Page 76 - The Sequester News Today

Fresh hold be for the tax income? $250,000 which obama originally proposed? $400,000 which he supposedly offered in a revised offer a week ago? and then, of course, the status of the sequester. we have $1.2 trillion in cuts over ten years, half from defense and half from nondefense discretionary spending. is there any indication if theres a deal today what theyre talking about in terms of those two issues? >> were reading tea leaves but we can say that on saturday there were the most senior-leve...

Moodys estimated .6% of g. the p eredux. if you talk about the sequester cuts that everyone wants to avoid, thats about $110 billion in 2013. the payroll tax cut is about $115 billion. thats money that comes out of peoples paychecks. money people say has a lot of bang for the buck. its money that appears when you were going to go out and spend it. its not something you have to calculate how much in taxes am i going to pay? how much money do i have to spend? its stuff that does spend out pretty q...

Yesterday. he drown last sunday while surfing in puerto rico. those are some of your headlines. right now, we are under 90 minutes away from a loose deadline. president obama placed blame on speaker boehner for putting the country on the edge of this cliff. >> what we have is a situation where these automatic spending cuts go into place. if we have raised revenue by the wealthy paying more, that would be sufficient to turn off whats called the sequester, the automatic spending cuts. that would h...

Thank you so much. >> seven minutes past the hour. let me bring in economics correspondent nancy cook and reuters political reporter. thank you both for being here. we talk about whats going to get done, what we hope is going to get done. several things are not going to get done. tackle the debt ceiling, the sequester, payroll tax holiday and tax breaks for businesses. where does this leave us if they are not being discussed at this point? >> at this point, the best thing we could hope for is a ...

Discretionary. would you be okay with the sequester not being part of the deal with that sequester taking place? >> its been very clear that theres too many pieces on the table for them all to get resolved in the next couple of days so i would -- i would expect that there might be a bump in this sequester but i dont think there will be a big restructuring detailed restructuring that will be figured out later on. but ill tell you that unemployment is a huge, immediate impact. in my home state of ...

>> what about automatic spending cuts? those take effect january 1st as well. do they have to be part of this deal? youve got half of those cuts in defense alone. >> well, the other part of the fiscal cliff is congress agreed that they would cut an additional $1.2 trillion in spending. they put a committee together to try to come up with those numbers. they didnt figure out how to do it. and so what we now have is a situation where these automatic spending cuts go into place. now if we have rais...

But where will the income flesh mold be set? 250,000, obamas first offer, 400,000 his second offer or 500,000 kelly odonnell said the senators will go along with. plan be was a million. in terms of your colleagues and the democratic side, whats an acceptable level for you to where the income threshold should be? >> theres a whole spectrum of opinion and most of us feel the right thing for america is for the line to be at 250,000. it leaves only 2% of americans who would be paying more and it doe...

Everyone would think was a bit weird, permit the bush tax cuts to expire for income over $250,000. that would let president obama pocket $1 trillion in tax revenue and secure a win on his key priority in the talks. but they would do nothing else. at the end of the year, we would still go over the fiscal cliff. remember, the bush tax cuts are one of the at least stimulative policies in the negotiations. according to the economic policy institute, extending the middle class tax cuts would wipe out...

Stacks rates and not through closed deductions. same deal but the president is sort of fixated on the rates thing. >> he will get the rates. all he has to do is take us over the rates and he will get the rates. they will go up on everybody. hes not afraid of that because then he will say i will go in and cut taxes on the 98% that make less than $250,000 and i will restore some of the defense cuts made by the sequester. i will be -- the obama tax cuts will replace the bush tax cuts. >> do you thi...

That extreme hostility in his first term because he didnt do some of the basic, you know, meet and greet stuff that actually is the job of a political leader. hes making up a little bit for that now. >> do you think the white house can stand its ground on this? if we get past the fiscal cliff and republicans are attempting to take this to the brink, do you think despite what president obama says, they have the capacity to say, listen, if you want to pull the pin on the grenade, you do it, but we...