well, that wasn t half of it. how many times did the congressman from illinois say my name in that short interview? i couldn t believe this when i heard it. 61 times, that s how much home runs roger polaris hit when he made the roared. anyway, i appreciate him coming on the show. up next legislators across the country are changing voting rules to make it harder for democrats to vote. guess why? when we return, we ll find out what s being done to stop this effort. you re watching hardball, only on msnbc. let me tell you about a very important phone call i made. when i got my medicare card, i realized i needed an aarp. medicare supplement insurance card, too. medicare is one of the great things about turning 65, but it doesn t cover everything. in fact, it only pays up to 80% of your part b expenses. if you re already on or eligible for medicare, call now to find out how an aarp. medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company,
fixing the problem. making sure we don t bankrupt the country. so there are folks up here, a large majority of us, willing to do tough things like we did yesterday. but when you saw you re going to limit the amount of federal spending, that is an artificial arbitrary line. how do you hold that line in a society where people are getting older all the time and you have more and more people with entitlement, who have paid into medicare, who expect to get full medical treat after age 65 and now say we re going to change that system? that s not an arbitrary line. it started at 18, 18.5%, which was the 30 or 40-year historical average on the revenues that come into this country. the 20% is that same period of time average, 30 to 40 years, that s the average we spend. we should be able to live within that means. even the president said he wants us to live within our means. i think we re all saying the
they have not laid out why they have taken so firmly the position they have taken, so people believe and begin to thing you aren t willing to make those compromises. they have said consistently they said to see something from the administration. they re looking, where do you want to cut? how do you want to address the entitlement challenges? the president has not laid that out. michael, i think you re usually up to date, but did you read the bill yesterday passed by the house? it doesn t have any specifics on the cuts. there s no specific cuts in there. your party just dodged it again. no, they haven t dodged it again, because republicans have talked about whether it was the ryan plan but no touching of social security of medicare or medicaid. the bill passed. you ve got to get up to date. i m very much up to date. it makes no reference to entitlements.
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same things, we need to live one our means. so we gradually reduce our commitment to people over 65 to keep it below 20. we have to. that s a fact. you can t keep the same commitments, total health care, if you re going to constrain the growth in federal spending? one of the most overlooked pieces, if you are rich, you re going to pay more for your medicare. weapon we re willing to consider raising the rear tirmt age, two months we have put these difficult things on the table. we got nowhere. i shouldn t say we got nowhere. we got five democrats yesterday. we overlooked that. it was a bipartisan vote yesterday. you re a good guest on our show. you know your stuff. you can now call me by my name. mr. matthews, i m a big fan. i m happy to be here. can you call me chris.