government services that republicans are trying to do. they can t keep that up. so the president wants the government reopened so that they don t have to face those punishing political choices as he had to face yesterday on funding the military benefits. so he s got to get that out of the way. martha: piece by piece, and you ve got governors who will say we ll pay our own way, it s a mess. this whole thing is such a mess which i think is the clearest thing to everybody at home. yes. martha: what are you thinking about, you know, henry was asked by bill what do you think happens this weekend or whether or not the wheels are many if motion or whether or not the go to p is kind of taking a step back and saying, all right, guys, let s get together and figure out what our strategy is. are we going to allow these two things to be separated and hold firm or put them together and hope we get some kind of reduction deal in the debtsome. the frustration among republicans with ted cruz becaus
i will take issue in the beginning showing the deficit reduction and how republicans refused to vote against bigger reduction deal. i think democrats have extremely weak knees in spite of everything they say about raising revenue when it comes to actually raising revenue. i totally agree. i would agree with that. what s interesting about this bill, is not so much what it does as what is it doesn t do. it doesn t reduce the deficit barely at all. creating some cushion for the unemployed. it doesn t take advantage of the fact that we have interest rates so low. and we can borrow very cheaply right now, which is one of the president s priorities. but basically, the reason that folks on both left and right are dissatisfied with this, it really was a de minimis deal. as congress mentioned we avoid
taxes are awesome. no, taxes are means by which the government pays for its provisioning of goods. taxes get us roads, parks, sewers, and running water. if you stop paying for the government to provide public goods, then not surprisingly what tends to happen is the quality of those public goods decline. you get, instead, public mess. this deal, where the republicans say hey, maybe we ll destroy the economy, democrats say okay, we ll give you tons of spending cuts and no taxes, just how you want it. groovy working with you. this deal calls into question whether our political system has totally lost the capacity to raise revenue to pay for the vital public good, and if you think i m being hyperbolic here, hold on tight because there s a chart coming up with your name on it. in the era of the mythic beltway of ronald reagan and tip o neal, the definite reduction deal was
on it. in the era of the mythic beltway of ronald reagan and tip o neal, the definite reduction deal was born, passed, and signed into law. gerald bernstein points out yes, ronald reagan approved of a deal that was more than 80% new revenue, more than 80% more taxes, a deficit-reduction bill passed in 1990 by the first president bush. then, in 1993, bill clinton and the democratic-led congress cut the deficit. that was about 60% taxes, and now to our most current balanced budget deal. earlier this summer when the crisis of the looming debt ceiling was only just beginning to roll off the assembly line of republican shenanigans, the white house was pushing a deal that involved a 3 to 1 compromise, $3 of spending cuts to every $1 of tax increases. in other words, if the
was pulling out of in this potential reduction deal. what do you think happened here? did he cave in from pressure from conservative house members saying we re not going back any sort of revenues or tax increase? yeah, i think he really is showing right there, or the soccer team he is showing nerves of steel by sticking to his guns and focusing relentlessly on jobs and making sure that focus remains on jobs by not raising taxes. people like to to forget what happened sings or seven months in the elections in 2010 and whole new crop of republicans were sent to washington to draw the line and saying we re out of control spending. gregg: you say he is sticking to his guns. to the contrary. he backed off now. did boehner go too far when he