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Tavis: Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota is serving his first term in the Senate, following stints as his state's attorney general and the mayor of St. Paul. He's leading a bipartisan coalition of 57 of his Senate colleagues in an effort to protect cuts in a key program that helps many low-income inner city dwellers. He joins us tonight from Washington. Senator Coleman, nice to have you on the program, sir.

Sen. Norm Coleman: Tavis, great to be with you. Thank you.

Tavis: Glad to have you on. You're not supposed to be doing this, taking, uh...taking the opposite side of your president. What's wrong with you, man?

Coleman: Well, I'm not--first of all, I'm a big supporter of the President, and he's trying to do the right thing and cut into the deficit, but he's just looking in some of the wrong places. I'm a former mayor, Tavis, and having been at the bottom of the political food chain, I got a chance to see firsthand what programs like CDBG can do. I saw it in the city of St. Paul. We took a urban area, east side of St. Paul, working class poor folks, and we transformed that portion of the town using CDBG dollars, and that story has been repeated to me by mayors, city council members, city administrators from places all over the country. By the way, not just urban, but even rural areas, folks have used CDBG dollars to grow jobs, and the best welfare programs are jobs, the best housing program is a job, and access to health care comes through a job, and so I don't want us to be eating our seed corn, and CDBG is our seed corn.

Tavis: When you say CDBG, of course, you're talking about Community Development Block Grants. Tell me more about what these community development block grants can do or have done.

Coleman: Well, actually, there's a lot of flexibility for folks at the local level. You talk to any of your mayors, and they'll tell you that they've used these Community Development Block Grants to build affordable housing. They'll tell you that they've used these affordable...these Community Development Block Grants to develop programs that reach into seniors who are at home and who need services. There's a wide range of things you can do with these block grants, but it's really about rebuilding the infrastructure, the core services that cities and folks can't do without. And what was proposed originally was taking 18 programs, CDBG being one of them, transferring all of them from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Department of Commerce. Uh, 4-point--I think there'd be a-- $3.7 billion would be the total amount of money given to these programs. CDBG alone last year was 4.7 billion, so you're talking more than a billion- dollar cut in CDBG, transferring it over to the Department of Commerce. I got 56 of my colleagues who say that's not gonna happen. Again, I support the President in many ways, but on this one, we're simply looking down a different path.

Tavis: OK, let me come at you respectfully from a number of different vantage points, if I might, about how the President can, in fact, cut this deficit in half over 5 years. You said a moment ago that you support his efforts to do just that--cut the deficit in half in 5 years. There are a lot of folk who think that's ridiculous, that there's no way that that could actually happen in 5 years, but one way people think it can happen, if he repealed these tax cuts. So it's nice of you and these other 57 members to go against the President on these CDBG cuts, but why not tell the President to back off of those tax cuts he's given to the rich and the lucky?

Coleman: Because, Tavis, I was also mayor--one of the things I did when I was mayor, I didn't raise taxes for 8 years, and we grew 18,000 new jobs, and we generated billions of dollars in investment. We gotta get away from the class warfare fights that folks get involved in, and by the way, I don't think the American public buys. I am one who believes that you cut taxes, you generate more capital, you grow jobs. In fact, you know, another piece of that, another cut that I don't like is we're cutting a small amount of money for what we call micro-development loans. Those are small amounts of dollars going into urban centers to give folks who otherwise couldn't get capital to start a business, give 'em capital. I believe in getting capital in the marketplace. Tax cuts do that, but on the other hand, you shouldn't be cutting those programs that generate economic growth. Tavis, we could do--we could do a whole range of things with fraud and mismanagement. We could do a whole range of things in other areas, but let's get away from the class warfare, pitching rich against poor. Americans as a whole don't buy it, and I as a mayor saw the benefit of cutting taxes, but I also saw the benefit of investment in infrastructure.

Tavis: I'm with you. I wanna get away from the class warfare, as well. I'm just trying to get somebody to explain to me how it is that tax cuts for the wealthy...

Coleman: Let me jump in on that.

Tavis: But not raising minimum wage for the poor. That is class warfare, is it not?

Coleman: And by the way, and I voted for, as you know, by the way, I voted for the Kennedy Amendment to raise minimum wage. I voted for that. But let me just say this. The reality is that small businesses, many of them are subchapter "S" corporations. There, you talk about tax cuts for the rich. Those are the so-called rich. You go into your neighborhoods, you talk to small business people. The way we do taxes in this country is that those are the ones who are benefiting from the tax cuts that you're talking about. So the problem is, you know, we gotta redo a federal tax system. But you raise your taxes on the rich, and people are talking about that, you're raising it on the backs of small businesses. And, Tavis, that's where the jobs are coming from. They're not coming from the big corporate giants, they're coming from small business, and I wanna do everything I can to make sure that small business keeps growing.

Tavis: OK. And I support you on that. And I still applaud you for fighting to save CDBG, but, again, let's move to another issue. What about Congress...in fact, a Republican Congress, giving the President more money than he asked for for the military and, yet, you're trying to save programs like CDBG?

