'll see a real desire to see a good, strong field. if bobby decides to be part of it i think this will be a good , thing. there will be lots of other good will that get in and inspired to get the country back on track. >> are you supporting david fitter for governorship in louisiana? >> he has not asked for my support. i like him. i have worked with him in congress. i think he would be a good, strong leader that would help continue to move our state forward. i'm glad that he is running. i was real excited that he got into the race. i think he would bring bold leadership as governor of our state. it is just getting started. we have races in november we have to get through. you do not want to look too far down the field.

i think he would do a great job. >> will his personal indiscretion in the past be influential? >> he has addressed that before. people are hungry for bold solutions. that has the one of the hallmarks. that is what people are so frustrated with president obama. they see a president who is ignoring serious problems of our country. they want someone that will go out there to solve problems that are hurting regular folks. senior citizens are losing their medicare advantage. people are frustrated by this radical agenda. people have brought these ideas forward. i think they will be very successful. >> steve scalise, thank you very much for being with us. let me turn to a poll that came out this past week here at it so

of the showed 2/3 country feel we are moving in the wrong direction and also approval at a record low. where does this put the midterm election? >> the same polls that show congress broadly is unpopular. it rarely shows that people want to toss out their representative. a lot of the time they will still go to become been -- the incumbent even though they disapprove of congress as a whole. i am not sure the broad disapproval means they will throw the bums out. >> your take away? >> i think you brushed over what will be an emerging problem. the republican party is on the verge of having possession of both the house and senate where they can pretty much have their way with anything. they will still need 60 votes to clear anything.

they will be able to move a lot further. it will expose cracks with in their own party that we have already seen this year. there are discontented republicans who feel the leadership has not skewed conservative enough. they're going to make their voices heard. now democrats are not running the senate. i think you will see a lot of that happening. i think you will see a lot of merging. he is already allied himself with the leadership. i think it sends a signal that they are not causing trouble, but that does not mean they will not. i think we need to stay tuned. it'll be interesting to watch. >> some of the divisions reportedly within the house republican caucus and the leadership of 2015. >> he pointedly did not answer my question about whether

speaker boehner should come back. i get that. people did not want to put the cart before the horse. other republicans have called for him perhaps not to run again. others say he should. i find it interesting that he gives the leadership, but they do not want to say whether he should come back for another term. with your of you, questions and insights, thank you for being with us. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> c-span. for 35 years, bringing public affairs events from washington directly to you, pretty and in the room at briefings and conferences, and offering complete gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. credit by the cable tv industry 35 years