maybe evolving. maybe that was too strong a word. i haven t grown at all. it s all form. our top story, of course, the 112th congress getting sworn in today. congress s first significant legislative action comes on friday when republican leaders begin their attempt of repealing president obama s health care law and identifying billions of dollars in proposed spending cuts. much of lit be symbolic, but the action will allow john boehner to follow through on pledges and satisfy members of the tea party. in fact, house republicans will read the entire constitution in the claimer tomorrow. mika, this greatly offended the new york times this morning, in their editorial. i m not exactly sure why reading the constitution would greatly offend the new york times editorial page. what would be the reason? i think it s a good thing. picky, i can t believe it. did you read that?
road. austerity, is it going to be like portugal and greece. how about clegg? how is he doing in britain? not so well. clegg is the foil for cameron in a way. in some ways having a coalition allows yos you to do things you may not do otherwise. why is he not doing well? the base of his party is more liberal, more democratic and doesn t like the spending cuts for public workers. by the way, the reason why the white house was so desperate to get this deal that extended bush tax cuts is in part because of what pat is talking about. that is, the states are starting to go belly up. this white house desperately needs the economy to grow, not just for the federal deficit, but all the state deficits. if the states start going under, they re going to be asking for bailouts. it could get very ugly very fast. that question, will the congress bail the states out? it certainly did in the stimulus bill. i don t think they will, pat.
house m the house members that got elected in swing districts, they ll have a rough case in the next two years. i ll be hopeful. i think we do need to enact spending caps which for some unexplained reason president bush let go by the wayside. let me say, senator, nobody has got clean hands on spending because nancy pelosi promised pay-go and all this other garbage and deficits from 06 to 010 exploded at record rates. every republican in the senate voted for a spending cut that include defense spending. that s a great idea. that could be a place to compromise. we ve already done it in the senate minus two votes which we now have. so i think we ll get the sessions-mccaskill spending cap passed. once we start doing things like that, demonstrating the the american people we can cut