Leading Republicans offer vision on economy, Medicare at CBS News town hall
Left to right: Tom Coburn, Nikki Haley, Allen West and Paul Ryan at a town hall moderated by CBS News' Erica Hill and Bob Schieffer at the Newseum in Washington, June 13, 2011.
/ CBSRead a transcript of the full CBS News Town Hall on "The Early Show"
Town hall after show: What did the audience think?
The event, which was taped Monday afternoon and broadcast on CBS News' "The Early Show" Tuesday morning, was hosted by Face the Nation Anchor Bob Schieffer and "The Early Show" Co-Anchor Erica Hill, and it follows a similar event featuring President Obama last month. Like that discussion, the conversation quickly turned to the struggling economy, which voters have identified as their top concern.
"If you were in the position to do so," an audience member asked to kick off the event, "what would be the one thing you would do to stimulate and grow the economy that President Obama isn't doing?" (watch at left)After jokingly asking "One thing?," Ryan - the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the author of the Republican budget plan - said he'd "go in the opposite direction on spending, on taxes, on debt and deficits."
"Get rid of all the uncertainty in the economy," Ryan continued. "He's promising huge tax increases on successful small businesses. I wouldn't do that. Keep taxes low and get spending under control so we don't have a debt crisis. If we have a debt crisis and we have a huge interest rate increase. We have an inflation problem. That's causing uncertainty in the economy. It's making it harder for businesses to create jobs. So, I would go in a different direction than he has gone on fiscal policy. And that's exactly what we've done in the house. Is offered a different direction on fiscal policy. Keep taxes and spending low, not high."
Full Coverage: CBS News Town Hall
The three other Republicans sounded similar notes. West pointed to what he described as burdensome regulations and tax policies that "are gonna preclude [companies] from hiring more Americans," while Haley said "what I would like to see this president do is really lead and asked for a balanced budget, which he has yet to do." Haley went on to say that "everything I've tried to do to govern in South Carolina has been stopped by President Obama," pointing to the federal health care law, immigration policy and a National Labor Relations Board dispute involving Boeing.
Coburn, meanwhile, said "the real problem is America's anxious."
"It doesn't have confidence about where we're going," he said. "And that's, I think, a leadership deficit on behalf of my friend, President Obama. I think we need to talk...honestly to the American public about the depth of our problems. They're not unsolvable, but they're unsolvable until we address them and identify 'em."
"There's $2.5 trillion sittin' on the sideline in this country right now that could be invested if people had confidence and clarity about the future," he continued. "And I don't believe President Obama has delivered that. And I think as soon as he does, you're gonna see a big turnaround in the economy. Regardless of what we do on the other things."
Later, CBS News Business and Economics Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis told Ryan that while polls show that Americans are primarily concerned with jobs and the economy, "We hear more about the deficit than we hear about jobs." (watch at left)Ryan responded that "they're interrelated."
"These are the same issue," he said. "So, they're not exclusive of one another. Jobs comes from economic growth. Economic growth gives us more revenues, which helps us get down the deficit."
Jarvis went on to point to "very weak" consumer demand, to which Ryan responded, "Consumption comes when people feel secure in their own lives."
"You need to have a good economy that is producing jobs and giving security, economic security to Americans, who then will go forward," he said.
Schieffer later addressed the three members of Congress in the group, noting that they have "done absolutely nothing" in terms of passing a jobs program in the current Congress. When Ryan responded "we have divided government now," Schieffer noted, "Well, there's always been divided government." (watch at left)After Ryan offered a response, Schieffer said in reference to the Ryan budget, "but you passed something that you knew there wasn't one chance that the Senate was gonna [pass]."
"Well, it would be nice if the Senate tried to pass a budget," responded Ryan. "It's been 775 days since the Senate even bothered trying to pass a budget."
That prompted this from Schieffer: "But wouldn't it be good to try to find some way to compromise on these things to kind of get the people at the same table and say, 'Here's something we want to do. Here's something you want to do. Instead of passing these things that people know will never get agreed to by the other house.'"
The point prompted Coburn to complain of "a system of the careerism that has invaded and perhaps been here a long time."
"The goal is the next election, not the next generation right now in Washington," he added. "We're more interested in political careers than we are fixing the very real and urgent problems in front of our country."
Sen. Tom Coburn says U.S. "in trouble," open to talks with Democrats on taxes
Given an opportunity to explain his controversial plan to transform Medicare, Ryan later pointed to the fact that his changes would not go into effect for people under 55. (watch at left)"It's an idea that's had bipartisan support in the past," he said. "It's called premium support. It works just like Medicare Advantage today. Medicare prescription drugs. Medicare supplemental. You get a list of plans that Medicare preapproves that are guaranteed coverage options that you select from. These plans compete against each other for your business. And then Medicare subsidizes that plan based on who you are. If you're a wealthy person, we don't think tax payers should subsidizes their health care as much as everybody else. If you're a lower income person or if you're a person who keeps getting sicker, we think we should have increased subsidies."
Later, Jarvis and West discussed a viewer question asking "Considering the fact that the U.S. Government is the nation's largest employer, how do you expect to cut $2 trillion from the budget without sending the jobless rate through the roof?" (watch at left)West responded that America has to "get back to understanding what are the essential functions of the federal government."
"So, I think that, you know, we can have this bureaucratic nanny state. That grows up here in Washington, D.C.," he said. "And if you continue to have that, you're gonna continue to have the separation between the revenues that are coming in and the spending that is going out."
