Guaranteed failure. We hope within the scope of these conversations we are able to move the ball forward. They will have to decide what the scope is. How much we want to fight off and shoe as part of these negotiations. That will be one of the early decisions we try and reach. The good news is that we hope that our republican colleagues have learned the right lesson from the debacle we just went through, unnecessary pain. It did not have to be that way. We are hoping that our colleagues will put down the clubs and recognize that this negotiation should be between the two budgets and no one should try to gain advantage again by threatening to shut down the government or default on our debt. If we can put down the clubs and have a serious conversation, maybe we can advance. Murray,re calling pat saying that you are going to look for Common Ground. Common ground is different than compromise. When of the areas where there might be Common Ground is to try to get rid of some or all of these across the board cuts in the pentagon or every domestic agency. Is that probably what were looking at . What are democrats willing to give up in order to alleviate sequestration . We have to decide what the full scope will be. Part of any conversation would be to try to replace the so called sequester. These are the very deep and , importantboard cuts investments like transportation, science and research. The Congressional Budget Office recently said that if you keep those lower funding levels in place, that five this Time Next Year you will have to eat hundred thousand fewer jobs in the United States of america. That is a selfinflicted when we do not think the country can afford. We want to replace the cuts with an equal amount of deficit reduction but done in a smarter way over a longer time. You do not have the immediate drive on the economy but you do get the benefit of longterm deficit reduction. There are a number of proposals. I put one for that would replace the sequester this year with a combination of targeted cuts. We should also get rid of some of the tax subsidies. That is just one example. You mentioned republicans having said that revenues might not be part of this conversation. I hope they do not take that position. Hear a speaker banner saying we want to negotiate on everything but we took something off the table. That is not the way you come to a negotiation. Hard for people to understand how the republicans care about the deficit and debt but then say they refuse to close a single tax loophole for the purpose of reducing. Question,is begs the can you accept an agreement without additional revenue . Lets decide what the scope of this is. We believe when youre talking that replacing sequester you should take the balanced approach. We should be able to close some tax. Can you accept the agreement without additional revenues . It totally depends on what we are talking about. It depends on what the scope of the agreement is. If youreview that talking about moving forward with any significant longterm deficit reduction you have to consider. We believe you need to implement, cuts. I would just post the question to our republican colleagues. Saying whater is so precious . Are you interested in protecting spending on the national defense. Those are questions they will have to answer. You and i talked about a month ago. You always had a Good Relationship with chairman ryan. You are quite frustrated before congress came back. The relationship seem to be not what it was. Personalof that feeling get involved here . Will you go back to that relationship or have you become so distrustful that it will make difficult to break the ice . We are not distrustful. A working relationship. We have very deep differences on these fundamental policy issues. If you were to come to a hearing, you would hear this difference is expressed in a very simple manner, sharp on the issues but very simple. We are determined to try to get an agreement. One of the first orders of business is to decide what the scope of the discussion and that agreement should be. That will be something we try to determine if the next several weeks. When will you be sitting down next . How often would you sit down . Meeting onur first thursday morning. We had a great discussion in terms of laying out our commitment to trying to make this process work. ,n terms of the next steps those are decisions to be made by the chairman of the Conference Committee. In this case by rotation. That will be paul ryan. We expect to have a meeting a week from now. We will have to decide what the pace of the meetings are. You can have meetings of the full Conference Committee or some subset in order to get things done. You have a december 13 deadline. That is right. It sounds like a long time. Rapidly. Es very i hope you will make productive use of it and hope we get right down to the meat of the issue. Islet me follow up on what on the table. Is the Affordable Care act on the table . Budgets, aook at the lot of things are on the table. The scope of this conference is republican budget. The republican budget gets rid of the Affordable Care act. I should say it gets rid of the good parts. It gets rid of the benefits. It only balances in 10 years because they kept all the medicare savings. When republicans say they want to get rid of the entire acts, if you did that it would not budget. The answer to your question is scopehere is a very wide potentially for this conversation. Going to bees of accelerating job growth. That really has to be our focus, getting the economy moving faster. That means making sure we invest in our infrastructure where you continue to have high levels of unemployment and we have huge unmet needs. We do believe we have to replace the sequester. Whoe are many republicans agree with that. It is a drag on the economy. That weve to the extent think we should tackle longterm deficit reduction, e need to do it in a balanced way. That