reid plan. reid is trying to get more than just 60 votes. he wants to try to get eight, ten, 12 republicans to garner more in the house. nevertheless, it is a very difficult process. you alluded to this earlier, this 3:30 briefing we are watching. is it expected to be more hard talk or are you hearing from any one of your sources we might hear something different? we expect it to be hard talk. the gop position has been all along is where is the leadership? harry reid is not leading? president obama is not leading? the reid bill is dead in the house. the boehner bill died in the senate. they will make a plea saying we don t know what the president wants to sign. one gop told me congress is motionless right now. the president just announced through his office of management and budget he would be willing
2.4 trillion that takes them through the election of 2012. that s the key right now. there will be a lot of push back from republicans and there will be some republicans like senator demint and senator paul who could potentially stand up and filibuster before this vote. and that would present a problem up against this deadline. laura: james, i keep going back to the dynamics of this market and what happened with this tarp thing. a few years back and market dropped 800 points. everyone freaks out and suddenly people are saying you have got to do something. then the pressure is really. let s say you are right and they come to some last-minute deal and the president signs it for extension, what you have. the boehner plan, the reid plan, whatever compromise the president could sign, none of that reaches the $4 trillion cuts figure. the figure is what the agents agencies said we need to get in place to avoid a downgrade. anyway you face it we are staring a downgrade in the credit rating
solve our debt crisis and do that if democrats will work with us. we can t allelula of the problems at once. but we can reachh an agreement that increases the debt ceiling and impresses accountability and reduce the size of federal government they are hearing scott brown from massachusetts willing to vote for the boehner plan and also the reed plan and so senator harry reid has to pick off republicans to get the necessary vote to get the compromise plan through the united states senate. if he commisdemeanor he can signal to the house they are working to compromise. here is senator hairy reed on that.
the choice for them. a tough choice. pay this list of bills, getting medicare and medicaid payments to grandma, sending social security checks out, and pay groups like contractors. this is that list i was talking about, that keep our military running. or the other list to take a look at, pay back some of the money we ve borrowed, over $4.5 trillion owed to governments around the world. china at the top of the list, as you can see there. lending one out of every four dollars that we owe. only a portion of this needs to be paid in august, good thing. all told, $306 billion starting august 3rd. the problem? only $172 billion is coming in from tax and other revenues. that leaves a big shortfall of $134 billion. so who do you pay? many say the treasury department will go with foreign governments and other bondholders first. though few details are out on who and how bills will be paid, the treasury department has been putting together a payment plan. one possibility in that plan
we have shown that some compromise is coming but others are rigid and extreme. heather: let s talk specifically how we do that. from what i understand it s boiling down to two things. democrats want a long term response to the nation s debt problem to keep medicare and social security intact. republicans wanted spending cuts dollar for dollar, no tax increases. where do you see room for compromise? you just pointed out interesting dynamics. they want dollar for dollar cuts for increase authorized in the debt ceiling. they got that in reid plan. they can t take yes for an answer. when you talk a long sterm strategy or they claim democrats want, i ll use their own words, they were calling in june for a long term solution because it was the only acceptable outcome because of the impact on confidence on the economy. we re sues go their own advice. their own challenge to the