joining me this week, the congressional appropriations reporter, and congressional reporter from mcwlatchy. with the twin facts in front of us of a federal debt of about $13 trillion and unemployment in your home state of california 12.6%, which is going to be the driving priority for you? >> $13 trillion did you say in i can't quite imagine that our national debt could rise to that level. for me, it's very, very apparent that government's tendency to overspend on everything has had a huge impact upon our economy, and government's unwillingness to provide oversight in areas where they have serious responsibility has led to other problems like the housing crisis. it's not a democrat or republican thing in my mind's eye. over the year's we've demonstrated time and time again that we like to create problems, we like to dump people into them and then we ignore whether they work or not. who didn't believe in the american dream? everybody ought to have a chance to own a home. certainly i've been committed to that all my life. but over the years, as we tried to move in that direction, what did we