entitlements. social security, medicare. but that was the republican party pre-november 2017. the republican party now of donald trump, you know, his main promise is not to cut entitlements. what this does is highlight how little room the new president has to play with in order to meet his campaign promises of protecting entitlements as well as increasing spending on infrastructure. shepard: to put a point on it, the biggest drivers of debt in america are not military spending or anything else that you ve heard about. the biggest drivers are social security and medicaid. it is president trump that said while campaigning and reiterated since becoming president, that he s not teaching either one of them for anybody. so if you don t do that, you add spending for healthcare and add spending for the military and cut taxes, the congressional budget office runs the numbers, this is before they replace obama care, this is just about
it might be used against them in the months and years to come should they seek re-election. that s part of the personal interest you have to calculate in looking at how they re trying to make a deal because many democrats also expect the threshold could go above $250,000 and thatd be okay with that. not all, but some. so there s a sense that once a deal is struck, everybody s got to live with it. pushing it as close to the deadline and trying to ring out as much for each side as they possibly can, is in part, because the longer a deal sits out there, the more it s criticized. if they can get as close to the deadline and maybe go over it, it changes the atmosphere politically about what can be done and about how the public will view it. if they reach a compromise and then people are sort of clubbed politically over the months and years to come, that s something that makes them very hesitant, especially if it s something that s as core in their various beliefs. whether it s preserving as
life and why time may be running out. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. the sinking feel is back on wall street. the breaking news this hour. all major stack indices with the dow down 500 points. once again, we saw dramatic fluctuations over the course of the trading day. one analyst says, and i m quoting, fear and greed are driving this frantic cycle of buying and selling and that s costing investors trillions of dollars on paper. joining us now, richard quest. what is going on in europe right now that could drive down wall street so quickly, so dramatically. tt markets are feeding on themselves. the problem in europe concerned france and fears that france may lose its own aaa rating. that has been denied by the rating agencies. and secondly some french banks may be in trouble. they came out and said rumors were founded, but it doesn t really matter in this market. the rumors were a toll was taken. europe fed into the u.s. the u.s. fed back to europe. and t
congress has until the end of september to come up with a federal budget and a new bi-partisan committee will have late until november to find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. potentially setting up another battle with the white house over taxes. mike emanuel is live for us in washington. what are the expectations for this so-called super committee. reporter: conventional wisdom is the top for members of congress will pick members who share the same priorities with leadership. the hope is they will act in the best interests of the country. take a listen to john mccain of arizona. i think it will be a serious battle, and i think that those of us are worried about this nation s security are going to have to fight hard to preserve a level of defense spending that preserves our national security. reporter: nancy pelosi says protecting entitlements, social security, medicare and medicaid is a priority for democrats.