i wanted to be judged publicly. and i admitted wrongdoing to my committee. it wasn t my fault that this committee decided to have this hearing on the eve of my primary. or the eve of the general election. shannon: it didn t hurt him at ballot box. steve rosen has been watching this play out. reporter: congressman rankle rose boldly to his own defense offering his version of events on a number of allegation in his case even though the proceeding was more akin to a sentencing hearing than a fact finding exercise. the 20-term lawmaker admitted to yong doing, bad conducts, i are responsible behavior and he said the record was nothing for him to be proud of. he also emthat sized a statement made by the chief counsel in the
it s headed to 27 or 28%. we can t afford this explosion in the size of the government. it means you re going to have to make tough decisions on the spending side of the ledge erred not only in national defense but also and more importantly on the entitlement accounts which benefit a lot of people and which people are very sensitive about. shannon: i want to ask you about a couple of ideas that have been floated by various members of the deficit commission. the idea of a 6.7 national sales tax what do you think. really, really bad idea. that is punting the ball saying we simply raise taxes dramatically and go to a european social welfare system. you have the government and you try to pay for it with any tax you can think of. a national tax isn t solving this problem. it s saying we are going to accept a massive historic