Page 10 - Deficit Issue News Today

The democrats look ahead to the midterms if their future and their fate hangs squarely on the jobs situation, and will there be enough wiggle room for real growth to happen between now and then? >> well, more than anything -- >> if it does. >> more than anything, both on jobs and if you talk to republicans, also the image the president now hases aa big 13e7bder, that he is leading a movement in washington to expand the size of the federal government beyond what people want. >> what you have, tim...

And if we hadnt, if you ask yourself the counterfactual question, if i got up and said im prepared to stick with exactly what i inherited, i think there really would have been a serious question mark over britains ability to pay its way in the world and whether it had a credible plan and so on. so i think we needed to produce a budget that dealt decisively with the deficit issue. thats the first point id make. the second point id make is once youve committed yourself to doing that you then have ...

So i think we had to get on and do it. and if we hadnt, if you ask yourself the counterfactual question, if i got up and said im prepared to stick with exactly what i inherited, i think there really would have been a serious question mark over britains ability to pay its way in the world and whether it had a credible plan and so on. so i think we needed to produce a budget that dealt decisively with the deficit issue. thats the first point id make. the second point id make is once youve committe...

Smaller government and fewer services if we need to do that to deal with the budget crunch. you get to the big issue. if you have a smaller government and fewer services, you have to pick and choose. what do you cut? here we have a problem. watch as we turn this on here. cut highway funding? 50% say we dont want to do that. raise taxes? 58% say no way. dont do that. 65% say dont cut health services and 71% say dont cut public safety, 73% say please dont cut school funding. when you look through ...

To having a pledge to having deficits by 2013. you heard president obama and treasury secretary geithner over the last couple of days to get countries to not pull back too much on spending. they are trying to find common ground and have dragged the united states along on the deficit issue. >> whats ahead for the president? i know he takes off later today. he does have a news conference scheduled and then what for the week? >> you sit there and say what for a week. a week ago, we didnt know david...

There was the one in london of april 2009, the very first one. and all this has been sort of a reactive measure to try to get everybody talking about how to respond to the global economic crisis. the first meeting was about government stimulus and spending. the second meeting, you started to hear concerns from other governments about the rising deficits. this meeting, youre going to hear more talk about this deficit issue. but also on the united states front, theyre pushing, okay, weve done our ...

What does the president do? what do democrats do between now and the election time to prove theyre serious on reducing deficits, which seems to be the issue thats driving these independents away from the president? >> i think very strongly about this issue, the deficit issue. maybe being a governor we always had to balance things. the deficit issue matters a lot to me. i spent a lot of time talking to the president about it. hes very serious about this deficit commission he put together. he thou...

Whatever is in there can be subjected to many people competing for it. theyre capped -- theres a comfort level with why they are in the legislation. we thought that nebraska was, indeed, a special deal. >> what other changes are in this compromise that might appeal to some of those undecided democrats, dana? >> reporter: i should just say that i -- we were going to use a sound bite from baron hill on the deficit issue. obviously that was not that. that was the issue of special deals. that was so...

Care, looking at harry reid and the rest of the democratic leadership that doesnt seem to be helping him right now. >> i think those are all things. one thing they have to do is start winning the inside game again. they were two mired, theyre getting out of washington. number two, they have to make the republicans pay for their intransins. >> how do they make them pay? hes speaking to a guy thats sitting back there and pompously laughing at him. how do you make them pay for what theyre doing? >>...

From looking at harry reid and the rest of the democratic leadership that doesnt seem to be helping him right now? >> i think all those things are a part of the story. one thing they have to do is start winning outside game again. they were too mired. number two, they have to make the republicans pay for their intras ij ens. >> say it your way. how do you get a guy like mitch mcconnell who sits there pompously laughing at him. how do you make them pay for being against everything that tries to s...