with us in the anchor world. very annoying. governor, your book has good comments and solutions on what airlines us. this time next week the government could face a possible shut down if $4 billion in cuts are not passed. house majority leader accusing democrats of playing chicken. but are republicans getting nervous? former white house press secretary on that. are they getting nervous coming up with the alternatives so not to have a finger pointed at them? guest: i don t think anyone wants a government shut down, the two that don t want it are the white house and senate democrats and you saw that on monday when senator reid wanted a one-month extension. the house republicans will announce they are going to offer a two week extension that includes $4 billion in curts and those are no draconian, but they looked at things that president
do this. listen. i d like to see a serious effort bipartisan in nature led by the white house where we look at extending the age of social security retirement, we all know we have to do that, and when it comes to means testing benefits that should be on the table. extending the age of social security benefits and having means testing. are you open to those two proposals? well, wolf, let me separate two things, and i really wish that republicans in congress could separate them. the debt limit discussion is about the full faith and credit of the united states. we should not be nobody should be playing chicken with that or playing games wi s wit. we should have an honest discussion about the government. he knows we have to deal with the long-term fiscal challenges, the president. when he releases his budget in the a few weeks i think it s going to be clear that he takes
spending items, like the number of government employees, health care and social security. chris, as we ve been hearing, both sides are accusing the other, playing chicken here about, again, spending hitting that debt ceiling. chris? richard, is that foam there? you re making me a little bit clauser phobic. this is a ceiling that we built and these are the levels of our debt ceiling over the past recent ten years. with money on the side, too, do you like that? i like it, i like it very much. i love your t-shirt. we went all out, can i say, msnbc spares no budget for the clothing allowance. thank you so much. you bet. but it is something we ll hear a lot about in the days to come here on capitol hill. in the meantime, police are hoping a new surveillance video of a former presidential aide will help them put together a timeline of mysterious hours before his death and the discovery of his body in the landfill.
quote, i think there s going to be politics. that s what happens in washington. they re going to play to their base for a certain period of time. but he also said, quote, my expectation, my hope, is that john boehner, the incoming speaker of the house, and mitch mcconnell, the ranking republican in the senate, will realize that there will be plenty of time to campaign for 2012 in 2012 and that our job is to make sure we build on recovery. we started making good progress on that in the lame duck, and i expect to build on that progress when i get back. meanwhile, there s likely to be a battle over extending the nation s debt ceiling by early march. mr. obama s economic have ors say that s like playing chicken with the country s credit rating, but incoming tea party republicans, especially, are opposed to extending the debt ceiling at least without a commitment to cut spending in the future. incoming speaker boehner says that lawmakers are going to have to deal with the issue, quote, like
martha. martha: no doubt, but there are other ways they are trying to go at this to undermine the health care reform law. reporter: a couple of other ways. there were 30 legal challenges filed, nearly a dozen have been thrown out of three that have made it through the first court phase, two have gone actually in favor of the administration. only the virginia challenge has gone against the administration, and, meanwhile, some republicans feel they cannot repeal health care reform, or cannot deal with it in the courts and may be able to starve it to death by denying the funding needed to implement the different provisions of the reform law. some are vowing to try and block an extension of the nation s credit ceiling, which will be needed in march, but, white house economist austan goolsbee says that is like playing chicken with the country s credit rating. if we hit the debt ceiling that is the essentially defaulting on our obligations. which is totally unprecedented in american hi