worth less. and the future of our children with the debt on their head means that the opportunities that they could have are going to be diminished. that s not quite what he was speaking of there. what he s talking about is how the brand positions itself. one of the reasons i left congress is because i don t believe that politicians are going to solve our problems unless the american people force them to. they re going to keep spending and borrowing in washington. they re going to keep implementing policies, as ben just said, that hurt minorities. they are worse off. and we can go to detroit and philadelphia and chicago where these liberal progressive policies have been in place for decades, and you see latinos and african-americans in failing schools, with high unemployment. what we re going to do, and i know what governor jindal is going to do along with a lot of other governors, is show the success stories where the right ideas are implemented. and we re going to show the failur
success stories where the right ideas are implemented. and we re going to show the failures in detroit and philadelphia and l.a. ben, comment before we go to break. you know, there are places where we can clearly work together. criminal justice reform is one of them. but the real question for the gop is whether they are willing to give up on the gasoline that has been the old dixiecrat rhetoric for the past 40 years. and when he talked about those bizarre and insulting comments, that s what he s talking about. playing to the cheap seats again and again. they need to stop. they need to say, look, we have an old brand, the grand old party, the party of lincoln, the party of people who united this country again and again. let s be that. and let s stop trying to be these dixiecrats. it just doesn t work for anybody. senator, do you regret some of the comments about abortion in this last cycle, about rape, about what colin powell thought were failed racist comments from the party? w
as soon as they re sworn in tomorrow, the clock starts ticking for the new congress to do something about a rapidly growing debt. will the congress vote to raise the debt ceiling to pay the bills? from the heated rhetoric coming out of washington, it s clear the question will dominate much of the new session. so to make sense of it all, we turn to ben stein, he s joining us from l.a. ben, welcome. my pleasure. ben, our debt. it s almost at $14 trillion and inching mighty close to that ceiling which is nearly $14.3 trillion. so the big picture, what does all this mean? they re not going to be able to keep the debt from rising. congress often threatens they re not going to improve it, increasing the debt ceiling. they always approve it otherwise government comes screeching to a