A Public Television Special; Interview With Senator Alan Cranston

One of the most influential leaders in the U.S. Senate minority party is Senator Alan Cranston Democrat and senior senator from California. His new title is minority party whip. Following the recent election giving Republicans the majority of the Senate. Senator Cranston will play a key role in deciding policies of the Democrats under the new administration of President Reagan. Public television now presents an exclusive interview with the senator. Now here's host Jim Cooper. Despite wide gains the Republican candidates in most places last November Democratic senator Alan Cranston want a very wide margin of victory in his bid for his third term re-election for the office of U.S. Senator from California. President Reagan has announced he's going to make some drastic changes in government policies. What will the role be of the Democrats regarding those changes. I'll talk about that and other issues with Senator Cranston here in Washington today Senator Cranston at age 66 is now beginning his 13th year in the U.S. Senate. His roots are those of a California going

back to early days as state controller in 1058 into a services as former president of the California Democratic Council. Dr. Cranston is chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee and is a member of the Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in the Foreign Relations Committee. I think the number one question certainly on the minds of the people in the ministration is what to do about the inflation the economy and I suppose it would all come under the umbrella of the economy. Looking at the Congress the Senate and the house is a huge budget seven hundred forty billion dollars left by the Carter administration and impinging on that is the Reagan administration's promise to cut the income tax rate 10 percent for three years and cut federal spending 2 percent. So I guess I'd like to ask you Senator to address the question of the economy and the Reagan mandates and how you view them. But since Ronald Reagan won the election I think that he should have an opportunity to

test out the economic policies and the national security policies basically that he set for us in the campaign. The Democrats in Congress and the Congress itself should not give him a blank check. We should give him the benefit of the doubt as I intend to do and support him whenever we can when we feel he's wrong or when the fundamental principle is involved and plainly we will oppose. He did win a significant mandate in his presidential election although it was a really a landslide in the popular vote it was a landslide in the election you likely will die but not in the popular vote. I had a pretty big victory in California of my own so I feel I have a mandate to stay as I the basic beliefs that I have. Followed in the principles that I have espoused in my campaign and in public office on the economy basically there should be a tax cut. There will be a tax cut. I will support a tax cut not necessarily in all the details that President Reagan submits but in broad outline

I think there should be a 10 percent income tax cut now and make sure it should be for three years but certainly in the first year. I think the mix should perhaps be a little different from what he will offer and give a bit more to people in the lower and modest income brackets middle income and a bit less to the highest income brackets where people earn the most. But it should still work out to be 10 percent. I would least like to see and I think we will see some so-called supply side tax cuts speeding up appreciation. My hope cutting capital gains still further and the like. We also plainly must have some significant cuts in the budget which hold down spending to balance the budget as soon as we can although Ronald Reagan now grants that it can't be done overnight and it can't be done overnight. President Carter was going to do that and it didn't happen either we're looking at a 57 billion dollar deficit this year and perhaps a national debt of a trillion dollars by the end of the 82 budget period does that frighten you does it concern you. It is alarming that the national debt is. As high as it is and it's very

troublesome that with the best of intentions President Carter found it impossible to balance the budget as he hoped to do during his term as a as president. You got the impression during the campaign the past Ronald Reagan was going to do it at once. Now he and his advisors are admitting that they can't do it before in one hundred eighty three at best. But it's not easy. The main reason for that is that if you make a totally deep cut which just sensibly would balance the budget say we have a deficit of 57 billion or something like that you knocked off 57 billion it would be in balance presumably that isn't the way it works so cutting that that much would create a deep recession but put many people out of work would take a lot of money out of the economy and the result would be that revenues would fall off to the federal government and expenditures would go up in the form of welfare food stamps aid to people thrown out of work. So you wouldn't have a balanced budget. So you have to go step by step. But it does require some very strange approaches to

