increases and deep spending cuts kick in at the end of december which could affect every american in this country. art laugher, former economic advisor to president ronald reagan with me today. art, good morning to you and welcome back. >> how are you, bill? bill: doing fine. thank you for your time. i look at some issues share with producers today. you say this is really serious and you underscore that. everybody considers it serious. you worked at the white house. you were in on these meetings. is this a forum for negotiation or is this -- what happens? >> it is a little talking to. they will both come in with their sides, their positions. there will be some sort of testing of the waters. we will see how responses are afterwards. we'll see aggressive play. then you will see which side starts giving in. we'll be following that in the next couple weeks. but obama has made it very clear, he believes he has a mandate but he really doesn't. he only got barely over 50% of the vote.