conservatives. take your chance and take medicine now. over the long run, better for the economy. kimberly: call his bluff. be strong at the negotiating table to make sure you can do what is best in interest of the country. these are tough time and you have to stand your ground. if you look at the recent polling, obama dropped three points. in polling with the gallup poll. people aren t happy with him anyway. eric: there is a counterproposal, around $800 billion in revenue through tax reform. they go through spending cuts. none of the spending cuts in obama s plan. are we so far apart we will go up or is there a meeting ground? canes is smart of the republicans. last week, geithner to the treasury secretary and laughed at. across the board, left and right commentators said i think president obama is overplaying the hand here.
the president said he wants some type of grand bargain. he wants it to be fair. he s willing to work with the republicans. show me in his proposal where he s moved at all because what geithner presented was basically their old budget. well, it s not only that. look. the president demanded 1.6 trillion in new taxes. they want to rub the a tea party noses of the caucus in their no new taxes pledge. i think the president is showing that he seems to have a whip, shawn, b by virtue of the fact he s more willing to go over the fiscal cliff than the republicans are. why should he? because then taxes would go up on everybody in the country. they would go up on the rich and barack obama steps in and says i m going to rescue the country from what the republicans did to save their rich folks from a haircut. i m proposing tax cuts for 98% of the american people who deserve that. there s a way to head that off. isn t it the republicans should
and the state. that is a middle class taking away 10 percent or 20 percent of the money. neil: who gave charlie for the money, i an herery of charlie, in had case, sam, uncle sam. how close to the $42 billion will the governor get or a comparable sum that the governors of new jersey and connecticut are looking at? guest: they will get almost all of it. when does congress say know to any of the people? our hearts bleed for the people who lost their homes to the terrible storm so you have the victims, they will put them on tv and say you got to give us the hundred and that brings me to a second point. if we are going to give, it will probably be well over $50 billion, why not have a policy when we have a crisis like this, and a natural emergency, cut other government programs c do we always have this unlimited credit card to increase the amount of the debt? that is why it gets to the point where geithner s proposal to
republicans didn t pay for bush tax cut and no one on the democratic side is talking about finding the off-setting savings now to extend them. several democrats contemplated going over the cliff in recent days. perhaps in hopes of gaining leverage. if the republicans don t agree with that, we reach a point where all the tax cuts expire and we start over next year. form every republican senate aide said it would be hard to blame one party. i think they realize that both sides will be culpable if we go over cliff. house speaker john boehner says going over the cliff is far too dangerous to the economy. nevertheless, even treasury secretary geithner suggested on fox news sunday that republicans might need more time to figure out their position. trying to figure out how to find a way to support things that they know they will have to do. it will be hard for them. the new republican offer, however, adds a new link to that. there is another reason some democrats might want to let
neil: the president s tax tactics are upsetting the republicans but a democratic caucus member sees it as time for the president to step up, connecticut senator joe lieberman, and on his way out he is creating a big fuss. senator, good to have you. guest: good to back to create a little fuss. neil: senator, what is it you are having a problem with here? the president has to step up or play a more active role or delegate that to the treasury secretary? guest: certainly a lot of this is going to be done at the staff level. but, ultimately, this is going to require an agreement between president obama, speaker boehner, senator mcconnell, senator harry reid and leader pelosi and in some sense it is going to be the two main players are president obama and speaker