0 that in the northeast, you know, my kids, i don't know. you know, and me, like i showed up at my s.a.t. like -- and i didn't even have like a pencil and i just showed up at the last second, i signed up at the last second, you know, i did it. you know, when i got to college, my parents never once sort of sat me down and said study, study. my brother and sister did well in school and they presumed wrongly that i would do well in high school, but it's amazing. you come up here and people are like, you know, from the time kids are like 5 years old, people are like, you know, just pushing. >> my daughter pushed herself. >> you know, joe, it all worked out pretty well for you. maybe the way he with do it up here -- maybe we should do it your way instead of the way we do it up here. >> i wasn't saying you were superior to me. >> well, academically. >> there is such a focus and by the way, it's not around this table, it's everywhere i go. it's not -- it's just people start focusing on s.a.t.'s so much earlier. it opens up to a bigger exmap nags. every time we hear about the decline of america and americans getting lazy and fat. this isn't just like the upper middle class that does this. it's the middle-class parents, working-class parents, they use whatever resources they can. deborah kinney i heard her say one time, doesn't matter, harlem village academy, all parents want their children to do better. of course i'll get a thousand e-mails saying we do this, you know, in cordover park where i'm from. >> we're all really focused here on our kids from the early age. you should go to china and see what goes on there. kids from kindergarten are generally put into supplemental and weekend and evening programs. starting in elementary school when you take a test in china your grade and every other child's grade is put on the board in order so you know how well you did or didn't do. >> not one of these we're giving trophies out to everybody, you're all winners. >> oh, my goodness. >> you know, there's a plus to ha. but there's also, i don't know, i think there's also a downside to that. you know, i -- i worry that our kids and willie you're about to see this firsthand, i worry about our kids and homework and -- >> i'm already seeing it. >> are you already if. >> first grade, yeah. >> you know, my 10-year-old goes to school until, you know, 4:00 and hen she's got a couple of hours of homework. the reason i've succeeded is because, you know, i've worked hard, but i spent high school kind of dreaming, writing songs, going into my room, writing. i was sort of, you know, i had the -- >> most kids are on the computer now not doing that. >> i had the freedom to at school, i played football, every sport you could play, but when i got home i wasn't overbooked for three or four hours, not that there's anything wrong with that. i'm just saying i think we lose something when we just get our kids and they're so, you know -- my mom would come in and say what are you doing? you're just daydreaming. you're never going to make anything of your life if you just daydream. >> staring out the window. picking petals off of flowers. >> i wasn't doing that but i was writing and creating and i was -- i had this space to live in my own world. and it really helped me out in life as i went forward, to think more critically and creatively and i just worry about all his sort of -- >> and you were able to continue to live in your own world. >> look at you. just stay right there in that bubble. >> if i had been like steve jobs and dropped out of college -- i think there's something to like people dropping out of college in the '60s and dropping acid like steve job said, never done acid, mom, just joking, but there's something that you sort of just regimented approach doesn't always work. >> i think that's why we don't go the china route which is rote memorization. we hope we have better thinkers, critical thinkers and that's why so many worry about teaching to tests and that doesn't teach people how to problem solve and be creative and think in a group and operate in the world, real world. >> i wish someone would have taught me to take a test. >> come on. bill de blasio wants mandatory pre-k across the board. i'm for that. to the news this morning -- >> mike has seven kids. >> you're touching upon one of the larger issues in our society today, it has to do with the growing inequality in our country that, you know, those of us who are fortunate enough to have the means to send kids to good schools, that they apply for early admission get into fantastic universities, those kids are going to be fine. but there's a whole group of other children in this country born into circumstances that used to be fine, middle class, but the middle class growth is so stunted in this country. >> lack prospect. >> that when you have a huge percentage of people in this land thinking that their children will not do better in this country than they have done, that's a real, real danger. >> by the way, that's the first time that's happened since polling began, that parents don't think their children are going to do better. >> it's not just the question of thinking. if you look at the economic mobility statistics, the ability of somebody in the bottom 20% to move up to the next or next the statistics are clear, we have fallen way back, behind many countries in europe in terms of the ability of every kid in america to get ahead. it's a real problem. >> why is that? >> well, there's a lot of arguments. one is what mike is talking about, when you increased porchty and people who can't