Coleman: Because, Tavis, you cannot have personal economic security without personal security. You know, go back and take a look at the tragedy that befell Washington when the vicious snipers were at large. Business just about stopped. You talk to small business people, and people were afraid to go out. You know, multiply that on a national level of people living in fear. We could feel it at home. It applies to the international situation as well. So you gotta have a strong defense, you gotta have national security. Without national security, there is no economic security. But we gotta figure out a way, again, getting back to this pitting one against the other. Can we do a better job of keeping a lid on the budget? By the way, Tavis, we kept the lid on last year, and we kept the increase in budget to 1%. The President came back and he wanted to cut it 1%. You know, if you had no increase, or a 1% increase, when you're talking about close to a trillion dollar budget, the difference in those numbers is pretty large. You can get a lot accomplished. You don't have to cut CDBG, you don't have to have the massive cuts in Medicaid that many of us are concerned about, and you can still keep a lid on spending and growing this economy.

Tavis: Are you opposed to his cuts in Medicaid?

Coleman: I am a co-signatory with Gordon Smith on a proposal to delay those cuts for one year and give us a chance to look before we leap. The bottom line is that the cuts that were proposed by the President are too big. You know, Medicaid--67% of the folks who benefit from Medicaid are women over 19, you know, women who have kids, senior citizens, disabled, a whole range of other folks. So before we leap into massive cuts in Medicaid, the President proposed 60 billion. Chairman Greg and the Chairman's Mark proposed a $15 billion cut. What I say is let us wait for one year. We got commissions on Social Security; we have commissions on 9/11. Let's have a commission on Medicaid. Figure out what has to be done. Get rid of waste, but don't cut away at those things that help the folks in ways they need it.

Tavis: As you know, I respect you and that independent Minnesota spirit that you and some of the other Minnesotans have. Again, I hear you when you say you support the President, but isn't the mess that we're in now, with regard to the budget and the deficit, in large measure, due to the fact that your guy, Mr. Bush, in his fifth year now as president, has never once vetoed a single spending bill?

Coleman: Well, listen. The mess that we're in is because the recession started before George Bush got elected 'cause of the trillion-dollar impact on the economy by September 11, and because of corporate fraud and abuse by WorldCom and a lot of others that really, kind of, gutted a market. We've changed that. We have cut taxes, which have grown jobs. We've begun to put a limit on spending less. The President has laid down a heavy marker. He's saying he wants to really keep a lid on spending this time. Certainly, we have to respond to that. I'm just concerned about where we're looking when we're talking about making cuts.

Tavis: Let's talk about where we're looking. Now, with all due respect to the President, I don't wanna just appear to be casting aspersions on the guy. I'd hate to be president--

Coleman: You're doing a pretty good job at it, though.

Tavis: Let me turn in the other direction then. In fairness to the President, I'd hate to be president if for no other reason than the fact that this budget is not an easy thing to deal with. Balancing a budget is very, very difficult, certainly in times of war. I get that. On the other hand, though, let's talk about Congress because if every member of Congress has a personal or pet project, something like you, CDBG, that they're passionate about, that they fight the President on cutting or on adjusting in some sort of way, if every Senator has that, and I assume you all do, all 100 of you, how will we ever cut this deficit in half over 5 years?

Coleman: Well, I think that's why what the President is doing is important. What he's saying to the congress is, "I wanna see the deficit cut in 5 years." He proposed a 1% cut. I think that Chairman Mark proposes no growth. What you do is...those are the broad parameters, and where do you look? One of the areas that I would look is we passed a Medicare bill that provided Medicare reform, including health savings account, which are a wonderful thing. We'll begin to see the impact of those. But a prescription drug benefit...the cost of that benefit are about 50 billion, I believe, in the next year or so, more than we anticipated. I'd hold off implementing that benefit. I'd step back on some of the things that we haven't begun, like that benefit at this point in time. At least look at that and make sure we got the controls on that. At the same time, not cut away programs like CDBG, not cut away the massive cuts at Medicare. I think we're gonna have to make some choices, and we will make choices. Let's just not, you know, make them on the backs of poor people and those who really have no other place to look.

Tavis: That's a fair assessment, I think. I guess the question is what kind of support can you muster in the Senate to challenge, respectfully, the President on his budget priorities?

Coleman: I think--again, with the CDBG program we've got 57 Senators and I believe it will be successful there. We're having discussion now about CDBG, about--excuse me, about Medicaid. About I think 27 folks are supporting Senator Smith and my efforts. But we're going to live within the parameters of limiting growth and we're going to live within zero increase in spending outside of homeland security and defense. Where we end up is still a work in progress. Make sure your listeners tune in and by the end of this week, we'll have a better idea how it plays out. But we will keep a lid on spending. It's not going to be in programs that are like CDBG.

Tavis: Well, I'm delighted to have you on and we will continue of course to follow this interesting develop with regard to the budget in the coming days. You're welcome back here anytime.

Coleman: Thank you. I appreciate it. I enjoyed the opportunity, Tavis.

Tavis: Senator, nice to have you on, sir. Up next on this program, from "The West Wing," the TV show "The West Wing," actress Mary McCormack. Stay with us.