Them, to hear people talk about them and let me go into an environment and suddenly find i like Honey Boo Boo and im watching its. I think that is a huge part of the experience and i think it is sold short. I still think a lot of americans love the enjoyment of escapism and being able to roam around the tv jungle finding things they did not know were there. Ice i think people still love discovery. Every month or every year, i hear some show people are suddenly talking about that i do not think you could have ever imagines choosing. If you said, i want you to choose Honey Boo Boo, or a certain Food Channel Network, i do not think i have to predetermined that was my preference. The ability to stumble on them or to hear people talking about them and let me go into an environment and babble around in that and decide, i sort of like Honey Boo Boo, i think that is a huge part of the American Television experience. I think it gets sold short. I think a lot of americans love the enjoyment of escaping and being able to roam around finding things they did not know was there. Michael powell on the future of television. Monday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Now, an update on the socalled fiscal cliff negotiations between capitol hill and the white house. From todays washington journal, this is about an hour. Fiscal cliff. Joining us here is Stan Collender and Douglas Holtz eaken. What is happening . What are the two talking about. Guest the nature of the tax increases, how much, and on the other side, what kind of entitlement reforms as the president willing to offer . That has been going back and forth for quite awhile now. There are talking about the same basic issues. Host one of the shore signs of action in washington, we have heard there is a possibility that they could come back after christmas. Guest i have been telling clients since september we were going over the cliff. I was not sure there was a sign it or coming back before christmas. This lastminute deal of some time, it could easily be approved the house and senate do not need to be here for this because it will not be the big, big deal. This is not the grand compromise they are talking about here there is not enough support to do the technical things. This could be a simple package they do at the last minute. Host even if the white house and john boehner agree to a deal, congress may not pass it. Guest that is my biggest concern. It is possible the speaker and the president could reach a deal, there is a significant portion of the Republican Party that would rather go over the fiscal cliff and have a deal. Host this is a very important change. A lot of people say, 1995 and 1996, the speaker and president clinton were able to cut a deal addicted to their caucuses what will happen. This is a different deal. He could say, if you do not like the steel, it is not clear to me if john boehner wanted the cops as they would take him up on the offer. Guest the parties are much more partisan and split. The ideological differences between them are much greater. The speaker is a little weaker than gingrich was before. The world has changed completely since 1995. Guest i would point out all the focus is on the house. How are you going to get it through the senate . Mitch mcconnell is in a tough position. Harry reid, he has some people who loves his job. He would like to be along with the progressives. I look at this and i worry because in the camp that believes going over the cliff the United States will enter a new recession. I do not see the basic associations on the house and senate side that would write the legislation and pass it. Host so far the markets of not reacted. Does that hurt the pressure of a congress often feels . Guest no doubt about it. Yes, i agree with it, this could be terrible economic consequences, but itwe talked ae now. Host i have thought a lot about this. We have seen what happens again to of these circumstances. There was a very sharp drop of confidence with economic consequences. If you look at the data that came out earlier this week, november, december, Consumer Confidence plunges. Markets are expecting things to get done. Oppressing a denture a deal. Leadership is an able to comfort a deal, we will see market volatility. You cannot go back. I worry a lot about it as well. Guest 9 have the markets not reacted as negatively as with of the wood. They are expecting a deal and pressing that in. It is likely to be a big drug generate second and third. I think that will come back. A lot of members of Congress Need to vote against this once so they can vote for it. They need to go to the constituents and said, i voted against it, but he saw what was happening. Your Pension Funds were getting hurt. We had to do something. Host we have been talking about the fiscal clef. Exactly what is it . The bush tax cuts will expire. The 95 apparel said to expire. The new Affordable Care act taxes will kick in at 18 billion. Spending cuts, we have been talking about it. The budget control act will expire at a cost of 26 billion. The medicare payments will be eliminated at 11 billion. We heard last week it is not a cliff. Guest i understand that argument. Were not going to pay off 395 billion of taxes on january 1. Instead, those things will take place over time. You might even delay their implementation. That is all true. It relies on the fact that households and businesses are myopic. They see as far as their toes and no further. If you do not have a deal, your taxes are going to go up. A lot of americans to not know a lot about the fiscal cliff. The confidence and a Market Reaction is very different than the spending cuts and tax increases. Here is the fundamental point. I could be wrong, it happened once. Why find out . It is irresponsible to govern the country this way. The sequester and across the board cut, it is bat policy. Everybody knows it is bad policy. We are