When you have leaders of parties and people from the administration saying i think it will be to the advantage of the democrats to go off the cliff or i think it will be advantage to the republicans to go off the cliff or the president to go off the cliff, thats like betting your country. Theres stupidity involved in that. Willing to go over the cliff, i guess they are but they also dont believe republicans are going to go over the cliff. He can win politically but the costs, doesnt you agree, would be tremendous not only to him but to the economy and to our country. And we want to bring in and say good morning to congresswoman diane black, a republican from tennessee, a member of the house budget and ways and means committee. Congresswoman, is great to have you with me right now. As we speak, House Minority leader nancy pelosi is giving her briefing this morning. Weep put that up for everybody to see. When we talk about where we are in the staging of all of this, all the drama, the back and forth, the clock ticking, americans truly watching this, you think that the house would be in session today but you all closed up house day early, streamed out yesterday in a walkout. What gives . How do you explain this to the American People when they expect you should be at work trying to resolve this . Im not sure you would call it a walkout. Were waiting for the president to act. We have laid something on the table and we continue to be stalemated by the president and his administration. I am so disappointed that the treasury, geithner, said yesterday theyre willing to go off the fiscal cliff and theyre notle to negotiate and put something on the table. Weve put a good faith effort on the table and you know what, the president is the leatheaet lead. I expect him to be in washington rather than out campaigning. The campaigning is over. Its time to sit at the table with the leaders and thats what its going to take. Im very disappointing thats not happening. I want to play something that House Speaker boehner had to say yesterday. The revenues were putting on the table are going to come from guess who . The rich. Now, there are ways to limb the deduction, close loopholes and have the same people pay more of their money to the federal government without raising tax rates. Congresswoman, the New York Times reporting today that boehner is enjoying the broadest support he has seen in two years but as you know, a lot of conservatives are very angry over his giving any ground on revenue. Is the speakers leadership still strong in your estimation . I think it is. And i know that its a very tough position for our leader to be in. And especially tough when he cannot get the president to come to the table and in addition to that, we have the administration that keeps moving the goalpost. 2010 this very president said this is not the time when the economy is so bad to raise taxes on anyone yet now were having him say he wants to raise taxes on Small Business own thats are going to affect about 700,000 jobs. Is that really what we need to do in an economy where we have 23 million americans that are struggling for unemployment . This is the reason why we have to hold strong on this. The other this evening ng is we hear from the president on the other side of the coin. We have a spending problem in washington. Unless we get serious about talking about that, well never solve this debt crisis and fiscal issue. Congresswoman, i quoted the enough quinnipiac poll thats out, over 65 of americans degree that taxes need to be higher on those making over 250,000 a year. I know you like to say these are Small Business owners, these are the people that are going to give jobs to the American People, sure. But when we look at this as a whole and the mandate that was given as a collective voice with the president s reelection and he ran on the fact that he was going to raise taxes and now this polling supports the fact that americans want to see taxes raised, how can you stand there within the halls of congress and say thats not something that youre willing to do . I think thats a really good question but here is my question. If i say i want my neighbor to pay more than what i pay, i dont care what level youre at, youll always have that happen. I think what many of the American People are not aware of and that is how it is going to directly impact them and that is their jobs. These are the job creators. If the job creators dont have the money to put back into their company how can you have it both ways . If you say people are out of work and theyre unemployed and you say these are the job creators, these are the same bush tax cuts that have been in place throughout the last ten years. So how can you say that this is something that needs to stay in place if were in such a bad place yet you dont want to look at the idea of knowing that we need to raise revenue and do take an impact on our spending so we can balance the sheet of what the american book looks like. Exactly. And balance is the word. And thats the thing that were not talking about. Were talking about this raising taxes on that top 2 , which are the job creators, which will bring in exactly 8. 