00:00You know, I think it's one of the most important debates of our time, and this is a debate over
00:04whether or not a country can have $36 trillion in debt, whether we can have interest payments
00:09over a trillion dollars. I think it's an important debate to have. I don't make it personal at all.
00:14I like the president, supported the president. In fact, I'm for the tax cuts. I am for a lot
00:19of the bill, but I can't in good conscience give up every principle that I stand for
00:24and every principle that I was elected upon, and that's that we can't accumulate more debt.
00:29$2 trillion in debt this year is too much. If you're going to borrow $5 trillion, it means they're
00:34going to get to that limit within the next year or two. They're planning on spending $5 trillion
00:38they don't have, and I'm just not for that. But there is a way around all this. They could get
00:43my vote, and I could vote for the package if they take out the debt ceiling and vote on that separately.
00:49It's the largest increase in the debt ceiling ever, and they will say, well, it doesn't spend any money.
00:54It's not really adding to the debt. They will get to their $5 trillion limit. The question is sooner or
00:59later, but we're giving them the ability to borrow $5 trillion more. I'm not for borrowing
01:04$5 trillion more. I'm for borrowing a smaller amount over a shorter period of time. They
01:09have promised they're going to be better. At some point in time, they're going to change
01:12their ways, and they're going to begin lessening spending.
01:15My biggest concern is the permanence of a lot of the tax policy pieces, to say, how do we
01:20actually look at things expiring, and what's the right date that they should expire, or should
01:25they expire at all? It's a lot better for individuals and small businesses when they're planning to
01:30be able to know for capital expenses and such, that that's not going to expire in the future.
01:34So if they've got a capital expense, they've got a plan for six years from now, they can
01:37actually plan for that and not wonder what the tax policy will be when they get there.
01:41So I think that's the biggest piece that we've got to be able to resolve.
01:43There still may be things that the Senate needs to tweak, and it could include the way that Medicaid
01:51is manipulated by the states to get them more money than was originally designed under the
01:59Medicaid program. So I think the focus in the Senate is going to be whether we can adequately
02:04address our concerns about Medicaid. If we can, I think we can get the magic 50.
02:12We have to do our work in the Senate, but something always has to be in the back of everybody's mind,
02:20and that is that this bill only passed the House by one vote, and whatever changes we make,
02:26it's got to go back there for approval. Senators, July 4th is still a reasonable
02:30timetable to get this to the President's desk?
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