being in a bull s-eye of the romney campaign? well, i think this is a case both with the secret service and the gsa where you can have easy but justifiable outrage. i don t think anyone s going to hold the president accountable for doing anything wrong per se, but the problem that he ll have and the democrats will have in general is that, you know, republicans and others, conservatives, will use this to sort of portray or predict, you know, government as the problem. you know, they ll use this to feed their narrative that government can t do anything right, that it s corrupt, that it s just faceless bureaucrats that are lining their own pockets at the expense of taxpaye taxpayers. and for an administration that wants to, you know, use the power of government to invest in the future and build infrastructure and innovate and increase education, you know, it cuts against that a bit. so i think it gives ammunition perhaps unfairly but still ammunition to the you know, to the right that
denigrate government any chance it gets. there was an interesting piece today, amanda, in the washington post. nay daina milbank. the headline kwuz debauchery: an american special ti. kind of chung in cheek. dana wrote in land of paris hilton, lindsay lohan and snooki, debauchery is an american specialty. i suppose the question is are any of us necessarily surprised that this happened, you know, and i guess getting to the point i was just talking to the congressman about, you wonder if it is a couple of individuals who got out of control or if it was a more systemic problem. well, the gsa itself has had problems for quite a while. i mean, dating back to the bush administration, there were charges of politicalization, favoritism, out of control spending. it s clear hi something within that agency that needs to be changed. but david is right. this unfairly demonizes many federal workers who have been working very hard and have been already demonized by republicans saying we need
against specific individuals for misuse of taxpayer money. i mean, if these people were treating taxpayer money like their own money, they should be held criminally liable. analysts have pointed out that beyond the obvious, you know, trying to come to grips with these issues at a time when so many americans are, indeed, struggling, there s a bigger problem and it s a messaging problem. obviously, the administration, your party have a lot of issues they want to get out there, and then the headlines become things like the secret service and the gsa. so let me ask you about a couple of things otherwise that are going on in the news, congressman. particularly, let s say the buffett rule. we talked a lot about it, and yet at the same time it s considered to be doa. make your argument. well, just because there are a majority of republicans against the buffett rule doesn t mean we shouldn t keep pushing for it. after all, it got a majority vote. it got 51 out of 100 votes in the united st
spend, they are overpaid, lazy bureaucrats. many people are working hard and are seeing this and i think also very upset at what s going on because it s making them look bad. these scandals are certainly going to get a lot of attention in the same way that reality tv does, the videos of the gsa employees throwing money around, dancing, drinking big margaritas. this is just something that people are going to be paying attention to, unfortunately. yeah. amanda, dave, you eel stick around because we ll talk more about the race for the president coming up after the break. in the meantime, an attention. grabbing protest for sure. john brenan of portland, oregon, stripped naked at the international airport to protest against tsa screeners. parents covered their children s eyes. others looked, even taking pictures. police arrested brennan for indecent exposure and disorderly conduct. i know that nude but not lewd in oregon is a protective protected speech, and so i chose that option.
deficit. that seems to be his priority, protecting those individuals and interests. congressman chris van holland, always good to see you. thank you. good to see you. thanks. right now, the committee on environment and public works are questioning gsa administrators. just might be as heated as yesterday s house hearing. this is just the tip of the iceberg. but none of that information was in there. so the question is, if it wasn t in there, why are you hiding it from us? there pl chairman do you not have that information? mr. chairman, i don t have access to any information from gsa anymore. anymore. this is not a republican or a democrat issue. this is about an american issue of knowing what their government is doing. as far as these conferences were concerned, you would have it so you have absolutely nothing to say about that, a person in your position? unless i unless someone brought something to my attention and i thought that there was something out of line