virginia who ll be joining your ranks there. he talked about sliding that scale, going up to maybe $500,000, up to $1 million. are democrats flexible that way? we are certainly willing to listen. but our principle objective is to protect the middle income families. it s difficult to see how you can get enough revenue unless you increase the allow the rates to go back for those over $250,000. but we re willing to listen to other proposals. but what we re not willing to do is to put an additional burden on middle income families. the details, sir, of the $400 billion entitlement savings, they are pretty vague. do you think that may be because the white house doesn t want their fingerprints on third rails like medicare or the mortgage interest deduction? i think on the spending side a lot of us understand the best way to get savings is to bring down the the cost of health care. if we can implement the types of changes in our health care system that brings down costs we not only he
the amount of entitlement savings that was proposed by democrats on the super committee, senate democrats, exceeded the amount of savings proposed by simpson-bowles and everyone said that s a very, very serious measure. yes, there were some democrats who didn t like it. but, we knew we had to do that, and we did. and just one other point, everyone in the room agrees that democrats put entitlements on the table. rob portman, one of the republican super-negotiators, said when asked did democrats put entitlements on the table, he said, yes, i give them credit for that. that s his words, not mine. senator, let me ask you about simpson/bowles. this, of course, was the panel that was convened, it was set up by praums, alan simpson, former senator of wyoming republican, erskine bowles, a democrat. it did call for tax increases. it did call for cutting benefits to social security and medicare. it did call for sweeping tax reform. there a prospect of some revival of simpson/bowles now? yes.
said that was too high, our people lowered the amount. but, second, we were willing to put significant entitlement savings reform on the table. the amount of entitlement savings that was proposed by democrats on the super committee, senate democrats, exceeded the amount of savings proposed by simpson/bowles, and everyone said that s a very, very serious measure. yes, there were some democrats who didn t like it. but, we knew we had to do that, and we did. and just one other point, everyone in the room agrees that democrats put entitlements on the table. rob portman, one of the republican super-negotiators, said when asked did democrats put entitlements on the table, he said, yes, i give them credit for that. that s his words, not mine. senator, let me ask you about simpson/bowles. this, of course, was the panel that was convened, it was set up by president obama, alan simpson, former senator of
everybody. not just the rich, but everybody. and that takes taxes off the table. what about it, gene? i don t think that punishing typical middle class families who are working hard and playing by the rules is the right way for us to deal with the dysfunction that we ve seen on the republican side and not being able to agree to the most reasonable types of compromise in which would include significant spending cuts in entitlement savings together with reasonable revenues for those who are afford it the most. they led from the beginning from this year and he s the one who brought parties together. he signed a trillion dollars in spending cuts. $3 trillion in additional deficit reduction. he stands ready at any time to work together to get a bipartisan agreement. but less be honest, the reason
are loathe to address revenue in any way shape or form and that is the rub. so, congressman, do you think, first off the democrats should be more open to entitlement savings? guest: look, we have to be the programs and when say that you are referring to medicare and social security, they are good programs but because of the aging of the population and other things the programs will be reformed. neil: your colleagues do not want to touch them. you say what? guest: i m sorry? neil: they say leave it alone. guest: well, that is just not a viable way of thinking. we should not try to scare anyone. social security and medicare are fine in the near term but in the long run they have serious problems and the question is, do we try to address them smartly and fairly, now in or do we just let more time pass so the problem becomes bigger. not addressing these things is