would add up if you said to the president you re going to have to give us a lot more in cuts. we re going to have to be more aggressive in reforming medicare, medicaid. and let s pass the warren buffett tax where rich, the super rich, millionaires and above pay 30% minimum, and that ll raise a couple i think $150 billion, $200 billion, and then raise the $250,000 level to $500,000, and if you re a republican say we re not going up to 39.6%, but if you do all this and give us the cuts we need, then we ll meet you half way and raise marginal rails at 37%. i don t know, the white house probably won t do that, but that s a deal. doesn t that get to one of the questions implicit in this entire debate that s going to go on, it appears. can the democrats who have the white house and the united states senate, can they put together, fashion a deal that
all of these issues. so there s everybody knows what everybody was willing to do 20 minutes ago, and so to revert just doesn t make any sense. you re the historian, jon, really quickly. and people may see this as being ideological on my part, it s not on my part. 100 years from now, no one s going to remember john boehner s name, no one s going to remember harry reid s name, no one s going to believe 20 seconds from now that john boehner and harry reid were the architects of any deal or any failure. when does the president realize that he is sitting in the chair of thomas jefferson, of abraham lincoln, of woodrow wilson, t.r., fdr, jfk, ronald reagan. when does he realize that and step up and start doing what abraham lincoln did? yeah. and buy them off, charm them
andrews air force base where george h.w. bush went in there. we forget now how incredibly overwhelming the deficit story was at that point. you know, you look at that administration. the coming in, just no one thought they could do anything. it s not unlike the conversations we re having now. and they went in, they did the deal, president bush had to shift from read my lips to as only he could put it, read my hips. and it was good for the country, it created a political dynamic that cost president bush the election in 1992, and which we re still living, because that gave us grover norquist, et cetera. let s get to grover norquist in a minute, but i do have a question. the gop plan consists of $2.2 trillion in savings over a decade. that includes raging the eligibility age for medicare from 65 to 67. and lowering cost of living increases for social security benefits. they also propose overhauling