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Honestly, the federal education department can close down for a week and nothing dire is going to happen. nih, cancer trials, you know, the whole d.c. government, veterans affairs, treating veterans hospitals, that's another question. so i think you can pick and choose for a while, but the key point, i think republicans can now play this into the debt ceiling negotiation. that has to be a negotiation. there are not 50 democrats in the senate who will vote for a clean debt ceiling increase. there certainly aren't 218 republicans in the house. at some point harry reid, mitch mcconnell, john boeh...

Strength of social security. it's not about balancing the budget. and so that's some of the concerns that some of our members have, why is this in this bill? >> as part of his proposal to replace the forced government spending cuts that went into effect earlier this year, another $400 billion for medicare and other federal health programs would be cut as well. i'm joaned by senior writer at cnnmoney.com and editorial writer at wall street journal. steven, president obama handed down significant entitlement changes. you actually agree with the president on this. he's moving in your direction. i...

Was open to possibly reforming social security and other issues. when aarp and others came in, it was a very tough negotiation, and i can only imagine the left members of my party who will be more vocal in terms of opposition. the president will have a tough deal. he's right to compromise, that's the name of the game, but it's tough to do when you're talking about such a big deal involving so many components. >> matt, according to "usa today," the gop wants to save money in social security and medicare programs without raising anymore taxes. obama's open to search entitlement changes as revenu...

Compromise plan. what if the republicans take it as a starting point for negotiations, not the final plan? that's a risk, but i think the white house has calculated that the only prospect for getting a kind of grand bargain that would include entitlement changes and some of the tax hikes they want is if they appeal to these more moderate republican senators. the president puts out his budget on wednesday. that night he meets with a dozen of these republican senators over dinner. if there's going to be a deal to be done, watch that dinner. >> i want you both to weigh in on this because we were ...

Proposes entitlement changes there are people on the left and progressives like yourself and others who are going to get very upset and angry about why re with doing this, especially if the republicans aren't willing to put real revenues on the table. so i have a hard time believing at that dinner last night, unless the wine was really, really good, that republicans were really proposing any type of serious revenues that would justify a credible discussion about entitlement changes. >> terry, are you surprised by the gop reaction? >> well, i'm surprised that it was actually as positive as it w...