spending. When you won in California it was the largest number of votes for any senator in the history of the United States and the largest number of votes a plurality for any elective office in the history of California. So you're right when you say you had a mandate and then you came back to Washington and you were. Re-elected unanimously as minority whip Democratic whip. So you must have a very loud voice among Democratic strategists. Is there a Democratic strategy in the Senate and can you define it if you would regarding the Reagan administration. But there isn't yet a Democratic strategy all worked out. We do intend at least I intend to do all I can to see to it that the Democrats cooperate with President Reagan whenever they can the country doesn't want four years of partisan deadlock and combat they want action they want Reagan to be a successful president and sort of why so what. So must we all. So we'll do our best to work with him when we find we can agree with something he wants to do. We have the responsibility to

try to come up with constructive alternatives saying well if this won't work which we think it won't This is what we think should be done and this is what we propose to do. You talked about philosophy when you were in California recently in Sacramento with the California Democratic council and you spoke about progressive philosophy not being dead. You said liberalism is not a passing phase in our natural experience. And I'd like to quote for you a statement that you made there and ask you to enlarge on this you said speaking to the Democrats. I assure you I do not intend to stand idly by if efforts are made to deprive hungry children and helpless senior citizens and Americans handicapped by race or color or creed or physical or mental disability or the helping hand they need from the rest of us for dignity and survival I do not intend to stand idly by if efforts are made to curtail civil rights civil liberties and fundamental protection is sound there's an apprehension on your part which you will argue little bit about those comments. Well I'm not really concerned about any new

approaches that specifically seem to be looming in that area but I wanted to make plain that while I will cooperate with the Reagan administration with the Republican administration there are certain areas where I will find it very difficult to cooperate. For example it may be possible to cut back on money spent on food stamps. We've already knocked more than a million people off that should not have been on the didn't need it. It's not going to be that easy I think to find more people that can be eliminated. Plainly there is some fraud and some waste in the program and if Ronald Reagan can find that we should eliminate it. The average research into food stamps now gets 40 cents per meal. And that's not very much in a lot of places you know a cup of coffee causes more than 40 cents. So. Depriving people of what they need to subsist to survive to be in dignity is something that that I would oppose on Social Security to give another example there have been people

in the administration suggesting that we should cut back on the amount of people that Social Security recipients receive particularly in relationship to cost of living increases. There are people that are getting by with about one hundred fifty three dollars a month on Social Security and many just with two or three hundred dollars a month. You can't live very comfortably with that amount and it seems to me that's not the place to make savings to balance the budget. If there are some people on Social Security that don't need it at all that's a different matter but I want to make sure we don't cut down on those who need that to have a dignified and somewhat comfortable life. Do you think there's a risk that some of these cuts the mandate of cutting may hurt the people who can afford it least as a concern of yours. Yes that's my concern that when we're cutting let's try to cut every program that we can but let's not cut into things that people really need to survive. People who really can't get along on their own the problem is compounded by the need. And I recognize the need to spend even more in national defense so we're going to spend more there.

It's important to find cuts that are offsetting and more than offsetting elsewhere but again not where we really hurt people. One of the areas of that has been proposed for drastic cuts has been foreign aid. You're on the Foreign Relations Committee. Would you favor that. I join with Secretary of State Al Hague and questioning the wisdom of any deep cuts in foreign aid foreign aid is a tool that we use not just to be generous not just to help people that need help in the world. That would be almost a bottomless pit. Presently unfortunately but it's a tool to help us with our friends to help strengthen democracy to help strengthen freedom to help strengthen allies and we shouldn't deprive ourselves of that tool. Another point about foreign aid that is generally overlooked by many Americans is that most of the money is not spent simply giving money to a foreign power to use as they see fit. Most of it is given in the form of enabling them to buy American food or American

defense equipment our American technology in one way or another that benefits America provides jobs here provides profits for business and helps our balance of trade. Do you think President Reagan was right or wrong when he scrapped the federal bilingual program just recently. The scrapping of the bilingual program by the Reagan administration. It was. A step that is not a final step as I understand it that's just been taken I haven't had a chance to familiarize myself with every aspect of it but the statement was made by the new secretary of education that he didn't propose to end bilingual education. He proposed to suspend the regulations that were put forward in the English title of the Carter administration at the federal level. I don't quarrel with taking a look at those regulations. I would quarrel with any effort to stop bilingual education I think it's a way to help people kids who don't speak English to be educated in mathematics and

