and the american people in catastrophic terms unless you get your way. we're tired of bullying. we're tired of babies saying give it to us all or else we're going to wreck the whole çhous. i don't think that is what the american government should be about. >> senator, i would to put up on the screen a chart of what's happened with the debt ceiling over the last decade from 2001 to 2008. it's been raised several times. it's had to have been raised. as i say as we talked about here, it doesn't in any way increase spending. it simply acknowledges that the government has done this spending already. that the government has committed to this spending. and it takes legislation to change the spending -- the debt ceiling has nothing to do with incuring one additional dollar of spending. >> that's correct, lawrence. again, i think we need a good debate about how we move toward deficit reduction.