This morning my question, what in the world was Justice Scalia talking about . And just thinks that people are making out like bandits. And once again, Congress Plays lucy to the american peoples Charlie Brown. Good grief. Good morning, im melissa harrisperry, and today, it is saturday march 2nd. Remember last saturday when i said that in less than a week 85 billion of automatic spending cuts would begin to take effect, and spending cuts that no one wants and leaving americans to take furloughs or job layoffs . Well, happy sequester day, because the sequester is here, and it looks like it is here to stay, because even though the congressional leadership met with president obama at the white house yesterday morning, nothing came of it. Both camps came out with the same talking points they had when they started the meeting. Republican House Speaker john boehner moseyed on out of the white house with the same ole same ole to offer. Make it clear that the president got the tax hikes on january 1st. There is a discussion about the revenue in my view is over. It is about taking on the spending problem here in washington. And even though he heard it all before, president obama gave some of the republican delegation the benefit of the doubt yesterday. I do know that there are republicans in congress who privately at least say that they would rather close tax loopholes than let these cuts go through. I know that there are democrats who would rather do smart entitlement reform rather than let the cuts go through, so there is a caucus of commonsense up there on capitol hill, but it is a silent group right now. Of course, we are well past common sense. If we have learned nothing else from the debt deal showdown, the fiscal cliff and now the sequester, it is that putting together a fiscal plan for one of the largest economies in the world apparently has nothing to do with common sense, because here is common sense. Common sense tells you that when someone holds out a football, you kick it. When they pull it away just as you are about to swing the leg, you might be a little bit more cautious the next time they hold the ball out for you, but we, the people, each have a little bit of the Charlie Brown optimism in us, so we say, hey, okay, lets take another shot, but when once again we are about to kick the ball, they snatch it away. It is safe to say that we are never going to get to kick the ball down the field. Lets not forget that the sequester, itself, was the punt of the punt from the original punt in the 2011 when congress and the white house finally made a socalled deal on the debt ceiling, and as the president reminded us yesterday, none of this was even necessary. We are here for American Families who had been getting battered pretty good over the last four years and just starting to see the economy improve, and businesses just starting to see some confidence coming back, and, you know, this is not a win for anybody. This is a loss for the american people. So see that is the conventional wisdom here, that just this week there were several signs that the economy was continuing to recovery, and a revised estimate by the u. S. Commerce department that showed that the economy expanded slightly in the Fourth Quarter last year, and we learned that the number of americans seeking Unemployment Benefits fell by 22,000 and the dollar gained strength, but of course, the longer the sequester lasts the longer the gains could be rolled back. That is the common sense approach to politics. That is the rationale that makes you think that in a deliberative democracy that opposing parties could be convinced by the process of sharing information and exchanging data and listening to one anothers argument, but the only argument that sways toward cooperation is if the position is a political liability, that good old fear of losing their jobs. But it looks like even though the political leaders packed up and went home this week without doing their jobs, it looks like we are the hardworking Charlie Browns in this country, because we are going to end up on our butts. With me is amy walter, Senior Editor of the cook political report, and tom shapiro, director of the institute of assets and social policy at Brandeis University, and heather mcgee, advicer of Public Policy and demos. Com. And ed ppakskey, because he brings doughnuts and is our favorite mayor. Yes. And we are talking about everything across the board and every single thing is going to be cut and not with any reason, but just because we manufactured a crisis. Amy . Yes, we are good alt manufacturing the crisis. Why . Why . I appreciate when the president came out to say, there is a silent caucus of reasonable people up here. Actually, there arent. There are not reasonable people. They are not just silent, they are just not there. They are gone. They used to exist ten years ago and there were democrats who would vote who were moderates, and there were republicans who were moderate and over the last few years starting in 2006 and then going through the redistricting of 2011, they are gone. 96 of democrats sit in districts that barack obama won. 94 of the republicans sit in districts that mitt romney won. There is zero incentive for them to work on the other side. Why would they do that . They are saying that the constituents are telling them to stay strong, and they are not lying, because the constituents look like the party they represent. Well, there is a point when the constituents want something to be done. I want to listen to the president , and at one point the reporter asked him a question, and asked him, can you actually sequester congress and make them sit in a room unthil is doil al is done. And this is the president s response. Couldnt you just have them all down here and leave them in the room until you have a deal . Well, you know i mean, jessica, i am not a dictator. I am a president. So ultimately if Mitch Mcconnell and john boehner say that we need to go to catch a plane, i cant have secret Service Block the doorway. Okay. Heal heather, i get that, but i mean, i change flights, and we are talking about 75 and 100 fee to change the flight, and the president has his own plane that he could lend to the speaker, and are you saying it is fine to say, i have to get on the plane, and at what point must they do the jobs . The problem here is that you are right, amy, it is true that the districts are really polarized, but what has happened is that it is not left right issue as washington issue, because even the republicans in the republican districts want balanced approaches, and want tax increases as well on the wealthy and closing the corporate loopholes and this is a common sense thing that even the Republican Base wants burk when you the beltway bubble which is surrounded by thousands of lobbyists and the donor class setting the agenda, the real division is between washington and us, and not the democrats and the republicans. And rick scott, the republican of florida said this, and i want to listen to this, and then, tom, i will have you respond to this. Well, we dont have him saying it so i will say it. This is rick scott saying that the impacts on floridas military installations and Defense Industries will be severe under sequestration, and our immediate concerns include dramatic reduction to the National Guard which tlent thre our ability to respond to wildfires this spring and hurricanes in the fall. So this is a real. Well, we all hope that the nations business is more important than doing another Chicken Dinner on saturday afternoon somewhere else. But the governor starts to hit at what many people think will be the impact down the road that might change some of the balance on this, and that is as the cuts start to hit real people in their real lives, and they start to respond. I mean, we are seeing both very, very painful kinds of hits with this sequester. Those are the ones that the governor and others talk about, but im concerned about the invest. To future, so it is not just about what we dont have tomorrow, but it is about the nation and the families and the children will not have in the next two the three years. And those effects are cumulative and the dramatic impact at the moment, and it is cumulative and so lets look at the sequester cuts are, and respond, mayor. We are looking at more than a 1 million federal workers going on the furlough, and 800,000 Defense Department furloughs, and 70,000 students cut from head start, and 10,000 teachers cut, and 9. 