other matters while they're learning English so they don't fall hopelessly behind in their education and become of people that have a hard time making their way on their own. One of the appointments. President made James Watt a secretary of the interior apparently did not meet at all with your favor and you voted against this man having him become the secretary of the interior. Are you concerned about the environment under the Reagan administration. Or is it just this man that you're concerned about. I'm concerned about Mr. Watts viewpoint and that's why I voted against him for secretary of the interior. I am concerned about what may happen to the environment under the Reagan administration that's one of the areas where I have some questions and will be watching us very closely I've wanted to vote for the president's nominees. I think generally a president should have the nominees he wants having won the election have the team he wishes but the Constitution did give the Senate the power to advise and consent and the top positions like cabinet post and if you feel deeply that a man's viewpoints are out of step with what should be done

then you have an obligation to vote no and I voted no on Mr. Lott because I don't think that he's demonstrated by his career up to this point that he will give the protection to the environment and to the resources of the wild places of America that we need if we're going to preserve some of the best in America in the environment generally I've been concerned. Particularly about the Clean Air Act. I want to make sure that nothing happens to lower the standards so much which might occur that we endanger the life and the health of the American people that's a particular problem in California and I'm determined to do what I can to see those standards are kept at a reasonably high level. Do you think that the that the president was right when he when he took some actions to decontrol oil. I have supported the phasing of prices on oil the president speeded speed to $2 a day with the hope that while that would be inflationary and we already see the price of gasoline going up that it would lead to

conservation and to switching to other forms of energy. We will now see whether that works and I think we might as well see if it works where you like your take on it get a look at it. Would it be fair to say then you're skeptical about it now whether you know it may well work very well and I think it's appropriate to have that they were not tested. Let's move to California. Your vision of Reagan the California governor who becomes president of United States. What do you feel this means for California. Well it should be helpful to California. I'm hopeful that as a California senator for the president from California and many members of his cabinet administration generally in his kitchen cabinet who are friends of mine and Californians that the California viewpoint will be considered on major decision making in that when there's a California problem where I think something needs to be done with the help of the administration that be because they're Californians and many of them friends of mine some of my supporters that I will be able to get in to get my viewpoint

heard and sometimes he did. You feel you have good lines of communication have you had good lines of communication with the president. Yes I have had good lunch communication with the new president I saw him before the inauguration I've seen him since. And I know that whenever I need to I can have access and have access to him. One of the things that had many Democrats and Republicans angered in California now is the cut off of eight hundred fifty million dollars in federal funds because California has not enacted a smog control bill for cars. What's your position on that. That's a very heated issue in the state of California. I support Ancient's. I support the sanctions I think that California should follow the federal system and do the inspection program that is designed to protect our health is not considered very popular by many politicians back there to ask for it but you think it's that the longer gains of clean air is more important. Well I don't think you should always take your position based on what may be popular at any particular moment you're elected

to do what you think is right. And I think it's right to do our utmost to have automobiles that aren't spewing out smog and poison that not only hurts people but kills people out of almost 400000 Southeast Asians who have been brought to the United States under the refugee program. Almost half of those are now living in California and the majority of those are living in Southern California causing tremendous loads upon schools social services welfare programs that kind of thing. What about that and what can the federal government do to give some relief to local people in California. Local schools local county governments trying to cope with that tremendous expense. We receive and keep more of the refugees and people that for one really reason or another lose leave some Asian country than any other part of our land for several reasons first we're closer it's the first place placed on the land. Secondly the climate is more akin to what they are accustomed to. And third day

Asians have settled here so they find people from their own land to speak their own tongue so we get more than. Then a percentage share if it was evenly divided amongst the states. But we have to do federally I think is recognize that the decisions that permit these people to come to the decisions that lead to actions by a country that helped create some of the refugees from Vietnam and elsewhere were not California decisions they were national decisions the immigration decisions and the refugee acceptance decisions that permit those people to come are not California decisions but national decisions therefore if California receives an unfair burden in terms of the cost of educating and helping these people in various ways until they are able to take care of themselves we should have federal assistance. And I have done my best pretty successfully up to now in some respects to get federal funding to help in the education and some of the other aspects of assistance to those people that's only proper that the burden be shared equally by the whole country.

