today are born to families eligible for medicaid. the idea that you can ask the american people to balance this budget on the fackets backs of the ugly and the most vulnerable with no burden through tax reform on the most fortunate americans is fundamentally unacceptable. it s not going to happen. they knew it it s not going to become law. we have made so much progress over the last four months with republicans and trying to build consensus for a more balanced approach i give the speaker a lot of credit for that. let s turn in the time we have left for the economy. last august you wrote op. ed article in the new york times and the headline as you can see there is welcome to the recovery. that was not our headline. that was the new york times headline. deeply unfair to the substance of what i wrote. chris: here is what you did say. put it up on the screen if you can what you did say is we are on a path back to growth. i assume that s true. chris: those were your words.
president and the speaker believe that the best thing we can do is put together a very substantial contribution to getting our fiscal house chris: you are saying the so-called grand bargain is still alive. i wouldn t say it that way. two approaches. one like that comprehensive, balanced entitlement savings to secure medicare and medicaid for the future with tax reform that would generate revenues, help us solve this problem. but, there is also some talk about a plan that senator mcconnell and senator reid both put forward that would also take default off the table and put in place a special committee with special powers to try to move legislation to achieve that same outcome. now, you can solve this problem lots of different ways. but the two key things are we take default off the table. the threat of default off the table through the election and we put in place a framework of tough reforms, forces congress to act relatively soon. we don t want to fall behind the concern of cu
course of the week by demanding another $400 billion. simple fact question did you have an agreement with speaker boehner last sunday in a meeting in white house chief of staff bill daily s office $800 billion in new revenue? we did not but we were close. at that point. chris: did not have an agreement. at that point on saturday we will were apart on two very important things one is what type of revenue we were going to get through tax reform. objective testimony savings that speaker boehner thought we should put in the deal on medicaid, for example. 800 billion-dollar figure many nothing is done until severing done. at that point we are getting closer quite done yet. there is still a chance that you should have ask the speaker, of course. that may prove the west way to get the best votes. the president believes the speaker does that a framework like that would be the best
president and the speaker of the house had been talking about for the last several weeks now. chris: i thought that s dead? no. they are talking still. because, again, both the president and the speaker believe that the best thing we can do is put together a very substantial contribution to getting our fiscal house chris: you are saying the so-called grand bargain is still alive. i wouldn t say it that way. two approaches. one like that comprehensive, balanced entitlement savings to secure medicare and medicaid for the future with tax reform that would generate revenues, help us solve this problem. but, there is also some talk about a plan that senator mcconnell and senator reid both put forward that would also take default off the table and put in place a special committee with special powers to try to move legislation to achieve that same outcome. now, you can solve this problem lots of different ways. but the two key things are we take default off the table. the threat of