is the approach every Bipartisan Commission has recommended. There are also cuts to special interest experts. President obama scored a overy significant victory the republicans. Republicans wanted the confrontation over reopening government and increasing the debt ceiling. They thought increasing the debt ceiling was such an important piece of legislation that they might be able to barter and get something for it. This sets a that precedent, what happened this week, in which we will not see this kind of governing anymore . They may have learned that about the balance of power when you have the president of one party . That is a really big question. Think we are ever going to persuade the Tea Party Caucus , this really reckless group, that they should not try again to shut down the government or should down the debt ceiling. The question is like other leaders in the house. Are they going to step up and try to forge bipartisan compromise . They just commissions and report saying since the 2010 elections nineost the country hundred thousand jobs. These are selfinflicted wounds. We really hope they will get beyond that. That will depend on the leadership stepping up. One thing they could do is show that they are going to allow democracy to work in the house. Have this on october 1 and the house. It would have the same outcome. The speaker refused to let the house work its will on Immigration Reform. Bipartisan bill sitting in the house. If only the speaker would let its dust would let it go. It may be one of the lessons here for the country will be to ask the speaker and let democracy work its will in the house. Do not allow this faction to block things which caused us six days of unnecessary pain in this country. And they are blocking Immigration Reform bill. Lets get on with the business of the country. Democratic leaders have said we are willing to talk about the Affordable Care act, reopen the government and we will talk. What areas of the Affordable Care act would you be willing to talk about . Were going to look at adjustments as necessary, as they come up. If there are specific areas where there are identified problems, we are happy to look at those. There are some questions about family coverage. There are some very specific, discrete issues we would like to work on. The challenge we have had is that while we want to work on our colleagues, their objective has not been to try to improve the Affordable Care act. Their objective has been to wipe it out and defunded. They have made a conscious effort not to work with us to fix it. That has been the problem. Issues, specifically what family issues which you consider discussing . There is an issue with respect to if you get coverage through your employer, whether that employer covers an individual who is employees or whether that coverage also affects other members in the family, it has to do with the percentage of income people are supposed to spend on their health insurance. These are very specific, granular issues. They voted 47 times and the house to read peel obamacare. We would like to sit down and work on issues in the spirit of the working of the law. Want torea republicans do is repeal the medical device tax. Would you agree . Members had different positions on this. I do not think we should repeal it. It would at 30 billion to the deficit. It was curious to hear people talk about increasing the deficit and debt in the context of lifting the debt ceiling. Unless somebody has a much better way to adjust the deficit, i do not think there is a good reason to replace it. That will certainly be part of the conversation. All those things are within the scope of the budget Conference Committee. The other thing that is important to remember is the medical device tax, the rationale was that you were going to have a lot more insured americans that can now afford health care and afford to be covered with medical devices. The medical Device Industry benefits from the Affordable Care act. There are a lot more people now that can have the coverage to pay for medical devices. That was the whole rationale. There are lots of people that would like to go back and get a special benefit for themselves. Me there needs to be a policy rationale. Prior to being the top chairman ofu were your partys Campaign Committee for a couple of cycles. One cycle you rode a wave coming in and the next you rode a wave going out. Politicalt on your hat and tell us your assessment of the midterms . I know it is early. There is a lot of worry there has been so much gerrymandering of districts, in fact he participated one in maryland, in fact, you participated in one in maryland, that people are. Ocked into solid seats the president s party typically loses seats in his sixth year in office. Give us your take. To be clear on maryland. , mystate Legislature District that more republicans. I do not draw the lines. I would be happy to have more constituents. Sad to lose my old. There is no doubt that the way the lines have been drawn around the country create some advantages for republicans. We all know they lost the popular vote for congress but ended up with more members of congress because the wavy lines were drawn. If you look toward the next election, i think people are looking at this house of i do believees this unnecessary pain, because get whatsion to try to they won it by looking down the government, i do think a lot of americans have looked at that and said we do not want any more of that going forward. We want people who are willing to work together. Republicans are going to have to decide for themselves how they want to conduct business in the house. One way to show they are willing to act on a bipartisan basis is to take of the Immigration Reform bill. The overwhelming majority in this country support it. The majority support the farm bill. That would be a way to show that they really want to govern from the center for all america and not