Page 22 - Sequester Cuts News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Going to win, we can't win, this is terrible. the polls are making us look so bad. let me tell you, the republicans have a lot of power if they would be able to unite. you can't have half of them or maybe slightly more than half of them knocking the hell out of the people trying to get something done for the good of the country. this country is in serious trouble. we're going to hit $17 trillion over the next very short period of time. something has to be done. those people are really being hit hard by other republicans. the -- if the republicans would unite, i say they have all the cards desp...

Senate majority leader harry reid and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell over the debt ceiling. the democrats want a shorter continuing resolution because they want to renegotiate those sequester cuts. a shorter continue indication to re-open the government would basically bring the debate to the sequester cuts. that's what the democrats want. they want the longer debt ceiling increase because it gives more security, they teal, to the white house and that the democrats won't be in the crisis mode in the short-term. the republicans want the opposite. they want a longer run to keep it mainly...

Longer have a system where voters select representatives but representatives are selecting their voters by redistricting them. this is the problem we have. it's causing the gridlock. >> very good point. >> i want to ask you what the republican party here at the house level wants. i mean official initially a group wanted defunding obama care. now we're talking about the sequester cuts that are due to come into effect in january. what is it that the republican party at the house level wants in order to get something agreed on here? >> you know, it's actually a great question because we're having...

We want to lift the debt limit, which should be off the table anyway. we want to reopen the government, that's pretty baseline stuff, the united states should have a government that operates and is open. the third thing is we want to have negotiations. what they've wanted all along is to have conditions on that, a gun to somebody's head, host somebody hostage. >> what about sequester cuts? >> that's what the budget negotiations are all about. you pick a number between what the senate budget was and what the house budget was and you negotiate it out. remember all of the times how we had to have...

For what is happening to this country. america is being weakened, and that's the last thing that ought to happen. members swear an oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. what they're doing by the shutdown, by this threat on the debt limit, is weakening america and sending a message to the world that the united states can't govern. that's a lousy message for the world to hear. >> when sequester was passed, before it was passed, you warned, as defense secretary, of grave consequences for america's military readiness. there is some who look at that ...