something important to the country. debt ceiling legislation is a time that brings us together and gets the president s attention. i can t imagine it being done we ll have to see on what the house adds to it as a condition. shutdown is bad enough for america but playing with the debt ceiling is really, really bad stuff. are they really talking about doing more hostage taking around that or setting up the radio right and base and saying, we re still willing to do this stuff, and then actually they ll do the right thing? i think this is posturing and we ve seen this from the last two debt ceiling fights we ve had, one around a year ago and one around the time of the shutdown. the question is, how do you define something. a year ago something was an agreement that the senate had to pass a budget. it could be any budget, didn t have to be reconciled or cut government spending. all that had to happen was the senate passed a budget and that
is probably a very strong chief of staff, and for whatever ran, president obama doesn t want to seem to have one. he sort of did with emanual initially, but he also had nancy pelosi in the house. it wasn t the chief of staff managing but pelosi s fabulous. she had 100% when they reopened the government. 100%! nobody can do that anymore! she has the fear factor and the love factor. they love her and they fear her, the perfect combination. let me ask you, this story that you tell about the first time that reagan increases the debt ceiling and has to do so in relationship with tip o neill, and o neil asks for a personal note from the president, to each and every democratic member of the house, asking for his or her support in the matter of raising the debt ceiling. this was a brilliant piece of sort of political maneuvering. how did we go from that to the type of debt ceiling fights we re having now? i think tip didn t try to exploit it. he said, we ve got to raise the
president obama has posted his lowest numbers. really? if you look back republicans are hurt. the president is as well. the only time mitt romney polled ahead of the president in the horse race until right after the debates was around the debt ceiling fights. people hear about shutdowns, debtle ceilings and think this guy is the guy in charge. if he was doing a good job congress wouldn t make a mess of things. his approval rating go s down. chuck, we ll get you on that. i want you to jump ahead to the one that surprised a lot of us. over 60% of americans want spending cuts attached to increasing the debt limit. debt court of appeal ing increase s are always and everywhere. not even close. it never is. debt ceiling increase s are always and everywhere. they were in 2011, 2013. they are always and everywhere wildly unpopular. you ask people if they want to
three years, and talked about this incessantly on the show through debt ceiling fights and budget showdowns and tax fights, and he can never cover the check he writes. the guys behind him won t go along. now we have a new straw in the mix, and that is ted cruz. up to now republicans and the senate have looked at the house and said, oh, trying to lean on them to act like adults and now you have ted cruz and rubio and rand paul trying to mix it up more which makes it only harder for john boehner which means it must really be going down at a fast pace these days. dana, david there makes reference to the multiple film choices that we can choose. doesn t boehner actually deserve something like an academy award or daytime emmy at least? he keeps a straight face even though he himself knows he has no control whatsoever over anything that is going on aside
we re starting to hear conversations about a government shutdown and the debt ceiling fights that we ve kind of not paid attention to because the syrian issue has been so front and center. the issue of some house republicans wanting to tie funding for the government to defunding the president s health care law, also back to the forefront. what s happening with all of this? there is a huge struggle, the soul searching with the republican party has been on this question. we talked about this before. should at every opportunity, republicans in congress and both the house and senate try to kill the president s health care plan. they re using any maneuver they can. some tea parties and other activists are saying, yes, they so dislike the law, they want to try every possible vehicle. the leadership says, no, we can t do this all the time, we have to pick our fights. the house leadership thought it had a proposal, a continuing resolution. you know what that means, kate, from your days on th