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Concentrate on getting the economy back in shape. worry about the long-term deficit problem after we've got the economy in shape. >> well, if you believe that power point presentation that boehner put together in the summer of 2011, this has all been part of the plan. let's bring in the conversation congressman cedric richmond of louisiana. congressman, good to have you with us. what is this going to do to your area, cedric? congressman, what is it going to do to your area? >> well, it kills our area, to tell you the truth. in fact, part of the area where it hurts louisiana the most in terms o...

Deficit problem. it's not as if republicans are saying we don't want to have to deal with any of this. so just leave it to someone else. the question is can they overcome their pride? can they overcome the very short-term political calculations that they're making? and i think it's very, very difficult. let's face it with this house republican caucus for their own leadership to figure out what the common ground is among house republicans. and if you cannot negotiate for yourself, how are you going to negotiate with the other side? >> one of the problems, though, simon johnson alluded to, while...

These back-breaking jobs we have a hardship provision in there so they can still get it earlier. >> that, of course, was erskine bowles with alan simpson as his wing man. is that something you could sell in your district, 40 years down the road, one year on the retirement age? >> well, look, let's set aside social security for a moment because i think there's pretty widespread agreement that social security is not the cause of our deficit problem. we do have a problem related with health care related expenses, and so medicare and its sole vensy is something that we do need to get a handle on a...

A guarantee. there are other things in the discussion that i think the american people made fully aware understand what it means in their are daily lives. >> chris: you keep talking about raising taxes and talk about making the wealthy -- let me ask the question first. let me ask the question. you keep talking about making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. >> right. >> chris: the top 1% pay 37% of all federal income taxes. the top 5% pay 59 about percent of all federal taxes. if you took the total income of everyone making more than a million dollars a year and taxed it all at 100% th...

If you were to take every cents that everybody that makes more than a million dollars make, it's $726 billion which isn't even enough to close the deficit. the argument i make to her is you can't tax your way out of this problem. you have to cut spending. she says you know, we can tax a lot more than we are now and that the spending that needs to be cut is in different areas, but she certainly supports, for instance, in entitlements. she said you can cut -- there's a lot of waste in the system. a lot of excess money is going to the providers. she said you shouldn't raise the eligibility age fo...