because we have no choice. if we want to plan for how kids to go to college f we want to make sure our parents can retire in dignity, we have to plan ahead. and that s what we re actually asking congress to do is just be prepared to plan ahead, but do it in a balanced way. don t just say you re going to take a vacation but not prepare for your kids college. you ve got to plan. jenna: speaking of the future, you bring up so many good points about that. it really comes to entitlements, doesn t it? you re a ranking member of the subcommittee on social security. social security is, obviously, part of every family s planning about what their later years are going to look like. so when it comes to entitlement and entitlement reform, where do you see the opportunity? because you also sat on the president s commission for this fiscal crisis that said we have to raise the ages for social security in order to save it. do you advocate that? do you think that needs to be part of the discussion to
you ve seen so many different numbers and you mentioned so many different issues, and i don t mean to gloss over that in generalities, but there s so much involved in this decision about the debt ceiling and also about cutting spending overall. but where do you see the light as far as these moments where you could actually see compromise? where do you see across the aisle that there is some opportunity to compromise? because it must exist somewhere, right, congressman? where do you see it? you ve pretty much put your thumb on the real issue here. every american family that sit down at the kitchen table to make those tough decisions by the way, congratulations on your marriage. now you ll have to sit down with your husband jenna: it s already happened. it s not easy. it s not easy, but we do it because we have no choice. if we want to plan for how kids to go to college f we want to make sure our parents can retire in dignity, we have to plan ahead. and that s what we re actually
if we say that education is going tonight single most importa important determine nant for our duck sells and our children s success in the country, we can t have schools laying off so many teachers that they start going to four days a week, as they have done in hawaii, for example. we have got to make sure that young people can afford to go to college f we can t to keep our competitive edge in innovation, well, we have got to invest in basic research, the same basic research that resulted in the internet, the same basic research that invited that resulted in gps. all those things originated in research funded by the government. so, you know, we are going to have to compare the option of maintaining the tax cuts for the wealthy permanently versus spending on these things that we