have, what leverage do you have to force their hand, particularly now that everyone s going to get home on their friday afternoon flights out of the capitol? that s right, chris. two points, one, it s important everybody understand we already did $1.2 trillion to real cuts in these parts of the budget. that s already been done, so the sequester is on top of this. the question is whether people like senator mccain, senator lindsey graham, who have real concerns and understandably with the very deep cuts on the military side, which are also across the board and are affecting military readiness, whether they will then say, look, we need to come together to replace the sequester and we re willing to look at cuts in other areas of the budgets, for example, i ve proposed we get rid of excessive direct subsidies. but we ve also said, and you started your program about the different polls showing different income groups reaction. we ve also said people earning $2 million a year should pay th
that s already been done, so the sequester is on top of this. the question is whether people like senator mccain, senator lindsey graham, who have real concerns and understandably with the very deep cuts on the military side, which are also across the board and are affecting military readiness, whether they will then say, look, we need to come together to replace the sequester and we re willing to look at cuts in other areas of the budgets, for example, i ve proposed we get rid of excessive direct subsidies. but we ve also said, and you started your program about the different polls showing different income groups reaction. we ve also said people earning $2 million a year should pay the same effective tax rate as the people who work for them, the so-called buffett rule, because the way to deal with this in the long-term is deal with the deficit in a balanced way. republican colleagues don t want to do that. that s been a fundamental problem. you mentioned the defense part of the cuts
having to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet. and now seeing their health insurance costs spike. i think there s a lot of problem with what he s proposing. what do you think of that so-called buffett rule? that individuals making more than $1 million a year are required to pay at least 30% income tax? well, again, he had the opportunity to put that into law before, the opportunity to do it in the fiscal cliff discussions. and i just don t see that catching traction here. it didn t catch traction in the senate, i don t believe. and so i m not sure that s even a starter. you opposed that. you would vote against that so-called buffett rule? yeah, again. look, what we ve got to do is get back to have a meaningful discussion about overall tax reform, not just, you know, split one group of americans against the others to the benefit of the growth of the federal government and the deficit. this does not put us on a path toward reducing americans deficit in a meaningful
americans, on big corporations, as well as an across the board tax increase, at least 30% tax for wealthy americans, so-called buffett rule. i can t imagine the republicans, especially in the house of representatives going along with that since they did go along with averting the fiscal cliff and raising taxes on wealthy americans at the end of the year. they re already saying, look, we did that. we gave you we gave you tax increases, and we re not going to do it again. i think what the most interesting thing about the president s budget is the point as jess was pointing out earlier that he did decide to bring medicare back on the table, to bring social security back on the table. remember, it was part of his so-called grand bargain that became a grand failure with house speaker john boehner. and the white house is saying, okay, this budget is not the starting point, but it s our sticking point. because we re putting these things back on the table.
education for all kids in america which we re looking for the dollar figure on that, it s going to come out soon and that s going to be a big price tag republicans really dislike all that new spending. you ask where this goes. it could go nowhere from here tonight he sits down with a dozen or so senators, republican senators to talk this over, guns, immigration, and see if they can revive any sort of talks. not a lot of optimism in washington that deficit deal will get going from here. but this is the president s offer to restart kick start that discussion, wolf. yeah, at least there s a budget proposal on the table right now from the president, one from the democrats who have the majority in the senate. one from the republicans who have the majority in the house. gloria borger is watching what s going on. what is probably going to be the best of any compromise is the president s adamant position that there have to be additional tax increases on wealthy