4 cut to Unemployment Benefits, so we are getting a body blow to the economy that is starting to recover. Yes, it is estimated just in pennsylvania 11 million wages lost in the short term, and over 53 million if this goes on in the next year. It is real money in real peoples pockets that are helping to fund our economy. So it is going to have some real life impacts. For cities, it is devastating. We are struggling and stretched to the breaking point because of all of the other cuts that congress has made and many of the programs that are going to be cut are going to affect cities disproportionately where a majority of the revenue is generated for the economies nationwide, and u, you know, everything from education to, you know, housing for the homeless to flu shots. I was talking to my Health Director and we will have to turn over 1,000 kids from flu shots in a season that flu has had an enormous impact on us. And even more lost wages. With we want to stay on the topic of the real life experience, because here we are once again and i feel like Charlie Brown and i keep saying, okay, it is going to be better, and then every time seeing that football yanked away. So now when we come back, we are going to the beltway to talk about the issues that is real people suffering because of washingtons dysfunction. Hey, its sara. Im going pro. 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Layoffs and pay cuts means that people have less money in their pockets, and that means that they have less money to spend at local businesses, and that means lower profits, fewer hires. Quite straight forward as the president made clear on friday that the sequester means less money in american peoples pockets and the Ripple Effects of the cuts will be strongly felt at the state and the local level and the impact on one state, pennsylvania, will be millions upon millions and almost 48 million less in Education Funding and putting 360 teacher and teacher aide jobs at risk, and between 60 and 90 million in hud and housing lost to sequester. To bring some perspective to the huge figures the mayor of allentown pennsylvania who brought doughnuts an brought them today and there they are in the control room, because i am not eat iing the doughnuts, but the producers are, and look, we love you because you bring the doughnuts, but you also bring us the sense of what all of this means to ordinary people on the ground, when we look at the sequester cuts of the state budgets, and the state budgets, and 1. 3 billion including 1 billion to special education, and wic which is women and infant and Children Program which is 550 million cut, and also 15 billion decrease in the army, and 11 billion from the navy and 7. 7 billion from the air force. For us in allentown, it is going to be significant. Like i said before the break, we have flu shots and we are estimating 5,000 kids in pennsylvania will not be p aebl to get flu shots, because of the funds cut for health and human services. Meals on wheels, because of the nutrition programs and the se seniors have to go out the fend for themselves. It is just basic. And more will go hungry. Yes, go hungry. And School Funding 1. 8 in allentown and 100 kids not going to head start, and it is real Life Commitments and devastating over the long term, and the cities are struggling from all of the cuts that have been made in congress. This is only going to make matters worse. I mean, millions upon millions upon millions of dollars in pennsylvania alone not going back into the economy, how does this help us . Well, that is the question. How would this help . The one that i think that just i am just beside myself today, but the fact that we are already reducing the debt is the part that is really sticking to me. The fact that we are already seeing over a reduction of the debt that we are not in a debt crisis and not only manufactured crisis, but the reason for the manufactured crisis is also manufactured. How is this sort of set of false information so widely available that people believe that we have to make these kinds of cuts . So two things. First is lucy analogy. There is not a level of optimism, but there is also a fatigue out there, and you go on the talk about the cuts and the president talks about the cuts and how devastating it is going to be, and the public says, i am tired of it, and you say it every couple of weeks and what to believe, and that is why the public is not as engaged as the president thought they would be. And also the name sequester does not help. It is a bad name. Armageddon needs to be in there somewhere. Yes, march 1 is armageddon might have been better. Yes, a focus groups of moms in kansas city and a lot of them in the same boat struggling economically, and they dont care, because the deficit is nothing of concern to them. They talk about the daytoday live lives and how much it costs to fill up the gas tank, and i wrote about it the other day, one woman said, that i need to understand that people in washington understand my daytoday life and not all of this ideological battle, because it is not going to pay for braces. Well, tom, we had an election and people did make a choice between with the different possibilities, and they picked the guy in the senate and the congress and even though we tried to keep it that way, they voted for the people to raise the taxes on the rich and not make major cutts. So we had a National Election where some of the issues were in fact before us, and we had a conversation, and debate and people went to the polls and we made a decision as a nation. But wait a minute, sequester. A fancy word for lets redo the priorities and meet behind the doors and have a forced, a forced set of cuts today that become the structure tomorrow. I want the dig down on one little fact here. We are talk abhousing in terms of money. The translation is that about 125,000 families that currently have housing choice vouchers are going to lose them. And half of those families have a member that is either a person with disabilities or is elderly, and as a policy choice, i would like people to raise their hands if they think that is a good priority to make that kind of cut. That we will cut and balance this deficit that we are bringing down and doing it on the backs of those with disabilities and with the elderly. That is right. When i come back, i want to give you this more amy, because i want to ask you next not only what is going to happen next, but what happened to the outrage about the inequality that was part of the discourse that brought us to the election where i thought that we had made a choice about that, and in fact, we will talk about the one, the one thing that could save us, god. Here we come. Think ju etting rid of dark spots will restore even skin tone . 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