Dan Coats: “I send my sympathy and empathy to the Senator from Maryland. Having gone through the same thing, I fully understand what…”

“I send my sympathy and empathy to the Senator from Maryland. Having gone through the same thing, I fully understand what she is dealing with and trust she will recover quickly. Picking up where I left off, dare a politician stand here and acknowledge this? Many don't want to. But the truth is this: The main driver of our debt and deficit spending is the runaway mandatory spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Despite those who claim it is political suicide to touch these programs and despite the fact none of us are saying we should eliminate these programs, this is an area where many don't want to tread. But I believe these programs, which provide much needed benefits for many Hoosiers and Americans, need to be preserved. But our goal and our challenge is to find common ground on not how to eliminate these programs but how to save these programs, both for current retirees and for future generations. If we don't take steps to reform these programs, we risk not only bankrupting our country, we risk having to tell the recipients of the benefits of these programs we no longer can fulfill their needs and our propositions. It is difficult for me to support any effort to increase the debt limit when we continue to avoid taking the necessary steps to eliminate deficit spending and control our debt in the future.…”