outlook for 2014-2024 makes for grim reading. while the budget deficit is temporarily down to around 2% of gdp. this has been achieved by budge cuts that address social environmental needs. there s blame to go around on all sides. yes, the republicans have been intransigent in their opposition to higher revenues. but who was it that campaigned in 2008 to make the bush era tax cuts for all but 2% of households? who was it that signed the fiscal cliff agreement in january of 2013 after an election victory to make the tax cuts permanent for all but the top .5% of households? that was president obama. ouch. okay. joe, you want to take it or dr. sachs? yeah, i do. jeffrey, we all know and we re all saying, you and i were saying a couple years ago, all economists were saying a couple years ago that the deficit was
revolt? i voted against the farm bill because of the $20 billion cut but you had as you pointed out 60 republicans vote against it because $20 million wasn t sufficient enough. that does speak to the dynamics in the house. what s important to note is on three different occasions during this calendar year, john boehner has brought meaningful legislation to the floor, on the fiscal cliff agreement, then the superstorm sandy aid relief package and then the morrow bust violence against women s act that included protection for immigration community, lbgt community, that passed with a fraction of republicans supporting it. the question is does this fall into that pattern of legislative activity where, for the fourth time, john boehner can find the will and the ability to bring a bill to the floor that it s in the interest of the republican
hurdles to overcome. but on medicare and taxes, we start to see some common ground. it will have to be a lot more in the coming weeks to get any type of grant bargain. at the same time that there is more spending in this budget. we know how everyone feels about that, i assume. it s a tough pill to swallow. when we are trying to get cuts at the same time. the president says the compromises from the promising he made in the campaign include cuts to social security. how significant is that, bob? it s very significant. liberals are not happy at all with that social security reform. the republicans want more. raise medicare eligibility age. the white house says listen, you can t take the reform on entitlements. there has to be tax revenue that comes along with it. that is the rub. that is the difficulty in getting a deal. republicans say the president already got his tax increases earlier this year on the fiscal cliff agreement. aa long way to go. no doubt about it.
so we say let s tackle the deficit in a smart way, get people back to work and reduce it over a steady period over a period of time and our comes to balance at the same time that the republicans budget from last year comes into balance. on the issue of revenue, i believe your budget has about $200 billion more in revenue than senator murray s budget in the senate. why did you put that in there considering that republicans are so adverse to any new revenue? the budget we have in our democratic proposal. if you take it even together with the revenue from the fiscal cliff agreement, is still less total revenue, luke, than was embedded in the bipartisan simpson-bowles agreement. so we have less revenue proposed by that bipartisan group. we couple it with targeted cuts and reforms over a period of time. and if you actually look at the totality of the budget changes we made over the last couple of years, including the $1.5 trillion, we have a higher ratio
victim, and that s american taxpayers, the american middle class. okay. what do you think is going on there, joe? i think what s going on is that we have spent more money as a government over the past four years than we have in the history of the republic. added $6 trillion in debt. and we have just been on a keynesian spending spree, and the economy s contracting. the idea is, the federal government put some money in, and that s going to create larger job growth across america. it just hasn t happened. so the question is how long do we make this bet? robert reich writes about consumer confidence in the huffington post. the stock market is bullish because corporate profits are up, costs are down, the fiscal cliff agreement has locked in low taxes for most of the upper-middle class and wealthy, and there s no sign of inflation as far as the eye can see. but corporate profits can t stay