Rep. Michael Capuano has been front and center in some of the biggest battles on the U.S. House floor this year: health care, internet privacy and, possibly soon, action in Syria — an issue on which the congressman has a cautious view.
“I don’t like unscrambling the egg. It’s done,” said Capuano when he joined Jim Braude on Greater Boston. “It shouldn’t have been done the way it was, but it’s done ... I’m less worried about what happened yesterday than what happens tomorrow,” he added, saying he wants to know what the U.S. plan is for Syrian policy, future such strikes and policy outside of Syria.
About Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation — which came after Senate Democrats filibustered and then Senate Republicans employed the so-called “nuclear option,” making it a straight majority vote — Capuano had a similar attitude. “It’s done,” he said. “I’m not there [in the Senate], so I don’t like to second guess ... My real concern is the next seat.”
He also weighed in on Donald Trump’s trillion-dollar infrastructure proposal, a push Capuano is not yet sure if he can get behind. “It depends how he [Trump] does it,” Capuano, who currently sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said. “The spending part of it’s easy. Everybody agrees a trillion dollars is just a beginning. We haven’t don’t enough to catch up. At the same time, it is exactly where do you get the money? And if the money comes out of school lunch programs, he loses my vote. If the money comes out of increased taxes somewhere, he probably could get my vote. If it comes out of debt, we’ll have to talk about that.”
Last week, Rep. Capuano made a speech on the House floor that quickly went viral. During a debate on internet privacy, he said to his fellow representatives, “Just last week, I bought underwear on the internet. Why should you know what size I take?”
“I think they’re going to regret this one,” Capuano told Jim about his Republican colleagues, who successfully reversed an Federal Communications Commission regulation that would have banned internet service providers from selling users’ browser history — including private health and financial information. “The average person understands it. One of the reasons … is because of that speech … Everybody I know buys things on the internet. Everybody who does health care research … why should anybody know that stuff? And Everybody agrees with it.”
You can watch the full interview with Congressman Michael Capuano by clicking the video link above.
