with some aspects of immigration reform, that s fine. we can pass those. we ll have to meet with the senate that s passed immigration reform and see what comes out of conference. we strongly believe it needs to be a comprehensive bill, not simply a piecemeal bill, because if you pass just the economic segments which we could support and not the other segments that give people confidence that they can continue to work, support the families and be here, that s not a bill that will fix the broken system. look, the speaker s made a couple commitments to his own conference. first i m not going into conference if we don t have a republican majority support and i m not taking something out that doesn t have majority support. i take him at his word, and i think that s the appropriate way to go. but, look, this is a huge problem. and to call a senate bill bipartisan, it is, but it was a minority of republicans with an overwhelming majority of democrats. you re not going to move a product like
with that? will people sort of recoil if they see too much of it? reporter: this is iowa, and negative campaigning doesn t generally go over well. and we talked tuesday night with a panel of undecided voters, five of them here from the sioux city area, and they say candidates can go too far, and they specifically cited then-candidate tim pawlenty s performance at the pre-straw poll debate and his attack on michele bachmann. have a listen. early on i thought the way michele bachmann the way tim pawlenty went after michele bachmann right out of the chute, i thought that was horrible. right off the get. it turned me off. couldn t even think about supporting him. reporter: so it s a delicate dance for the candidates tonight. they may want to be aggressive, but too adepress i have might actually hurt them aggressive might actually hurt them. martha: watch that fine line tonight. steve brown in sioux city. bill: you know, iowa s become, for argument s sake, a swing state, believe i
benefits. the white house actually had their communications director dan pfeiffer come out late last night and say, quote, congress should pass a short-term continuing resolution as it has seven times already so all parties have appropriate time to consider and complete all the budget and economic issues necessary to finish our responsibilities for the year. democrats are done pushing for the controversial surtax on millionaires. boehner s brinkmanship will keep their backs against the wall. less than 40 hours until the government could shut down. martha: that incredible statement of itself. seven crs as we try to move towards some kind of budget out of congress which is their number one task when sent there to prepare a budget. peter, you will be busy watching all of that. bill: we wonder what it will take to get the deal done to avoid the possible government shut down. john cornyn will wonder whether or not the democrats are giving on the
you re going to see literally a man who resembles paul ryan throwing granny off a cliff. that, they said, would be the result of the first ryan plan, literally granny off a cliff. that is demagoguery. you can expect exactly the same thing to happen again because anytime you touch any entitlement program there is enormous and emotional opposition to it. bill: despite that music as the under bed there. paul ryan really went out on a limb with his position. is he changing his position somewhat now? the first ryan plan was out and out privatization. this new plan is a softening of that to some degree in that medicare remains intact. it remains an option. just one of several other options and must now compete with, would compete with private health care insurance. remember, anybody 55 and over would not be affect at
it s interesting he uses the phrasing i never directed anyone to misuse customer funds. we re going to hear more about that. are they going to be tough on him today, james? reporter: well, it stands to get tougher for him if only because members of the committee should, in theory, be vrt versed in these issues than members of the house and senate agriculture committees. accordingly, lawmakers today will press jon corzine on three major points. first, what did happen to the 1.2 billion, second, whether corzine misled regulators with an optimistic statement he released about the company less than a week before filing for bankruptcy, and third, about a $175 million loan that was made to an mf global affiliate with those customer funds about which corzine has been alleged to have had some knowledge. martha: james, thank you so much. we ll be watching. reporter: thank you. bill: it was one year ago today when border agent brian terry was shot and killed. his death has led to an exhausti