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To have everything you just described in there. there's going to be something that gives. is means testing something you're open to? >> i would just say we whittled down our priorities. we don't have a big laundry list of 8,000 things. we have five things that i mentioned. and those things i do think will be in this bill, but probably for shorter periods of time, funded for shorter periods of time. and that is is the important piece we're getting at. i think you and i have all this means testing conversation. so much of the means testing we've done in america has been absolutely really not con...

Could be the idea of means testing, which is another word we use inside the beltway, people outside of it, somewhat irrelevant, the idea that you focus these programs toward the lowest income americans, right? reasonable option to you or is that a deal breaker? i get that's not your first choice. i get that's not your second choice. is it a deal breaker or not? >> it is reasonable for certain things. if you're saying that the earned income tax credit should go to working families and not the rich, i agree. if you're saying that the child tax credit should get phased out, it already is. we can ...

Let's not talk about the amount amount, let's talk about the policies because that's what's going to sell. >> they do talk about the amount, they do talk about the policy, like means testing. progressives have said that's not enough, but does it seem to you that's the direction that this is headed? >> i think we all have to compromise. we need 98.7% of democrats to agree on this. franklin roosevelt governed and presided over the new deal when he had 310-plus democrats in the house. speaker pelosi has plus 4 in the house and an even senate. we all need to recognize that doing nothing is not an ...

Because we want people to feel the transformational effect of these policies. on means testing, i would just say that the way that most means testing has been structured in this country has been an abject failures. it erects administrative barriers that prevent the most needy people from getting the very benefits. if you have so many qualifications that you can't even figure out if you qualify. second, it actually adds enormous administrative costs because somebody has to figure out if somebody qualifies or not. that takes a lot of money. third and perhaps most importantly, the idea that we ha...

Where we passed $15 minimum wage ten years ago is high cost of living, high housing costs, very dense, housing available, and childcare is like $2,800 a month. so two schoolteachers earning $68,000 are in the working class people -- contingent. so that is why we have to be very careful about means testing. i'll also say that means testing is incredibly bureaucratic. it takes a lot of administrative work and sometimes it actually costs so much and is to complicated that the very people that need to get the benefit are dissuaded from doing it because it is too complicated so let's look at all of...