hostage. but three days ago i would have said that the the chances of something being worked out were at best 20%. i feel a little bit more comfortable believing that something is going to be worked out and give it about a 70% chance. what is it that makes you think that? well, the fact that boehner and the president have pretty much gotten to a point where they ll be sitting down trying to work this out as opposed to a lot of cooks in the kitchen, i think that s helpful. and even the pushback with regard to speaker boehner sitting down with the president from other republicans has not been as great as i thought it would be. so i think we have a chance. the question is, whether if a deal is worked out whether speaker boehner is going to be able to sell that to his party. keep in mind that when we ve had deals in the past when he took it back to the tea party folks, they said absolutely not. and we know he s getting a lot
security probably is not going to be with them. it s about fiscal policy. i think that s going to be a real catalyst for the young people who are going to wake up and say they are putting me and my children in debt. i m not even married yet. we ve got to get that in order. i m curious, karen, which do you think is more of a factor in all these issues? is it the younger voting group that we re taking from or is it just changing viewpoints? i think it s both, frankly. i think that people are consider that i actually am over 40. sorry, chip. no, i m shocked. don t tell me that. when i was born it was illegal for my parents to be married. that was some 45 years ago. things change. i think part of what we re seeing this question about marriage equality is this sort of next big civil rights question. there are these big questions that from time to time it takes some time but we genuinely shift our beliefs and understand that if we say we value life, liberty and the pursuit of happi
guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. and if they make that ruling, that s going to be a national ruling. now if they instead do what the lower court did and say look, california, you gave this right and then you arbitrarily pulled it back just as to this one group, that s unconstitutional. that will be a rule that will apply if any other state tries to do the same thing. but so far it would only cover what happened in california. this other case involves doma, the federal defense of marriage act. what is at the heart of this question? the heart of that question is whether about the fundamental question of the right to same-sex marriage but whether the federal government can define marriage in a certain way as between one man and one woman. historically that s always been the job of the states to decide what marriage is, to define it. so that really is a federal government stepping somewhere where it hasn t before. then when they ve done with that statute is say that people can
have thousands of federal benefits. the case before the supreme court involve as woman who had to pay $363,000 in estate taxes she wouldn t have had to pay just because the person she was married to was the same gender as herself. that s just a fundamental fairness question before the court. but it s limited to that one federal statute. the hearings will begin next year with rulings expected by the summer. developing news today, nbc news has learned that egyptian authorities arrested a suspected terrorist ring leaders who group allegedly participated in the benghazi, libya counsel attack. the suspect is also accused of transporting wp weapons from libya to egypt. federal workers petition the white house for a holiday gift. what is it that they want from the president? also ahead we ll talk with an incoming member of congress about the big job facing him and his views on the fiscal cliff standoffs. you re watching weekends with alex witt. with the spark cash card from capital
here s how this would work. the george w. bush era tax rate on the upper income americans is 35%. clinton era 39.6%. do you think the democrats and republicans will agree to go down the middle there with about a 37% tax rate on the top 2%? alex, the fact is they ve been talking about these issues for more than a year since those grand bargain talks between speaker boehner and president obama in 2011. and we know the shape of a likely deal. it would be exactly that. about a 37% tax rate hike for top earners in this country. we know that secretary geithner and president obama have spoken of being open to that idea. and john boehner did himself yesterday, although after he did so in a question and answer period with reporters he then put out a statement saying he wasn t really meaning to open that door. but we know the parameters of a deal. it likely will include some kind of tax rate hike, although not to clinton levels for top