you will after they got sick. and the story was told it was medicare part d, it has provided a benefit now to 92 or prescription coverage of some sort. 92-95% are very saved.

>> the benefits do not start for four years but at some point, the cost of those benefits will go up and no one really knows because weñi doñi these budget scores but no one reallyw3 know. were whençóñr we pass medicare n 1965 with what it cost today. mr.ñi waxman talks about your

medical loss ratio. ñiñrmedicare and medicaid is wht staring people in the face we have complex problems that are hard to do. we have a muchçó bigger problemd obligations that we have with our existing public option that those bills will come due before any of us had planned. that is where we need to be focusing right now. we're not doing our part very well right now with medicare and medicaid. 50% of the market we pay for now, we are asking to go to 75% at the federal level. that is big and that is why we are getting so much push back on this bill. they do not want to give us another 25% of that mark up. >> let me wrap up a couple of questions. you indicated that the drivers

for this increase, the 39% increase you are seeking, doctors were 6%, hospitals were 4%, pharmaceutical 13%? >> hospitals are 10%, doctors are about 6%. >> that is about 29% and at least 10% for administrative costs? >> no, let me take you through the different elements. >> i am trying to keep this simple. this is all projected? what is the other driver? >> i am describing the trend in each of those elements. >> you are looking for a destination? >> no, we can give you more details as to have begun to the 39% you have rising health-care costs.

>> you can submit that for the record. what is the driver? doctors, pharmaceutical, hospital, what else? >> at having adverse selection. the help people's premium is going away. >> family held the people did to have left your in your individual policies? how many people -- how many healthy people did you have last year in your individual policies? >> about 25,000 less. >> many people in this country cannot afford it.

>> we want to have that customer and what the customer to have coverage. >> you indicated that for 2009, your corporate profits were almost too poured $4 billion because you sold a management company? >> we sold a pbm. >> what was your company profit in 2008? >> our profit margin was 4.8% on a relatively similar base. 4.6% in 2008. >> that was the same as 2009? >> yes. >> what would that be in dollar signs in 2008? >> i am not sure. it was probably $62 billion worth of revenue totaled. not a dissimilar number. >> so 2010, do you anticipate

you will be around $15 billion? >> no. >> where do you think you will be? >> we will have lower operating earnings in 2010. it is a reflection of the economy and a loss of membership. >> you're talking about 4 pohick bay%? 1ad>> we expect to be in the sae range, potentially. your profit will be in the same te? >> in a relative basis, that is very modest her. >> you may think it is modest but if you're looking at a 39% increase or michigan where they propose 54%, people don't think it is modest.

>> we are not bluecross blueshield of michigan. >> i know you were not. you are a nonprofit -- you are a for-profit, you are in maine. ewr-profit, you are in maine. players left in the market because others have left. >> left players -- less players inñi the market, you cannot manipulated as much. the regulatory environment in maine and particularly in the individual market was regulated in the way it was, everyone left except for us. we will not leave. we will stay and continue to serve our members. >> main was expected to be 23%? >> we filed for a great increase in maker the main regulator has denied that and we are in

litigation with the main regulators to have appropriate margin. >> is the doctor costs remain 6%? >> the dr. causton made are very high -- the doctor costs in maine are very high. >> you have your drivers in california -- >> i can take that question. >> i don't know the exact trends in me. the driver in maine is that people wait until they are sick to get coverage and it drives up the cost. >> you are guaranteed to present a policy and it is up to the consumer whether they can afford it. >> only people who know they

will incur health care costs more than the premium by the policy and that is not a sustainable business model. that is what other insurers left the state. >> that is not with the last panel said. they don't taken charge because they expect to gain more than they pay. the last panel did not access the because you have such high deductibles and everything else. >> obviously, there are people using the coverage because otherwise our medical loss ratio would be zero. if everybody waits until they needed to buy it, we have the situation today in the individual marketplace where we have escalating insurance costs. we talked about the fact that we need sustainable health care reform and we need to address the insurance market reforms you also have to address the underlying cost of care. we are only charging what the

costs are that come through to us. >> i still don't see how you justify a 39%. >> that was the high, the average was 25%. nm)>> it was amazing we had thre witnesses that said they are at 39%. >> i don't know how the panel was selected but we don't like raising our rates much. we know it is a hard job. at the end of the day -- >> do you believe you can raise your rates and no one will take your policy any more? >> pardon? >> do you think you'll get to the point where basically you are killing the goose that laid the golden egg, no one will be able to afford you? >> it is an issue where we have to get to the underlying cost of care. we want access to health care. there are wonderful advances and technologies and want to make sure we continue to have access

