Sessions Schools CNN Anchorbabe on the Debt Ceiling and SpendingJune 9, 2011
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RUSH: Audio sound bite time. Jeff Sessions taking a CNN business anchor babe to school on spending and debt. It happened this morning on CNN's American Morning. Now, the correspondent here is Christine Romans, and she interviewed Senator Sessions -- who we love here -- Republican from Alabama. And during a discussion about the debt ceiling and the budget, she said, "Look, when you look at the markets, the markets are telling us that they think the debt ceiling is going to have to be raised. The question is the process. How do you get to it? What kind of cuts do you need to see? Do you think that we'll be able to raise the debt ceiling and it will buy us time through the end of next year?"
SESSIONS: Well, I think the bond market would be awfully disappointed if the debt limit were raised and we did not reduce spending and change the trajectory of debt that we are on, which is clearly unsustainable.
ROMANS: Yeah?
SESSIONS: Last week's economic numbers were really troubling, with unemployment up, manufacturing down. The Fed reported just yesterday that a number of their regions had negative growth compared to the last couple months.
RUSH: Okay, now, she tries to argue that, "Well, we gotta spend more! We gotta spend more, then! The only answer here is to spend more," and he just takes her to school with facts. He says, "We did that and it isn't working." She says, "Well, your friends across the aisle," meaning the Democrats, "will use those same statistics to say that this is why we can't be cutting too deeply, because if you cut now -- you cut too deeply -- you hurt the economy in the near term. Longer term that hurts your chances of deficit reduction and getting a debt under control."
SESSIONS: Christine, this is a key question you just raised and we need to talk about. What we know is for the last two-and-a-half years we've borrowed and we've spent money we did not have and we have not --
ROMANS: (shouting) To recover from huge, huge financial crisis! Duhhh, that nearly took down the American economy!
SESSIONS: We borrowed money we did not have in large amounts from the future to spend today to artificially stimulate this economy, and it has not worked. We've had the lowest bounce-back we've ever had from a major recession. It's very, very dangerous.
RUSH: She was not satisfied, of course, 'cause she's got her narrative, she's got horror template, and he doesn't know what he's talking about.
ROMANS: Can we afford to keep seeing all of these jobs disappear and will the private sector magically just recover around it to absorb them?
SESSIONS: If we get this economy on a sound footing, the private sector will recover. The idea of Keynesian stimulation of the economy is not working. We've already spent far too much.
ROMANS: Yeah. You know, somehow I knew you'd go back to the Keynesian argument but --
SESSIONS: Well, really it's a national debate, isn't it, Christine?
ROMANS: It is.
SESSIONS: Can we officially by borrowing money from the future --
ROMANS: Mmm-hmm --
SESSIONS: -- spending it today, generate growth? Well, maybe sometime you can make a dent with it, but as a systemic policy it's disastrous.
ROMANS: Eh, eh --
SESSIONS: It's put us in a position that we can't... The debt becomes so large that it begins to pull our growth down, which is happening today.
RUSH: Jeff Sessions, senator from Alabama.
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