Feinstein: GOP holding Congress 'hostage'

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she has never seen Congress "held hostage" as it is now by Republicans over raising the debt ceiling.

"What I'm surprised at is the recalcitrance, the real refusal to understand the position of the United States Senate," Feinstein said on CNN's "State of the Union."

With only days to go before Treasury's Aug. 2 deadline, Congressional leaders are scrambling to strike a deal  to raise the debt ceiling and cut the deficit. But Republicans and Democrats remain far apart on the size and composition of such an agreement.

The Democratic senator said she would not accept any deal that did not include some revenue increases.

"We would probably take three parts cut to one part revenues," Feinstein said. "What we won't do is take $4 trillion in cuts with no additional revenues."

While Feinstein said spending cuts had to be made, she said they could not be made indiscriminately.

"Fifteen to 20 million people in my state depend on the programs that Republicans want to take a meat axe -- not a scalpel but a meat axe -- to," she said. "We need to know how it's done, because it's possible to cut back some of these programs, but it's going to take some real care and concern to see that it's done so it hurts people the least. Now Republicans don't care about that."

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