more this year than last year. this the whole thing is bizarre, they announced a historic deal and took days to find out what a line item was. when everything is done so secretly anyway, you can be pretty suspicious we re not hearing the story. it s pretty shocking what that discrepancy is. it really is. let me ask you quickly, andy, do you agree right now, you have the republicans saying we will never raise taxes. you can make us eat worms and dirt. you have barack obama on the other side, saying we will raise taxes. they re both saying it s a deal killer when we know they have to meet in the middle and do a deal. that s right. it s the beginning of the political season. the budget is topic a. the one thing that actually is encouraging is we re talking about the third rail more much more than we ever did, the entitlement programs. that s a positive. as far as republicans saying
maybe. maybe 1% of that. they re still playing with numbers, these republicans and democrats. silly season. when the economics of that are explained to some of these new members of congress, they may not be willing to vote for this package. the 218 votes is not in hand. in terms of the overall debate and the president s finally weighing in, i think look at that. mika, look at that. what we call a discrepancy in washington. this is why americans don t trust washington d.c. there s a decimal point problem. but it s 1%. this is why americans don t trust republicans and they don t trust democrats. everybody comes out and takes victory laps, jeffrey sachs, and says we have cut $38 billion. we have made the tough choices. the deficit is actually reduced only $300 million and we spend