we ll start this over. according to some reports, they could be as close as just three or four votes to passing it where they would then send it to the senate where it immediately would be killed by harry reid. this is no doubt a problem for the republicans right now. let s face it. yesterday was supposed to be the day they were going to hold president obama s feet to the fire. they were going to pass the first they were going to pass a plan, actually, folks. we are four days away from default. this is going to be a plan that would pass. no doubt this is a huge problem for speaker boehner. a lot of people are saying this is the essence of his speakership right here. rush limbaugh basically saying that republicans are being played like saps and he said the whole process here is playing republicans like saps because you know what? it s going to be the reed-obama bill that comes through. what happens when the reid-obama comes through? they ll have to get a lot of democrats on board
aren t the rating agencies supposed to be neutral nonpart son bodies. that is a great question. they are supposed to be. whether they are is another story. at the fox business network we got the emails showing the administration has been dealing with the rating agencies on the whole budget issue since at least march. lots of talks that were heating up in april, the administration worried about losing its aaa rating back then. they were in heated, interesting meetings with standard & poors. we are hearing now for the last couple of days the white house is essentially putting the pressure on the rating agencies to try to get some sort of statement out of them to say that the reid plan is more fiscally prudent and boehner s plan. i don t know how you do that with a straight face. if you look at a lot of stuff in the harry reid plan the cuts seem meek, like stuff that might come in the future. i m not saying that boehner s plan is anything so great or the
the scenes on a potential plan c? which could be emerging? we hear about plan a. we hear about plan b. what is this mysterious plan c? it includes three things. the biggest sticking point is this trigger. not to get too far down in the weeds but this trigger option would basically set up a committee that would review all these debt things in the next couple of months and what actually they would actually go to work. actually do something about it. the problem is that people worry that committee would be just another commission that ends up spending a whole bunch of taxpayer money like the debt commission and then spend a whole bunch of taxpayer money and do nothing about it. that seems to be the trigger mechanism. but when you really look at the reid plan and the boehner plan, they both talk about cuts and both talk about no tax increases so there s some symbiosis there. they think getting through point one and point two is relatively easy. it s figuring out this trigger thing woul
variety of proposals. so, there is lot out there. i know a lot of people want to work on technical, this certain plan hasn t gone through this committee or that committee, there are several plans out there. what we should focus on instead of blaming everybody, focus on getting a result. i can tell you on the senate side, we re running out of time waiting for the house to do their work. there is lot of effort over here, both democrats and republicans trying to figure out what s the right approach here. and i think we can get there over time. we re running out of time now with the house. i hear what they always like to say, it is a great one-liner, gets good press coverage but the fact is there are multiple plans out there. there is only one bipartisan plan actually been presented and that has been gang of six made up of three republican three democrats on the senate side. jon: hasn t majority leader reid said the boehner plan, if it arrives in the senate is dead on arrival? i mean tha
i think they have a great opportunity. they can pass the boehner plan. it s a substantive improvement on the nation s finances. it would be a plan that can get through the senate. harry reid s plan cannot get through the senate. as rich correctly pointed out, the president has been missing in action and played this in a political fashion. his most recent press conference was a positioning for failure effort so the house republicans have struggled, obviously but today they can pass this and walk away from it with a real improvement in the nation s finances and victory over the president. real quickly, what is happening right now at this moment in that get your ass in line room that john boehner set up. but is he meeting right now and trying to wrangle the votes? what s going on? well, it s unclear. you hear some people say they only need about two. some people say they need five to 12 that would be a very heavy lift. some talk it s a two tier plan. there s some talk that the secon