so erica's customers continue to have access. it needs to be affordable. we have to think about -- >> do you think there will be a point where we can no longer reported? >> i think we as human beings greatly value our access to health care. we continue -- a >> i agree and everybody has to make a value judgment if they can afford it or not. when the rate was up 39%, we look at it and precision it will be if they can afford it at all. >> that is why we are in the market saying we have to get to reducing health-care costs and make sure that people are not getting unnecessary procedures. we played that import role in health care per if you eliminate us from the process, you eliminate the ability to get to that equation. >> i don't agree. the average family is saying their rates went up 39%, or

25%, if they cannot afford it, and i look at the end of the year, your salaries are in millions of dollars, how can i system because i am the one that paid it, not them. you'll get to the point where no one can afford it. >> we are serving 34 million americans across the country and our goal and desire is to get affordable health benefits for them so they continue to access the quality care, the drugs that they need and want. >> when i first came to congress, 64% of small-business people have insurance. we're down to about 34%. that is why we have to do something on health care in this country. cost is killing us. >> we have a vote in a few

minutes. you have a lot of opinion whether that will bring down health-care costs? >> i don't think it will affect health care costs one way or another. >> do you think we should do it? >> we unintended consequence is that there are initiatives to share data with the deletion of health care it. if we can address the quality opportunities for the sharing of data, we hate those to be eliminated as part of this process. >> that would be true of any thing, identifying and aggregating data would be critical? >> exactly. we are investing in i advancet advances. we would take that to be eliminated. >> would there be any intended consequences in professional baseball? >> no.

>> let me conclude this panel and thank you both for being here and your testimony today. i want to thank all of our witnesses for coming today and their testimony. we provide that members have 10 days to submit additional questions. without objection, i have a letter from mr. dingell to the national association of insurance adjusters be submitted as part of the record. documents will be entered into the record for mr. dingell. that concludes our hearing. bank you all again. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> in a few moments, house majority leader steny hoyer on fiscal responsibility. "washington journal" is live ató 7:00. talk about unemployment

insurance. we will have the new chairman of the naacp. we will look at the: security budget. "washington journal" is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. a couple of live events to tell you that this morning -- the senate commerce committee continues to examine the toyota recalled. ñrñi. eastern. also on cspan 3 at the same time, representatives from google and others testify about global internet committee before a senate subcommittee. tr reed has traveled the world.

join our 3 our conversation with tr reid and your phone calls on sunday on c-span 2. now, house majority leader steny hoyer on fiscal responsibility and a new commission charged with recommending ways to reduce the federal deficit. he was at the brookings institution for 45 minutes.

>> welcome to brookings, by m. ron haskins. i am introducing steny hoyer, it in his 15th term in congress. since 2006, he has been the majority leader. majority leader of the house of representatives. he seeks bipartisan solutions, an approach that is being discarded in these unfortunate times. he will soon get the opportunity to test his skills as he never has before. our program has been engaging

in an outrageous acts of fiscal pleading and cutting spending and increasing taxes for seven years now, steny hoyer's the second most politician -- second most important politician in washington. he is a voice for saturday. he has broken with many of his colleagues in publicly showing his willingness to put everything on the table and entertain strong measures to move the federal government to balance. i believe he was the first leader to publicly declare his support for a bipartisan budget commission. he said," i would like to believe that the congress could address these issues through the regular bread legislative process. this suggests this is an extremely gift -- difficult in the current political environment." anybody want to disagree with that? he got his wish. we now have two prestigious

commissions and i have no doubt that at least one of them, by this fall, will release a report that includes proposals that will gore everyone's box. ox. at that moment, steny hoyer will be one of the most important congressional leaders in the nation's history and will undoubtedly be the most steadfast voice in congress for fiscal responsibility and tough decisions. i pray every night that republicans will join him. the topic today is building momentum for fiscal responsibility. [applause] >> mr. haskins is in charge of hyperbole at brookings. thank you so much.

