and 4, even as the debt sky rocketed. mondale said i ll raise taxes to fight the deficit and lost 49 states. we usually do, this is a great point, deficits come up in periods of economic hardship. it is not a good time to come up. it hurts the economy to cut the deficit quickly while the economy it weak. so krystal this is the real danger of the sequester fight, this is not a cliff or a breach or a government shutdown. it will hurt, not that badly, but hurt the economy maybe in ways people don t even recognize is coming from the sequester. it will take growth out and people having jobs out of the pretty soon we ll see shrinking, but it wouldn t be directly relatable back. it was interesting last week, there was polling asking people how much have you heard about the sequester from pew. and 72% of people said they either heard only a little bit
puzzling, underlying position, the policy doesn t make a lot of sense given their budget goals. as i understand it, republicans have five basic goals, number one, they say is cut the deficit. number two, cut entitlement spending. number three, protect defense spending and possibly even increase it. four, make the tax code simple by cleaning out deductions and loopholes. and five, five of course is always lower tax rates. now, the white house is able to cut a deal with republicans that accomplish one, two, three, four, it wouldn t lower tax rates but it will do all the other things. republicans won t entertain that deal. they say no, no, we prefer the sequester instead of one, two, three, and four. they get much less than a larger deal, they won t touch entitlement spending really at all. they will see defense spending go through an incredibly big cut. rather than striking a deal with
thank you, ezra. steve, who are you wearing? sorry. this was a $12,000 sweater that nbc has generously provided. this is actually new, it was deemed unacceptable you do have a stylist. we re trying, we re trying. so to give you a real question here, steve, there is cognitive dissonance, people are they don t like government in theory, but they like it in practice. and this creates a certain amount of incoherence when we try to deal with the sequester. the only way i can put it, what is the overall top, the way they re dealing with congress. i think they tend to conflate
i don t think the republican s position on the sequester, and i don t mean the political one we just talked about. the policy one, what we actually want to get done. so i have asked a very smart republican policy wonk to explain it to me. and there was something at the oscar, something so short, the shortest nominated film ever. and you will see it right here, get some chips and sauce and get back here. like an available heads-up display on the 2013 lexus gs. there s no going back. impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it s just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average.
also believe very strongly, the key is entitlement spending, not all spending is created equal. the medicare, social security spending, the white house would be able to get into those programs. but they are not without going outside of the boundaries of the sequester. so what about the rest of that? the problem is you have to have an assumption of competence on the conservative base, the republicans as a whole, when it comes time to negotiate with the white house they will come out with a better deal. and i think that frankly the base believes they re not capable of doing such a thing, they have their doubts about the ability of republicans to negotiate any better situation. and i think the second part of this, they are skeptical on the part of the base right now, about the willingness of republicans to cut in any real sense. and any negotiation that backs off from the sequester, would, i think, be read as a retreat from cuts, retreat from being willing to reduce to size and scope of