Page 3 - Senator Greg News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

And another potential downgrade on u.s. credit rating. joining me now, judd gregg, co-chair on the campaign to fix the debt. senator greg, thank you for joining me. >> thank you for having me on. >> it's a new year, new congress, but has some old problems, the debt mainly. what will happen this time? >> well, you know, the congress and the president made two efforts here that have been fairly substantive. the 2011 effort reduced discretionary spending by $900 billion and a tax increase of $960 billion, but the big elephant has not been addressed, entitlement spending, that's driving our debt. ...

Three things. number one, he was the decisive vote to vote on bowles/simpson. senator greg, coburn, both voted for it, ryan killed it. number two, the ryan budget. the ryan budget doesn't reduce the debt, it increases it by $6 trillion over ten years. and then third, ryan had a chance to be an advocate for debt reduction when he was a junior member of congress under george bush. and instead, every one of those absolutely deficit exploding bills on the credit card. afghanistan on the credit card, prescription drug program on the credit card, the tax cuts, the fantasies that he pay for themselve...

All week we're bringing -- the north dakota democratic has made trimming debts and deficits has made it a priority during -- hopes to take a by partisan crack one more time before heading home in december. >> i came here to do big things. debt is helpful to a point and at a point it becomes a dangerous murder. and we're not into doing things right now and i have been focused for five years, senator greg and i came one this idea of a commission that turned into the bowls simpson commission.

And try to avert sort of a budget showdown in the fall? >> yeah, because we are headed at the end of the year, for the fiscal cliff. fiscal cliff is all the bush tax cuts expiring, and of course the see quester, $1.2 trillion of additional spending cuts as well as alternative minimum tax coming back on people, as well as unemployment insurance extension running out. so lots of key issues coming up. absolutely i believe we should revisit bowles-simpson, as you know that grew out of a proposal of senator judd gregg and iing we made that five years ago. i serveden 0 the bowles-simpson commission,...

Legislative policies that would work, and i think the last four years has demonstrated that. >> senator greg, it's fair to say the romney campaign expected these last 48 hours, if you asked six months ago, relitigating his record as massachusetts governor. i think it's fair to say you might be taken aback relitigating his private sector experience? >> a little unusual for republicans to be attacking other republicans for being market oriented republicans. people who create jobs are not usually attacks by other republicans for creating jobs in the public sector. that is unusual, but actually it...