Some of the funding will run out in April and there is concern by local of authorities but with school people and county people and the state authorities that something have to come soon from the federal level. Are you optimistic that some additional funding will come out or are you involved in that kind of an effort. I'm involved in the effort I'm either optimistic or pessimistic. I just don't know what to predict that our success in getting funds on time to meet some coming deadlines. And in view of the general. The atmosphere of a budget cutting holding back expenditures it's going to be tougher than ever to get the funds. What about the chronic problem we also have in California as undocumented workers illegal aliens and they're still there and the problems that they created are still there. What's going to be done and what can be done about that nagging problem that problem of people here without documents is one for which there is no simple solution. We can't build a wall along the border from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico and keep the people out. We can't deport all the people that are here without

documents and keep them out. And if we manage to we would cause a lot of business and industry to collapse in California many services would no longer be rendered and those who come here from elsewhere and married an American citizen and have children here and there where the breadwinners if they were deported you'd have American children and spouses on welfare which would be you know a benefit to the taxpayer of the country. The only long range solution in my opinion is. For us to help Mexico and for Mexico to help herself unfortunately she has a lot of oil and gas that she can sell to us and others to begin to get revenue and jobs there. When Mexico and other lands to the south are able to take care of their own people in dignity and comfort they will no longer have the desire to come here so we have to hope in the long run that that will be the solution I see no immediate short run solution to the problem. The Reagan administration will now explore maybe they'll come up with a new program that makes sense I hope they can but I'm skeptical.

But you are optimistic in the long run and I ask I come back to that word again about the Reagan presidency meaning at least recognition of many of the California problems by the White House. Yes I think that will be the case I certainly hope so. Let's take a if not a trend toward international affairs and I go back to message three words of wisdom that came to the American people from President Carter on his last address to them. He said be concerned about nuclear devastation. Be concerned about the environment and be concerned about human rights. Do you feel all three of those are getting shall we say less attention in the crush of the reg priorities deal with the deal with the economy right away and deal with national defense right away. But we have to deal with the economy and national defense immediately they are major problems that cry out for particular attention dealing with national defense lead you to consider arms control the nuclear war so when we don't necessarily are away from them that problem and President Reagan and Alexander Haig of a

plane that they want to find a way to revive talks with the Soviet Union to lead to significant I was reductions. So on that front. I hope we will not have any diversion of attention from what is. I agree with Jimmy Carter the major human problem if we have nuclear war it's the worst catastrophe that ever be felt the human race on the environment. I do have concerns about whether this administration will do all that I think needs doing. I recognize that we have had some. Protection that goes beyond the bounds of reason you need to strike more balance but we must continue to consider the environment which is the habitat which we all inhabit together and on human rights. The Reagan administration is going to focus on terrorism which Alexander Haig's called the worst violation of human rights I can't quarrel with that. They have said they don't intend to abandon their pursuit of human rights and support of efforts to expand

them. But they don't think that all the methods employed in the past by Jimmy Carter and others worked very well. And I don't deny that fact and so a genuine effort to find more effective ways to serve the cause of human rights makes sense. President Carter was very much concerned for example when the president of Korea did not observe human rights as much as he thought they should have observed them. And yet President Reagan has assured the new president and Korea that U.S. troops will stay there. Seemingly the first thing the policy of President Carter without concerns or mandates about human rights. Does that worry you. Well Jimmy Carter had made a decision to to keep troops in Korea he wanted to take them out he found that he could not execute that policy combined efforts by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did lead. To stay of execution or and and to the plan to execute a former leader of that country. That's a step forward. There may be

