while still investing in our future in areas like education, innovation and infrastructure that will help us attract new jobs and businesses to our shores. that s the principle that should drive this debate in the coming months. that s how america will win the future in the coming years. so with that, let me take a few questions, and i m starting off with ben feller of ap. thu very much, president obama. you have been talking about the need for tough choices in your budget but your plan does not address the long-term crushing costs of social security, medicare, medicaid, the real drivers of long-term debt. can you explain that? where are you on that issue? when will we see your plan on that, and the uprising in egypt prompted protests in bahrain and yemen and iran, and i wonder how you balance your push for freedoms in those places against the instability that could endanger u.s. interests.
than a machete. i said in the state of the union and i ll repeat that side of the ledger only accounts for 12 percent of our budget, so we ve got a whole bunch of other stuff we re going to have to do, including dealing with entitlements. you talked about social security, medicare and medicaid. the truth is social security is not the huge contributor to the decifit as the other two entitlements are. i m confident we can get social security done in the same way that ronald reagan-tip o neill were able to get it done by parties coming together, making some modest adjustments. i think we can avoid slashing benefits, and i think we can make it stable and stronger for not only this generation but for the next generation. medicare and medicaid are huge problems. because health care costs are rising even as the population is getting older. and so what i ve said is that i m prepared to work with democrats and republicans to start dealing with that in a serious way. we made a downpayment on tha
infrastructure, that will help us attract new jobs and businesses to our shores. that s the principle that should drive this debate in coming months. i believe that s how america will win the future in the coming years. so with that, let me take a few questions, and i m going to start off with ben feller of a.p. thank you very much, mr. president. you ve been talking a lot about the need for tough choices in your budget but your plan does not address the long term crushing costs of social security, medicare, medicaid. the real drivers of long term debt. can you explain that? where is your leadership on that issue? when are we going to see your plan? and if i may, sir, on the foreign front, the uprising in egypt has helped prompt protests in bahrain, yemen, and iran. i m wondering how you balance your push for freedoms in those places against the instability that could really endanger u.s. interests. on the budget, what my budget does is to put
million jobs. as the president urged congress to invest in education, innovation and rebuilding, the republicans had a spending plan calling for stagnation and come place say season. reporter: they argue that the democrats are being complacent for glossing over entitlement reform and suggesting more spending is needed when right now, 40 cents on every federal dollar spent is actually going just to pay interest on the national debt. bret? bret: carl, thank you. tuesday night president talked about the rumors about the healthcare law. republicans pressed the case that they were more than concerned. chief washington correspondent looks at both sides. they examine the functions of the healthcare law and actuary of medicare raised questions about the impact on seniors because of cuts in medicare.
have control of the two houses and have a one-party government the way that democrats had over the last two years, in which, i would add, they did nothing about entitlements. the president said, and i quote this means, talking about spending, further reducing health care costs, including programs like medicare and medicaid and a bipartisan solution to solidify social security without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable people and so on. so he is saying absolutely the same thing as ryan. if we are going to be serious about this who goes first? if the president does does not, and the republicans try to do it, what will happen then? will the same thing happen, they get demagogued to death about it, as you heard when president bush die tried it. we have seen this tried before. you will hurt the lame, the hurt and the blind. you are trying to gut social security. with the deficit and debt commission, they come out with