exhibit a against mitt romney. it sounds so great. doesn t sound like it will get through. dr. sachs, the front page of the papers, obama seeks new taxes on rich. that s the headline coming out. what do you make of the budget? i think it is a smart budget. as a matter of fact politically and definitely smarter than the alternatives that the republicans are offering. there is absolutely no way to get the government s most core business done without some tax revenues. and if the republicans say nothing on that, even for the rich, i think they ve cornered themselves politically in way that the american people absolutely don t support. the truth, however, in this budget is it s a little sad where we are as a country. because the president s proposals are extremely small, modest. they re symbolic, almost in some ways and even then they re being opposed strongly, which is big
divided washington for years. the record $3.8 trillion spending plan outlines the president s push for economic growth, including new investment in education and infrastructure. while calling on the wealthiest americans to share more of the burden. right now, we re scheduled to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was intended to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest 2% of americans. do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthy americans or do we want to keep investing in everything else? education, energy, a strong military, care for our veterans? we can t do both. we can t afford it. some people go around and say the president is engaging in class warfare. that s not class warfare, that s common sense. that s common sense. you know, i m sorry, i hear the president talking about the bush tax cuts, which he
underscore you ve got one document there. i ve seen billions of documents. steve, what do you have on this? do you have the president s numbers? 2011-2020. i have a chart showing entitlements growing from 20 some odd percent to 45%. as a share of national income. oh my goodness. this going to get exciting. mike allen mike, are you okay? mike, go ahead. no, i was you started all this. i did. that that table which you take it out, even people in the white house would not claim that there isn t this coming explosion. they re just saying that we can t afford to deal with it now. but even the folks in the white house who design table s-6 i believe and i think we re crashing the omb servers right now. but they would not make the claim that this doesn t have to be dealt with. they just are saying not on our
supports that. because everybody knows that s what we have to do. and somebody stepping forward and saying what s obvious, what all the voters know, would absolutely resonate. can you could do that kind of a message by saying that s what we need to do to embrace the future. it could be a future-oriented optimistic message, it doesn t have to be an eat-your-peas message. what s so fascinating here is, i think most people that know how washington works know the bigger the deal, the more breathtaking the deal, the more dangerous politically the deal, not only in tax reform, but also on entitlement reform, the more likely the american people will accept it. but if you just do a little bit here and a little bit there, they re going to swat you away. it s got to be a big, bold vision and certainly, the president isn t going to step forward with that. and i don t think the republicans will, either. paul ryan did in his own way, and boy, he got absolutely slaughtered. by newt gingrich. rem
that s what the president did for a year and a half. no, he didn t. what was that exercise? that exercise, both sides, were pandering to the private health insurance lobbies. that resisted real cuts, in the costs of health care. that s what happened. so, steve, is the problem that republicans won t raise taxes? is that why we re at this impasse? it s part of the problem. the fact is when you draw a line and say i m not going to compromise, i m not going to do that. it does make having a budget more difficult. let me go back to something that mark mckinnon said. people don t want to cut medicare. if those folks who say they want to deal with the budget don t want to touch medicare, how do you get this problem solved? i think people are more ready than they ll ever be. dave walker? i ve been to 49 states, town hall meetings, college campuses, business community leaders,