the best they were going to get. and it turns out to be very true. speaker boehner didn t walk away from the chain cpi deal. senator reid over the weekend said that the chain cpi change was a nonstarter. second of all, here s the reality. the reality is, the president knows that speaker boehner is ready to do a deal. the president knows a majority of republicans are ready to do a deal. there is a faction within is that true? yes. there is a faction within the house republican conference that is opposed to a deal. if the president can deliver something that a majority of republicans could go for what is it? and some democrats, then we will get over this. the president seems dug in, and the reality is, he s the president, right? he can get something done today if he wants to get something done. if it s $400,000 is the cutoff, if it s $1 million which is the cutoff which, by the way, a majority of democrats have voted for in the past, suddenly they re against the $1 millio
tax cuts. they tried this plan b thing, and they couldn t even get the republican well, they could get about 200 house republicans, and they needed about 20 house democrats, and the president and the democratic leadership made it clear it was a nonstarter. dan is being, again, disingenuous, and he s being i m not. you are. because the deal, as sam pointed out, in the summer of 2011, the so-called big deal, that included chain cpi and raising the age of medicare. i m talking about that. i m talking about that. and the republicans had a chance to get two of the big things they wanted, and they turned their back on it because they couldn t get the votes. that s exactly what i was saying. i was saying that there is a faction within the conference that couldn t get the votes. that couldn t get the votes. what i m saying right now is you look at the plan b that speaker boehner was for, you could have get a majority of republicans and some house democrats for it and yo
expire. but that s only part of it. there s also a series of spending cuts that will also be triggered by the fiscal cliff. $1.2 trillion in sequestration will kick in beginning january 2nd. next year alone, $109 billion will be slashed. half from the defense budget and half from nondefense spending. the so-called doc fix would also go away, reducing medicare payments to doctors by 27%. and finally, unemployment benefits will run out for more than 2 million americans who have lost their jobs. benefits will only be available for up to 26 weeks, a drastic reduction from the 73 weeks available to some out-of-work americans. i want to go to sam stein, but first, dr. sachs, if we go over the cliff, it is the poor americans who will be hit the hardest, correct? well, there are parts of that where the poor will be hit the hardest. but if we make a deal right now
they decided they were going to extend the bush tax cuts for two more years, extend unemployment benefits. they had no offsets, they had no cuts. so in the same week simpson-bowles came out talking about saving $4 trillion, $5 trillion over the next decade, you had congress coming back in a lame-duck session, adding an additional $1 trillion in a week. absolutely. and both sides went along with it. all right. dr. sachs, thanks. you all right there? joe, thank you. go back to work. i m sorry to interrupt the project there. actually, i ve got to go out and talk to my people. clutching the debt clock in the fetal position. give me the sunscreen, please. don t miss a spot. president obama says he offered up to $1 trillion in spending cuts to get a fiscal cliff deal done. but now republicans are asking from where? we re going to talk to republican senator bob corker next on morning joe.
good morning. it s monday, december 31st, and welcome to morning joe. this morning, washington is just hours away from a self-imposed doomsday scenario, a deadline that was meant to force lawmakers to cut a deal to confront the nation s debt. in other words, this cliff-hanger has been two years in the making. i ve said before that i felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. i think it s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers. unless the hostage gets harmed. then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. in this case, the hostage was the american people. and i was not willing to see them get harmed. now, is this the deal i would have preferred? no. but this compromise does make a