Shannyn Moore: Alright, welcome back, this is Shannyn Moore, I’m subbing for Thom Hartmann today and happy to do it. If you want to check out my website, ShannynMoore at, what is it, ShannynMoore.com, yeah. You can also email me at ShannynMoore@gmail.com. My name is spelled S-H-A-N-N-Y-N. Why? Because I’m from Homer, Alaska and I’m lucky my name is Moonbeam or Aurora or something of the like. Not to offend any of the girls named Moonbeam or Aurora from Alaska, but there’s a Y in the Shannyn.

So former mayor of Anchorage, now senator for Alaska, he was a frequent guest on my program and my fairy god mayor at one point. Mark Begich is calling in. Which this is kind of exciting, he’s in the big leagues in Washington, I’m getting to sub for Thom, he’s calling in from Washington and I know the senate has just passed 30 billion dollar small business bill on a 61 to 38 vote. Senator Begich, how are you?

Mark Begich: Very good, well first, Shannon, congratulations on being there today and you know talking about moving to the big leagues, you have definitely moved to the big league here, there’s no question about it. And I’ve been on Thom’s show before and it’s a great show, so thank you for allowing me just a few minutes.

And you’re right we just, literally probably an hour ago, just passed the small business bill which is, I have to be frank with you and your listeners, it’s been appalling that we have been stalled out not only for, since we’ve been back, but over a month prior to that because of our break and the republicans didn’t want to pass it before and it was such a simple bill in a lot of ways because it gave 12, over 12 billion dollars for tax relief for small businesses, those are the moms and pops that are running operations and businesses all around this country and are truly the back bone of this country.

And then it also offered about a 30 billion dollar loan program which would leverage up to about 300 billion dollars. Again for only small banks and small businesses. And it’s not about just giving banks money. What you do is if you’re a small business, you got a loan, you go to your community bank, your small neighborhood bank, show them the package, and then they would be able to get resources through this loan program at a lower interest rate. All to be paid back, so there’s no cost to the federal government, actually we make money on it.

And I don’t know what the deal is with the republicans on the other side. They just had no interest in supporting the small business community at all. And yet we barely, as you said, the numbers are 61 votes, we just squeezed two extra votes out of it from the republicans. People who saw the future and the future is about building jobs and building a strong economy.

Shannyn Moore: You say you don’t know what it is, I think I do. If you’re not big enough to go off shore, and avoid paying taxes, they are not going to take care of you.

Mark Begich: Yeah this is, it’s amazing when you think about it. They didn’t have any problem when President Bush was the president to give billions to the big banks and these companies that ship jobs overseas but when it came to taking care of their own, our own people here, who you know work these hard jobs, 12, 14, 18 hours a day, they’re small businesses. All they’re doing is they want to expand and they didn’t’ want to lift a finger to help them. The other thing, I know you know this, we’re debating now, or hopefully will debate, it’s not on the floor at this point obviously, but it’s in the media world about what we’re going to do about tax relief for middle class America. And it’s amazing to hear the other side and what their whole big issue is. They want to still take care of that 2%, those people who are, I call them the millionaire club, they want to give them another hundred thousand plus tax break when the working people of this country deserve it. So we’re…

Shannyn Moore: Well it’s a bailout for billionaires, I mean they’ve been talking about bailouts for banks, bailouts for the auto industry. All these bailouts and that’s a bad things. Well bailing out billionaires seems to me like not a good thing.

Mark Begich: Yep. Like one of the guys, I call home every night back to Alaska when I’m in DC with many people I call when I, you know just randomly select them and call them. And this one guy, I can’t tell you, because you’re on the air so I can’t say exactly what he said but I will tell you if I, just going to sum it up, he said you know you wanted me to vote for the middle class tax cuts which of course I’m going to, but he said but don’t give, and I won’t fill in the blank here, those guys who took my retirement, took my savings, took my kids education, because they robbed us on the market, they robbed us on the economy, don’t give them one more dime, they took their money and robbed us. And I thought that was a really, like I said he had more descriptive words but you get the picture.

Shannyn Moore: Oh yeah that foreign language of Alaskana. Yeah it gets a little colorful.

Mark Begich: Right, a little colorful.

Shannyn Moore: So people have been asking me quite a bit, nationally and local of course, we’ve been discussing it on the Shannyn Moore show, what’s happening with Lisa, why is she still in, and when is she getting out if at all. Is enough pressure being put on her to move on and when is the democratic senatorial committee going to actually pony up?

Mark Begich: Yeah all great questions. First, who knows what she’s going to do. Tomorrow she’ll make some pronouncement or announcement or whatever you want to call it tomorrow, I don’t know what direction she’s going to go. She’s obviously surprised that she lost the primary, I think it was clear you have a closed republican primary, that’s kind of what happens. The tea party guys came in and took her out. And so she’s going to have to make a decision tomorrow. The reality is, I know you know this, I don’t’ know if he was on your show or not yet, but Scott McAdams is a great candidate. You know I hope people step up to the plate all around this country, obviously from Alaska too, to support and go to Act Blue and help support him. Learn more about him, ScottMcAdams.org. And I’ll tell you this guy, and I’m biased too, you know that because he’s a mayor and I like mayors, we need more of them here because they are practical people.

