then there s the have it both ways crowd. mike huckabee, bobby jindal, it depends on who they re with at the time. and finally there are the serious republicans who don t feel like a nut and worry that birtherism are take the whole party down. a perfect example, donald trump. karl rove says he needs to stop the madness. sarah palin winks that he s on to something. on to what? plus hypocrisy watch. what percentage of the balance the budget tea party types do you suppose are against cutting any of the big spending causes in the government? a big piece of the deficit. medicare or medicaid. you think 10%, 20%, 30%? try 70% against. 70% of tea partiers don t want to touch medicare or medicaid spending. when are they going to get serious about taking cuts in the actual government deficit? and finally even charlie sheen
the second point i make, if you look at what the program is, it is about reducing the deficit, taking some steps as we did in 2010, further steps in 2011, more in 2012. sts a multiyear program. you obviously can t get rid of a 10% budget deficit in one go. it is a multi-year program and accompanied by a government that is really looking at everything it can do to encourage growth. i m convinced that s the right answer. it s an answer we have to stick to and deliver. and it s an answer that also has widespread support, not least most recently from the ocd and bank of england who say it is a difficult task to engage in because you have to rebalance an economy that was the most indebted households and biggest government deficit, you ve got to take that economy and rebalance it to be more dependent on experts and manufacturing and trade and more balanced economy. it s not an easy task and will take time but we re doing it, i think in the right way.
look at what the program is, it is about reducing the deficit, taking some steps as we did in 2010, further steps in 2011, more in 2012. sts a multiyear program. you obviously can t get rid of a 10% budget deficit in one go. it is a multi-year program and accompanied by a government that is really looking at everything it can do to encourage growth. i m convinced that s the right answer. it s an answer we have to stick to and deliver. and it s an answer that also has widespread support, not least most recently from the ocd and bank of england who say it is a difficult task to engage in because you have to rebalance an economy that was the most indebted households and biggest government deficit, you ve got to take that economy and rebalance it to be more dependent on experts and manufacturing and trade and more balanced economy. it s not an easy task and will take time but we re doing it, i think in the right way.
what we re seeing over the weekend hardly instills confidence. the expectation is that the bills that need to be passed for the bailout will still go through but it s brought european sovereign debt back to the forefront. spain is expected to report maybe as soon as the day on its government deficit for the last year, and this is a concern that is not going to go away for the financial markets in the short term, the state of some of the european countries. thank you very much. have a good week. okay, well the turmoil that began in tunisia is spreading. people in more countries not normally known for public protests are calling for change, and it s unnerving some investors. ahead look at what s behind this winter of discontent.
shutdown of the government. so any sense of how the republicans are going to demonstrate their concerns about spending with the president and get his attention on this issue if they re not going to shut down the government? yep. the new incoming house speaker john boehner says he ll have a vote a week in the house of representatives on that alone. on places where they can cut spending because of the large massive deficit. and that s one of the things another reason why we may not see so much compromise. we put a graphic together of some of the big issues you are going to see coming up very early. and as you mentioned, the deficit right there, that s one of the top three. of course, and tackling that massive government deficit. what about the budget itself? remember, the lame duck when they passed that budget, it s only temporary. they re going to have to pass a new budget, raising the debt ceiling for the country. and they promised to pass legislation that would try to repeal the n