i am pleased to be here. brookings' does such extraordinary work. i want to thank my good friend alice rivlin for being here. i m on opposite sides of the political aisle but not on opposite sides of this issue. t,m mann, thank you for being here and helping people understand the body of congress that sometimes is difficult to understand even from the inside, much less the outside. thank you all for giving me some of your time this afternoon. never in my decades in congress have seen a public so outraged by deficits and debt. at this moment, this is a moment of historic opportunity. we can waste it on opportunism

and slogans and symbolic solutions or we can dedicate ourselves to the painful, un glamorous decisions of fiscal discipline. we can choose to hang together or we can hang separately. i believe and hope and expect that we will hang together. the consequences of failure are dramatic enough to concentrate the mind of even the most dedicated senate. it is enough to say that by the time my grandchildren and great- granddaughter's are in college, our debt will exceed our gdp we will owe more money than the value of our entire country. it is enough to realize that by then our government will exist to do only two things -- pay for entitlements and pay interest on our debts. there was nothing left over for our nation's defense, our children's education, in a bit of scientific research, or any

other critical investments that keep america the home of freedom and opportunity to is he not to look across the atlantic at the extreme crisis in greece to understand that it can happen here. if we do not change our course, it will happen here. when you look it eight centuries of a financial crisis, an economist from the center of intellectual knowledge at the university of maryland -- i am into hyperbole myself -- america is no exception to the lot of debt. they point out that economic contractions are followed by budget crises that devin prosperity and a stalled recovery. "if there is one common theme to

the vast range of crises, is that excess of debt accumulation often poses greater systemic risk that it seemed during a boom. government debt is the unifying problem." m, the common symptom of decline." the economists add that public debt of 90% to gdp a tipping point. senator, -- senator tom coburn made that same point earlier this week. they go on to say that this is how empire's decline. historian neall ferguson said that. this is our turning point and choice, the point where we join the debt ridden hours that saw their own fiscal ruin or the point in which we as a nation

refuse that and write a new chapter. it is a waste of time for us to hand out blame. there's only one constructive reason to look back at what is -- at what got us here and that is to identify the kind of things we need to avoid that is why there is harm and the mindset. this draws exactly the wrong lessons that do much to repeat the cynics -- same mistakes. asserting that the deficit is the result of policies enacced since president barack obama took office is orwellian. the recovery act has saved 2 million jobs according to the cbo, but it has only contributed fractionally to the deficit.

ithe tax cuts enacted under president bush, the wars in afghanistan and iraq, and the economic downturn explain the entire deficit over the next 10 years. the most important lesson we can drop in the years of recklessness is this, when it comes to budgeting, what is politically easy is often fiscally deadly. it is easier to pay for tax cuts with borrowed money than with lower spending. it is easier to hide the true cost of war then delayed those costs before the people. it is easier to promised special cost-of-living adjustments that explain why an increase is not justified. it is easier to promise 95% of americans that we will not consider raising their taxes and then ask all americans to contribute for the common good. those kinds of easy choices are

so often selfish choices that they leave the chore of cleaning up to someone else easy choices may be popular but the popularity is bought on credit. the behavior in washington will only change with the incentive to change. when voters remain -- demand more responsibility. i am hopeful that is just what is happening today. the public has a responsibility to educate itself about the sources of the deficit and the brains of realistic solutions. they should not demand that government escalate entitlement payments and increase the deficit at the same time. the public must be ready to confront tough choices and leaders in both parties are -- need to be ready to be honest about those tough choices. when deficit solutions meet

resistance, which they will, and when they are painful, which they will be, it is our job to explain why they are also correct and absolutely essential. i believe we have a president and a congress that can and will take that responsibility seriously. president barack obama and congress have taken four major steps to return our country to fiscal health. president barack obama proposed a budget that would cut our deficit in half by 2013. it is perhaps more conceptual than real at this point but it will be released show courage in congress. it also contains a freeze on non-discretionary spending that will force congress to identify priorities. less discretionary spending will barely put a dent in the deficit, however. that focuses on approximately 14% of the budget that confronts us.

