Freshman sens., reps. Face the Nation this week

This week's guests on Face the Nation are Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) along with Representatives Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) and Joe Walsh (R-Ill.).

With the battle over this year's budget just passed, Congress has already turned to the next fight - raising the debt ceiling and cutting spending. And as both the House and the Senate are out for Easter recess, members were still busy trading barbs and making statements about the battle to cut spending in exchange for voting to raise the ceiling on how much the U.S. government can borrow.

Both sides agree that has to be done to avoid another global economic meltdown, but they know it will be an unpopular vote. In this week's CBS News/ New York Times Poll, 63 percent of Americans say they oppose raising the debt limit.

The White House had hoped for a so-called clean bill, just one vote to raise the debt limit and do nothing else. But Republicans and some conservative Democrats want to see a debt ceiling vote include spending cuts. But what to cut?

The new poll says that most people would favor cuts in defense spending (45 percent) to cuts to Medicare (21 percent) or Social Security (17 percent). But nothing has been decided.

But as the battles in Washington over spending continue to brew, Washington appears to be more and more out of touch with the average American. Once again, the most important problem facing the country, according to the poll, is the economy and jobs, with 39 percent of Americans saying that. The budget deficit comes in second at 15 percent, though that's more than doubled from 7 percent when the question was asked last month. And overall, people are unhappy with Washington, with the approval rate for Congress down to 16 percent, down 5 percentage points from the March poll - 75 percent of poll respondents disapprove of the job Congress is doing.

For his part though, President Obama doesn't fare much better, with his approval at 46 percent down from 49 percent in March - 45 percent disapprove of his job performance.

What Congress can do to win back the country's trust will be among the issues on the table as the senators who took the seats of President Obama, Senator Kirk from Illinois, and Vice President Biden, Senator Coons from Delaware, are joined by another freshman, Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut, to sit down Sunday to talk about life in the Senate and address some of the country's biggest issues.

While the narrow Democratic majority in the Senate has been blamed for inaction over the past few months, as legislation there truly has to be bipartisan to pass the 60 vote threshold to end debate, the House Republicans have been using their new majority to push through legislation to significantly cut spending, to repeal health care reform, and to curtail abortions. The debt limit debate will be heated in the House as many of the newly elected tea party backed freshmen came to Washington cut spending, not to allow the government to borrow more.

What will happen to the debt limit and the spending fights will be among the issues as Tea-party affiliated House Republicans Tim Griffin in Arkansas and Joe Walsh of Illinois join host Bob Schieffer.

The spending and budget fights and life in Congress, as Senators Blumenthal, Coons and Kirk and Representatives Griffin and Walsh Face the Nation.