some reduction in aspects of the dictatorship there as a consequence of recent moves I'm not sure whether that's the case or not I hope it is. Basically one difference between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter on human rights issues like that will be that where we have a friend and an ally that we depend upon for national security purposes even though he may be a dictator and there may be some by elections and human rights there we are going to be more quiet in their efforts to try to. To modify those policies in the country not do it quite as openly and vocally as it was done by Woody Allen Salvador be another case in point I'm not sure about offside but I think that's that's a very very complicated matter but the point I'd like to make is that I think. That there's a decision obviously by the Reagan administration that if we have to choose between sticking with a dictatorship that does engage in some repression but that is under assault by Marxist forces that might give the Soviet Union or

Cuba a beachhead close to us in our hemisphere for example. Yes we're going to opt to stay with a dictator and hope by quiet diplomacy to modify his dictatorial habits but not in ways that would lead to his overthrow by communist allies. I think the same principle will be applied in El Salvador. That's somewhat of a change but not a total about face from what was done in the Carter administration. And there's some logic to that position I want to see exactly how it's carried out in each case before totally accepting it but the basic premise I think is a sound one. Senator the last time we talked one of the one of the subjects that we talked about was the SALT treaty. At that time it was still very much alive and not right now it seems to be in limbo after the Russians excursion into Afghanistan. Did it worry you when the president used words like lying and cheating and so forth when he discusses the Russians. Does that concern you about trying to reach back to De Tonty.

I don't really want to quarrel with the words that he used his effort and the effort by Secretary Haig is to make plain to the Russians that they can't assume that they can continue to expand to invade countries like Afghanistan to use Cuban proxies and to threaten our interests without very strong retaliatory measures of some sort by us some place not necessarily there maybe somewhere else. Jimmy Carter I think did very very well in exercising great restraint in the use of power. We got through four years of the presidency with. Any American dying in combat anywhere in the face of the earth without any American being ordered into combat. And that's unique in modern American history that a president served his full presidency without Americans being in combat somewhere. Unfortunately others who don't share our values our desire for peace rather than war are opponents of violence apparently thought that we were not wise but weak. And that has

led to Iranians and Cubans and Vietnamese and Russians to do things that we find very distasteful and dangerous. So unfortunately the Reagan administration and I don't quarrel with the decision has felt that they have to make very plain that there may be a little bit and will be a little bit less restraint in the future. It is hoped that that will lead to restraint on the Russians and on the part of the others rather than create a situation where we actually have to use the force but if need be it will be used. Would you like to see the SALT talks get started again even while Russian troops are still in Afghanistan. I think we should we should. Proceed with the SALT negotiations in some form. Even while the Russians are in Afghanistan if the Russians were totally peaceful people and didn't invade other people or threaten other people we wouldn't need to have ime to control agreements with them we need the agreements if we can achieve sensible ones that are in our interest and as well as in theirs. They have to be mutually beneficial.

We need them because we don't trust each other because we might land in war without these agreements that could become nuclear. And because we are going to have confrontations and collisions from time to time because of our different philosophies we don't need arms control agreements with Canada or the United Kingdom because they are democracies and we trust them and we see many common paths toward the sort of world that we wish. We need these agreements with others where we have these violent differences should be go ahead and pay Iran. I would you have some misgivings about that. According to the agreement it's done in and out. We are not paying Iran there's no American money involved in the deal with Iran. The reparations and it have been agreed to well that they have reparations neither were we when they took the hostages. The Carter administration froze some Iranian assets. We are now freeing those assets since they have freed the hostages I'd like to point out that we didn't do a number of things they wanted us to do. We. We did not give back the shot we didn't couples get the shot as well as we didn't give any American money and a lot of

other demands by them were not met by us. On that note we're going to have to move along it's been good talking to you Senator. Thank you very much for being with us. Thank you. Good to be with us about a special broadcast for public television with Senator Alan Cranston of the state of California. I'm Jim Cooper. Thanks for being with us.