We had about 50 of what are called tax extenders. These are measures Like Research and development and energy that expired. My hope is we can get them reenacted probably. So we do not sacrifice important investments. And then use them as a bridge toward comprehensive reform. You mention the rmb and renewable issue. Are there other extenders that should be filled . My first choice would be to go to comprehensive tax reform rather than have to proceed with the extenders. The reality is, when the house leadership last november declared that obamacare was their primary issue, that changed the timetable. Im not going to sacrifice important missioncritical issues Like Research and development on the altar of some actions. Can you do that this year . It would be a big lift. A comprehensive reform package this year. But we can make headway. And you do pieces of it . My view is the tax code is like an ecosystem. You fluff it up over here. It fluffs up over there he read but two republicans over the last six or seven years have joined us in bipartisan efforts. In the 1980s, a great group of democrats got together with Ronald Reagan to clean up the mess. We can use this i covered that. They treated Capital Gains as ordinary income. Would you increase corporate taxes to cut rates . Would you treat Capital Gains as ordinary income . It is a different time. I would like to do more to get to parity between income from investment and income from from wages. Not totally but closer. What we did moves us in the right direction. Capital gains is a sensitive issue. We established an exclusion for Capital Gains, 35 . Above that, we treat it as ordinary income. If you were a schoolteacher, you did not take a big hit. That is your position still . Im going to start with that. We were able to find Common Ground with that. Can you do Business Tax Reform the way the president has requested without individual reform . We will look at that. Here is the challenge. Most businesses are not what are called c corporations. That is where their concern has been. Most are sole proprietorships. Do you think when you do reform, it should be a revenue raiser that contributes to deficit reduction . We had a breakthrough. We learned we could score a program of agenda as generating revenue. There would be a lot of pieces to this debate. I can tell you, al, this tax code is a rotten, dysfunctional mess. My sense is when we get through the extenders and look at them as a bridge to comprehensive reform, democrats and republicans can come together. When i look back at the history, there are only a handful of Democratic Senators that were around for the last trade promotion act in 2002. My colleagues want a chance to talk about the issues and examine the changes in global commerce. I will give my colleagues an opportunity to talk about these issues, talk with you administration and go from there. Your colleague rand paul brought a suit saying the nsa spying is unconstitutional. Do you support the suit . I am not up on the details of the suit. We have worked closely together on the issues. We both feel that the government ought to be able to collect information it needs when it needs it to protect our citizens. But the reality is, the idea of collecting millions of phone records from lawabiding americans does not make us any more secure. It undermines our liberty. I believe yes, it is unconstitutional to collect millions of phone records. Do you expect action this year on the Affordable Health care act . We will look at a host of issues with regard to administering it. Americans are enjoying real gains from it. I am pleased about the tough protections for americans to ensure they are not discriminate against. You think is working pretty well . We are seeing the numbers go up in recent weeks. We are seeing health costs abate. What i want to do is what i did with Medicare Part d. The bush program to expand medicare for prescription drugs. Work in a bipartisan way. You think you can do that this year . We will start with some hearings. The first thing we will do is have bipartisan hearing. I have indicated that i want to work in a bipartisan way. There are a number of groups that engage in politics and try to affect elections. The irs has proposed to restrict those actions. Do you agree . My republican colleague she and i have the first bipartisan disclosure bill. The issue is secret money and unlimited money. We have said, lets use the even stephen proposal. Lets apply the same rules to the nra as to the sierra club. If you should get a tax break, it should not be for politics. Will the irs rule changes affect that . It should be fair for both the right and left. Thank you so much. When we return, Jeffrey Goldberg. Welcome back. President obama said he would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone violating iran sanctions. What will we see, Jeffrey Goldberg . President rouhani has said they will not dismantle that has been the reaction across the board. They will not dismantle centrifuges. They are looking for creative ways to freeze the program in place. The actual american position is, we need to get iran so it is a year or more away from being able to build a bomb. We need to know so we would have up to a year to figure out what to do. In terms of the new talks, this is the main show they have huge incentives to keep the talks going. Even if no progress is being made. We are heading into the unknown. Let me ask you what the iranians are doing. They are threatening to send warships. There is internal oppression that has gotten worse. Does this reflect the different factions . We are talking only about the nuclear piece. The behavior has not changed on any other issues we have had problems with. Supporting the assad regime. Permitting unhappiness in the arab countries. Hanging people they do not like for being gay or insulting god. There is this feeling, and a lot of intelligence people including those in israel, are saying theres a more moderate faction. There is actual tension. It is not just a show. You mentioned syria a moment ago. The u. S. Has not gone as heavy as they might want to on syria. The theory is president obama has decided the most important issue is the iran nuclear issue. Get iran into some sort of compliance where they not a Nuclear Threshold state. Maybe the rest will