very close to doing it. I find the whole situation unsatisfying. Host our phone lines are open and you can also send us an e mail. You work for a number of members of the democratic party. You work for the president. A question that comes up often is why there is a partisan divide. What has changed over the last 20 or 30 years . Guest we only have an hour so we cannot go through all of that. There are a lot of things. There are some extraordinary changes. Politics as a con tact sport is a substantial change from when i worked on the hill. They did not agree on anything, but they enjoy each others company. I have seen with my own eyes republicans and democrats refuse to get on the same elevator these days. As to how juvenile it has become. The parties are not as strong. There is a lot of independents relative to leadership. Things are not the same. Host what have you seen over the past two decades . Guest i think the quality of the staff level helps. I think that is the biggest difference between 8990 when i was at the white house for the first time and 2000. There are less opportunities for those skills now. Without the reservoir of expertise, you see members making mistakes, locking themselves into position and moving too quickly. Hyper partisanship israel. We know that. The enormous number of people are not affected by their votes. There will get reelected. The third, and i think the most important, there was a time the names that come to mind are Robert Reagan and clinton. This is what america needs. I have been elected by the americans, i am sending you legislation to enact this. That did Something Wonderful for congress. The cassette, i did not want to do this but the president asked so we are working on this. They could say, this bill was not perfect, but we fixed it. That Gave Congress cover to get things done that we have done seen since 2000. President s operated on the notion they should just provide principles. You need a president to be able to go to his side and say i know you dont like this but we will take care of this another way and the other side can say what is important to them. We need that kind of leadership. Host this is a photograph in the wall street journal. Go back to your earlier point. Bread there is a division between the president and the white house but also house and senate republicans. Senate senator Mitch Mcconnell did not endorse John Boehners plan last week. Guest in this case, youve got substantial differences in party outlook. The tea party was always stronger in the house. What will work for senator mcconnell was running for reelection now may not work for house republicans. Even if there is an agreement between Speaker Boehner and president obama, it is not clear it will be acceptable. Host david is on the phone from york, pennsylvania, republican line, good morning. Caller im calling from arkansas, actually. I am an attorney and ive tried to watch the actions of this president. I take into consideration the books he read and he uses the philosophers who taught him as he grew up. I really believe that based on the way he is trying that based on the way he has been trained, i think the president wants to go over the cliff because that will achieve the things he was buried he wants to break up the Republican Party. He wants to break its back and then he also wants to go over the cliff because he wants to have a financial crisis because if you look at the study, that is the only way he can really achieve the type of social and fiscal nonresponsibility he wants to achieve. That is break the back of the economy and then we have a crisis and then he will come in and fix it. It is a very socialist way that will be unacceptable to most americans accept the slivers of the American Public, the african americans, the people he got votes from, the leftists, the universities, and the people who love obama. Guest if you look at the situation and you take it from my point of view, they dont want to go over the fiscal cliff. No president wants two consecutive terms of recession. That would be a terrible way to implement your agenda. Is it really a danger to go over the cliff economically . Tim geithner said they are prepared to do that and i found that shocking. I think it is a danger that could be just politics. What are the consequences of going over the cliff . And the next question is are you trying to get a big deal in this situation . We have an enormous debt problem that is well recognized. We will have to have substantial changes and we dont have the option of not doing it but we could do it in the spring as opposed to december of this year. How much of that break problem do you import into this setting . Maybe they can get a small deal and get past the cliff and we will be back to this in 2013 and that will be the place where we see him trying to implement his agenda, not here. Guest i work for a think tank interested in domestic and Foreign Policy issues. Host how is k street dealing with the fiscal cliff and what does that mean for your business . My guest clients are more wall street. The uncertainty on wall street about what is going on here is astounding. The lack of understanding is ready a astounding. You will see many surprises and surprised people on wall street. I have been telling them since september that i thought we had a better than 50 chance of going over the cliff and they were shocked and and they are shocked now. Host what is that look like now . Guest is about. At some point this is about 60 40 host this is from David Humphrey guest he in effect did something very close to that. He put out a counter offer which was 800 billion in revenue raised on wealthy americans, an additional 600 billion in Health Program reforms, 300 billion in discretionary cuts, total deficit reduction of 2. 20 trillion and it was a carbon copy of a proposal that Erskine Bowles made to the Super Committee. The frustration of the republican side has been that the president started with the proposal and said i want 1. 