5 days worth of revenue. How in the world can you continue to just stay on that topic and not turn to the other side and say our spending is the problem . We cannot raise taxes enough to take care of 1 trillion worth of deficit spending every single year. So lets get off of this and get on to the other side and Start Talking about what we have to do to cut our spending, to reform those entitlement programs that are the debt drivers and then do progrowth tax reform that will stimulate the economy, get the money coming in. Its the best way to get money coming in and that gives everybody a job and helps to take care of the fiscal problem and balanced is what we need. Congresswoman diane black, thank you for joining me this morning. I appreciate your time. Thank you. I want to bring in our political power panel. Political reporter, karen tumult, karen finney and robert trainam. Karen, since i know you the best, im going to call you kfin as not to confuse everyone. It seems the taxes are going to go up on the wealthy. The question is whether or not its through the tax increases or closing the loopholes and the deductions. So do you think that we are closer to a deal today than yesterday if. I do. In that now theyre putting theres no pressure to put all the elements of the deal on the table. Karen and robert have been to a few of these rodeos as well the only way you great deal in washington is to be right up gangs deadline and were not quite there yet and also to have all the moving parts of the deal on the table at the same time. So procrastination rules the day then. We just got this breaking news that senator jim demint is going to leave the senate in january to become the president of the Heritage Foundation. Demint had been holding boehners feet to the fire on these tax cuts. Whats your reaction to that and this on the heels of reports that boehner is getting strong backing in the house . Let me start with senator demint. He always has seen himself as a movement conservative. I think what he thinks is he can make a much more significant and much more impactful difference outside leading this movement, ala at the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation has always been an incubator of ideas. Moving on to Speaker Boehner, this is a good thing that he has his caucus behind him. I remind you and the audience that has not always been the case. A lot of Tea Party Folks and other folks have never trusted Speaker Boehner but theyve given him a lot of leeway given the fact theyre united by this overall principle that they should not raise taxes on Small Business owners. Shouldnt it mean that you should stick out your term . Hes only two years in. He doesnt want to make a career out it have but why not stick around until youre done . I dont disagree with you. I find it disingenuous to your constituents that you did not serve out your term. I would have advised him to stay in his position but that isnt my decision. You have tim geithner and others saying theyre ready to go over the cliff, the curve, the bump, whatever it is. Does the president risk losing public support if he keeps playing this political game of dare double dare . No, i dont think it is. The president has said here is what im offering. Listening to those clips of john boehner and listening to the congresswoman, all of those talking points sound very familiar. They sound a lot like the arguments that mitt romney was making during the campaign that americans roundly rejected. For them to cling to that rhetoric doesnt make sense. Theyve had time to make their case and theyre losing American People. The president has been very firm from the beginning, hes been very consistent across the board with members of congress, the business community, progressive leaders, you name it, all the different folks hes brought in to talk about this, hes been very consistent. Hes not playing a game and i think you got a taste of that yesterday in his remarks to the Business Roundtable. Hes not kidding. Hes put some serious things on the table, hes put his plans out there, its balanced, theres spending, hes willing to make a deal but he is not willing to have any kind of conversation that does not include raising rates and hes unwilling to put raising the debt ceiling in as part of this package and i think hes not going to move from that. Lets look at the examination thats going into the strategy coming from the white house. Rich lowrie calls the president s strategy operation humiliation with stage one being to dispatch guyer in to the hill with a laughable offer, stage two, watching republicans squirm, squabble and panic. Since the polls show that the public will blame the republicans, the president and the media will paint boehner and company as, quote, hideous extremists who hate the middle class. Is this what were watching play out right now . What the white house learned during the first term is that there are some things that work for obama and some things that dont. Sitting down at a table with john boehner as essentially equals did not turn out as well as they might have hoped with the debt ceiling talks in 2011. But what did work was that winter when the president went to the country and argued for extending the payroll tax holiday and developed pressure outside of washington, he was a lot more successful. So they have two goals here. One is to keep the pressure coming from outside the beltway and the second is to make sure that this is not a negotiation between the president and boehner, that they want the president essentially floating above this. Robert, when we talk and i know you had a chance to hear what congresswoman black will to say about trying to find the right balance