Jared is happy. No that doesn't convey it accurately – he's on the bow of the Titanic, with his arms outstretched, on top of the world. I talked with him for over an hour and he is clearly loving every bit of his job.
So topic #1 was the economy. I asked him about taking the country further in debt, leaving that for future generations. Really interesting on his first point – that the fed can presently borrow long term (20 years) at 3 points. This is incredibly low. So any investment the government makes that has an ROI greater than 3 points will pay for itself. This is a businessman looking at investments in the future.
He then immediately discussed how these are temporary investments to get the economy turned around, not permanent ongoing appropriations. And once we have the economy booming we need to pay down the debt. Jared is not looking to permanently expand the scope of the federal government but rather just to step in now while needed.
He also said that the responsibility for how it is handled ultimately rests on Obama's and Geithner's shoulders. That Congress can allocate and watch what is done, but that the administration is the one that is making the specific decisions with the money. I asked didn't he see value in providing full transparency so that for example we see not just what we pay to AIG, but where they then pay it out to as AIG is really just a transfer agent for the hundreds of billions we are giving them. He agreed that there is value in that and promised to look at what Josh Marshall has written on this.
He was also adamant that we need to insure that this does not happen again. In the case of the banks he discussed both breaking the large ones up so that they are not too big to fail or to have additional requirements and oversight for those that are that large. He also discussed how the market prices in the assumed government guarantees for these gigantic institutions which then pushes their risk on to the taxpayers.
He discussed getting us out of this mess. He sees this as several different problems, the credit crisis being the significant one. He sees the remaining problems – the depression in housing prices, drop in employment, etc as business cycles that naturally occur and the government can moderate them – but they are going to occur. But he correctly sees the credit crisis as the problem that can leave us permanently screwed. And the one the government needs to get fixed.
He talked at some length about what needs to be done. He did not have any brilliant new ideas but what he said was all very good. He said that the banks and their toxic assets needed to get cleaned up one way or another and if that included nationalization – so be it. He did then add that he did not want the federal government owning banks 20 years from now, that nationalization was a temporary measure. I suggested that he instead say receivership and just say that it's the FDIC taking over banks "a bit" larger than they usually did. He replied that they were more than a little larger J. Jared is definitely in the camp of figure out the best approach – and do it.
He also made a very good point that he sees this action on the banks as being limited to what is needed to get the financial markets moving again, including the fact that he opposes the money going to the car companies. The first is getting the economic system working again, the second is stepping in to the market to create government controlled & subsidized industries. Jared is clearly someone who is trying to salvage our existing system, not create a different economy with a heavier government hand.
We then talked about the rules committee. Jared spent his time from winning the primary to the general election helping other Democrats in close races, primarily by raising money for them. As he said, the party appreciates those who help the party succeed. Jared's ability to effectively fundraise for other candidates helps him have a noticeable impact even though he is just a freshman.
He also is very impressed with the job Nancy Pelosi is doing (I agree with him on this). He sees her job as one of keeping the house operating and the party effectively running the house and on that measure she is very effective. He also sees the role of speaker not including being a spokesperson for the party, and that concentrating on that too much then detracts from the essential parts of the job. I think this is a house-member centric view of the job and the spokesperson part was critical when Bush was still in office.
He is very appreciative that Speaker Pelosi meets once a week with all the freshmen for 1 – 1½ hours to talk with them and answer their questions. As the freshmen are usually ignored in the house where seniority is supreme, this is major for them. Pelosi is apparently the first speaker to ever do this. Another sign of how she is doing a good job.
Jared then talked about what he is doing. As he said, a house member has to specialize because otherwise they would be spread too thin and would get nothing done. He also has to look for places where he won't step on more senior toes with his efforts. He said he lucked out in that he is on the Labor & Education committee and most everyone on it is focused on Labor. So he can focus on education and fills a void in Congress, which gives him the opportunity to effect change. He also says there are no Democrats in Congress working on charter school issues so he has that fully to himself.
I asked him if he thinks we will soon have college education publically funded. He definitely sees the need for it and discussed how a High School diploma used to be enough for a comfortable middle-class union job – but no more. Jared discussed numerous times how we need to provide people with the education required for a good life. This runs the gamut from retraining for those who had jobs that have disappeared to those that want a better job to those in K-12 who need to continue.
He thinks we will see the first 2 years of high-ed covered pretty soon. (My guess is in 3½ years – when my youngest hits her junior year in college so it's no help for meL.) Jared will clearly work diligently for this and this effort of his may do more for our economy than everything else put together. I'm glad to see this will be getting a lot of his time. A society that does not provide the education required to succeed does not offer equality of opportunity and sentences the country to a life of economic poverty.
The second issue he is concentrating on is immigration. He clearly is charged up about this – both that we need to intelligently address the 18 million undocumented workers presently in the country and that we need to have an intelligent policy on bringing and keeping educated workers here. He brought up the stupidity of forcing foreign college graduates to leave upon graduation rather than getting them to work here. And the issue of companies opening research centers overseas because they cannot bring people here. I asked him about H-1B workers being locked to the company that initially hired them and he agreed that that was bad for the individual and bad for the economy (the individual is not working where they are most productive).
Jared brought up the fact that being in a relatively safe district means not only that he can handle those issues that cannot be led by representatives in competitive districts, but also the responsibility to do so. However, while I think that is true, I think Jared also welcomes taking on the hard jobs. (If the populace ever converges on his home with pitchforks & torches, he's going to be running out there to talk with them.)
I asked Jared if we would see him running for Governor in 5 years. His response made it clear that this was not something he had even thought about. And he added that he sees this job as one that requires at least 10 years to get the seniority and positions to accomplish a lot – and then to use that position to effect some major improvements. So he's clearly in there for the long haul. I wouldn't be shocked to see him as speaker some day.
He also brought up a way to measure if someone is positioning themselves for governor, look at the legislation they are introducing. If it's issues important to Colorado, and generally specific to Colorado, they're considering it. If it's issues critical to the country, they're staying put.
At the end he showed me his schedule for the day. It's Saturday – and he's booked all day long. Four different events after our lunch ending with the Jefferson-Jackson dinner tonight. This says a lot about Jared – he could pretty much ignore everyone and still get re-elected in this district. Instead he's out there working his okole off 24/7. And he's flying back here every week. Like most representatives, Jared puts in an immense number of hours each week.
We all saw Jared as a wild-card when we elected him not knowing for sure what we would get. What we have is a very pleasant surprise for even the most optimistic of us.
