pensions they might have in other communities? other communities in california? probably not. but other communities, other parts of the country, definitely. and we, you know, greta, we have some of the most generous pensions in the country here in california. if there s no way to sort of renegotiate these pension programs and are these pensions just untouchable? that s what s going on right now in court. and the bond holder will lose a lot of money in the bankruptcy and they re the creditors now and won t get paid everything they re owed are saying well, the city should actually stop paying the tension obligationses that will put less money for the pension funds and not pay off obligationses and cut some of the pensions of current workers and the city is saying it can t do that and it s contractually obligated to pay these pensions and that s the big issue that will it it has not really been decided today and it will be battled in the courts. i m rusty on this and not
vladmir putin, good friend with some of the oligarches, he is not happy. heather: we re here in the good ol u.s. of a, so any impact on us here? yes. minor leagues but we re breathing a sigh of relief. when the stock market opened this monday morning even though it followed a series of all-time record highs you will probably see stocks go up a little bit more at opening bell this morning because of a bailout of cyprus. heather: stu varney, thanks for joining us. we appreciate it. you ve been busy. yep. bill: detroit is taking a big step to solve its financial issues. the new emergency financial manager starts today. kevyn orr, a bankruptcy lawyer and rescue specialist. orr saying failure is not an option when it comes to digging the city out of a deep financial hole. detroit has $14 billion in long-term liabilities. that includes underfunded pension programs. this is a big, big job. heather: a lot of people planning on protesting that
know this. i mean, o reilly, it s very clear, i don t think bill o reilly knows who ezra klein is. i don t think he consumes any of the news that comes out of here, obviously. and just doesn t consume anything outside of that bubble. yeah, and i think what s interesting in watching it, first of all, it never gets less awkward watching bill o reilly literally losing his mind and screaming at him. but republicans don t understand the terms of the debate. to your term, they don t really understand the budget. i think jared bernstein will back me up on this. if you look at the budget of the united states, something like 71% of it is split between defense, which is about 24, 25%, i think, as of this fiscal year, social security, pension programs, those kinds of things. and health care. meaning incorporating medicare, tricare, medicare, that kind of thing. so two-thirds of the budget is very difficult to cut, because there s such a political constituency for it, you saw the
tea party members. getting to the next story, conservative gasser the in cpac, they do that three weeks from now and they didn t invite chris christie. why should they? the guy has 74% approval rating. he stood up to powerful union bosses. he made the pension programs my goodness, look at his approval rating. who wants that! he actually has cut spending in real dollars. ew. this year s budget compared to 2008 budget. he s cut corporate tax rates. good lord. he s grown the economy by over 100,000 jobs over the past couple of years. don t want that. in his state. he s the first pro-life governor in new jersey since roe v. wade passed and he is thriving in a state he has the highest approval rating in a state that hasn t gone republican in a
unfortunately it s not the right way to go, i don t think anyone wants to bail out detroit for mismanagement. brenda: julian, what say you. i think we have to define the terms, quid pro quo and bailout are unfortunate terms. i think that jonas made the right point. you have to separate long-term and short-term issues. long-term, the same way that the government reformed entitlement, the state has to reform pension programs. and many states and governments are doing that. in the short-term, however, it s another question when you re in an economically very difficult time, if the states and local governments don t get money it forces to raise taxes or increase unemployment both are which are bad for the economy. conservative president bush had three efforts to provide state aid to state and local governments that were suffering during an economic down tournament. brenda: quickly, julian. and supported in the past.