I love that because that is what I have been saying. And this man is a Republican I love it......
Gov Schwarzenegger
I mean, you know, if you think about that the Senate just voted for a healthcare bill that is saying basically that California should pay for Nebraska so that Nebraska never has to pay any extra money, and we have to...
MR. GREGORY: To expand the Medicaid rolls?
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: To expand the Medicaid. And so if--we have to pay 3, $4 billion extra for those states?
MR. GREGORY: You said the president should rethink healthcare reform.
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: Absolutely, because that's not healthcare reform, to go and to put that extra burden, billions of dollars, on other states, especially on California. Just because we're the best state in the world and the best place in the world and we are the most diversified economy and everyone wants to come to California is no reason to beat up on California and to always ask for more money from California.
MR. GREGORY: Do--is that how you...
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: I think it's time for the federal government to go and do--take care of us.
MR. GREGORY: Is that how you think about healthcare reform as something that ultimately would beat up on California?
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, it is. Right now it is. And I just cannot imagine why we would have, like I said, you know, for instance, you know, our senators and congressional people, how they would vote for something like that where they're representing Nebraska and not us. And by the way, as I said in my State of the State, that's the biggest rip-off. I mean, that is against the law to buy a vote. I mean...
MR. GREGORY: You're talking about Senator Nelson, who got...
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: As Senator Nelson. That's like buying a vote to say, "Hey, it's--I'm going"...
MR. GREGORY: The federal government will pay for their Medicaid expansion.
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: "I'm holding out my vote unless I get some extra kind of benefits here." I mean, if you do that in Sacramento, you know, you will be sued. It is illegal to do that, to buy votes.
MR. GREGORY: Working together. As you come to the, the last year of your tenure as governor, where do you fit in the Republican Party of today?
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: I'm a reformer. I'm an independent reformer. I came into this job here saying that I want, want to be the people's governor, not the Republican Party's governor, but the people's governor. I want to represent Democrats and Republicans. I want to do everything that I can to bring Democrats and Republicans together. That's why I've been talking so much about post-partisanship, bipartisanship
or none partisanship. I think it's extremely important, the action is, to bring both of the parties together and to look at what they can do together rather than to just talk about what they want to fight over. Let's do it together. Let's go in the beginning of the year and say, "Here are the things that need to be done," and then get them to work together on those things. So, you know, I think that we have a lot of things we got done, even though Democrats and Republicans fight. But I think it is much easier when people take party out of the way. And I know it is very hard to do, but you got to be a servant to the people, not to your party.
MR. GREGORY: Do you think the, the Republican Party is doing that of today, nationally?
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER: I think both of the parties are not doing that because it is so political. It's more--they're thinking more about the party than about the people. And I think that as soon as both parties come together and have regular meetings and say, "What can we accomplish together," rather than just worrying about, "How do we get elected?" and "How do we get more people elected for the Republican Party?" and how to get more elected for the Democratic Party, all of this--I know it's part of politics to do that. But I think that we should tone that down and lift up of what is important, really, and for the people. Look, this country need to rebuild itself. We are still living off the Eisenhower era and off the Roosevelt era when they built the thousands of bridges and the thousands of government buildings and the roads, the highway system and all of those things. What's the new thing that we're building? We haven't built anything in decades. We need a high speed rail. We need new infrastructure. We need to think about it because we have countries like China and Europe that are very fast gaining on us and surpassing us. So we got to get our act together and really make this country kind of live in the 21st century, not be with the infrastructure in the 20th century.