here, while a majority of americans, say they go completely support raising taxes on wealthier americans, there is also a majority support that says we dont want to see earned benefits messed with, we dont want to see the medicare eligibility age raised, we dont want to see these entitlements cut with medicare cuts. When we hear that, is that basically not getting in the ears of what John Boehners caucus has in front of them right now . Theyre just not paying attention to those facts on the table . Youre exactly right. Its not reality. The simple math doesnt add up. I use the analogy, its like going tos an fast food chain and, theres calories involved in that, you might gain a little bit of weight. Not if nobody sees you eat it. At the end of the day you know what you ate and youre going to gain the weight. The fact of the matter is its simple arithmetic here. When you take a look at entitlement reform that, is the real driver here to bring down our deficit and to bring fiscal sanity back to washington, d. C. As it relates to medicare, as it relates to social security. Thats the real conversation that we as the American People need to have around our kitchen tables. An interesting note to point out amid this debt crisis going on, new Jersey Governor Chris Christie is at the white house asking for more aid in the aftermath of hurricane sandy. The president is going to ask congress for 50 billion. New jersey and new york will no doubt want a big slice of that but Disaster Relief is being held hostage by the fiscal cliff. How much pressure does this additional pressure put on republicans, seeing Chris Christie show up at the white house knowing that he needs money for his hardhit state . Its a tremendous amount of pressure. Part of what the strategy of think of what were see hearing is the republicans are becoming increasingly isolated. You think about the discharge position. Essentially even if they dont sign on to it, the point is theyre going to own this mess. Theyre the ones who are seen to be, as the public suggests, not willing to make a deal. It is not unreasonable. Weve all seen those horrifying images from the devastation of hurricane sandy. Its not unreasonable the governor of the state of new jersey would come and say i need help. Americans are going to see that. They see the republicans becoming increasingly sort of isolated and, again, it becomes this question of why are you holding the rest of us hostage for the top 2 . So the problem for the republicans is they dont have a lot of good options at this point to get themselves out of this corner. Our power panel, my thanks to all three of you. I really appreciate your time. The fiscal cliff concession. 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With 26 days to go until the country falls over the fiscal cliff, are we seeing some shift in the gop opposition to the president s plan . The president spoke with House Speaker john boehner by phone yesterday. It was their first conversation in a week but neither side would characterize that conversation. They agreed not to talk about it publicly. There is this, though, on the front page of todays washington post. Many gop centrists and some conservatives are calling on House Speaker john boehner to concede on rates now while he still has leverage and shows concern. Ed, as we dive in on this post article, it goes down to points out the republicans do want something in return for this. They want to have some wins in this fight. Perception is reality in washington, d. C. And across the land. So if they can give something that looks like, okay, we got a couple things out of this. But thats really not going to be the case when we look at the whole big picture, unless they do that two step, which is get the 98 out of the way and maybe fight over the next eight weeks before the debt ceiling debate. Well, this is where i think the white house needs to continue to put the pressure on boehner, saying that were prepared to go over the cliff. Keep in mind theres no mortal sin committed here if we do go over the cliff because this is an expiration of bush tax policy passed if 2001 and 2003. The president is willing to accept 98 of bush tax policy just to get a deal, okay. If we go over the cliff, it clears the slate and gives the obama team an opportunity to come back and really focus in on things better for the middle class. Boehner knows this. This is why boehner is now coming to the table saying, all right, we cant do the cliff thing, well get the political hit for it and well also be in a bad negotiating position. But he has to identify where the moneys coming from. And its got to be rates. I get a sense in washington that the democrats have drawn the line in the sand on rates. If you cant get rates, you cant get anything else. Boehners going to come out and identify a bunch of deductions. Thats not going to be enough. You got to go the rates. Once you do the rates, Everything Else might fall in place because do i think the white house will negotiate. I want to go over the stakes of all of this just for the average american family, if we do go over the cliff, about 90 of households would end up paying almost 3,500 more in taxes and one in five action pai taxpayers would have to pay the alternative minimum tax, which would mean an increase of 3,700 more of what you already know and those on unemployment it would drop from 99 weeks to 26 weeks. They say theyre willing to do this. Is t