but we ve got to you grow the economy. if you raise taxes on small businesses, you raise taxes on farmers and ranchers in my district, that s going to cripple small businesses. i m not worried about ge. they ve got a seat at the table at the white house. i m worried about the small guy that s going to get hammered that don t have a lesion of tax attorneys. so i believe we need a fundamental tax reform. i thif the president agrees with that, as well. if you re worried about the debt, and i think we have to deal with the debt, according to the congressional budget office, you d pick up $950 billion over 10 years by just letting the tax cuts for the rich or those making over 250 a year go for 10 years, you have 9$950 billion covered right there. that s a huge step towards the deficit. when you have a trillion dollars of excess spending in one year, what are we going to do for the other nine years? it s a spending problem. we re spending too much money. and the deficit has shot up
get a deal. medicare can, i think, be massaged in terms of means testing. with the upper income individuals paying more or sometimes all of their medical expenses, it makes no sense for the government to pay medicare costs for someone earning $700,000 a year. so i think we can do some means testing. but by no means am i saying it should be low enough so our elderly and poorist americans are going to pay for the deficit. but we want a deal. and keep in mind, i think this is very important. if the bush tax cuts are expired, as they will be, just as sure as today is friday, they are gone, that generates $950 billion toward the deficit over
categorized as blinking. neil: but you just contributed saying you better not talk the entitlements or talk about social security or medicare and i know you may have your reasons but the republicans are saying, we have to give our pound of flesh and raise taxes and we are fine with it. we will do it. never mine the fact that you democrats have doubled the amount of revenues you talked about before the election, so be it. but there is nothing coming from you guys. guest: here is one of the things that we have been pushing. that is, according to the c.b.o. if the bush era tax cuts are eliminated, they would generate $950 billion over 10 years. that is just shy of the $1.2 trillion that we laid out in the sequester bill. so, we are moving in the right direction and we are dealing
down ballot are still playing a little bit of defense. highcamp is the only one to show how to effectively turn that around. you saw how effectively the republicans showed this jujitsu on medicare and the tax, the effect on seniors. there s no cuts being done by anyone in medicare. medicare is growing enormously under anyone s plan. it is around $550 billion a year today. it s going to go even under the to supposed ryan plan to $950 billion ten years from now. then they talk about slowing the growth after that. so we do have to get in nerdland to that s right. we have to get real about this. but the solvency of medicare is not a one-sided question. this is true at any given budget debate. there s certainly the question of cost control but there s also the question of resources. this is when we try to make it on the individual level, you can get a second job, bring in more
americans are furious about the gridlock in washington. to your previous question, alex, the important thing i think about this is that the tea party has been an extraordinarily destructive force. if i could just quote one line from the s&p piece. they said if we re going to van upside scenario, it should incorporate $950 billion of new revenues on the assumptions that the 2001, 2003 tax cuts lapse from the administration, that they re advocating. whether you do this or have a compromise, it s something the tea party will not balance it. i agree with joe. on some of the things the president should have gone on earlier, last year, with this, with the expiration of the tax cut so that the revenues came up. i think they should have hit