they re at peak strength than to delay it until 2014 or 2015 when republicans might have more leverage. so yeah, the two sides, they re talking. but they re not close to a deal, not yet. joining us is jared bernstein, former economic policy adviser to vice president joe biden, an msnbc and cnbc contributor, and a man who is very good at finding the deal. jared, it s good to see you. good to see you, ezra. so let me start with the news of the day here. what do you think of the somewhat vague reports we re hearing about offers flying back and forth? i think a little bit of it, and not a lot. when i read in the paper as i did this morning that there is some sunlight breaking out, i m ready for tomorrow saying no. in fact, it s all darkness. i do think that the president s move to come down $200 billion on his revenue number is real and important. it s as you said earlier, once they start negotiating over
democrats to sign. and so we just need to get to the magic number of 218. so if we get a little help from our republican colleagues, they would be telling the middle class that middle class folks are going to get the tax relief, 98% of the americans. in fact, as you know, 100% of american families will get tax relief on their first $250,000 in income. yeah. why does okay. let s say boehner does give up on the rates on the top 2%. what are you willing to give up? where do you think the democrats will go? well, first of all, it s also the overall number the president s called for. what the president has said is we need $1.6 trillion as part of an overall deficit reduction plan because if you don t get those additional revenues, but you also try to reduce the deficit, you end up whacking everybody else much harder. and so it s really important to have that revenue number as high as possible. sure. look, the president s already been clear, ed, on cuts. he will continue to impleme
deficit, you end up whacking everybody else much harder. and so it s really important to have that revenue number as high as possible. sure. look, the president s already been clear, ed, on cuts. he will continue to implement over the next ten years over $1 trillion in cuts that he agreed to as part of the budget control act. 100% cuts and at the time he said we got to come back and do revenue. he s also called for over a half trillion dollars in additional cuts and he s laid out exactly what those would be. today senate minority leader mitch mcconnell dared democrats to vote on his debt ceiling bill. he put it out there. majority leader harry reid called him on it, called his bluff. then mcconnell filibustered his own bill. here s senator dick durbin. so this may be a moment in senate history when a senator made a proposal and when given an opportunity for a vote on that proposal filibustered his own proposal. i think we have now reached a new spot in the history of the senate
you also try to reduce the deficit, you end up whacking everybody else much harder. and so it s really important to have that revenue number as high as possible. sure. look, the president s already been clear, ed, on cuts. he will continue to implement over the next ten years over $1 trillion in cuts that he agreed to as part of the budget control act. 100% cuts and at the time he said we got to come back and do revenue. he s also called for over a half trillion dollars in additional cuts and he s laid out exactly what those would be. today senate minority leader mitch mcconnell dared democrats to vote on his debt ceiling bill. he put it out there. majority leader harry reid called him on it, called his bluff. then mcconnell filibustered his own bill. here s senator dick durbin. so this may be a moment in senate history when a senator made a proposal and when given an opportunity for a vote on that proposal filibustered his own proposal. i think we have now reached a new spot i
generally while broadening the base. that is different from where the president is at now. is there currency to the republican argument that the president has moved the goal posts? what s happened alex, people actually crunched the numbers and do the math, and run through the tables, and it turns out that the math does not work unless you increase the top rates. one of the reasons speaker boehner has not spelled out how he would achieve the $800 billion. it s one of the reasons that, you know, presidential candidate mitt romney didn t want to tell the american people how he was going to do his tax reform. because it certainly is not possible to get to the revenue number that the president s called for, $1.6 trillion, be without raising the rates and i would point out that the bipartisan simpson-bowles commission assumes in their numbers that those rates will go up. so when they did tax reform, they did it from a starting point that assumed the revenue from those rates going up and th