economies. if we go through all the tax increases that congressional leaders proposed by the way, congress is going to come back right after the election in this lame duck session of congress with a new round of spending in this omnibus appropriations bill and new tax increases. should the question is, mr. giannoulias, should tax cuts be paid for? this is a fundamental policy difference between myself and congressman kirk. he said he s a fiscal hawk. the congressman has told some real whoppers in this campaign but that may be the biggest one of all. he has voted to increase his own pay six times, voted for the bridge to nowhere twice. he voted for a pay increase for himself. the list goes on and on. saying you re a fiscal hawk doesn t necessarily make it true and your voting record proves it s not true. the question for the congressman is the $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest americans, we don t have $700 billion. my question to the congressman is, which country do yo
and a lot of people running for office this year do not want to talk about issues or do not want to talk about their past stands on issues and so they re just pounding each other personally. he lied, she lied. he did this. it lowers everything and is not fortunate during a crisis. did obama help him here? he s been really aggressive in campaigning. is there an obama effect in illinois? i was in kirk s old district during this road trip and obama has 50%, 59%, 60% approval in that district. a district that s gone full republican in the past. obama is still very popular in illinois. but i want to pick up on what peggy said. and the amazing thing to me about this debate is how much it is at variance with the way people are actually feeling in this country. they are freaked out. they re panicked. they really are scared that the jobs we ve lost are not coming back this time and that their kids won t live as well as they have. and instead of this tit for tat political stuff you see in al
borrowing $700 billion from? the saudis? china? we can t afford it. that s one of the problems, quite frankly, with washington, d.c., this over borrowing, over spending. congressman, respond to that. the congressman has said tax cuts don t have to be paid for. republicans have said and the president says there s $700 billion they want to extend. where are they going to get the money? spending reductions across the board, cutting out whole programs and making sure we have a new sit of mechanisms. for example, the president has been rumored to bring forward a line item veto proposal. republicans should support that. we should have a new grace commission put forward with base-closing powers to put a joint bill that the house or senate one or up or down vote. it s ironic for my opponent to criticize my record on fiscal conservatism, in front of the chicago tribune, they asked him name one spending bill you would vote to cut. he couldn t name one. as the chicago tribune said when th
2006? as i always said. nothing is inconsistent and i make my tax returns public, unlike the congressman. everybody can see what i paid in taxes. i make my tax returns public. i paid my state treasurer s salary in taxes and getting a refund because of a widely known business failure and i m giving that money to charity. were you aware of some of the loan activity to criminal figures? the way a community bank does business i know when you run for office, these stories get sensationalized. when a bank decides who to give a loan to, they look at the creditworthiness of a borrower, they look at the credit score of the borrower, appraisal value of the property. any bank of course, there are individuals that we may not want to do business with, but that doesn t represent the thousands of people my question, mr. giannoulias, were you aware that there were crime figures getting loans from your bank? you were a loan officer there. as i continue to mention, as i continue to say,
elected republicans in the nation offered six principles for the 05 budget resolution designed to put congress on a path toward a balanced budget. these principles stand for a key value that once we adopt the budget we must have the tools to stick to it, said congressman mark kirk. here is a key part to that. tax cuts should only be extended temporarily and limited to those that are due to expire in 2004. key point. we simply can t afford permanent and across-the-board extinctions at this time. that s what you said then. right. when the debt was about one-third of what it was today. congressman, how can we afford to make permanent tax extensions now, the bush tax cuts, in this climate? especially in this climate, we have congressional leaders who are not interested in spending restraint at all. for example, i back spending restraint across the board. at the d.o.d. like no second engine for the f-35 fighter, closing down joint forces command, across the board reductions. when you