I always try to figure out what these hearings are about. I don't know whether the purpose was to panic the charitable community into rushing to Washington to talk about what their deductions are all about.

I heard from the president of Seattle University. And he said to me, 'Jim, our charitable deductions will drop, we figure, by at least 40 percent if you start fooling around with the limits that are in the law today.'

For anybody to start putting those kind of prescriptions into law really don't make sense to me.

I can't understand. Is it we are sort of softening them up for the fact that they are going to get clipped?

You got to be the Vice Chair of the charitable giving working group. Congratulations.

And it seems to me that the issue really here is whether we are going to tear the safety net out, say to seniors, we are not going to cover you.

The long-term problems in this country really are about health care costs.

For years we have had to listen to the Republicans lighting their hair on fire on cable TV about the temporary large deficits we have.

If you pass a law, even the threat of passing the law, under the Clinton administration, suddenly health care costs kind of leveled off.

When we don't pay our debts, they stop hiring.

Today we are talking about a crisis manufactured by the Republicans, a crisis they have manufactured to achieve policies that the voters wouldn't vote for at the ballot box.