where will it all lead? a special discussion this morning begins with two prominent voices of the senate. dick durbin, democrat of illinois. and republican member of the budget committee, lindsey graham of south carolina. then more on the budget battle and what it says about leadership in washington after the president unveils a budget that fails to address the largest drivers of the country s debt. why did you duck? why are you not taking this opportunity to lead? this is not a matter of you go first or i go first. our roundtable weighs in. former governor of michigan, democrat, jennifer granholm. former congressman from tennessee, democrat harold ford. republican strategist and former white house counselor to bush, ed gillispie and cnbc s rick santelli. the very latest on revolution sweeping the middle east. after egypt protest and violent crackdown have spread to the
side saying that there shouldn t be. the workers on friday said that we ll accept the contributions to the pension, we ll accept contributions to health care. given the governor gave them what he sought, what s this really supposed to be but an attack on collective bargaining. i love we were talking early, i love the smell of democracy. it s so inspiring that so many people feel moved to come out and express themselves. but this in wisconsin, make no doubt about it, everybody understands cuts need to happen but this is really about collective bargaining. ed gillispie is this open season on unions by a republican governor? is that what this is about? that s what the president said. i was interested in seeing the president insert himself and i agree with lindsey graham he might want focus his attention on getting control on federal spending in washington. what scott walker the governor of wisconsin is proposing is
and even though the interest rates on the federal side haven t moved markedly higher, a lot of these assumptions fors this outlier years for the deficit are assuming fairly good behavior on interest rates and a fairly rebust economy. and when the clinton years came forth with all the jobs and a surplus, we were in a much different economic time. we had an industrial computer revolution going on in california, you had the wall fall in the late 80s that freed you up an inordinant amount of peace dividend money. ed gillespie, look at the politics out of this, this was polling out of new hampshire, the first primary state in 2012, after the iowa caucuses and here s how it looks on the gop side. it s romney leading their commandingly and he even looks gao good at this early juncture head to head against president obama. my question though, ed, is whether or not republicans are looking at this and saying,
be. the workers on friday said that we ll accept the contributions to the pension, we ll accept contributions to health care. given the governor gave them what he sought, what s this really supposed to be but an attack on collective bargaining. i love we were talking early, i love the smell of democracy. it s so inspiring that so many people feel moved to come out and express themselves. but this in wisconsin, make no doubt about it, everybody understands cuts need to happen but this is really about collective bargaining. ed gillispie is this open season on unions by a republican governor? is that what this is about? that s what the president said. i was interested in seeing the president insert himself and i agree with lindsey graham he might want focus his attention on getting control on federal spending in washington. what scott walker the governor of wisconsin is proposing is that the members of unions and
i did it in partnership with the unions. our unions gave over $700 million in concessions. i asked them to pay the new employees 20% towards their health care benefits. he had don t even have a pension. they have 401(k)s. they have a defined contribution. don t want to talk too much about collective bargaining and unions. ed. we re not talking about eliminating collective bargaining what we re talking about is limiting collective bargaining to wages not the benefits package and having the union members vote themselves every year whether or not they want to continue that. let me continue this theme who is winning the conversation. the president was pressed during a news conference about why not move forward and stop kicking the can down the road, and present in his budget cuts to n entitlement programs. this is what he said. this is not a matter of you go first or i go first. this is a matter of everybody having a serious conversation