we never shut down the government when we had the majority, and president bush was in power. well, a lot of rhetoric today, no results. keeping them honest, get this, no matter what happens, even if the government shuts down and the parks shut down, even if the military doesn t get paid, guess who does? the folks on capitol hill. these guys who got us into this mess and can t get their act together will still be getting paid. just this morning, that pact was news to house speaker john boehner. in fact, only the second part is true. yet when the interviewer pointed out, mr. boehner first disputed the fact. a moment later, he said whatever the case may be, lawmakers shouldn t be paid. they shouldn t be getting paid, just like federal employees. they wouldn t be if the house passed a version of this senate bill. kind of spells it out.
jack lou, visited with both the house ways and means tax writing committee as well as the house budget committee chaired by none other than paul ryan, how just heard from a moment ago. mr. lou argued that spending cuts shouldn t be too deep lest it hurt the economy. suggested while the administration is prepared to talk about entitlements, lawmakers shouldn t be upset that it isn t in the president s priorities list in terms of his budget. and, boy, did he get slammed. it wasn t just from republicans, either. both the senate democratic budget chairman and the house republican budget chairman let him have it. listen to this. you can t solve this problem by looking at just 12% of the budget. i hope my colleagues are listening. we cannot afford to wait until markets collapse. he punted. instead of confronting our debt head on, the president has presented us with a budget that spends too much, borrows too much, and taxes too much.