they are not on board with you because they fear your view because they think that you do not favor going you favor going over the cliff. that s what they think. they think that you favor just for the record, since we re on tv, that s silly. if they think that, they shouldn t be in office. they had 13 months to deal with this. we are down to 29 days. the time for opening salvos is over. two years ago, we had exactly the same conversation, even here, on the question of having a debt ceiling increase. and the democrats wanted $1.6 trillion in higher taxes. they didn t want to reduce spending. and eventually we got $2.5 trillion in spending committed without tax increases. we got a good deal. now the president wants to take back off the table spending cuts that are already in lock. so when he talks about spending restraint, he is adding $1 trillion, $1.5 trillion, you might count $2 trillion, in additional spending by taking the $1 trillion away and deciding he ll put off the
no tax increases. those states were bankrupted by their overspending. no one wanted to pay for it. the modern republican party wants less taxes and lower spending. they passed a ryan plan which reforms entitlements, reforms taxes, doesn t raise taxes. it s the democrats who don t have a legislative budget. make the case for why you view this the president making a truly balanced approach to not just solving this problem but really moving the economy forward. well, he has. and first of all, let s be clear. the way you get massive tax increases, $5 trillion tax increases, is if you go over the fiscal cliff. what the president has said, let s just ask higher income individuals to contribute a little more to reduce our deficit to prevent that from happening. the president has taken a balanced approach. look, we already entered into $1 trillion in cuts which we ll have to enforce and implement over the next 10 years, including, by the way, cuts in defense. you mentioned defense cu
without tax increases. we got a good deal. now the president wants to take back off the table spending cuts that are already in lock. so when he talks about spending restraint, he is adding $1 trillion, $1.5 trillion, you might count $2 trillion, in additional spending by taking the $1 trillion away and deciding he ll put off the sequester forever. he has a massive spending increase because he is trying to undo his previous agreement. i opposed going over the cliff two years ago. we didn t. we cut spending. i m not for it this time. two years ago, we extended all the bush tax cuts. we didn t go over any cliff. it s the president who is in the bank screaming he ll shoot the hostages and it s your fault if you don t give him everything he wants. that s not a reasonable position, and it won t hold. congressman, what are the chances we do go over the cliff this time? i think the chances are better that we will not go over the cliff. i think we will be able to get an agreement on the se
he wants to extend tax relief for 100% of american families and small businesses on their first $250,000 of income. and what republicans are saying it is, nobody gets that tax relief unless folks over $250,000 get the extra four cents on the dollar that they were getting compared to the clinton tax rates. and i just don t believe that the american people are going to accept the republican position when we need to extend middle class tax cuts and get serious about our long-term deficit reduction. gamesmanship. that s the big piece of this. what s the bottom line? does the president have a chance to prevail with how he s going about this at the moment? at this point, it looks like both sides are digging in. based on that interview, it looks like the president is digging in and that s unfortunate, because it doesn t seem like we are looking at compromise right now. as far as the economy is concerned, we will see a hit to the economy if in fact both sides continue to dig in. and the ma
ways. one of the ways is the way i proposed, which is closing loopholes. that s a pro growth way of getting more revenues from wealthy americans. and i think, david, before this is all over with, there s lots of mathinations. there s capital gains, dividends. and i think cooler heads will prevail. and i think we will resolve this. and that s the very best thing we can do to get our economy going. you heard secretary geithner. you ve heard the president. you can t get enough money in revenue unless you raise marginal rates. well, and here s the deal. here s the reality. let s assume they won t go for any raising in the rates. then all the bush tax cuts are going to expire, and then we would come back in january, first thing, and pass a tax cut for everybody under 250. are the republicans going to vote no on that? of course not. so they are going to get stuck with a raising of the rates of the top 2% either in a very painful way or in a way that we can all suffer a little bit, addres