political sniping. i am interested in a solution to the problem that we face. i don t want to see default. i don t want i don t thinki we want to get anywhere close to to it.here are you close to it now. we are bad for our economy we and bad for our country. b and so i am trying to find a common ground that is doableound in the time we have remaining. and let me just ask you and it is the last question, how qut disappointed are you?apd ar according to your plan as weacc understand now, and it mayderstw change, a trillion dollars in spending cuts in thepend short-term? short-ter how disappointed are you that after months otef talking after this urgent deadline that it i seems now that maybe the mostst that washington can come up c with when you are spending $46 x trillion over the next decade is $1 trillion in spending?endig after over six months the conversations with the president about doing the big te deal, about taking a big step st in the right direction. it is pretty cl
i want to go over one part of the grand bargain you were negotiating with the presidentta and the white house and i went over this with secretary geithner.s cfere you say you agree to $800 billion in new revenue last weekend in a meeting withinith secretary geithner, and that the president moved the goalpost.yoeard you heard his response, wellwel we didn t really have a deal. did you have a deal with d secretary geithner?thner? last sunday i thought there was an agreement. it was $800 billion of new revenue coming from a flatter, fairer tax system that would agaiour economy moving again and employ more americans and bring more revenue to the federal government.ve and i believe we could get there.onsday on tuesday the president saidded they needed more revenue. mr. cantor and i told the ayesident no.wesd wedn tesday they said theymo needed more revenue. s we said no.or thursday, need more revenue,
making a deal on any circumstance because they don t want added revenue, they don t want the tax hike and what we saw this week from the democrats, you talk about the white house. the democrats flew over to the white house to say, what are you talking about? you re willing to make significant cuts in terms of medicare, medicaid, social security, you are putting our political fortunes at risk? this is not what we want. you saw move on, you saw aarp. saw afl-cio. sdiu, all engaged their members to absolutely zoom in on congress with phone calls and lobbying to say stop the president from giving up everything to the republicans. one last point here. i m amazed, you heard the speaker of the house say, you know, we have moved the goal post in terms of a president who didn t want to make significant cuts who is now willing to make significant cuts. why don t republicans say, you know, we have won this fight. it s time to move on and not push the country over the edge? that s one view.
even now that you can make a deal with this president withth his views on trillions of dollars in spending, entitle ment s and taxes?ings a well, chris, i was bornh with the glass half full. i am the op tau optimist. abo it is about trying to findn common ground.yes,nd yes, i understand the president feels that we need a bigger government and more spending in washington. was i believe allowing theow t american people to keep more of that money is the best way to create jobs and grow ourrow r economy. but having said the fact that we are it is almost like we l come from two planets.fere my job on behalf of the country is to find as much to coon ground as we can to help move the country ahead.ryhd but democrats are saying, and you heard this implied by tim geithner just before you that you end up looking badyou with voters because you walked out of the talks twice and youot are willing to risk defaultt t because you want to cutre medicare and medicaid toct protect the tax cuts fo
electing a president that is willing to get serious with the debt and deficit. chris: juan. i think the last week, the mechanism in pleas, the two step solution that both speaker boehner and tim geithner were talking about, treasury secretary talking about this morning, how you would enforce a commission with 12 members in place, we want you to make the social security and medicare and medicaid and what do you say, even on the edge of the precipice, these guys don t make a deal. why would they make a deal down the road? you re going to need some degree of trust and people holding hands. so far, both sides, the political extremes are blocking this deal because both sides say, no, no tax cuts on the one hand and other hand, no cuts to entitlement. chris: and the triggers they were talking about, the trigger for the republicans was going to be the decoupling of the bush tax cuts and for the they wanted the trigger for the democrats to be the obama individual mandate.