2019 60% of the deficit is caused by the bush tax cuts that were never paid for. now we have an opportunity to go back and do that right. i want if there are going to be tax cuts for the middle class, they have to be paid for. but what i sort of want the audience to understand, so much of what they re looking at now is fear. the president or boehner, none of those people can say, you know what, it s okay with me if we don t make a deal. it s okay if we go off the cliff. and so they have to look like we re working at this every day. think about it this way. we ve already made a deal. yes, we have, that s right. the democrats not only does it do a great job reducing the deficit, this is the only serious deficit reduction package that s ever come out of congress. not only does it do a great job, but frankly, from a progressive democratic point of view, we ve got two out of the three things we wanted. that s a pretty good deal. absolutely. governor howard dean, thank you ve
when it comes to medicare? i haven t heard anybody talk about reforming social security on democratic side? that is good question and i think, look i think we re in the early stages, chris, of this whole debate. eric cantor went on morning joe said and won t raise taxes on anybody under any circumstance which would you argue is stopping negotiations. both sides are laying out positions right now. there are negotiations going on. clearly the fiscal cliff is scaring everybody into action because if nothing is done, right, there will be huge deficit reduction package at end of the year which eliminates the annual budget not something we should be as scared of as everybody says. the point is focus will be on medicare more than social security. it is much bigger financial problem. the growing costs of health care are a big challenge. what i m proud to say because some of the initiatives the president put in the first term we ve actually seen a greater slowing of health care costs in the l
spontaneous demonstration on an anti-muslim video. vice believed to be line for nomination to secretary of state. president obama taking a pitch for deficit reduction package to the public. meantime, negotiations with the congressional republicans over a plan to back away from the fiscal cliff made little progress so far. the u.s. wants to avoid becoming another greece. we will look at the latest deal giving athens another envision of bail-out money. special report from washington at 6:00 eastern. a lot to tack. in now back to any colleagu my s with the five. andrea: are you feeling lucky? the largest jackpot in powerball history.
think grover norquist is a household name but a lot of these guys signed a pledge they would not raise taxes and then these sort of trap of that and the effectiveness is there aren t a lot of constituents who would say i m glad he broke that. heather? that s so sad the idea that constituents would say i m upset you broke a promise to your donor. that s what grover norquist is. let s be clear. the reason why the club for growth has so much power because of the connection with the funding. so i have to think and the polling has shown that the majority of republican voters actually want to see social security intact, medicare and medicaid intact, and not a spending only deficit reduction package. so there is a degree to which the donor class that sets the agenda in our current washington between the campaign finance rules, the lobbying rules, the donor class is setting the agenda and the donor class is more upset about the deficit even than the republican base.
and blame it on the republica republicans. well, i don t know where you are hearing that. you certainly don t hear it from me. i have spent five years trying to put together a pack knowledge a bipartisan way. to get us back on a sound fiscal course. and i think it s very clear that we have a near-term problem. we ve got to make sure that we are doing everything we can to strengthen economic growth. and we have a longer-term problem, that is unsustainable fiscal course for the nation. that requires revenue reform, which is bob corker talking about fundamental reform. we absolutely need it in the entitlement programs. medicare, social security. we need it in the revenue side of the equation. i should haste on the say the social security peace i don t think should be part of a deficit reduction package. but we do need to address social security because it gets headed for insolvency as well. chris: let s talk about taxes that got most of the attention.