just limited to only affecting origin teams to just let us fall and crash in argentina's g.d.p. fell forty percent in just one year and fifty percent of the population fell below the poverty while it's. true that they cannot allow in greece to fall just like that otherwise they would it's the difference between having your own currency and having somebody else's currency right so in the case of greater ireland or even looks like italy and spain are being sucked into this vortex and to see the banks to make the major global banks international banks they get the local governments like pap address to commit fraud on behalf of the banks to lower the economies up with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of debt in the case of greece we're talking now five hundred billion euros and that that was illegally parked on their balance sheet and then when they can pay back with that they take all their assets as recompense for the debts that they never incurred but you're saying the big difference of course is that in greece they're part of the euro zone so you have this contagion effect where

g.d.p. they fell in the recession. the recession is hurting us, but the president's policies are accentuating the recession. [inaudible question] >> i would like to talk about responsible leadership. a responsible leader wouldn't be scaring the markets or the american people. a spobsible leader would be rolling up shirt-sleeves months ago and working toward a solution, working in good faith. that? what has happened. in terms of the august 2nd deadline, do we have something to worry about? probably because it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. because the administration has been scaring the markets for so long, yeah, the markets will be upset if things don't occur. but i put that squarely on the back of this president, his failure to lead and leading irresponsibly by scaring the markets. >> what do you think will happen on august 2 -- >> well, i will tell you what, from my standpoint, and i am not sure if anybody else agrees with me. if we don't increase the debt ceiling, what does that mean? we have to look at what th

g.d.p. on defense. 1980 in the great reagan defense buildup it was about 6%. it fell as low as about 3.5% on the evil of 9/11. it's barely 5% or in that range today. so this by historical standards, particularly since 1940, we do not spend a large portion of the national wealth on defense. by the way, the same thing is true of the federal budget. in 1960, about 50% of the federal budget was defense spending. it was about 33% in 1980. it's about 18% or 19% today. certainly a lot of money and that's not certainly the way to judge military spending. in terms of the size of the federal budget or the wealth of the country, defense has been comparatively speaking a bargain compared to other parts of the budget. i'd also like to point out that frankly this defense subcommittee and the administration have worked to find additional economies. secretary gates made $78 billion in reductions over the next five years, and this budget itself is below what the president of the united states asked us to appropriate by $9 billion. in addition, the secretary has laid out a path from ad

1940's, 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, we worked our way to the point where our national debt fell to just 32.5% of g.d.p. in 1981. we did this through a combination of growth and some inflation. our debt was in pretty good shape until we hit the 1980's, during which we quadrupled our national debt under presidents ronald reagan and george h.w. bush. we have hashed over time and again who is to blame for the situation we find ourselves in, but let me leave that alone for the moment and get back to what it means to raise the debt ceiling. as i said, our debt currently stands at $14.3 trillion. i think we can agree on this. that number reflects past choices, not current ones. the debt ceiling also stands at $14.3 trillion. we have to raise the debt ceiling because we as a nation have certain obligations that we must meet. we have to pay for the wars we are currently engaged in. we have obligations to veterans who have served our nation in the past, like the president. we have obligations to have the dedicated men and women at fema who have been responding to the many floods and fires our nation has been fa