MTP Transcript for Oct. 29

MR. RUSSERT: What programs would you cut?

LT. GOV. STEELE: Well, what I would like to do is something that we did in Maryland. We — Governor Ehrlich and I came into office, we had a $2.2 billion deficit staring us in the face and a bloated government to contend with. And so we stepped back and evaluated exactly what the priorities of our government should be. Seventy-eight percent of our spending is in two areas: education and health care.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s the same in the federal government.

LT. GOV. STEELE: It’s the same. And my point...

MR. RUSSERT: Seventy percent is Social Security, Medicare and Defense.

LT. GOV. STEELE: Absolutely. Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you touch those?

LT. GOV. STEELE: Abso — Tim, everything has...

MR. RUSSERT: Everything’s on the table.

LT. GOV. STEELE: Everything has to be on the table, my friend. We are living in a time — we have to — government has to act like the rest of, the rest of the world and sit back and look at your budget. If you don’t have enough money in any given month, what do you do? You’ve got to reprioritize. You’ve got to take care of the business at hand. So what I want to do is a couple of things. One, I want to take a closer look at what we’re spending. The last five, seven, eight years, Congress has lost its mind when it’s come to spending. You couple that...

MR. RUSSERT: Controlled by the Republicans.

LT. GOV. STEELE: Absolutely. It doesn’t matter, Republican or Democrat, I just put it out there. That’s the reality of it. It’s...

MR. RUSSERT: Would everything be on the table?

REP. CARDIN: Well, I’ve come out with specific proposals to get the budget back into balance. I — look, I voted against the Bush budgets. I thought they were reckless at the time.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s 70 percent is Social Security, Medicare and Defense.

REP. CARDIN: So Medicare...

MR. RUSSERT: Would everything be on the table?

REP. CARDIN: Well, Medicare, we can save a lot of money by just taking on the prescription drug issue. Let’s have a fair price for prescription medicines in this country. We pay three times what we should.

MR. RUSSERT: But.

REP. CARDIN: I’ve introduced a bill to do that. To take on that cost.

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