speculating that the gop has reason to distrust this president or administration when it comes to them being involved around the same table, having a discussion. is there some point at which he needs to begin to win back their trust? reporter: certainly he does. the reality is he did go from a period where you didn t have to pay much attention to them if you were president, and i think they felt like he didn t. i also think they felt on the few times that they did get together it was sort of a publicity angle that made them look bad. i think, you know, the gop leadership is clearly not trustful of the president and the administration s motives. at the same time, look we ve got to get that behind us, if they don t start working together and build some trust up nothing is going to get done and it s going to be polarizing. i they will you if this is another two years of polar rised government i think it s going to
government. i would be very much opposed to it. shannon: what about raising the amount of income that can be taxed by social security payroll taxes. increasing the amounts eligible for that tax. you have to have a comprehensive social security proposal which address the benefit and the revenue side. that should be in the mix. i m not endorsing what the commission proposal was, clearly that has to be on the table as part of a social security fix so you make that system solvent for the next 50 to 75 years. shannon: strict pay as you go rules. if you propose an entitlement or a tax cut showing in washington that you have a way to pay for it before its passed. absolutely. the problem in washington is we waive pay go every time we try to enforce it. i made 20 different pay go points of order on spending bills that came before the senate as ranking member of the budget committee. every one of them was waived.
but it was significant, he left out some areas i would want addressed. it got panned by the people on the left. the speaker of the house says it was a nonstarter. that is inexcusable. that s burying your head in the stand. shannon: it would ask for a lot of sacrifice from both sides, people who don t want to see any taxes raised or entitlements cut at all. are they going to be able to meet in the middle? you mentioned house speaker nancy pelosi comment. there there be common ground. there has to be. either you re going to do this in an orderly way or you re going to do it in the middle of a financial crisis of inordinate proportions. and it will be more painful. everything has to be on the table. remember the primary driver of this problem is the growth of the federal government. it s gone from historic levels 20% gdp since we ve had since the epbz of world war 2 roeupl roam it s gone up to 24%.
you really nailed it. by the parties got more extreme. what happens is this pre verse thing happened in the primaries that more conservative republicans got nominations and got reelected to congress in conservative districts and you saw the moderate democrats get purged in the swing district because voters were taking their anger out on the democrats. now we have especially in the house a much more ideologically polar rised and extreme tkauz party in both caucuses and it s going to make governing very, very difficult. i am very cynical about what is going to happen. i think we ll have a stalemate for the next two years and a very big debate in 2012. shannon: the next two years we have dave rent situation in that we have democrats controlling the senate and the white house. we ve got republicans controlling the house, some say they are going to ram through a lot of legislation they know has no chance of getting through the senate but will within them points back hope. what kind of i
sometimes they do, only after a brutal confirmation process. sometimes nominees withdraw before making it to the senate judiciary committee so the brutal nomination process can begin. but by in large, supreme court nominees are given the deference of an up or down vote on their nomination. they are not filibustered. as much as it seems this can t get any more exploited, can t be any more partisan, it is now in 2010, officially more polar rised, more exploited and more partisan than it has ever been before. you can tell that because republican members of the senate are already threatening to filibuster the nominee to replace justice stevens. even though there isn t even a nominee yet. just minutes after president obama accepted justice stevens resignation today, lamar alexander released a statement that reads, quote, i hope president obama will nominate his successor from the middle and not from the fringe.