>> michael grunwald, good to have you with us tonight. thanks ofor being on "the ed show." erskine bowles and allen simpson introduced a new simpson/bowles deficit reduction plan today, even though nobody asked them to do it. the new simpson/bowles is worse than the old one. there is only $600 billion in tax savings less than what they proposed before. now there are cuts to medicare, medicaid and social security benefits. the ratio of cuts to new tax revenue is three-to-one. who voted for that? today bowles and simpson were interrupted by protesters as they tried to pitch their new plan. this is a proper response to the latest simpson/bowles proposal. >> pay your fair taxes. pay your fair tax. >> some cuts don't yield. we need good jobs now. pay your tax. >> let's bring in jonathan alter, msnbc political analyst and columnist for bloomberg view