Shannyn Moore: I don’t like my mayor.

Mark Begich: Not me, that new guy, right?

Shannyn Moore: Right. I don’t like the new mayor, but Scott McAdams, he’s amazing and his people love him.

Mark Begich: He, people when they learn about him too, I find people are just enthusiastic about him. And so our goal, you obviously is to help him any way he wants us to, but people around this country and Alaska should help him. He needs resources now so he can get up on mayor because they’re going to be negative and nasty and attack him and say all kinds of stuff that just aren’t true. That’s how Miller won his primary, that’s what he’ll do in the general. What Lisa will do, is just hard to say. I mean I, you know tomorrow is her big day. I think McAdams is not waiting around, he’s just continuing to campaign. The DSCC, the democratic party, I think, they’ve already started to participate. I think at the end of the day they will. I’m obviously churning up a lot of support back here. There are people very interested in this race because it’s not an expensive race and it’s a good candidate. It’s not like some fly by night guy sitting on the democratic ticket. It’s a guy who’s solid. It’s a guy who has three kids, a wife, a mayor, a former school board president, ran his school board association. Now if someone said to me is he really up to the task, I will be honest with you, now being two years in the senate, I can point to a couple people here who really aren’t up to the task and they’re incumbents.

Shannyn Moore: And they’ve been there longer. Well you know Scott has a better chance if Lisa is not in the race. Because it’s not about the republican vote in this state, I mean this, what we’ve just had was a closed primary. It’s really about splitting the rational people.

Mark Begich: That’s right.

Shannyn Moore: And it’s the rational vote. Because the democrats have voted for Lisa Murkowski before, you know, and republicans voted for you.

Mark Begich: Right.

Shannyn Moore: And so we’ve, you know we’ve got what 26% republicans, 17 or 16% democrats and the rest of it is a free for all. So it’s really impossible to poll here. But I think the big thing for people to know about Scott McAdams race is that if you donate $100, in the Alaskan market, it is such a small market, that it’s the equivalent, $100 in Alaska, you can buy the same amount of ads as it would take $2000 in Texas.

Mark Begich: Yeah. This is, it’s very inexpensive. And people who, you know, and that’s what I love about what Scott’s campaign is about. It’s about people, real people, and lots of people, and those small donors are making a huge impact. So I’d encourage them to step up to the plate. But again, if she is out of the race, you know off we go. If she’s in the race, Scott has a tough race but I believe at the end of the day, Lisa doesn’t win in any scenario. So the real reality is here we’ve got to be focused on getting a great candidate down here in the US senate representing Alaska. And I love you know, he’s a commercial fisherman, he’s just, he’s Alaskan. You know what I mean? I can’t say…

Shannyn Moore: He’s everything Sarah Palin pretended to be.

Mark Begich: There we go.

Shannyn Moore: You know? Small town mayor, except that his is actually doing really well and not in debt. And you know, commercial fishing, he doesn’t go get manicures, it’s great.

Mark Begich: The last, I’ll give you a Sarah Palin data point, just for fun, I saw a poll last night in Alaska, 55% negative to 38% positive. She, people wonder how she’s liked in Alaska, she’s not liked anymore.

Shannyn Moore: No, she’s not. She was at what, 85 or 87% popularity at one point?

Mark Begich: Yes. She was 85% positive rate, she’s collapsed those down to about 38, her negative’s up to 55.

Shannyn Moore: Well it’s pretty difficult to win when you’re at that point.

Mark Begich: There you go. Well I know you’ve got other people lined up, but listen, I just want to say congratulations for being on the show today. People out there, get excited about Alaska, you know it’s hard to believe that the potential of having two democrats from Alaska is sitting in front of us. It’s an opportunity, I would hope people step up to the plate and help out.

Shannyn Moore: Absolutely. Thanks so much senator Begich for calling in and great job on that vote this morning. I really, I know that’s going to really help out a lot of Alaskans and people across America.

Mark Begich: We know it and democrats did the right thing today and stood up for small business and lowering taxes on small business and helping mom and pops, so thank you very much.

Shannyn Moore: Alright, take care.

Mark Begich: Okay, bye bye.

Shannyn Moore: This is Shannyn Moore, I’m subbing. If you want to send me an email, I would love to hear from you. ShannynMoore@gmail.com. I also want to encourage you to go over to ShannynMoore.com. I have put up a sheet of what I think is the number one issue in Alaska, what I think is more important than anything about Sarah Palin, anything about our politics, it’s really about the heart and soul of Alaska, which is our fisheries. And I encourage you to head over there. There’s a couple of links including Scott McAdams, his Act Blue account. We’ll be right back.

Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.