want, those same republicans decided that they did not want pay-go anymore. we should have known. we should have known at pay-go. we should have realized that was an aberration. that was a signpost. approximate we should have known as bipartisan deficit commission. the idea of a blue ribbon pate to bring down the deficit. that was an idea they signed on for. seven republican senators co-sponsored legislation to establish that sort of commission last year, and then when president obama said, again, come, let us reason together, i like this idea of yours, let s go forward with this, those same seven republicans decided they were against it. this law failed by seven votes. when seven republicans who had co-sponsored the bill, had
how do you negotiate with them? i don t think the president believes that, clearly. i think the president has from the very beginning taken the negotiating stance that you believe fundamentally as the precondition to negotiation discussion in the good faith of your opposition. i don t think anything will disabuse him of that notion. it s a dispositirtional. it s who he is now. nothing will knock him off that. i think there are members of coalition that genuinely believe we re on the precipibu of some sort of debt crisis. that was early last year, the president making fun of the fact that the republicans abandon their own positions for partisan gain, abandoning positions they hold because it s what the country needs. the president is aware of that. he saw what they did on the individual mandate, on cap and trade and pay-go and the deficit commission. he has made fun of them for
sleeping in your office or reading the constitution. there are things we need to do to deal with real people problems. people have been out of work for long periods of time. people who are sick and tired of paying governments like saudi arabia billions of dollars of year to burn in these gas guzzlers we have. there are things we can do to work together. throwing these bombs doesn t do the trick. what about the role of government, however? under president obama, it has expanded by 32%. are people rightfully concerned about the role of government under this president, under democratic leadership? people are concerned about the debt as they should be. let s just go back a little bit and look at history. it s not as if we democrats don t know how to run government. bill clinton had a program called pay go. if you re going to have a new program, pay for it, by increasing revenue or cutting other programs. we did that and as a result of that, we were paying down the
reading the constitution. there are things we need to do to deal with real people problems. people have been out of work for long periods of time. people who are sick and tired of paying governments like saudi arabia billions of dollars of year to burn in these gas guzzlers we have. there are things we can do to work together. throwing these bombs doesn t do the trick. what about the role of government, however? under president obama, it has expanded by 32%. are people rightfully concerned about the role of government under this president, under democratic leadership? people are concerned about the debt as they should be. let s just go back a little bit and look at history. it s not as if we democrats don t know how to run government. bill clinton had a program called pay go. if you re going to have a new program, pay for it, by increasing revenue or cutting other programs. we did that and as a result of that, we were paying down the
are people rightfully concerned about the role of government under this president, under democratic leadership? people are concerned about the debt as they should be. but let s just go back a little bit and look at history. it s not as if we democrats don t know how to run government. bill clinton had a program called pay go. if you re going to have a new program, pay for it, by increasing revenue or cutting other programs. we did that, and as a result of that, we were paying down the debt. and during the eight years of bush, the first thing they did was get rid of the pay rules. we have them now re-established. this last congress and president obama found ourselves in a hole so deep, you couldn t see the top of it. we re working our way out of that hole. social security, how does it have to change? what they put on the agenda is raising the retirement age, means testing. is it time for social security to fundamentally change? the thing that always troubles me, when we start talk