everyone, economists, ben bernanke, has said do not play games with the full faith and credit of the united states. it will mean higher interest rates on future debt. it will raise costs to the united states of america in the future, and it actually could really undermine our economic recovery that we re engaged in right now. so this is serious. doesn t mean that we aren t alsç interested in reducing the deficit and reaching a balanced budget, but we should not be playing games with the debt ceiling. i want to talk about medicare and medicaid and social security. you have been critical of the proposal from the republicans for 2012. you say the republican budget proposal ends medicare as we know it, it slashes medicaid $1 trillion every day, and you believe it puts seniors in jeopardy. we are waiting to hear what the president will say. we know his proposal includes cuts to those entitlements as well. the key difference here is what the republicans want with paul ryan leading the c
budget committee voted for this, which really ends medicare for future seniors. it ends it as we know it. it gives people a voucher that s limited in how much it is and it doesn t do anything to reduce costs. what it does is shifts the costs onto the backs of our future seniors. for medicaid is basically says governors can make the choice in how they spend those dollars. they don t want to pay nursing homes for the care of our most frail elderly. that s not acceptable to most americans. it s certainly not acceptable to many of us in congress. doesn t mean we aren t serious about reducing costs, getting greater efficiencies in medicare in looking at both the spending side and revenue side. to be able to protect medicare, not just for seniors today, but for seniors in the future. congresswoman allyson schwartz, thank you for your time. i m joined by robert reich, the former secretary of laborer under president clinton.