Coburn, meanwhile, suggested lawmakers "ought to be thrown in jail" for not passing a budget. (watch at left)"It's the federal law that the budget be completed by April 15th of every year," he said. "It's a law."
"I mean, think about it," he added. "We ignored what the law says and not done it."
Quipped Hill: "Don't give anybody any ideas."
Watch the full CBS News Town Hall below:
Below, CBS News' Rebecca Jarvis and MoneyWatch.com's Jill Schlesinger speak with the live audience on whether they were satisfied with responses to their questions:
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more free trade agreements sent jobs overseas
tremendous growth in ILLEGAL ALIENS has been proven to have displace non degreed US Citizens. The states with the high unemployment are the same states with the highest number of illegals..the % are almost identical. Ditto...not enough engineers in the USA, could it be that so many FOREIGN STUDENTS have replaced US students..not only that but the fed gov is paying for foreign students to study here. it should not be.
That's what was happening also. And NOW after 2.5 years of obama in the WH...he has passed the onerous health care reform plus another 140 new business regulations plus the EPA has their own new rules that have depressed businesses further..so now we are seeing the outcomes from that...the unemployment has again jumped over 9% due to obama's policies
by MarineVet64 June 14, 2011 3:18 PM EDT
""""New Republicans, same as the old Republicans."""
==========
exact
les r?pulicains savent faire deux choses :
1 - faire des promesses, qu'ils ne tiennent jamais, la preuve ils sont majoritaires au parlement; ils n'ont rien fait
2 - critiquer Obama pour sa gestion, mais ils oublient que Obama g?re
un h?ritage laiss? par un autre r?publicain nomm? Georges W Bush
...................
correct
the r?pulicains can do two things:
1 - make promises they never keep, proof they are a majority in parliament, they did nothing
2 - criticizing Obama for his management, but forget that Obama manages
a legacy left by another Republican named George W Bush
"au revoir"
Let's list some of Obama's
>Close GITMO
>Stop rendition
>Cancel Patriot Act..has extended to include US citizens.
>Bills on line 72 hours before vote
>Include opposition in debate..Excludes them.
>Be a uniter within the nation
>Cut the deficit in 1/2 by end of 1st. term (Went from around
$9 Trillion to around $ 15 Trillion in 2 years)
>Stop the wars...has added 2 more.
I'd advise you to stop reading Leftist newspaper headluines ( NYT, WoPo, AP)and read from a variety of sources.
>
Where is Obama or the demcorat's plans?
Do they have plans? Will they allow the public to see them?
No, they don't have plans, Obama doesn't have a budget plan, Pelosi and Reid are busy chasing the Weiner.
"TEE TIME" for the DNC
IN order to criticize Obama's Answer to the Republican MELTDOWN of the economy in 2008
______________________________________________________________
by mjlewis6 June 14, 2011 1:35 PM EDT
IN order to criticize Obama's Answer to the Republican MELTDOWN of the economy in 2008
______________________________________________________________
First it was the Democrats that controlled congress. It is the Congress that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack,. It was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack collapse that the demos caused by pushing banks to loan money to people that could not afford it and refusing to regulate the Finance firms and Freddie Mack and Fannie Mae that caused the entire mess meltdown. So your blaming the Republicans who were not even in power in congress is not only absurd it is an outright LIE. typical of all liberals.
And HOW THEY WOULD ADDRESS THE PROBLEM CREATED BY THE PREVIOUS REPUBLICAN ADMINSTRATION that the Obama Administration can't fix.
I am sure I know my UCMJ to the extent that George ran 'home' to Kennebunkport, Maine when he was no longer qualified to fly his own plane. NO VOLUNTEER for Viet Nam. And can you actually laugh at the guy for his mistakes in what he says...in the same breath with Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, Katrina, renditions, water torture and UCMJ and WAR CRIMINAL under the Hague Conventions on treatment of POWs and civilians in a war zone? Come on down, Mr. Cheney and remind us all again how great it is to be an American with WATER TORTURE of prisoners that yielded NO USEABLE information.
Obama got Osama....and we got the shaft and the bill with Dick and 'Dufus' for 8 years.
All I heard was the same trickle down mantra. Destroy unions, lower taxes to businesses, do away with regulations that protect the public, allow companies to abuse their workers. By the way, the Dems have provided a plan to help stablilize Medicare, it's called health reform. And the independent "rationing" panel is no different than the preauthorization process I go through with my current plan. I rather have a nonprofit govt panel making decisions about my family's health care rather than a forprofit review panel.
I do not believe that more hiring will come with the tax breaks and "help" to all businesses. Small businesses have limited needs for employees, often does not offer benefits and less willing to take risks because there is more at stake.
How do we know that companies, big or small, will adhere to their end of the deal and actually hire.That was brought up today because frankly the tax break that have had was continued and nothing has happened to the unemployment rate.
All of my adult children are unemployed and they have been for 1 to 2 years. One moved, the other two were due to staff reductions. My oldest has 3 children and he has not been able to find anything; the stress led him to have 2 strokes at age 36. I am also a forced retiree after 32 years with a company, 27 of those years in first line and middle management. Out of 10+ applications in the last 3 months, I got one reply and that was thanks but we chose someone else although you have lots of the qualities and experience we are looking for.
So stop the rhetoric and start addressing the real world, where people are getting by and using their pensions early with tax ramifications in order to live.
Instead of answering questions she's out grifting morons.