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Medicare spending 2%. total savings, $68 billion then more savings in years to reach that $1.2 trillion. giving the huge spending increases, one can argue those automatic cuts are not at all excessive. so if the choice is between tax increase or these automatic cuts which i just identified, hey, why not the cuts? >> well, from made perspective i agree with that perspective. i believe that even if the super committee's efforts result in lack of an agreement, i have to commend them for the hard work they've done. ultimately the negotiations that have taken place, even if they are not successful ...

Table and we've got to control them if we want to control debt. >> reporter: so it's up to the supercommittee designed to find more than $1 trillion in savings over the next decade, debating changes to tax it is and entitlement programs like medicare. democrats have mostly defended against substantial changes to those spending programs, asking republicans for tax increases in exchange, and republicans maintain a pledge to refuse any tax increases, saying the problem is unsustainable spending increases. jon. jon: seems like we're doing a lot of lot of spending based on those numbers. rich ediso...

do. nobody can get the support to get one of those through. do we have to look for just the possible? >> i think mission number one is to raise the debt ceiling. they cannot get away without doing that. saying they're going to downgrade you. but they left a bit of an out. if you raise the ceiling but give indication you're on the road to getting a deal, we'll keep you on credit watch negative but take you off and affirm your aaa rating if you get it done within a couple of months if we see that possibility. so that's -- that seems to me to be the fallback plan for congress. weather t...

jeanne, first question, is it time to simply say, let's go for the possible in washington? everybody has grand ideas about what they want to do. nobody, nobody can get the support to get one of those through. do we have to look for just the possible? >> i think the mission of everyone in congress is to absolutely raise the debt ceiling. they cannot get away without doing that. the s&p has been the strongest credit rating agency. they said, we're going to downgrade you if you don't come up with a plan. but they say f you raise the ceiling but give us indication that you're on the road...

So why you -- of minnesota, is slamming you as well. so why you? >> when i left office the unemployment rate was less than 7%, one of the lowest in the country. job growth rate from the crash until i left office was one of the fastest job growth rates in the country. our personal income growth rate was one of the highest in the country many that's not accurate as to those measures. former governor carlson was a republican, but he became an obama supporter and kerry supporter. he's not a neutral observer of anything. i balanced the budget every time, every budget cycle we i was governor of the ...