bowing to the tea partys actions. The leadership of your party in the house is in their 70s. Theyre not going to be there forever. Youre in your 50s. You may be there a while. You have aspirations to be the democratic leader or speaker sunday . I am focused on the Budget Committee. The future what holds. I want to take you back to politics. In swing districts, would you advise Democratic Candidates have obama or joe biden ended the campaign for them . I think our candidates would welcome the president and the Vice President. Everyone has to make their own decisions on that. Me message they have been large parts ofth the population, including people in these districts. If you look at the president s budget, the kind of investment and jobs and education and trying to get the economy moving is exactly what people are looking for. I am hoping we can move forward. His number hit 41 . That does not show an overwhelming approval for him or his policies. How do you read the 41 . Have been a whole lot of polls recently. They have shown the president s as the congress has shown even greater and greater dysfunction. You have to measure these things in relative terms. Everybody has been sinking in terms of public support. The president is held in much higher regard. It should be a small comfort to that you are just less unpopular than the other folks. This is an opportunity for congress to rebound a little bit. On the speaker making a decision not to allow the Tea Party Factions to continue to have disproportionate influence, to continue to lead the house of representatives by the nose. You cannot have a situation where senator kruse says something and the speaker reverses himself on an agreement he made. Lets move forward on these bills. Immigration reform, the farm bill. Hoping to get into some of the specifics that you are dealing with. When youre on the ofercommittee, you had a lot circular negotiations. There is this nonhealth savings. The Committee Said it is ready to go. Are foryour once security costs. Youyou talk about when start putting some of these ideas together and you bring them out to the public or to your colleagues, arent they really going to take a look and say this is going to be harder than we think . On the one hand, people say it should be easy to find all sorts of savings. When he began to look at specific areas, sometimes it becomes more difficult. As part of the budget control act, we did cut 1. 2 trillion the discretionary spending, the things most people think of as ongoing government expenditures, national parks. That was a very generic cut. Right. It was not specific. It was taking out of projected spending. They are the places were say were going to have to make these decisions. With respects to the appropriations process, that is exactly we want to get to. Set the levels that they can work with. Level was sonding low that the House Republican chairman said we need to get rid of this sequestered. Unable to pass the transportation bill because it included such deep cuts to projects. They could not even vote on the education bill. It would impose on Scientific Research and education. In terms of other areas of the which, i mentioned one are the agriculture subsidies. These are excessive payments. Insurance is a very reasonable program. Overly on. En they are subsidizing the pain. Here is an example of what we call a mandatory program. With respect to federal the budgetas part of conference, we actually did change the law so that they for acontribute to he significantly. On one area that has been hit is the federal employee area. I want to turn back to politics. Attorney general gensler has had a broccoli rocky week because he is being called a backstreet influencer a backseat driver. He said these reports are exaggerated and denied many of the allegations. Just keepsmbeat that going and going. You know him very well. Assess the impact on the gubernatorial campaign. It is hard to tell. It is still relatively early. There are three terrific candidates in this race. I think they would all be good governors. It is hard for me to judge these things. Campaigns do have their ups and downs, the ebbs and flows. As you travel to montgomery county, what are people saying . In the last few weeks people have been talking about nothing but the government shut down which i certainly understand. They have had to weather a real country. Oughout the it has been particularly intense. Thank you for being our newsmaker. We appreciate your time. Thank you. We are back with our reporters, Andrew Taylor and david lightman. What did you hear from the top democrat on the House Budget CommitteeBudget Committee as they go into negotiations . Same thing i heard thursday at the press conference. They are negotiating. It is talking. Isnt it great we are talking to each other. We did not expect it to say here is where we give. I was not interested in the comment about the Affordable Care act. They got a little bit specific on issues. Areas of some discussion. No one is going to blow it apart. There is potential to talk. What does that mean . Look at the republican conferees. They all voted no, correct . Is there another fight brewing over the issues . I do not think we will see another shutdown. I do not think the debt limit is going to be as dramatic or as much of a crisis in the future. There is a lot of pressure because they do want to get rid of some or all of these across the bed board cuts. This is the public forum to do it. There are people more senior that will have the final say. Is not a lot of it therey can find searching for Common Ground. It is a relatively limited set of options. Be pressuree will on democrats to care more about the sequesters effects on domestic programs and you will not be able to get a tax increase out of this. You see what they are working on really is about sequestration. The politics could end could get interesting. Democrats now are all in on t