Pence, Van Hollen spar over ‘Pledge,’ tax cuts (video)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/39367634#VpFlash
Pence, Van Hollen spar over ‘Pledge,’ tax cuts


Meet the Press transcript for Sept. 26, 2010
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39352643/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/

(snip)
MR. GREGORY: All right, but let me ask you a bigger question about tax cuts or tax hikes. You say in the Pledge to America that you want to bring spending down to 2008 levels, which you well know is not enough to really seriously tackle the deficit, even if you bring it back to 2008. So the question for you, and I'll ask Congressman Van Hollen, how can you rule out tax hikes as we move forward if you want to get serious about tackling the deficit?

REP. PENCE: Well, look, I, I--number one, I think you rule out tax increases because our problem isn't that the American people are taxed too little, our problem is that Washington spends too much. In the Pledge to America we call for cutting discretionary spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, cutting the amount of funding allocated to Congress, freezing all pay on nonsecurity federal employees, ending federal control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ending TARP. That'd save a trillion dollars over 10 years alone. And, you know, reducing discretionary spending back to those 2008 levels, that would be--I mean, that would save $100 billion this year.

MR. GREGORY: That's fine, but that doesn't...

REP. PENCE: We, we can get there through fiscal discipline and reform.

MR. GREGORY: ...that really doesn't tackle the deficit completely.

(snip)
MR. GREGORY: ...which is where you think this is a credible economic argument. You voted against TARP. You opposed the stimulus, as did other Republican leaders. And yet people, economists who have looked at this from both sides of the aisle, Robert Samuelson writing in Newsweek who is a more conservative columnist on economic matters, says that the aggressive actions taken, going back to TARP and then followed through by this administration, most definitely had an impact on GDP, on the fact that we don't see unemployment approaching 16 percent. Is it credible for Republicans to ask for the vote this November when, effectively, you would've let the financial system teeter off the edge of a cliff?

(snip)
REP. PENCE: Well, David, we just thought taking $700 billion from Main Street and transferring it to Wall Street was a profoundly bad idea.

MR. GREGORY: That's good rhetoric, but what would've happened to the financial system?