alan simpson explained," to say that all we have to do is take care of waste, fraud, and abuse and foreign aid is like a sparrow flying in the middle of a typhoon." colorful and correct. her willingness to curtail the growth of programs we value is powerful evidence that washington will tighten its belt before asking the public to do the same. defense spending is exempted from the freeze because we should insure that our men and women in uniform have the resources necessary to do their job while they're in harm's way. that does not mean that defense spending should be exempt from cuts where they do not undermine the mission. we have a set for our military. we must apply the same oversight to defense spending as we do to other discussion -- discretionary spending. that is why president barack

obama signed a bill to reform weapons acquisition, bringing the process more competition and your conflicts of interest. the gao report recently said that the 96 largest weapons systems that we have are responsible for $296 billion in cost overruns. that kind of defense waste only makes america weaker, not stronger in the long run. third, we continue to work to pass a health insurance reform l@@@,@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to the congressional budget office, the health care reform bill that passed the house and senate last year would

be fully paid for in the first decade and reduce the deficit by approximately $1 trillion in the second decade. we have brought back to pay as you go look. president clinton used this to turn a deep deficits into a $5.60 trillion by-year surplus. that policy was deducted and reaffirmed in a bipartisan way in 1997. it was then, as all of you know in the early decade of this century waved and in 2003 and not authorized. a decision by president bush and republican congress to do away with paygo through his back into the bread. bread for a wet weather comes to cutting taxes or increasing medicare benefits, paygo value because it removes from the table the easy and usually

unspoken solution that we would rather our children pay for it. i was brought to sponsor the paygo law. this may not get us out of the whole but it will stop us from digging deeper. i think the attention given to the exemptions secure the importance of real discipline to new policies, the principle of paying what we buy for applies to health insurance reform and restraining spending. the requirement that we include tough choices to expand access to health insurance has made the task of passing the legislation harder but it will prevent congress from creating a large liability. the medicare prescription drug program that was enacted after statuary paygo left, created in

unfunded liability of more than $7 trillion. congress will use the emergency designation to provide for the extension of unemployment benefits and other safety net programs which have been traditionally designated as emergency spending during recessions. it seems to me that is for a program. we must work to -- it seems to me that is appropriate. cutting the deficit cannot struggle job creation. i have told my friends in the press that you cannot stimulate and depressed at the same time. we need to stimulate but we stimulate now without a thought to tomorrow's discipline that is essential, we will not serve either now or the future will. all of these steps are essential but they are not enough to return our budget to balance. president barack obama is

creating a bipartisan fiscal commission. along with speaker pelosi and majority leader read, i pledge that we will get an up or down vote in congress. we want a statutory provision that was unable to be passed assured that. senator harry reid, speaker nancy pelosi, and di, the commission must come to a consensus in congress must act on the proposals by the end of the year. the president has appointed two proven budget balancers. erskine blwles and alan simpson. i hope congressional republicans will take the work as sincerely and seriously as the chairman takes it. i hope my own colleagues will do so as well.

they will come to the table without preconditions, ready to contribute their ideas and not just their criticisms from the sidelines. the commission has -- is bipartisan and won the vote of 16 republicans in the senate. i was disappointed to see that several republican supporters of t!e bill voted against it. as soon as president barack obama endorsed it. social security reform was worked on in the '80s. the real work of cutting deficits is so easy to demigod that rarely succeeds and will not succeed in my opinion on lusby have support from both sides of the aisle. that is one reason why the fiscal commission must not take any option off the table, from

raising revenues to cutting spending. both parties have a duty to appoint members who are willing to compromise and make tough decisions. it is clear to me that the commission takes -- if it takes a one hand approach, it will fail politically and substantively. i want to say a word about the senator ryan's conscientious budget proposal. it relies entirely on cutting spending. he should be commended and i have commended him for putting together a serious and detailed plan to tackle the deficit. it does not raise a single tax but significantly changes medicare part c we can argue about that but what we ought not to argue about is that somebody has put on the table a very serious and politically risky proposal. that strikes me, in terms of cutting medicare to accomplish

the objective without any thought of additional revenues from any source, it strikes me as very much the wrong solution. the plan deserves respect for its honesty and he is one of the few members of his party were either party to tell the public exactly what he's got. as much as his party's leadership tries to distance itself, all right and's program is a logical outcome of the other party's rhetoric of cutting taxes and deficits at the same time. it seems to me that the only solution that can win this for both parties is a balanced approach, one that cuts some spending and raise some revenue while avoiding extremes in either direction. a balanced approach would sped the effects of change across

american society rather than concentrate them simply on seniors. on the side of entitlement spending, americans are living longer lives and raising the retirement age. you can peg the and retirement age to life span. another option is to make social security and medicare benefits progressive while strengthening the safety net of low-income americans. on the side of revenues, president barack obama was correct in my view in refusing to take any options off the commission's table. no one likes raising revenue. if you are going to buy, you need to pay. president clinton proposed an economic plan aimed at

