investments, particularly in transportation and infrastructu infrastructure. according to the american society of civil engineers, we have a $2.1 trillion need in the country. china is investing in infrastructure three times what we are and they have spare cash to help europe invest in their infrastructure. we have to put people back to work. yes, we have to address the deficit but can t do so in a way to undermine the economy and set us back. thank you so much for being on the show this morning. good luck with everything. standing by in the green room, katrina will join us. first, a straw pole shows momentum could be shifting. that s next on morning joe. if congress really wants to balance the budget.
they cut wages and pension benefits by 10%. they raised the retirement age and they are cutting their budget by the e quif vent of $1.7 trillion a year. under the ryan plan, we would cut a few hundred billion dollars a year. if you ask why there are greeks in the streets, imagine us trying to cut our deficit by that money. they seem like the perfect warning sign for the united states of america. you can either endure a little bit of pain now or be forced to endure a lot of pain and chaos down the road. there s a canary in the mind shaft. we are a long way from greece, but heading in that direction. can you explain, we may be a long way from greece, but we are going downhill. if things pick up, if suddenly,
it was tax evasion. that s how greece got into the mess. the question is greece s new reality, how is it working? it is austerity. they are looking at massive cuts. if you show their debt, it s 160% of gdp. we talk on this program a lot of our own debt. our debt has gone up, but we are not at greece levels. we are at german levels, but not greek levels. if you look at the budget, our gdp looks lix greece. their deficit is 10% ours is 10%. germany s is around 2%. we are spending obviously much more than we know. you ask the question of how is austerity working out? not so well. they introduced massive cuts. we talk wisconsin and people paying more of their health.
this, we need to rethink the relationship of the executive to the constitution and to what kind of system we will have as a democracy. the danger of becoming a national security state. i want to see if i can articulate that the elite who play games within the beltway are themselves not reflective of a growing consensus. worry a few exceptions. health care was never that popular. the health care reform bill and you can argue about the politics. the bailouts. wildly unpopular. that was popular. they had no voice in the electoral system because if your choices are between john baner and nancy pelosi, most of america is living well. i believe there is representation in the beltway. who are is it? the progressive caucus that put out a people s budget which was fair and did not get
but we don t want to use that as a backdoor hidden tax increase, and there ll be an effort in the senate, along with the effort to eliminate that bill, to compensate with lower tax rates overall. so that it s revenue neutral. we should get rid of all annoying tax credits and reduce rates. well, i completely agree with you on your description of the ethanol tax credit, but the idea that, you know, getting rid of it isn t good enough, and if you get rid of it, you then have to i don t want to raise taxes to pay for obama s big government. i get it. don t pretend it s about ethanol, it s about your wanting to pay for obama s big government! no, it s about two things, on my end, it is about ethanol. i agree with you completely, let s get rid of it. but i m happy to say get rid of it period and let the treasury collect the additional revenue. why?! they d just spend it on too much government. spend it on health care for people who need it. grover, we re out of time. grover n