20 trillion dollars in taxes and i want to get that deficit reduction. That means that as net spending of zero and it is stuck there. There has been nothing about a counteroffer that would allow negotiations to continue. To have the president missing in action on the senate side is a problem. Guest first of all, the bulls simpson plan failed. It did not get the required votes. The people who voted against it, the chairman of the ways and Means Committee and paul ryan, chairman of the budget committee, and Jeff Hensarling are still debating. There was not a and of support within the caucus. The amount of revenue is far in excess as to what can compared to what the speaker is offering. Bowelssimpson was not acceptable than and it will not be acceptable now guest it got 60 of the votes. It did not get the supermajority but it got a lot of republican and democratic support. The political construct was successful. It is not tax increases that are the key. It is in exchange for what. If you take that on, you have a different location equations. Guest how can you miss alan simpson . [video clip] stop getting on youtube and watching gangnam style and go sign people up on this baby. Take part or get taken apart. Or these folks will take apart the treasury before you get there. Host that has gone virus. Viral. He refers to the old coots will spend the money. Those are his words. Guest i really cannot stand that video. He just raised the stakes enormously. He is right, though. One of the most important about this issue is that people who are at risk are the kids. They are the next generation who will carry an enormous amount of debt and may inherit an economy that will not given a good standard of living. We are leaving behind a fundamental broken promise. We do not leave a country that is strong and prosperous as we inherited. Guest we need to distinguish between the longerterm issue about reducing the deficit and the debt and the Current Issue is the fiscal cliff. That would be the worst fiscal policy put in place since the Great Depression when we put an austerity policy in place to send and through the country back into recession. The idea that we have got into a debate as to how to reduce the deficit is wrong. We say dont reduce the deficit now this fast. That is what the fiscal cliff is all about and thats why ben bernanke cannot put the phrase. Guest as exactly right, we have two very different problems. The only reason were talking about the second issue is politics. This is the politics of the moment tromping economic common sense which is a dangerous combination. Guest the fiscal solution is a fig leaf to allow members of congress to say were going to spend so the spending cuts and tax increases and let the deficit be 500 billion higher. Host the debt is at 16. 30 trillion and has increased 4 trillion over the last four years. The present and congress will say that over the next 10 years, we will get it back to where was in 2009, correct . Guest that is fundamentally not good enough. Countries with our level of indebtedness grow more slowly and they have a higher chance of some sort of fiscal crisis. We should not mess with either one of those things. I would like to see an aggressive reform of the spending programs. With the spending programs to really see that not just get back to where it was, but also to start going down. That does not happen with the austerity imagines fixing Social Security. Right now a Social Security stay solvent because we promised in under two decades we will cut decade benefits by 20 across the board. An appalling way to keep the program solvent. We should fix Social Security so it stands and its own terms and is not cut benefits. There is an austerity involved it is doing the right thing for Social Security. Fixing the future debt and sending the signal that we can get our house in order. Does the things we ought to do in a heartbeat. Host this is from twitter richard is joining us on the republican line from new jersey caller thanks for taking my phone call. I think bobby jindal had it right. Anybody who is really a financial conservative or a radical Tea Party Member knows that the numbers do not add up. I know that i will be paying a larger amount of money next year. It does not go to my staff or lowering prices or purchasing equipment. It is up to a bloated bureaucracy. It affects future growth. 1 trillion over tenure sounds like a big no. But that is 100 billion per year but that does not make a dent. We have children and we know what the future will bring. I would like to have an honest discussion about the numbers. Guest richard is from new jersey with a self processed self professed conservative republican governor. For every dollar we spend, the deficit will go up. The numbers will get worse. In terms of the fiscal crisis, he mentioned that would be evident with Interest Rates. Guest you probably will see it in the equity markets first. Guest i dont think it will happen in december. If you go over the cliff we will see strong reactions in of we dont control the debt, the leading edge of this will be the International Ratings will be downgraded for the u. S. We have had one mark down so far. The problem is politics. They are it is too broken to address the problem. If we go through the honeymoon period of a new congress and we dont do something substantial, they will say these politicians are too broken to take on these problems. They could give us a substantial downgrade. Guest it is not clear what the right answer is for them. Going over the cliff would demonstrate that congress did not blank when they needed to make a substantial reduction in the deficit. Would they say not going over the fiscal cliff is a good sign . You should prevent the economic downturn but put in a framework for better growth.