america s debt ceiling. under president bush, yes. it was a one sentence bill. hit no spending cuts in it. nothing in it. one sentence bill. you re talking about a vote in 2006. you re correct. why did you do that? why did you vote for a debt ceiling increase that was a one-sentence bill with no spending quhaucuts whatsoever? i have to tell you this. the spending is out of control. you won t tell cuss why you cast that vote. right? you won t answer that question. this president has spent more than every president from george washington to we re running out of time. i m going to have to wrap this up. this spending has to stop. you won t answer that question. i ve told you. we have, there has been far too much spending. the spending is out of control. we have to get it when the debt was at $7
we haven t had a budget in 800 something days and $3.4 trillion of what he has spent is debt. we re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that is spent. we have to get a handle on this. number one thing is to get the spending under control. and cut cap and balance, cut being the first part of that, that is the step that we have agreed should be taken first and quite frankly i think there are plenty of polls out there that show the american people also agree with that, that spending reductions have to take place. no, congresswoman there are no polls out there, no polls out there that support the republican position. i just told you cnn had a poll that did. 67% cnn had a poll that did. reduction must be a balance. and my question to you, congressman is, i know you come on television and do your talking points. no. but when you close the door and have a republican caucus in
no, you can t. because congresswoman blackburn has run out the clock tonight s mini debate. we will try to put this together. come to our blog and make your point there. i m going to have to wrap it here. it s live television. we ve got some commercials to do. i have not voted for spending cuts. i don t believe in cutting medicare when millionaires get off scott-free. you just did it. you voted to abolish medicare. no, i did not. you did that. okay. thank you very much for joining me tonight. and congressman blackburn, i do have an open invitation to come back at any point to explain to me why when the debt was at $7 trillion, you had no problem no, problem voting to raise the debt ceiling without $1 of spending cuts. thank you very much for joining me tonight. come back and answer the question whenever you think you
addressed the nation tonight, and went in to real specifics about what he has proposed for deficit reduction, as well as the ideas that others have proposed, which he can support, like harry reid s latest plan that specifies the 2.3 trillion spending cuts. tim pawlenty issued this bold statement. once again president obama did not have the courage to offer real solutions to fix runaway debt. . of course, pawlenty s statement ignores what the president said tonight. no, pawlenty s statement actually lies about what the president said. let s live within our means by making serous historic cuts in government spending. let s cut domestic spending to the lowest level since dwight eisenhower was in office. let s cut defense spending by hundreds of millions of dollars
53% of independents, and 72% of democrats say we should maintain social security and medicare instead of reducing the debt. in that same poll, 87% of respondents said social security is a good program for the country. 88% say medicare is a good program for the country. and five, yes five national polls released this month found that an overwhelming majority, an average of 67% say deficit reduction must be a balance of spending cuts and revenue increases. the balanced approach referred to by the president tonight. by comparison, only 26% on average support deficit reduction through spending cuts alone. joining me now, democratic congressman rob andrews of new jersey and republican congresswoman marcia blackburn