Obama to Tea Party: 'What would you do?'

President Obama said during today's CNBC town hall that Tea Party members have a healthy skepticism about government and overspending but that members have to be specific about how they would cut government debt.

"It's not enough just to say, 'Get control of spending,'" Obama said. "I think it's important for you to say, 'You know, I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits' or 'I'm willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits' or 'I'm willing to see these taxes go up.'

"What you can't do -- which is what I've been hearing a lot from the other side -- is saying, 'We're going to control government spending. We're going to propose $4 trillion of additional tax cuts' and that magically somehow things are going to work."

A transcript:

QUESTION: My name is Andy Conti (ph). I am a full-time MBA student at Georgetown University right here in the district.

And my question is with regards to those individuals that feel like federal government is getting too large, specifically the Tea Party movement, my dad and I were talking about the midterm election just last night, and he was asking who he should vote for. And the question was, what will the administration do if these activists are elected?

OBAMA: ... I think that America has a noble tradition of being helpfully skeptical about government. That's -- that's -- that's in our DNA, right? I mean, we -- we came in ... (APPLAUSE) ... because, you know, the folks over on the other side of the Atlantic had been oppressing folks without giving them representation, and so we've always had a healthy skepticism about government. And I think that's a good thing.

I think there's also a noble tradition in the Republican and Democratic parties of saying that government should -- should pay its way, that it shouldn't get so big that we're leaving debt to the next generation. All those things, I think, are healthy.

The problem that I've seen in the debate that's been taking place -- and in some of these Tea Party events -- is I think they're misidentifying sort of who the culprits are here.

As I said before, we had to take some emergency steps last year, but the majority of economists will tell you that the emergency steps we take are not the problem long term. The problem long term are -- are the problems that I talked about earlier.

We've got -- we had two tax cuts that weren't paid for, two wars that weren't paid for. We've got a population that's getting older. It's -- we're all demanding services, but our taxes have actually substantially gone down.

And so the challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify specifically, what would you do? It's not enough just to say, Get control of spending. I think it's important for you to say, You know, I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits, or, I'm willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits, or, I'm willing to see these taxes go up.

What you can't do -- which is what I've been hearing a lot from the other side -- is saying, 'we're going to control government spending. We're going to propose $4 trillion of additional tax cuts,' and that magically somehow things are going to work.

(Posted by David Jackson)