accomplishing fiscal balance. he paved the way for the greatest american prosperity in generations. he had a bipartisan tax compromise in 1986 which showed the importance of a simplified, more efficient tax cut. if need be, i am hopeful that both parties will agree to look at revenues as far as a solution compromise that cuts spending and balances the budget. none of this is easy. it will take bipartisan trust. there is not much of that and supply nowadays pri presidential leadership, i think there is a lot of that and supplies. we need a public spirit that many assume is beyond america's breach in the year 2010. i do not share that sentiment. america has made a career of proving such cynicism long. as jim fallow said ,"when

theodore roosevelt set aside land for national parks, when dwight eisenhower created the pentagon research agency that gave rise to the internet, the american system seemed open to it. saving america from debt would be long next to those accomplishments because in every era, these very fiscal issues are among the greatest tests a nation can face. we are not the first great power to meet the challenges within and will not be the first to fail. spain, france, the ottoman empire, the british empire in the 1920's, all of them were crippled by borrowing, by interest payments, and by desperate we are not exempt." these are questions of national

security and national success. in a democracy, there are questions of national character. they are not technical puzzles for few of us in seminars, think tanks, and back rooms. they are a defining challenge for all of us. you hear commissions on the radio and the media and our willingness to face reality will be a measure of our character. our willingness to reject easy answers from our leaders is a measure of that character. our willingness to put the welfare of our children ahead of her own, to plant seeds for them for fruit they would never taste is a powerful test of our character. more than a wealth, more than might, those of virtues that have made america flourish. those are the virtues we need to meet that test.

i can say with confidence that if we are unable to raise our heads even for a moment above the daily partisan bite, if the collapse comes, we will deserve it. but, if we regain a measure of our lost trust and support one another through shared sacrifices and would turn our country to fiscal health and strength, we will deserve that as well. thank you very much. [applause] >> ok, i am taking questions, i am told. >> what about the crisis faced

by people outside the beltway. unemployment benefits are being cut, medicare is being cut and people continue to use -- lose their homes and jobs the obama answer in legislation discusses not to return to a national bank and its policies but make more cuts. how much longer do you think the population will tolerate these policies from obama and why shouldn't they asked for immediate impeachment? >> first of all, let me say something about president obama. president barack obama, in my opinion, probably took office and one of the most difficult

times in our history since abraham lincoln. franklin roosevelt had a deep economic crisis he confronted but there were two aspects to that crisis. he did not have an international crisis until his second term, until the middle to late 30's. secondly, he had a populace that was educated to the fact that he needed to take substantial action because this economic crisis that confronted them for 3.5 years needed to be dealt with. that was not true when president barack obama took office in january. most of america became convicted of the depth of the crisis only in september of 2008. that is when we passed the so- called tarp bill. i have called for bipartisanship to make tough decisions for it we hear a lot about the lack of bipartisanship in the

congressman the from the minority party. i want you to recall the tarp bill and the secretary of the treasury, the president of united states, and head of the federal reserve came to congress on thursday night in a congress led by democrats and said that we're confronting the crisis and if we do not act and act immediately, the fiscal crisis@ would result in a depression and not a recession. the democratic leadership responded to the president and although they sent as a three- page bill and expanded it by four or five times, it was still

pretty short. $700 billion was put on the table for that bill passed only after the second issue. the president's own party did not support that bill. 1/3 of them dead and almost half of them did the second time around. we passed that bill. the president took office and the economy was in very bad shape when he took office. there was 726,000 jobs being lost in the three months prior to him taking office per month. the stock market was declining very rapidly. the gdp was in some of its lows to declines. in the last four quarters, we went from 726,000 unemployment

35,000 lost on average in the last three months. that is progress but not success. it is not getting to plus of jobs. the clinton administration group 216,000 jobs per month, on average, in the 1990's. it creates and the best economic times this country has seen in terms of growth and expansion of the economy. those people had investments in the stock market and savings accounts, shortly after the passage of the american recovery and reinvest and act, it was down but now is up 65%. that is increase of well for

people and their savings accounts. cheapie went from -6.4% 2 + 5.4%. that is in 12 months. my view is that we have taken very substantial efforts to stabilize and to start growing the economy. statistically, we have done that but there are 8 million people who lost jobs. unemployment is still at 9.7%. that is way too high and that is why we continue to address job creation. we did that in september when we passed the jobs for main street act through the house. the senate has passed it smaller jobs bill. we are considering that this week and hope to pass something this week. certainly, it is not serious to