afford the same level of attention to their kids, you have greater income inequality so you're starting from so much further behind to get to some other place, but it's -- >> is the income inequality across europe as well, across -- >> there is growing income inequality in europe -- >> i ask that because of the i.t. revolution and because productivity has exflowploded s much. that's one of the main drivers. >> and globalization which pushes down wages for the average industrial worker when his or her job could be outsourced to some place in asia. same sort of issues but much less extent and they've corrected it through certain government policies. like [ inaudible ] taxation. >> i'm sure you would love that, steve ratner. >> i had to slip that in. two front page stories in national news papers putting focus on the tea party. according to the "new york times" a handful of republicans are making another run at office by taking a more moderate campaign approach. the "times" says the candidates consisting of former incumbents and previous challengers have shelved their incendiary remarks about president obama and the national debt in terms of a favor of a focused affordable care act which they hope will attract moderate voters from both parties even in heavily democratic districts. the "wall street journal" points out senator mitch mcconnell met with one of the nation's top defense contractors. he urged them to get more involved defending incumbents or risk seeing their support shrink as new congress members get elected. the head of the senate conservatives fund, political action group trying to get mcconnell defeated in the primary, had this to say, quote, all he's really doing is saying nudge nudge wij wink you know i'm a big spender i'll take care of you. what he's really saying he's a big spending republican who will take care of these special interests if they help him in the primary. there's that story. >> i don't know that he's saying that. >> well, you don't think he's saying that? what's he saying? >> i'm a big spending republican? he's not saying that. >> he's saying wink wink. that's how it works. >> i didn't see a wink wink in there. >> isn't that the meaning of it? >> no, i don't think so. i do think, though, it's interesting that -- and these things always, you know, it -- you never do it from the top down. >> right. >> people get out on the campaign trail and see what works and what doesn't work and people have been hearing for six years they've been hearing incendiary remarks about barack obama and i suspect that doesn't work. i've got to say, just the incendiary remarks of late have been coming from at least on my twitter feed and e-mails from the left, a very angry, enraged left that calls you a racist if you talk about the affordable care act. i mean, i'm -- again, i'm just talking about for some reason, just the rage from the left is -- has been crazy over the past month on my twitter feed. again, it's just -- it's just a small -- >> that's a sliver. >> small snippet. >> that can often be a bad one. >> that's surprising, hate on twitter. >> a year ago during the end of the campaign, during the mitt romney campaign, i was getting it all from the far right because they were angry and they were desperate and they wanted to lash out and blame everybody and say polls were -- i'm hearing now from some of these people, you know, the polls are wrong and they're racist and they're this and that, i think -- i think there is right now a desperation from many people that believe the passing of the affordable care act was the launching of this progre progressive revolution and finally was going to be the next wave of the great society. it is right now, right now it appears to be in shambles and right now that appears to be a real setback for big government and progressives. that could change. that could change. i'm just saying, republicans i guess, peeling off of this article what i'm saying is, republicans should do no harm politically. they should do no harm. they don't need to go out screaming and yelling and saying horrible things about barack obama. >> just sit and wait for whatever is going to happen to happen to whatever is going to evolve out of the health care act to evolve. but the left in this country, es specially the far left -- >> by the way, that's who i'm talking about. i'm talking about the far left. >> right. >> i understand. they have yet to recover. might never recover from the fall lassie of if you like your health plan, you can keep it. that really rattled -- >> that is -- i mean that's -- you don't want to draw parallels so i won't draw parallels with other presidents because people, bloggers on the left get angry, but truly politically, i've been doing this job long enough and been around washington for 20 years and seen it long enough and when george hw. bush said read my lips, no new taxes, it was devastating. george w. bush talked about weapons of mass destruction and there were no weapons of mass destruction it was devastating. when bill clinton said, you know, when bill clinton said i did not have sex with that young lady, monica lewinsky, that was like something that for some reason increases poll percentage by like 25%. i still haven't figured that out. but this whole thing about -- you know, this promise i think is -- this broken promise is probably what scares democrats the most going into 2014. >> it's a credibility problem for the president, for democrats who have repeated it for several years and what's become quite clear over the past couple weeks is it's not something