0 those are the suvs that likely boehner, mcconnell, pelosi and reid will come out of. let's talk about the deal. what if there's a deal, craig, for, i don't know, say 4 hr $500,000 the threshold of who gets taxes and who keeps -- everybody under that number keeps their tax cuts. everyone over pays more and there's spending cuts. is that a bad deal? >> yeah. i think it is. let me tell you why. because you can't get everything out of this deal that you want and frankly, all we're doing is kicking the can down the road. you know as well as i do this does nothing to deal with the $1 trillion plus deficits we have yearly. this is the fifth year in a row, we're going to have $20 trillion worth of debt on top of $48 trillion worth a long-term liabilities by the time mr. obama leaves office. this is the time to deal with this issue. we've been kicking it down the road ten years. we promised the nation in 2011 under the budget deal with the sequesters we would not let this get away from us. we shouldn't this time. for mr. obama to suggest i've cut a trillion in spending because he saved money on the wars in afghanistan is gimmicks. they a work. >> i have to be honest, it's both sides. it strikes me these lawmakers on either side don't have a real fix to what we're looking at, the national debt, screaming out of control. we're going to exceed that limit on monday night. >> i wouldn't disagree but look at the facts. we did have a republican controlled congress that passed a bill. if reid didn't like the bill, let it go for debate. let his senate vote it down and say no, we're not going to accept these conditions. >> let me ask you this, then. interesting question. president obama gets his own deal, sends it over to the republicans, they have the same dilemma. >> well, they may. but i think you would at least see a fair dee beat. look, i think the average american realizes we have to cut spending. you know the numbers. >> craig, i have to ask you -- i have to stop you. i don't think they do. we ran a package yesterday, we sent the producer out on the street, showed people how much more they would pay in taxes after we go offer the fiscal cliff and they were like wow, i had no idea. where were you november 6 when you a chance to vote against doing that? i don't think the average american understands. >> they were listening to pimp with a limp and david letterman, a nice guy who knows nothing about economics. social security, defense, medicare, medicaid, the health programs and the cost of interest on our debt are the five -- four main drivers of our debt. five main drivers of our debt. that's not going to change. 50% of our budget. a little bit more when you leave defense in there. we have to cut spending. why won't the president say look, we have to cut spending. it's like social security. we paid in all these years. people paid madoff. >> you're 100% right. revenues go up every year but spending goes up more. craig smith, thank you very much. it's been almost a full hour, almost a full hour since the white house meeting started. ed henry at the white house on what we can glean from there. for an hour. we're 55 minutes into the meeting. is that a good sign or a bad sign? >> it could be a good sign. it's hard to tell but i will note previous times that the president had just speaker boehner over, those meetings would last 45, 50 minutes. now the fact we're getting on to an hour, maybe it will end in the next 30 seconds and my theory will be blown but if it lasts 30, 40 minutes more that would suggest it's going longer in the sense they're kicking proposal back and forth. the previous meetings between the president and speaker seemed seemed -- if this goes longer it's a sign they're trying to work it out. senator max backus said today this meeting is what will decide it. he put that much pressure on both sides. he said they're running out of time. the bottom line of what the president is doing, he's going through three points that are basically his plan c. he had plan a, the 4 trillion-dollar plan. that wasn't going anywhere. plan b from boehner. now plan c. unemployment extended for 2 million people and finally, as you just talked about, a small amount of spending cuts, enough to shut off the sequester. but not major kits. not major changes to medicare. that would be kicking the can down the road to next year. they're running out of time. final point is that a source familiar with the meeting on the white house side tells us that the president in this meeting is telling lawmakers if you don't have a counter to the three points i just laid out, bring my proposal up as the final plan for an up or down vote. a games manship from the president. we're running out of time so you have to vote on something. number two, if house republicans vote the president's plan down and we go off the cliff the president would blame republicans and say i had a plan, the republicans couldn't pass it. there's a blame game here. >> that's why he would do it. he can say i came up with a plan, you voted it down. it's not my fault. he can come back in january and february and say maybe we'll try something else. ed, a point, $250,000 and below are the people who would retain tax cuts. the house couldn't even pass a bill or proposal that had a million dollars and below. there's no way that one flies. do you expect these guys to come to cameras and if they do or don't, what does that tell you? >> before the meeting they told us they would decide after the meeting whether or not they came to the cameras. what that tells me is they're not sure if they'll have a deal. if they're further apart, they're not come to get cameras. that could tell me we're going anywhere. if they come to the cameras it suggests there's break through going on behind closed doors and they'll come out and breathe new life. in everybody rushes out, gets in the suvs and we show the camera shot from behind the fence and they rush out of here, it might suggest it's falling apart. >> by the way, if they come to the cameras and we get statements, we'll take those and come back to you. thanks for standing by. if there's no deal, are we looking at a major market selloff? the dow diving 160 points again today, now suffering the longest losing streak in three months. gerri, let's stay on the markets. this stock market since president obama and john boehner announced they did have a deal last thursday night, the stock market has been down, down, down. >> it's following every twist and turn in the story. you've got to figure that professional investors are watching and they know it means they're going to have a good quarter, bad quarter, good year or bad and it will impact consumer quarter. it's about the economy and how much money consumers there have. consumer sentiment is down. you found in the street that some people were saying i don't know how much money i'll be out-of-pocket. when they see this and they'll see it in the first paycheck, you'll see less money. i think there will be wall of shame. there's going to be big complaints. >> my gut feeling is nothing would be better than going over the fiscal cliff. it will hurt but five, ten years down the nothing, we'll be better and healthier. we just got news that president obama was going to meet or a phone call meet with some business leaders. >> right. the white house calling c.e.o.s, a regularly scheduled meeting. presumably it's a regular scheduled meeting not to say we're going over the fiscal cliff. >> the president won't be doing this but the white house will be. >> that's right. it will be interesting to see if we get response out of this. people in the meeting with the president could come to the microphones. so could c.e.o.s. >> we wanted to let you viewers know we're going to monitor the white house. we have two cameras focused on the white house waiting for the leaders to leave and specifically see if they approach a microphone and camera and let us know what's going on. we'll take that if we get that. thank you, gerri willis. >> you know how he protected other nation's border but wait until you hear how sheriff aarpaio wants to protect our schools. he's here next. blah