they just, by the way, eric cantor passed in the senate, nonbinding resolution saying this idea of a value added tax or national sales tax, not a good idea. that is certainly good news. nobody in this country wants to become like some of the big government nations in europe where taxes real lir effectively even just at marginal rates over 50%. then you put a value added tax on and they re over 60% taxed. like your poll said, wolf, americans think washington wastes a lot of money. we do. we don t have a revenue problem here which is why i say we ought to join together and say no tax hikes this year. wooef got a spending problem and steny talks about the commission that the president has put in place. you know what though, the intent and goal is laudable, the problem is they didn t put tax hikes off the table and we can t afford tax hikes right now when we have to grow job and get investors back into the game of putting their capital to work so eck ta that we can grow again. wolf,
it s ever been. there is no way to dissolve the bonds between us and israel. but obviously, i have indicated that i think that whatever differences we have ought to be discussed in private. eric cantor, you and steny hoyer co-sponsored a letter, 333 members of the house signed it democrats and republicans, basically correct me if i m wrong, rebuking the white house for the way the president treated benjamin netanyahu. that s correct. i stand sid a buy side with and salute the leadership of steny hoyer on u.s.-israeli relationships. it is synonymous with our own. we have a lot of struggle out there in this world and we are in an ideological fight with the spread of radical islam it s something we ve got to take seriously because we know the impact of what that can have on free loving people like those of us in the united states. and steny and i also working hand in hand together on a
strongly disagreeied with his policy. eric cantor got a threat here. the governor of new jersey has been at least joking ly threatened by some of the interest groups in new jersey, the republican governor of new jersey, but by and large for the last 50 years, at least since the early 70s when we still had left wing problems, these have been systemically coming out of the far right and again i think that all those folks have a place in our political debate, we just have to know where to draw the line. we have enough threats against the president and the congress that we should be sensitive to it. the 15th anniversary of oklahoma city, i m not trying to draw total parallel, we should be aware of this. this is a vast echo clahamber, this internet. and there s lots of folks listening. and as i said, some are serious, some are delirious, some are
together and i would challenge steny to say hey, come on, let s just say right now, we re not going to allow for tax tax hikes to occur this year because we don t need any more money coming out of people s pockets into washingt washington. that would probably be the best response to the poll that you speak about. do you accept the challenge? we accepted the challenge. taxes for americans, 95% of americans were reduced substantially last year, over $300 billion in tax cut cuts last year and the average refund is 10% greater this year than last year under the last year of the bush administration. so very frankly, taxes gone down. eric doesn t mention that but a third of the act were tax cuts. go ahead, eric. what i m saying is this. we can argue about the stimulus bill. what i can say is this. every american knows taxes are going up in december. let s say right now, we re not
americans think the government is wasting their money. joining us now to talk about that and more, i m joined by the house majority leader congressman steny hoyer and house minority whip representative eric cantor. both the number two leaders of their respective parties in the house of representatives. congressmen, thanks very much for coming in. thank you, wolf. steny ohio, let me show you the results of the cnn corporation poll today. we asked how many of your taxes does government waste 74% said a lot. 23% said some. only 3% of the american people say not much. that s not a vote of confidence in what you guys are doing up on capitol hill. well, you know, i think the 3% are correct. not much do we waste some? yes. any enterprise this large, private sector, public sector obviously has trouble keeping track of every nickel, but very frankly it depends on what you mean by waste.