Hillary Clinton Faces Congress, Obama Faces Budget – Wingin’ It Wednesday

On this week's edition of "Wingin' It Wednesday", panelist Mike Stagg, Warren Caudle, and Carol Ross debated gun control and the possible raising of the debt ceiling.

Find out what the panelists had to say on "Mornings with Ken and Bernie" right here:

1. President Obama used the final press conference of his first term to again warn congressional Republicans that he will not negotiate with them over the debt ceiling, saying that Washington must increase the limit to pay its bills and such brinksmanship would be "absurd" and "irresponsible." What do you make of the President's words in light of his actions?

Mike Stagg started us off:

Since the federal spending is slower under his administration than anyone since Eisenhower. I think he speaks with responsibility and authority on this.

Congress has authorized the spending. All this is about is making sure they pay for what they've authorized. The spending has already been approved by the House and the Senate, it's a question of whether we're going to pay for the spending.

They ran it up, we've got an obligation to plan for it, and the president has a plan to reduce the deficit.

Carol Ross added:

Seven times the debt ceiling was raised under George W. Bush. George Bush's last year in control of the budget the budget, the deficit was 168 billion and we had record tax collections. The next year, 2008, the Democrats took over congress, between 2008 - 2010 they ran up a 5 trillion dollar debt.

We have enough money to honor our debt, but this is a debt ceiling. He wants to incur more debt.

Warren Caudle countered:

Why don't we just sit down and have an adult conversation about this stuff. Let's sit down and try to figure out what the government needs. How much money do they need? Mike is talking about cutting spending, nobody in Washington is talking about cutting spending. When Paul Ryan proposed his budget, his budget proposed to increase the debt by 5 trillion in 10 years instead of 10 trillion.

It's high time the Republicans stand up and say, "This is our baby. We're going to do something about it. We apologize cause we were drunk and on drugs for 8 years, but we're going to do something about it."
 

2. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will testify Jan. 23 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the deadly Sept. 11 assault on the US mission in Libya. Do you think she will be truthful or pull a "Lance Armstrong"?  Was her hospitalization necessary or just a ploy to delay her testimony?

Warren commented:

The audacity that somebody would have to even propose such a question, do you think a Clinton would be truthful? The reality of the deal is that she might go in and say, "I was not aware". The state department and the "agency" have distanced themselves. There are a lot of things the agency did and does that the department doesn't know about, but the problem is that it was a huge screw up.

It would be nice if someone would step up and say, "This is the deal, this is how it happened, and we're sorry", but that's not going to happen.

Mike responded:

I'm sure there will be testimony, but I don't think there's any expectation that truth will be flowing at all. This will hopefully finally let the Republicans go away after they get their answers to their questions. It's just a fixation that the Republicans have about this thing. People from the state department have already been fired over this thing. There has been accountability. It's a question about how far up the food chain these things go.

 

Carol surmised:

It's really tragic that four people died and we still can't get the truth out of this, and those supposed people that were fired, they just moved their desks around. No one was fired.

Like Shakespeare used to say, "what's past is prologue".  If you want to know if Hillary Clinton is going to tell the truth, just look at every time she was called to congress in the past.

Four people died and these people went out and lied about it in a serial way.

 

3. Should President Barack Obama decide to make good on his threat to enact gun regulations through executive order, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) says he may, among other actions, file articles of impeachment against the commander-in-chief.
Do you think Obama would actually be impeached over his use of executive order to control guns?

Mike commented:

Elections matter. They lost. He's not coming to take away any guns, there might be some rules about clips, stuff that's already on the books, but this is paranoia at it's finest.

Carol Countered:

I would say the constitution matters, and the constitution has a second amendment in it.

The results show that gun control laws do not reduce crime.  It's just completely ridiculous to think that chipping around at the edges is going to have any material effect.

Warren concluded:

If gun control worked then Washington D.C. would be the safest city in the world.

This stuff about impeaching Obama, it makes good soundbites, but they need to stick to some real substance. Congress needs to do their job, operating checks and balances with the executive branch.

Click on the play button below for the complete audio.

Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about today’s Wingin’ It Wednesday topics. Who got it right, who got it wrong, and who was way off? Let us know in the comment section.