Politics & Government

Warner: Congress Has 'One More Shot' To Fix Deficit

U.S. Senator Mark Warner spent an hour with University of Mary Washington students answering a number of different questions.

U.S. Senator Mark Warner told University of Mary Washington students today that although the economy is showing signs of improvement, the national deficit is much too high.

Warner spent an hour with UMW students this morning in Monroe Hall, with most of his time spent answering questions. But he did talk about some good and bad news from Congress.

Warner said 90 percent of America believes the U.S. Congress is dysfunctional. "I have to tell you that I am part of that 90 percent," he said.

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The economy is turning around. There have been more than 200,000 jobs created in the private sector going on four months, unemployment is down and the stock market is getting stronger, Warner said.

"The last quarter, we actually had in the S&P one of the largest increases in the market in the last 40 years," he said. "So, we are starting to see slowly that recovery."

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The bad news is that the national deficit is at $15 trillion, Warner said. The country's debt and deficit is out of control and Warner said he has tried to fix it with bipartisan support. People are living longer and that's caused problems for the entitlement programs Social Security and Medicare. Warner said when he was young, there were 16 workers for every person on Social Security. Today there are three workers for every person on Social Security, and by 2012, Warner said it will be a 2:1 ratio.

"That's not good or bad, it just is," he said.

The deficit isn't a problem that needs to be solved overnight, Warner said, but the process must begin soon. The co-founder of Nextel said if the drawdown of the deficit starts now it would take about 20 years, but the country needs to knock off $4 trillion to $5 trillion in 10 years. Warner said President Obama created a commission that came up with a plan that would've made $2.50 in cuts for every $1 raised, but it failed. This is how the "Gang of Six" formed.

"We worked really hard and a lot of the forces of the status quo in both parties really didn't want us to succeed," Warner said. "We weren't successful and we didn't get a vote on our plan, but we're still at it."

Warner said there will be a replay of this "whole debacle" at the end of this year when Congress has to raise the debt ceiling again and the Bush tax cuts disappear.

"We are going to have one more shot at trying to fix this," he said.

Warner said 80-percent of all of the new jobs that have been created in the past 20 years came from start-up companies.

"We need to do more to help start-up companies," Warner said.

President Obama will approve a plan Thursday that will help start-up companies, Warner said, by showing them where to get capital and how to raise money using the Internet for crowdsourcing.

"What we need to do on the governmental side is to try and make it as easy as possible and then get out of the way," he said.

The entire video can be viewed here.


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