that this budget shows. it s a fair question. keep in mind the administration is different than members of the hill, members of the house and senate. every house member as i used to be has a constituency, a group of people at home we represent. senators represent the state. there are a lot of special interest, lobbying involved. the president isn t beholden to that. the president represents everybody. consultants weren t consulted on this, lobbyists, special interests were not. this is a budget for the nation because that s who he represents. as you put together the budget did you look at your votes and go, hmm, maybe i shouldn t have voted that way? no. i did the best job i could to represent south carolina. now i m the president s budget director and we put out a good budget. when will you be able to propose a balanced budget? what year? i don t know yet. we are getting into it now. by mid may, we are shooting for, we ll have a larger budget first term? i don t kn
adding a dime to our deficits. and now, a cycle first from athe lawn of the white house, president obama s assistant from economic policy gene sperling. gene is also from the economic national council and named obama s progressive voice of the economy by the republic. thanks for joining us today. thanks for having us. absolutely. i want to talk with where the talk has been. the notion this budget from the president is some kind of middle ground, yet at the same time, what does it say about the president s policy priority especially jobs? well, what this budget shows is the president believes this has to reflect your economic strategy and that has to be a strategy that as i say hits the sweet spot for jobs and growth. and that means that you have to be able to merge together in one strategy, yes a plan to show we will teal with our long-term fiscal challenges. but also you make room to invest in our core competitiveness and that you have smart investments
everybody not to freak out. you are sympathetic to these kooks. [ laughter ] bill: you are. i know you. and you are sympathetic to them and you would do what they want if you could. on what moral authority. what moral authority does anyone believe they have the right to take half of a person s legally earned income? what moral authority gives you the right to do that? i guess even the language of taking around taxing is something different than the way i think about it i don t think the government is stealing money from people they re snatching it. for the wealthest 1%, 2% as this particular budget shows, for them to pay more to me is reasonable. bill: half is a lot of money. it would be more than half unlike the 50s, 60 s and 70s where they all hide behind there wouldn t be deductions and tax shelters. you would have to pony up half. that s not true. bill: that s what they want and i read it closely. they want to cap all the deductions for the 1 or 2 percenters so you real
president of the united states on meet the press telling david gregory that yes, he would go ahead and move on a social security fix. it s a small thing, but at least it s a start. you re right. and republicans botched it. they botched it. and you ultimately have to have things that deal with entitlement reform because that s where the money is. part of the reason if not the biggest reason republicans botched this is they ve gotten hurt by their own game, first the sequestration, now a debt ceiling of government by deadline. and what happens is if you play the game of government by deadline, at the last minute, you can find yourself outmaneuvered. and that s what happened this time. you know what i was hoping would happen last night, richard? this is what s so disappointing. now let s talk about the democrats. people wonder why we operate on government by deadline. because harry reid has made the cynical, cynical move of not passing a budget through the united states sena
promises, the bond marks turn on and you have a debt crisis, slowing down the economy, having a lost decade. we are halfway through a lost decade because of this president s policies. if we stay on the path we are on, we will have a lost generation and i feel we will have that kind of a debt crisis, which is avoidable! what our budget shows, you can prevent that from happening, we can get the economy going and get people back to work. we get this budget balanced and the debt paid off, but we need a new president and a new senate willing to lead with us. we proved yesterday wscott walker s victory, not only was scott on the ballot, butso so was political courage. courage won. that tells me that the people are ahead of the class. they are not going to buy the tortured statistics. they are not going to buy the status quo. they want leaders and that s what we are proposing? i agree with you. i think political courage won and i think people realize the