and this is the quote. we will not vote against any and every cut to medicare, medicaid, or social security benefits including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and needed. i mean, this is let me weigh in on that, ed. go ahead, congresswoman. this is gwen moore. that s very important for people to understand, that what was not included in the sequestration were those programs, those mandatory programs, social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, pell grants. and what the republicans would love to see is for this president to serve up on a silver platter these programs and not just make some changes in them but structural changes to undermine the program you agree with that? you agree with this letter, congresswoman? oh, absolutely. i agree with that letter. because ultimately, in order to end the sequester that is the demand that they re making on
the president. that he make structural changes to medicare and social security. shaka fattah, go ahead. what we ve had is a quarterback controversy. and then we had a decision that rather than romney we were going with obama. what we have now is we have some people on the team who because they didn t get the quarterback they wanted they want to stop the game from continuing. this is an inside game by the republicans to slow this economy, to create uncertainty that causes business decisions to be delayed. we know that at the end of the day they have to produce a bill that the president s prepared to sign. and he s made it absolutely clear, and you ve made it fundamentally clear that we have to protect the middle class. right? and he has said very clearly that he is not willing to affect these beneficiaries in these programs, that we re going to have to get our so it s defense cuts. but that it s got to be
the public is on his side. when you look at polling, 75% of the american people agree with me that the way to reduce our deficit sensibly is through a combination of spending cuts and tax revenue. unfortunately, i think republicans right now have been so dug in on this notion of never raising taxes that it becomes difficult for them to see an obvious answer right in front of them. don t shortchange yourself, mr. president. it s not 75. it s 76% of the american people. republicans are too busy playing the blame game to deal with the sequester. house speaker john boehner is working overtime, trying to get obamaquester to trend on twitter. isn t that cute? white house spokesperson jay carney took a shot at republicans for their whacked-out priorities. imagine if republicans put half the amount of effort into finding a solution to this problem as they have into coming up with hashtags. republicans should heed carney s warning.
problems. and obviously, it creates a lot of uncertainty in our economy. that uncertainty is a big deal. congressman lynch, what do you say to people who can t understand why congress just doesn t seem to get things done? well, i have to point out that congresswoman moore, congressman fattah, and myself all voted not to adjourn, to stay in washington and keep on working on these problems. look, i think the american people in your polls, they re choosing common sense solutions over radical ideology. they realize that if the sequestration goes through we re talking about, just one small piece of it, $1.6 billion being cut from medical research, including alzheimer s research, diabetes research, autism research, cancer research. so those are very important issues for the american people. and that s why you see this migration in those polls. i also see that there are a lot of progressives starting to get together in congress. to the point where they have written a letter to the presi
often members of congress locked up here in washington. that s number one. he number two i can t stress enough that hospitals and health care providers want this, ed. and the obama administration understood that when they put together the package that s known as obamacare. there s a lot of money that s going to wind up in the hands of for-profit health care organizations. and one of the things that rick scott got in florida was special permission from washington to allow him to manage the expansion of medicaid in a way that will maximize the involvement of hospitals and private health care providers. that s part of the deal he s trying to work out for. but it s mostly for him about politics and recognizing political realities if he has to go up against charlie crist. there s one other thing. 9 governor of florida is pushing for a pay increase for teachers. i guess he s discovered that austerity just doesn t work. so he s trying to mend things up on all front. they used to say a con