Tennessee Star Report Exclusive: Sen. Marsha Blackburn Calls Budget Deal ‘Incremental
Tennessee Star Report Exclusive: Sen. Marsha Blackburn Calls Budget Deal ‘Incremental Win’ for Trump
February 13, 2019
In an interview on The Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLACweekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Gill spoke with Tennessee Senator, Marsha Blackburn Wednesday morning about the Democrat propsed Green New Deal and how it could effect Tennesseans by killing many of the industries found in both the state of Tennessee and nation wide.
Towards the end of the show, Blackburn and Gill discussed the overall sentiment of the current deal on the table and whether or not this was a win for President Trump. They both agree that this was an ‘incremental win’ and could provide the opportunity to find additional funds to properly secure the border wall security issues.
Gill: I’m sorry, I kind of have my mouth full I’m taking that last bite of steak before that green new deal goes into effect and Spartacus Booker takes my steak from my cold dead hands. Senator Marsha Blackburn with us to break down budget deals, green deals, and military explanations. Senator good to have you with us.
Blackburn: It is so good to be with you. And I’ll tell you what, no more grilling hamburgers on the charcoal grill for you Steve Gill.
(Laughter)
Gill: I just had this vision of UT tailgate pre-football games as people suddenly have a reason to start going back to UT football games. They’re going to be like grilling zucchini out there behind the car before the games.
Blackburn: Well and then we’ll be electric pan frying.
(Laughter)
Gill: And they won’t be able to drive. I guess we’ll have more train tracks getting us to the UT games, there is a track right there. But you know, no cars, no planes, I mean, how crazy is this green new deal. And, I know we are laughing but they wouldn’t propose it if they weren’t serious.
Blackburn: Well they are serious about this. This is their utopia. And bare in mind, in two thousand seven Ed Markey was in the House he is now in the US Senate and he is the Senate sponsor of this legislation. Look, what this would do to Tennessee is it would shut down FedEx. It would end the logistics industry. Cattle farming is the largest sector of the agriculture industry in Tennessee. All of your cattle farms would go out of business..
Gill: Yeah but think of all the training and consulting of people training those cows to hold it. It’s a completely new industry we haven’t thought about.
Blackburn: You know the dairy industry would go to the sidelines. You wouldn’t have the Valero oil refinery in Memphis. You wouldn’t have service stations and service station attendants. You would not have plastic containers that carry so much of the food that we, in the grocery store because all of that comes from palimers.
Gill: Marsha why don’t we have the united auto workers and other folks. I mean why aren’t there protests, right now, out at Nissan, and Saturn, and Volkswagon and the auto part suppliers. Why aren’t those folks already up in arms and marching on the streets?
Blackburn responded saying that they should be protesting because their jobs would go away and would decimate the economy of Tennessee. She added that in places like Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles feels that they can get around and that they would be fine using electric vehicles and how they don’t think about the people around the country that would be adversely affected from this type of legislation. “You can’t fuel electric cars if you don’t have energy,” added Gill.
Blackburn: Well, that’s exactly right. And you know the electric vehicles and some of the good research work that’s being done on those they are in essence running from electricity from coal powered plants and our natural gas powered plants. All of that would go away. So, we have encouraged leader McConnell, some of us in the Senate have encouraged Leader McConnell to put this on the floor as quickly as we can get it there and call the vote.
Gill: Yeah call their bluff, bring it up for a vote. I love it.
Blackburn: That is right. And then we will send this to the House and put it in Pelosi’s lap to call the vote in the House.
Gill: I also don’t see a lot of those big tractor trailer electric vehicles on the highways or electric tractors out in the fields of farm country. This is another reason why the whole abolish electoral college is a stupid idea. We really should let people in Los Angles, Chicago, New York be the boss of the rest of us because this is the kind of craziness we’ll get if we let those narrow areas dictate American public policy.
