and for them, it s kind of music to their ears. i think west coast, but go ahead. from the north korean perspective, they have the perfect foil. they re always telling their people, look, we re in danger, we need to pull together. we need to prepare for war. this is perfect for them. if you remember the south korean public, you re living a few miles away from north korea. they have 14,000 ar till ri tubes. this is worry some. if you re china, unsure which way you re going to go. are we more worried about u.s. troops than we are about north korea s behavior? there s a lot of reasons for the chinese not to resolve that issue. and to be kind of less focussed on really putting the energy we need to be put on north korea. so we have a president who at the end of the day doesn t understand any of these any of these things. he has a kind of vague idea. he wants to help shinzo abe in
capitol hill privately, many of them don t want to move forward with this legislation. they know it s unpopular and they would like to see democrats shoulder the blame with the health care act, and they know democrats want to run against republicans in 2018 with this health care bill. so if they can t figure out how to get the moderates and conservatives together, maybe they shelve it. my guess is they will punt. how will they react to that? if they punt and prop up obamacare, it will be really ugly. the structural problem they have is there is a faction of the republican party who at the end of the day doesn t want to repeal obamacare and there is a faction of the party at the end of the day who doesn t want to replace obamacare. therefore, if you try to repeal and replace, it interrupts what they re dealing with right now. it s going to be ugly for republicans no matter what
look, i didn t expect donald trump to win. i think most of my colleagues didn t. so we didn t expect to be in this situation and given how difficult it is to get to a consensus, it was hard to force that. talking points there from senator toomey, huh, robert costa? the senators i speak to on capitol hill don t want to move forward with this legislation. they know it s unpopular and they d like to see democrats shoulder the blame for some of the problems with the affordable care act and they know the democrats would love to run against the republicans in 2018 on this health care bill, so there s a real reluctance if they can t figure out how to get the moderates and conservatives together, maybe shelve it and force democrats. rich, what will the base do if they punt this? my gut is they punt. how will the base react to that? if they punt and then prop up obamacare, it will be really ugly. and the structural problem they have on this issue is there s a faction of the republican p
hampshire voters can handle the straight talk. if you were a republican and you were a small government republican like myself, i got into politics because of deficits and debt, and you look at what is happening over the next 20, 30 years, medicare medicaid social security to a lesser degree are the only games in town. as far as you can talk about cutting npr, you can talk about cutting all these other things. it just at the end of the day doesn t matter. you have to reform those two entitlement programs. and i wonder whether chris christie s problems have put him in position where he has to go for broke and do what all the other candidates are not doing and that is tell the truth about our fiscal house. and it s not just that. he s staking his campaign on taking on these huge issues with a lot of down side, too. it s very easy to get into a bad place with voters and be demagogued. he ll say, look these are the big issues for the country. i m going to focus on them. and it s a pa
is breaking news, the senate voting on the buffet rule and failing tonight. mostly along party lines. senate democrats called for a vote on the so-called buffett rule today. it is one of the president s election year priorities. it calls for people who earn a million dollars in adjusted gross income to pay a minimum tax rate of 30%. now, the left-leaning group moveon.org was quick to jump into the debate. target number one for them, mitt romney. when the wealthiest 1% pay a fair tax rate like the rest of us, it keeps the american dream alive for everyone. so tell mitt romney, kittens are cute. 1% fat cats who won t pay their fair share? not so much. okay. we did the math, though, and the buffett rule doesn t add up to keeping the american dream alive. at least when it comes to raising the deficit. it would raise about $4.7 billion a year in revenue. one half of one percent of $901 billion. that s the president s forecasted budget deficit for 2013. already those who earn o