polls suggest his job approval rating has never been lower, and disapproval, higher, at any other state of the union time, so this address is critical. republicans say the president has not delivered on a number of state of the union promises he s made in the past, including and most significantly, one to cut the budget decifit in half by the end of his first term. house speaker john boehner says he expects a political speech tonight, and as for the buffet rule, he calls that the politics of envy. jenna. jenna: we ll be watching this story, wendell, thank you very much. jon, we found out one more person will be joining the first lady in the box, the wife of steve jobs, cofounder of apple. we ll hear who is going to be in the box throughout the day today. so we re getting a couple of names early on. jon: i guess the president wants to talk a lot about technology and hence he ll have steve jobs widow there. let s bring back joe trippe and karl rove. wendell just said, joe, that the pres
the budget that was proposed and passed in the house by republicans and supported by the tea party, s&p said would have prevented this downgrade. so look, this is the obama downgrade. the democrats drove this through cash for clunkers, the stimulus, t.a.r.p., and omabacare, notably and his budget, the only thing that the democrats have proposed, the senate voted down obama s budget which would have increased decifits to a whopping $10 trillion, over the next ten years. so look, democrats have no plan on this. what is shocking, too, bill, s&p says we might expect another one soon. bill: that s a possibility, they said, down the road. i hear bob breathing on the other line there. shocking! bill: what s up, bob? first of all, good morning everybody. and andrea, as usual, your math class, i don t know what they caught you what they taught new math but it s a different math than i learned, george bush is eight years, $6 trillion of his budget decifit but leaving that aside, the culpab
58 percent of americans disapprove of the way the president is handling the budget decifit. but even more, 64 percent, give republicans in congress, which includes you , low marks. why is that? because we haven t finally imple mented what we promised to do, which is cutting spending and restoring fiscal discipline and certainty to funding for medicare, social security, and the federal government as a whole. right now, with standard & poor s saying that the future of u.s. debt is negative, it undermines the entire underpinnings of our world economic system and the future of the u.s. dollar. i think this summer, especially the fight on the most important legislation of the year, the debt limit extension, if we put in comprehensive antispending reforms, we will reassure markets, the economy will recover well, and even our allies overseas will be reassured. gregg: senator mark kirk,
and coffee cups and the promotional things that were given away by almost every state agency that costs taxpayers more than $7 million. so no more of these battery-powered fans that were just handed out by the california dmv for so many years, and one of my personal favorites. if you add it all up, all of the cuts are a drop in the bucket but analysts say the governor is trying to send a message that in these tough times, everyone really needs to share the pain to reduce government spending, as they tackle california s $26 billion budget decifit. bill: so republicans, are they satisfied with these cuts or what are they saying claudia? well, they appreciate the small cuts, but really not so much. republicans i ve spoken to say they are really waiting for the governor to tackle the big pressing issues here in california, in particular, pension reform. they also want to see the governor take on the special interests to really downsize government and make california more business friendl
an opening for someone like christie and ryan to tkpwhet and tap peoples enthusiasm for that reason. jenna: we talked about mitch romney and tim palenty as well. will the issues define the candidacy, meaning that the economy is nut one issue going into this presidential election, is that going to define who the gop puts out there or will the tkaeupts themselves put out the issues that they speak of and define the campaign? i think the latter. candidates will define what they think the presidential cast is and the main advice would be sure, everyone is talking about the decifit and the economy, but people want a president to handle foreign policy, to give moral leadership, people want a president also to deal with the budget. i think there are republican candidates who have the broadest appeal who can present themselves the say as ronald reagan, an across the board conservative leader, willing to deal with threats, willing to deal with the budget decifit, also to have an economic gro