did the president have an opportunity to bring you guys the house democratic caucus into this discussion earlier? that he let go by? or did you folks tell him, no, we're not going to negotiate with those people? >> no. i don't think there was expression by us that we would not negotiate. again, there are a lot of things in the president's package to grow the economy, to grow businesses, to encourage people to invest, to give them breaks on investing and buying capital products now rather than later. giving them a tax benefit in the short term. so there were a lot of things in there the republicans wanted that both parties can support. however, our position was pretty clear on -- and the president's position was pretty clear that we didn't think that freezing taxes on the upper income which would make the deficit worse, but not grow the economy, was good policy. there was no refusal by us to