that is one deck chair on the titanic. john: it is good across the board. if their actual cuts. i would do 20% across-the-board but that scares people because they think let s save the things that are important and cut the things that are not. its all important. the tax increases sound scarier of 400 billion but we have a $1 trillion deficit. each year we spend $1 trillion more than we take 10. so to raise taxes by 400 billion we have already raised them 1 trillion in the future. it is probably a good idea to say the spending is not a free lunch.
to them for the future. but who is going to do that without throwing the baby out with the bath water and i think that s a big, big concern for a huge percentage of the population. chip, politico had a piece and former mark mckinnon as saying, i think it s a bold pick and it means that romney/ryan can provide real direction and vision for the republican party and probably lose maybe big. when you hear that, what is your reaction to that? because obviously when we talk about leadership, it s about casting vision. it s about asking people to rise up to that vision but he s saying, you know, they might do that but they may lose big. i disagree with my friend mark on that. i think this is a great opportunity with what s gone on in this economy to talk about the big issues that matter as opposed to rearranging the deck chair on the titanic.
hour throughout sunrise. disappointing that there might be rain on the way. it is a little bit chilly here but the crowds don t seem to be put off by the cold weather. they have been out all night there. when we came in at 4:30 this moring most people weren t in tents. they were sitting in chairs holding their position by the barriers. colin, tell us what is it is like down there? good morning to you. it is to make sure you come equipped with makeup. there you go. they are going to be camping all night and probably with many, many hundreds of people down by the victorrian monument opposite buckingham palace. you you got your deck chair and get your makeup out as well. lots of people camping overnight. these three ladies. you you barbecue. on the go now. a few drinks last night, didn t you?
but look at what s going on in the private sector versus federal employment. federal employment up 273,000 jobs. the average pay in the fed, $123,000. the private sector lost 3 million jobs. our average pay, $61,000. a pay freeze is a drop in the bucket. it s a deck chair on the titantic. make a 20% cut in federal employees and maybe you are talking about serious money. maybe 50 billion. megyn: they want to cut back on federal jobs. not just the salaries. reporter: great idea. megyn: what is the complaint about it federal workers? we are in a tight situation financially. do they feel it s unfair? they are one of the strongest unions. the head of the national treasury employees union says
did. the white house will tell you time and time again, the number they put on it, saved 2.1 million jobs. it s very hard to gauge saving jobs but there are state that would have cut jobs that didn t because of it. i don t think they tried to sell it as more more than that, did you? reporter: if you look at what david gregory just said, he put it perfectly. it s not that the stimulus created jobs. most people accept that it created jobs. the issue is, was it felt? i mean, look, if you re talking about 2 million jobs when this recession has lost 8 million jobs, it s a deck chair off the queen mary. people aren t feeling it. this is the issue that most concerns the white house right now. we re expecting a jobs report this morning. the consensus forecast is that we ll add 200,000 jobs. but there s a lot of hiring that s just temporary for the census. tim geithner just yesterday on the today show saying unemployment is going to remain unacceptably high for a very long time. that s the