president obama on my side if i m a democrat and mitt romney on my side if i m a republican, but to your point if i m in california or massachusetts, i m on my own. or virginia, florida, and you have lots of company. and sometimes you want it and sometimes you don t and it depends upon what kind ofรง district you are running in. members of congress are all about running for the re-election, because politics is local, but we know that the national polls show that the congressional approval rating is 12%, but when you ask that person about the local member of congress, that number is higher. not everybody hates their member of congress, but they hate congress. i want to give you the last word. well, the decline of mod ratss, because some of the folks are retiring because they don t have is the stomach for the fisticuffs which is now legislating on capitol hill and it is shocking to me that we have the defense triggers going into place, and the bush tax cuts that need to be exten
expert here. what are the implications, we know this is one round of cuts but there are another 500 billion in cuts looming if the defense triggers go through. defense secretary leon panetta said this is not a good thing. we re the only people who have not had a recess appointment here at this table. we should lobby strongly for it right now. what we heard from both the president and leon panetta were not specifics so much the broad strategy that the united states is adopting that is going to underpin all of the changes that are going to be made. he is talking about half a billion dollars in cuts and panetta who was appointed to the position at least partially because he s really good at cutting out waste, wants to avoid is $1.5 trillion worth of cuts which are going to happen automatically, doesn t want that to happen. this is quite frankly the
know this is one round of cuts but there are another 500 billion in cuts looming if the defense triggers go through. defense secretary leon panetta said this is not a good thing. we re the only people who have not had a recess appointment here at this table. we should lobby strongly for it right now. what we heard from both the president and leon panetta were not specifics so much the broad strategy that the united states is adopting that is going to underpin all of the changes that are going to be made. he is talking about half a billion dollars in cuts and panetta who was appointed to the position at least partially because he s really good at cutting out waste, wants to avoid is $1.5 trillion worth of cuts which are going to happen automatically, doesn t want that to happen. this is quite frankly the biggest change in american strategic vision that s been
america spends more money on the defense budget than all other countries on the planet combined. we can squabble maybe it s 50%. but i just know the way washington works and you re starting to hear it now, barney, these defense triggers will be undercut by the white house and republicans. there are two things that i think make it somewhat different this time. there really is a pro-deficit reduction party. that s there. and people who are have for the first time pete peterson who has been very good i spoke to the council on foreign relations about a month ago, pete was there and he s funding a study group to show how you can cut military spending effectively. the way to cut military spending is, first of all, to scale back america s commitments. we don t have to be everywhere, every place, solving every problem. and you know, the people positive we re going to do that and you need the money. there s that general recognition we need to reduce the deficit and that s on the table.