harry reid in this is what happened with the talks: keep the government open back in april. and, ultimately the talks have blend up. there is nothing else going on. i spoke with the top democrat on the budget committee and he said he had no indication that they would withdraw from the talks. this is really critical at this juncture, and everybody has said that the talks were going very well with one caveat: early in the week, the majority leader, a republican negotiator in the room, said he wanted the president to get more involved. today he placed it on the president and said, look, the problem here, the problem here is taxes. he says democrats are not willing to give up raising taxes, and democrats say, look, we have do have a revenue razor. there is no way we can cut, cut, cut, and get a deal. and another dynamic people are asking whether they could sell this to the republican leadership. one source said to me early
revenue razor in this bill by any stretch of the imagination. it is a class warfare issue but important on both sides, deeply felt and that is what we see. shepard: i wondered what you thought as a side, you use the word compromise, but what did you think of the game being played, john boehner over the weekend on 60 minutes, trying not to use the word compromise, because it is a dirty word. guest: a strange change. the guy whose could do the deals who could figure out the magic compromise making everyone happy were the respected deal makers and now it is, as you suggest, a dirty word. and it is an admission you are not getting what you want. president obama has been dealing with that for ten days, the liberal base is unhappy he is compromising the principles. john boehner is worried about the same thing, compromise to people on both sides thinks that makes letting go of principles or not having principles opposed
they don t pay much more in taxes, it s never been shown to work at 90% rates or 40% rates. tax collections are about 19% of gdp. they this are spending 3-plus trillion dollars. isn t 2 trillion enough? if they just spent that there would be no deficit. it s the spending that is the problem. megyn: are the republicans making that argument? just this week in connection with the segment we were doing i did research on what had happened his tore being lee when we lowered the taxes on the rich as opposed to raise the taxes on them. we looked at the coolidge administration. george w bush. it was it was a revenue razor. reporter: they paid more taxes. when tax rates were 90% ronald reagan would make four movies and go ride horses. he said it didn t pay to make more movies, it changes our
sedans have potentially faulty engines that could cause the cars to stall. they are said to be considering a recall. from the sublime to the ridiculous, hundreds of new laws take effect today. hunch die for the year. nbc justice correspondent with the yearly ritual here to look at, we have picked how out some of the weirder new lawsen the first devastated chuck todd. attacks on tanning beds. a 15% federal tax on tang beds, started out, part of the health care bill you can started out as a tax on cosmetic surgery but dermatologists lobbied congress and said, look, tanning beds are a capper is risk why don t you put the tax on them. this actually pace for health care. helps to pay. virginia, a couple of laws, baby fishing licenses and concealed guns in bars. tell us about it. you can buy someone a lifetime hunting or fishing license if you buy it before they turn age 2 costs $125. the reason for this is a revenue
to be acting in the public interest, the public has become deeply frustrated with their conduct because funding government for just two weeks, isn t that grossly inefficient? yes, and it s totally embarrassing. but you now, we have new members that have come here with a commitment not to borrow any funds and they are cutting meaningful programs but cutting programs don t necessarily mean that you are saving money. you could be causing more of a problem fiscally by cutting something that could be a revenue razor. having said that they don t want to explain to their people back home why they would authorize the president to either raise the debt ceiling or why they find that we still will have to borrow more money. so, yes, it s frustrating when the world leader finds ourselves governing two weeks at a time. but that s what we find ourselves in, as the situation, and we have to work it out. see, last year s gallup