follow. If you upset the apple cart by making demands about sponsorship of terrorism or engagement in iraq, you are going to ruin whatever chance you have of getting a deal on the most important thing. The president has said this is the issue. For him, there are only two Main National Security Issues in the middle east. The first is keeping al qaeda on its back foot. The second is preventing iran from reaching the Nuclear Threshold. This is the best spin i can give you. That means assad who everyone was saying is a goner is now more entrenched. He is our partner getting rid of his chemical weapons. On the al qaeda question, this has become a more serious challenge. The director of National Intelligence said some of the al qaeda groups in syria, one of them in particular, has aspirations of attacking u. S. Targets. The homeland. That changes the dynamic. Syria was previously in the humanitarian or catastrophe column. If the head intelligence agent is saying, these guys fighting it out in syria also have a desire to kill americans, but we are in another situation. There may be less of a presence in south asia. But they are not on the run. There is good reason why obama and does not want to be involved in the middle east. It is a swamp of overlapping problems. Overlapping challenges. Nothing good. It is all about damage mitigation. During the arab spring, we thought this was great. Now we are like, how do we keep things from exploding . Literally. How do we keep a lid on what is going on . Al qaeda core has been decided. Core al qaeda is not the issue. It is the splinter groups. We are losing control of that. None of them are good guys. They are not good guys. Thank you very much. We will look at the clean debt ceiling bill. And we debate obamacares latest delays. Welcome back. It was a big week for the Affordable Care act. We debate the latest numbers, but first, we avoid another washington standoff. There was a budget deal last december. Does this mean some things will actually get done . You dont hear much optimism out of the white house. They said, all paths to Immigration Reform are through john boehner. John boehner says it will not happen this year. Chuck schumer in the senate said that is more a political ploy. All the stories about john boehner, what a huge loser he was. I think he was a huge winner because he bailed the Republican Party out. The president was moderate in the state of the union. When do they reach the point that we have to lash away politically . They are trying to give john boehner the space to maneuver in his party. Right now it is on life support. Once it is presumed to be dead, then you will see democrats starting to use it for 2014. Barack obama has been in washington all week. They will meet this weekend in california. What do we look for substantively . This is the first of several meetings. Important items to discuss. He will meet with benjamin netanyahu. There are important issues from the nuclear talk to the stalled syrian peace talks. A terrible refugee problem. Important for the jordanians. Those talks are important. What does the estate offer that washington does not . A golf course, perhaps. It is hard to play golf at Andrews Air Force ace in this temperature. He issued the invitation, even though they were in washington earlier this week. Abdallah had 15 meetings. The 16th will be in california. It may be freezing in the nations capital. But it could not have been warmer at the state dinner. It was neat to see top officials and paul ryan. Partying on like everybody else. At my table, the faux pass were a great ice breaker. For the first course, they came out with a bowl with potatoes, caviar and quail eggs. 10 minutes later, they pour the soup into the bowl. Did you finish the caviar before the soup was poured . You can take a girl out of the press pool let me turn to margaret. There was a lot of news about obamacare. Another delay in the mandate. On the other hand, a surge of people in rolling. On balance, things do not look good for obama care. We dont know how many of those newly enrolled people have paid their premium. Beyond that, we know enrollment is skewing older. In the Affordable Care act it actually cuts medicare reimbursements, particularly for the Medicare Advantage program. Seniors will find themselves without the plan and the doctor they like. The worst may be yet to come. He just cannot say any good news about obamacare. They are so invested in the failure. December is a bad month. I barely combed my hair. Yet there was a surge in enrollment. The deadline is coming in march. People operate by deadlines. Let me switch to Chris Christie. He can still give a dominant performance, as we saw this week. One poll showed him 21 points behind hillary clinton. I think of christie like bill clinton. Stick with me here. Whitewater open his whole life to examination. That is what the bridge has done for christie. I dont think the bridge will get him in the end. I do think there is a question of how those federal funds were used for hurricane sandy. If he chose tourism and advertising to help his family. That is very serious. That will be the bridge too far for him. A bridge too far . I dont think so. We are two years away from the first president ial primaries and caucuses. If polls mattered, we would have president hillary clinton. We have a lot of time. There will be ups and downs. He is a strong contender for the republicans in 2016 Chris Christie is a strong contender for the republicans in 2016. I want to say one thing about the winter olympics. The one person i really revere that is bob costas he is insightful and candid. He has been sidelined. For the viewers, it has been a terrible loss. Bob, i hope you will come back soon. Thank you for watching. We will see you again next week. Political capital is a production of bloomberg television. In the middle of the mojave desert, one of the most storied cities in the world. This is las vegas. Where fortunes are won and lost. Where lives are made and destroyed. Where the house always wins until it cant. There is an awful lot of pain out here in las vegas. A lot of drama, a lot of stress, a lot of fear. One gambler preyed on the casinos in its weakest moments and walked away with more than 15 million in a single winning
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