Keller @ Large: Rep. Mike Capuano Talks Deadlock In Congress
BOSTON (CBS) -- Rep. Mike Capuano was asked if anything was going on in Congress nowadays.
"Nope, not much," he said. "It's unlikely we're going to do much. There was a lot of hope the new Speaker would be able to corral their extreme right-wingers and be able to get them to work more cooperatively. Thus far, it has been a failure."
Capuano sat down with WBZ political analyst Jon Keller to talk about the state of Congress and the difficulty of getting anything passed as the minority party.
"There's not even an attempt by leadership thus far to bring anything to the floor that is this much controversial," said Capuano. "And I don't mean controversial between the left and the right--I mean controversial between the right and the extreme far right."
Keller asked what the Democrats were doing to fix it.
"There's not much we can do," said Capuano. "We're the minority party. That is the benefit of being the majority party--you get to set the agenda. The minority is never allowed to set the agenda. We can complain about it, which we're doing, but we can't do anything about it."
But if the Democrats were able to retake the House majority again, Capuano said there would be a number of things the party would like to fix, relative to taxes, healthcare, and social security.
"We'll have our own family debates about how to best do that, but at least we'll be debating and discussing and trying to push ahead something of substance," said Capuano. "Some people wouldn't like it, some people would like it. But to do nothing, in my opinion, is just accepting the status quo, and that's just not acceptable."
Keller and Capuano also talked about the language used by Donald Trump on the campaign trail, as well as the Green Line extension.
