Rangel says U.S. 'not broke,' should reject GOP cuts

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) on Wednesday said the federal government is not broke, and that Congress should not begin cutting programs in the way that Republicans have proposed.

"Make no mistake about it, we're not broke," Rangel said in a floor discussion with Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) "It wasn't that we overcompensated public employees. They didn't cause this deficit."

Rangel's remarks go against those made by Republicans, who argued that continued deficit spending is unsustainable. Nonetheless, Rangel said GOP efforts to cut are a campaign pledge that Republicans should abandon because it would hurt too many Americans.

"People listening ought to recognize that just saying you're just cutting billions of dollars of resources, and you're going to cause pain to our young people, to our senior citizens, is a campaign promise that shouldn't have been made and certainly shouldn't be carried through," he said.