At 7 p.m. on Nov. 3, Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, spoke to the AU College Democrats in Butler Board Room. In an exclusive interview with The Eagle following the event, Begich touched on the issues of federal spending and anti-tax tea parties. He also explained how he recently fixed a toilet at a Bruce Springsteen concert.
Begich on stimulus, spending and deficits...
“I worked with a group of moderate senators to ‘right size’ it. It was too much. When we were on the floor and it was getting close to a trillion dollars, a few of us — and we were kind of new that February — we just said, ‘Hey, let’s get this show on the road and get in a room and figure this all out’ ... We sat down and brought it back down. And on the budget, when [President Obama] presented his budget and he had another $250 billion in there for TARP II, we said absolutely not. That’s not happening. And so that also gets you called to the White House. But you have to be willing to understand that’s going to happen and be able to say, ‘I belong to a group of Democrats that are focused on deficit reduction.’ That’s our next big challenge to tackle. If we don’t deal with that in what I would consider an aggressive, positive way, that’s the next big issue.”
On the anti-tax tea parties...
“I think as individuals they have concerns. I’ve encountered them. There’s some players out there that have a lot of money that are anti-Obama, anti-Democrat, [and] that at any cost are going to be jamming whatever they can ... I think what’s happened is, the people with big money who don’t like President Obama are fueling it. But people who have legitimate concerns about the economy or concerns about maybe government’s doing too much have found that as an avenue to voice their views. They may not have any clue who the funders are — or care, but they’re worked up. When I did my town hall meetings, I didn’t do them in August, because that was a situation where millions of dollar were being spent to just kind of prove emotions ... So, I did mine in June and September.”
On his recent night out at a Bruce Springsteen concert...
“I will tell you, at the Bruce Springsteen concert, we were at one of those box rooms. I was there with Sen. [Mark] Pryor, [D-Ark.], and a whole bunch of folks. I went into the bathroom and the toilet was broken! I fixed it. [I thought], there’s like 27 people in there. Someone’s gonna use that, so it better get fixed.”
You can reach this staff writer at gvyse@theeagleonline.com.