Blackburn: Well, and you can see how this is really just, some of the new members of the House of Representatives have tilted so far left that people, we get contacts every single day. Hundreds of phone calls, hundreds of faxes, and contacts, social media posts from people saying you can’t let them do this. And of course, we are pushing back against this because they would carry out Barack Obama’s missive when he said we want to transform this country.
(Inaudible cross talk)
Gill: It certainly tends to be doing that. One other quick question before we get to the budget deal because I want to talk about that. In addition to being on the Judiciary committee, congratulations on that…
Blackburn: Thank you.
Gill: Where there may, if they ever find Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Leahy laughs) may have an opportunity to be in the midst of a very contentious hearing on that at some point. But also you’re on the Senate Arms Services committee. I just saw a story where one of our admirals, Admiral Phil Davidson apparently appeared before the Senate Armed Services committee earlier this week and was pointing out that yeah, well there were two ships that collided under his command that killed seventeen sailors. He wants credit for the two hundred and eighty that didn’t crash and sink. It’s kind of like a doctor saying, “Yeah, I know I left a scalpel in you, but those other twelve patients I did not leave a scalpel in them and I want a bonus check.” This is crazy!
Blackburn expressed the rightful concern over the adverse events that happened and crashes warranting explanations and disclosed that she had participated in that particular hearing. She went on to describe her commitment and tireless work at the Fort Campbell post as she came to the Senate and how she prided herself in taking the lead with the Armed Services committee to provide insurance that our veterans, men in women in uniform and their families were properly carried for. “This is a primary portion of the work that we do and we are just so honored to be able to lead this committee,” added Blackburn.
Gill: I mean you hit the trifecta of committees that’s no doubt. Now one of the things about Fort Campbell, I noticed that they have fences and walls around them that keep bad people out as do most of our military installations and yet the Democrats think walls are immoral. I haven’t noticed them wanting to tear down the ones we have. This budget deal, will be a lot more than Nancy Pelosi, she wanted to give one dollar at most for the wall. Three seven billion is more than a dollar. Is this a win for the Republican’s and for President Trump and border security or not?
Blackburn: We’re waiting to get all of the details but this is what we know so far. And Senator Shelby spoke to our conference yesterday. There will be for the next eight months this one point three eight billion dollars that is fifty five miles of additional, that is new fencing. And so that is in this budget agreement. And then…
Gill: Now, Marsha, as a continuing resolution after September thirtieth, if you just keep the continuing resolution again which is what’s been going on, does that mean another one point four billion next year for more wall?
Blackburn: No, see this is what has happened. If we’d stayed with the continuing resolution we would only get about a half billion dollars for the wall. But by the fact that the President has dug in and forced the Democrats to negotiate, what you will get is one point three eight billion dollars for fifty five miles of wall. You’re going to get more beds, they were trying to cap the beds. But you’re going to get more beds. You’re going to be able to probably surpass this goal of getting fifty two thousand beds. You’re going to get more…
Gill: Let me ask you about that. You’re going to get an increase of about a thousand more than last year so there is an increase. President Trump was wanting about fifty two thousand beds. My understanding is that it’s sort of a soft cap. That even though they’re saying forty five thousand or so he could probably push the number up to fifty two if necessary.
Blackburn: That is correct. He can probably get it a little more to fifty two. We are waiting for the details on that. So border patrol would get the technology upgrades that they’ve requested and they would get a hiring capability for more agents. So we will see what the language is. We will review it when we get that final language today. But this could turn out to be a substantial win.
Gill: If it does these things.
Blackburn ended the conversation by stating that this is a good down payment on where it’s going to go. Gill added that incremental wins are still wins and the Democrats have been using the incremental position regularly. Blackburn confessed that she will vote for it and that she believes it would give the President more ammo and additionally give him the ability to reprogram existing funds. She also added that she had talked to Mick Mulvaney about knowing where the money is and how the unobligated funds that were in the budget for years and how those could be used.
“Get what you can get. And the President, and you and Mick know there’s some more out there. So get what you get, and go get some more,” concluded Gill.
Listen to the full segment here:
http://tennesseestar.com/2019/02/14/...win-for-trump/
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