with this debt and coming up with specifics? what specifically can be cut in order to avoid the looming debt ceiling? >> well, first, andrea, for having me on the show. appreciate it. there's a number of us very excited to be here. a friend of mine, steve sutherland from florida put it this way. tired of hitting the range balls. time to tee it up for real. a lot of us are eeg are and ready to do this. to your question, how do we deal with the debt and how are we going to move forward from that? two things we really have to do. one, deal with the deficit situation. what are we doing on an annual basis? clearly, the last couple of years it's been a trillion dollar-plus additions to the debt. and so we've got first and foremost to take care of that as we're going through the budgeting process, and then we also have to deal with that $14 trillion or nearly $14 trillion in long-term debt that we are saddling our kids and grandkids with. >> now, you have the virtue of some experience, because you worked for pete hoekstra, so you