Live Breaking News & Updates on House republicans on board
Stay updated with breaking news from House republicans on board. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Is deficit reduction through entitlement reform. everybody is motivated to do it. it s just a matter of getting hold the phone, hold the phone. mark just said the president doesn t care about getting reelected. i didn t say that. i said he s not afraid of losing because of deficit reduction and i think he s shown that. he ll have to have republicans on board to do it. if that was the case, the budget he proposed yesterday would have looked very, very different. no. he s decided the republicans have to go first after demagoguing on medicaid. yes. he s doing exactly what you said he should, joe. show me what you got. show me what you got. do the republicans ever really get there? no. or is this just a lot of hot air. we ll find out. they have to get there. they have to get there. that s what they ran on. we have no choice. we have no choice. medicare, medicaid, social security. yeah, but you talk about punting. the republicans have punted for the last ye ....
Shot. defense spending. yeah, exactly. let s go to capitol hill right now. republican senator from alabama, senator jeff sessions. and also from the was, chuck todd. senator, let s begin with you. we have been, of course, talking about the president s budget, talking about the cuts that need to be made and talking about entitlement spending and pentagon spending. will the republicans come forward with a meaningful plan to reduce the explosion in entitlement costs over the next generation? well, it s going to be difficult in the senate because we don t have a majority and won t be able to move a budget the democrats don t agree to, that the president doesn t agree to, but you ll see that in the house. there s no doubt about it. they re already proposing things. you get the same pushback that you get governor christy does in new jersey. but these are not cuts that ....
Going after, without trying to reduce entitlements and republicans do, that will be a stark contrast. it will. i mean, a stark contrast. we had an election that republicans say, this is proof we need to cut. they weren t forced by the election to explain what they wanted to cut. the election occurred, they won. now they have a second chance to tell us what they re for. if they don t, then i don t think anything will happen. but they must. do you think they re brave enough. the democrats will say, you hate old people. you hate old people. they re going to get old people to rally. it makes it difficult for them to get entitlements. and they re saying, the president didn t either. they ll lose florida. that s the thing. it s not true. these days, i will say it again, political courage gets rewarded. i will say it again. marco rubio in the middle of the debate, the republican primary, he talked about social security retirement age going up to 70. that s much more bold than an ....
And, you know, we happen to know on background that the two were talking. right. and giving each other ideas. it s it starts with actually telling the truth and making extremely tough choices. and for the republicans to accuse the president of punting and then to punt back, this is it s going to get boring very quickly. somebody has to actually come forward. when you say politicians are rational creatures, you re saying they re rational in terms of wanting to keep their jobs, not rational in terms of tackling problems that they all know exist. i have one point on the keeping the job issue. there was a nugget buried in the budget which i don t think a lot of people paid attention to. the obama administration itself, did you see this on the jobless number? they re projecting years out what joblessness is going to be. in 2012, which is the next time that will matter, 8.6%. so to the extent that you thought and we ve talked about trying to get that number down to 8%. that s a ....
Way in new york state they ve been in sort of a crisis mode for some time. it doesn t it also doesn t hurt andy cuomo that he s replacing a very unpopular governor in david paterson. he s got that low bar of expectation that he gets to exceed. that helps him a little bit. but i got a question for senator sessions. two questions. do you regret not supporting the u.s. senate had a chance to make that deficit commission more of a mandatory a congressional mandate. it could have been done in the united states senate with senators there and had a had real teeth to it rather than just sort of being done on the side. do you regret not supporting that? do you regret that republicans didn t climb aboard on that? i think about as many democrats as republicans voted no. it was a very difficult call for me. i have to admit. i do think, though, that commission, the way it was set up, inevitably would have driven us to significant tax increases ....