Page 38 - Deficit Problem News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Welcome back to "the ed show." thanks for watching tonight. a powerful group of ceos are giving advice on how to solve the deficit problem. they suggest cutting entitlements but say nothing about their own corporate welfare. here's lloyd blankfine taking aim at entitlements. >> you have to do something to lower people's expectations and what people think they are going to get because they are not going to get it. social security wasn't devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career. so there will be certain things that the retirement age has to be cha...

Send the signals of certainty to the markets and we are serious about getting on top of the deficit. that is what we need to get the economy going. >>neil: your colleagues are circulating a letter which they say hands off medicaid and medicare and social security. they are off the table. that is a huge chunk of our spending and getting to be a bigger chunk, how do you feel about that? >>guest: two things. you can't solve the problem, the deficit problem, without addressing entitlement reform. that is number one. number two, look, if you say we are not going to affect people who are 55 and old ...

We have to have serious tax increases. we have clearance spending cuts as well. we have to be fair. we have to rely on the middle class to take it to the front. >> does it make sense to raise taxes when the economy is so poor? >> it is a tough situation. we have a deficit problem that can create other problems down the road. we have to prepare for the future. the only way to do that is to have tax increases and understand we are in a tough time. so we have tax cuts for those who are making less money we will figure it out. the wealthiest americans have not paid their fair share since the bushe...

Arithmetic here. the country needs to make more money and spend less. are we going to see something dramatic, something bold happen? the constitution says we're supposeded to have a budget, but are we going to see more can kicking down the road? >> i think we'll see something. there's a question of whether we'll see a big fiscal deal along the lines of simpson-bowles or kind of see it grind it out, cut a bit, nip and tuck, along the lines of what obama and boehner are dealing with. we need, just to stabilize the debt, $2 trillion in savings. that's not the craziest lift we can do. we can do sa...

Largely, you know, republican districts and blue dogs retiring or getting defeated and that this hyper partisan congress of mostly newcomers will be there three years or less, are less likely to go along with the traditional arguments of the business leaders, jamie dimon and others, saying you have to do something about the fiscal cliff. this is more like tarp one when we look at the debt ceiling and some of the other things. depending on who is elected president. >> i think that's possible. and i do think there is some short-term risk about what the fiscal cliff could do to the economy. on th...