where this goes, lowering the rate is something i m in favor of and voted for several times. at the same time i d like to see us dedicate some of that money to debt reduction in the long-term. but we still have the big elephant i like to say elephant in the room. the entitlement issues, because if we don t start reforming these, the next generation, it s not going to be there. and i think that s a real red flag for all of us. west virginia is a state that, you know, if you re going to rank states about money that they send to washington versus money they receive from washington, west virginia s one of these states that ranks pretty high up on getting money from washington. how fortune is federal spending to west virginia s economy. i think you ve said it there, it is very important. but also, we re a state of great families and communities who want to see opportunities for our children and our grandchildren, and i think that we realize that when you have one hand tied behind yo
and another potential downgrade on u.s. credit rating. joining me now, judd gregg, co-chair on the campaign to fix the debt. senator greg, thank you for joining me. thank you for having me on. it s a new year, new congress, but has some old problems, the debt mainly. what will happen this time? well, you know, the congress and the president made two efforts here that have been fairly substantive. the 2011 effort reduced discretionary spending by $900 billion and a tax increase of $960 billion, but the big elephant has not been addressed, entitlement spending, that s driving our debt. we re running deficits of over a trillion dollars a year, even after the tax increase, so they will have to come back and address that. i hope they can do it in an orderly way, rather than what we do in recent years. the chances that seem to be
front-runners, and they re pretty close in this poll. but it s still a year to go before the iowa caucuses. is it way too early to take the to look at this and say these are the three front-runners? sure, let me introduce you to president giuliani, president clinton. it is early. this is about name recognition. these are the people they ve heard of. of course, the big elephant, literally in the middle of the room is sarah palin. and what republicans are trying to figure out right now wolf, is is she or isn t she going to run? she s right up at the top of the poll. she has a really strong following. and the talk is which republican will get in, start criticizing her, and become the sacrificial lamb if she decides to run. we don t know what she s going to do. do you think she ll run, david? maybe we ought to start
and back to what bob was saying, let me take on the issue of financial regulation reform. we didn t do anything about the stupidity of continuing to give people access to home mortgages with 3.5% down, which is what the fha is doing now. if we really want to protect the financial system, we should not make it possible for people to get a home mortgage unless they have 20% down payment, and then we won t have another cratered system. you know, so i so the incentives on the mortgage side were at the end of the day the kind of big elephant behind the financial crisis. you know, we compounded problems. we went around and got people to sign if you could breathe, you could get a mortgage. right? you didn t have to have any money down. somebody would fabricate something. you d get a mortgage. is it a surprise that that collapsed and that the collapse got calamitous when we quickly went through the thin equity
talk about, i suppose. i don t think there s much merit to that conversation. and back to what bob was saying, let me take on the issue of financial regulation reform. we didn t do anything about the stupidity of continuing to give people access to home mortgages with 3.5% down, which is what the fha is doing now. if we really want to protect the financial system, we should not make it possible for people to get a home mortgage unless they have 20% down payment, and then we won t have another cratered system. you know, so i so the incentives on the mortgage side were at the end of the day the kind of big elephant behind the financial crisis. you know, we compounded problems. we went around and got people to sign if you could breathe, you could get a mortgage. right? you didn t have to have any money down. somebody would fabricate something. you d get a mortgage. is it a surprise that that collapsed and that the collapse