american people are prepared to tell republicans don t hold the middle class and the unemployed hostage in order to give tax breaks to billionaires. so i think of course the president is right, we have got to protect the unemployed and the middle class. but i think we can do that by rallying the american people and not giving tax breaks to people who don t need it and driving up our $13.7 trillion national debt. senator sanders, i ve heard you do plan to filibuster. is that still your plan? i am going to i think this is a very bad agreement. i think the vast majority of the american people do not agree with it. and i am going to do everything i can to defeat it so that we end up protecting the middle class and the unemployed and not drive up the national debt by giving huge tax breaks to people who don t need it. senator sanders, thank you for being live for us on capitol hill. senator, thank you. thank you. this came out of nowhere. you ready for this? have you heard about
they want to do. particularly when what they want to do puts them on the opposite side of public opinion. this is going to seem a little twilight zoney to you and alternate reality to you. here s what s going on the offense on this issue looks like. we are now faced with the issue of what we do with the bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. and if you can believe it, we have people here, many of my republican colleagues, who tell us, oh, i am so concerned about our record-breaking deficit. i am terribly concerned about a $13.7 trillion national debt, terribly concerned about the debt that we re going to be leaving to our kids and our grandchildren. but wait a minute, it s very important that we give over a ten-year period $700 billion in tax breaks to the top 2%. we talk about a lot of things on
make them explain what it is they want to do. particularly when what they want to do puts them on the opposite side of public opinion. this is going to seem a little twilight zoneny to you and alternate reality to you. here s what s going on the offense on this issue looks like. we are now faced with the issue of what we do with the bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. and if you can believe it, we have people here, many of my republican colleagues, who tell us, oh, i am so concerned about our record-breaking deficit. i am terribly concerned about a $13.7 trillion national debt, terribly concerned about the debt that we re going to be leaving to our kids and our grandchildren. but wait a minute, it s very important that we give over a ten-year period $700 billion in tax breaks to the top 2%. we talk about a lot of things on
back and forth between andrews, using military aircraft in san francisco, because she was shuttling family members, et cetera, it s. there s also the presumption issue, aside from the money, it is a perception issue and is very, very inappropriate and if you want you said john boehner gets it. he may get it. do you think the rest of washington gets it? we ll find out. bill: the debt commissions and there is a report on how to save money and the money on the debt, $13.7 trillion. do you think washington, right now, is ready to give america the hard choices and say, this is what we have to do, folks? well, i will tell you this much. you know, i will not prognosticate about social security and medicare at this point because you see there s a lot of cross-cutting currents there but i will say next week when the lame duck comes into session you ll see indications of where they are going, they ll make decisions about committee chairs and decisions about earmarks and make decisions ab
accurate portrayal of what lies ahead for the united states? tom shatz is the president of citizens against government waste and joins us from our nation s capital. good morning to you, sir. good morning, steve. ok, you guys are famous for coming out with a list of government waste. why are you taking to the air y airwaves with an ad? this is the ultimate effect of not eliminating all this wasteful spending. back in 1986, wr grace & company produced an ad called the deficit trials, this is an homage to the particular ad that was rejected by the networks as being too controversial and at that time, the national debt was about $2 trillion. now, it s $13.7 trillion. so we ve been talking about this for a long time. one of our phone numbers is 1-800-usa-debt so this is something that we have focused on as a consequence of not addressing things like earmarks and other forms of wasteful spending. and the message in this is if we re not careful, the chinese