that's going to go away. the white house has tried to apologize for it, has tried to explain it away, but it is going to linger. the one thing i would say about republicans going back to the two articles you cited is that it's very possible that what we're seeing now is that republicans actually took the time after the shutdown when we all turned our focus to health care, and learned some lessons from the shutdown and decided that they weren't going to try to, you know, have another shutdown in january, that they were going to try to keep the focus on health care going forward. the two things that i would watch, though, in the coming weeks is, what happens with the debt ceiling, do republicans try to win some concessions and go to the brink on the debt ceiling and immigration. i think the white house is going to try to bring up immigration again and will they see a different reaction from republicans in 2014 than they did his year. >> yeah. no doubt about it. even eric cantor is coming out there talking about the immediate to be less ideological and on the campaign trail and connect conservatism to what matters to people. >> julie referenced something we should highlight a little bit, the debt ceiling and how they're going to handle it. paul ryan on sunday said it wasn't going to be a free pass. they would want something in return for raising the debt ceiling. >> we know how that ends up unfortunately. and again, you're -- i voted against the debt ceiling all the time. i think we've been around, though, this -- we've been to this rodeo enough to know how it ends. >> the numbers of people signing up for the affordable care act are up. >> it's exciting. willie and i were talking about that, right? >> yep. >> because it could undermine a few things that you've said here at the table. >> "the new york times." >> just for balance. >> "the new york times" had an article yesterday i think it was saying -- >> look at the "l.a. times". >> they're overpromising and -- >> talk about that -- we had that "new york times" article that said the if numbers appear to be up, but it doesn't -- >> under their projections there need to be 7 million americans signed up by the end of march and i think they're at 300,000 or some number like that at this minute. >> we'll get the numbers. >> i'm not good at math, but why did, willie, by the way, for people that ask this, when politicians get in sex scandals, why did bill clinton's numbers go up 25% -- >> i don't have the answer to that. >> that list of things and you get to bill clinton, wait a second. remember that "saturday night live" skit -- >> darrell hammond. >> he goes, i think i'm going to go out and -- >> something like that. >> smoke some pot in the middle of washington or something. >> okay. i'm going to go to break. >> daryl hrell hammond needs toe back. >> one of the greats. >> we were talking about education in america, mika. >> yes. >> more importantly than that "anchorman 2." what's the early review? >> i was lucky enough to see "anchorman 2" last night. it's very, very good. i will say, the first movie we were just talking about it is an impossible standard to live up to. it came out of nowhere, it surprised us. now you're waiting, you know what each character is supposed to do. they stepped up and it's good. >> did they overhype it? >> my josh, i've never seen a movie with more hype. maybe they did but it's -- if you like the first one, you're going to really like this one. >> i can't wait to see it. can we go see it? >> yeah. >> coming up on "morning joe," senator chuck schumer of new york joins us in the studio and also congressman elijah cummings and buzz feed's ben smith will be on set. up next the top stories in the politico playbook. bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> he's been kicked out of the studio in the back. what happened? >> it was -- >> like a homeless weather guy searching for a home. >> oh. >> couple hobos back there now. >> those are my friends, guys. they're my friends. >> i used to say those were your -- >> we have more snow on the way. hope everyone enjoyed your fun weekend in the snow. this one a little more troublesome during the weekend. come in during the work week when we have school. travel on tuesday, that's the key day. the cold air comes in today through the great lakes into new england. the storm it itself tonight little bit of snow over lake michigan and chicago. that's the beginning of it. overnight through ohio and pennsylvania. by 8:00 a.m. as we start tomorrow morning's commute it will move into philadelphia to new york city. keep that in mind. if you can travel today or wednesday, do so in new england. if that's an option for you. during the day on tuesday that snow spreads along i-95 from new york city to boston. fast-moving storm, gone by the time we get through tuesday night. but it will put downhree to six inches in some areas could get a little higher than that. my official big city forecast, boston 4 to 6, providence, hartford and new york 2 to 4 and d.c. left out of this, much of the snow will be to your north. again this is during the day on tuesday for all these cities. you're watching "morning joe." so i got the windows nokia tablet. it's, well, impressive. it's got the brightest hd screen, super-fast 4g lte, so my son can play games and movies almost anywhere, and it's got office for school stuff. but the best part? i got the lumia 928 for my daughter for free, with the best low-light smartphone camera this side of the north pole. dad for the win. mm! mm! mm! ♪ honestly, i want to see you be brave ♪