say that anyone should consider impeaching this present who were shown a great deal of courage and effectiveness in confronting a dire situation and he has taken a lot of heat for it. i think he will continued to stay focused on growing the economy and growing jobs. we have seen success. we have seen progress. success will be women get back to creating at least 100,000 jobs per month per that will keep us healthy. ha h>> i want to take you as wes president obama to have the courage to take on this issue. i think you guys in the house are doing a great job of

balancing the agenda the american people voted for in 2008. the senate, not so much [laughter] if you guys do nothing, then the bush tax cuts expire. doesn't that give you leverage to play harder game to get things done? if president obama said that he will veto any bill that extends the bush tax cuts unless it balances the budget over a period time, wouldn't he have a hard leverage that would be needed to build the trust, the bipartisan trust we meet? need? i think there needs to be a

health -- a helpful push to bring the republicans to the table. >> first of all, let me address briefly the concern that house members have americans should have with the senate. let me say this in a constructive way. the senate was designed as a more the erotically -- theoretically more thoughtful body. it was supposed to represent not the citizens of america but the states of america and selected by a representative of each state. it was converted to a direct- elected body in the early part of the last century. culturally, it conceives itself, however, in my view, as a group of one of the people each of whom has the opportunity to stop

progress i don't think the founding fathers thought of it that way. last friday, one senator stood in the way of what we had paestum unanimous consent with no boat. democrats and republicans agreed but for all intents and purposes, we believe that 99% of everyone thought we should extend unemployment insurance and co protection. there was a highway bill in their, and some other extensions, i don't think they will work in the bill but one senator objected. therefore, there are millions of people today at risk of not having the unemployment insurance or cobra. we need to do something about that as a people. the '70s to do something about it as a senate.

it is unrelated to party. it happened to be a republican senator named bunning who is he was worried about his grandchildren. he was worried about the costs senator durbin was concerned about the families who could not put food on their table. we have 280 bills or so. republicans and democrats in the house agree on is that the senate is a conservation at best. we have 270 bills that we best at 70% with more than 50 republicans that are still pending.

>> in terms of encouraging our republican friends to come to the table, i think we want their ideas. >> absolutely. >> one thought that i have this they are pushing for the bush tax cuts. i don't figure will do any good. >> because the tax cuts weren't paid for, the budget rules expire and because the budget required longer payout, this looks good and your budget. the president indicated that we would not raise taxes on middle- class. clearly in my view, we would not want to raise taxes on the middle class in a time of deep recession. families are stretched. we have no intention of doing

that and still, we will continue that. we specifically delineated middle-class. i think you will see the we will continue with the statutory pz aygo. is a political rationalization which i think is accurate. we would use them at baseline without having to raise additional taxes. you don't want to raise taxes because of where we are in this recession. what paygo does is focus the

mind on having to pay for things like entitlements. it does not apply to discretionary spending. as we move forward, and we keep statutory paygo, in fact, we will not fiscally -- pursue fiscally irresponsible positions. we don't have a balanced budget amendment. the only constraint upon the

country as wealthy as america although we're getting to appoint where -- the political constraint of my asking people to pay for what i am prepared to vote to buy. but take second straight away -- if i take that comes straight away, we started incurring substantial debts as we reduced revenues. we did not reduce commensurate spending. during the reagan and two bush administrations, we encourage -- incurred $4.80 trillion of operating expenses. in the clinton administration, we had $62.9 billion surplus. it is a different approach,

paying for what you buy. we had a republican congress that did not want to spend a democratic president who did not want to cut revenues. the combination got us to a very good balance. fiscal irresponsibility and regulatory neglect this last decade led us to a fiscal debacle in the private sector ended fiscal $1.50 trillion deficit up to 2008 and was exasperated by tarp. >> tr reid has covered the healing of america. join our three-hour conversation with tr reid and your phone

calls live sunday. >> over 1000 middle and high school student entered our documentary competition with a short video on one of the our country's greatest strengths or challenges. we will announce the 75 winners on march 10 and show you their winning videos had studentscam.org. >> "washington journal" next with your phone calls. the senate commerce committee continues to investigate problems with the toyota vehicle recall. we'll talk with ray lahood. and we will talk about the senate agenda with