then why don t you show some? why don t you outline solutions instead of just asking for them? there s a disconnect all right. one that senator harry reid summed up best today. speaker boehner made very clear at his press conference that he thinks the ball is in your court. where s the disconnection? i don t understand his brain so you should ask him. i don t understand his brain either but he needs to get in the game for the good of the country. joining me now is chris van hollen, democrat from maryland. he was in the democratic leadership meeting with secretary geithner this meeting. congressman, thank you for your time tonight. reverend, good to be with you. congressman, you were in the meeting on the hill today. the white house wants $1.6 trillion in tax increase, 50
always people not tim geithner who maybe had a hand in the economy. you can construct any number of conspiracies. i m not suggesting they do. but shawn donovan, howing secretary, housing is not doing great either. fox news has led this charm. maybe these republican senators are just pandering to fox news but maybe there s something deep-seeded about their resentment about the president and these proxies around him and they are not letting up. they re not letting up on us for pointing that out but that s not going to stop anyone. richard wolffe, jonathan capehart, thank you very much, indeed. stay with us. we have much more ahead. representative costa held a smaller christmas tree lighting last year and plans to do so again this year as she gets prepared to come on tv. she joins us live this morning. it s so great to speak with you again. good morning to you. good morning, gretchen. merry christmas. now, wait now they re
case hard for a deal on middle class tax relief. secretary geithner will head to the hill. is john boehner now facing the rising tide against his yacht owners and the like? i think he is. a 60-37 margin on supporting raising taxes on the wealthy is pretty definitive. most issues are not that clear. the republican party just lost a big election. do they want to shrink below independence? they re pretty close. you know, most people identify themselves as democrats. second, republicans. third, independents. the republicans have lost so much ground that they re actually in danger of slipping below independence in terms of party affiliation. this does not help them. there just are not enough rich people, martin, for there to be a constituency for this. so, they re coming to terms with this now. tom cole is not a squishy, moderate republican. he s a conservative. john boehner wants to cut a
eligible for medicare, would go up to 67. this plan also includes some $749 billion in higher tax revenue. that would come from capping itemized deductions at $50,000 which would hit wealthier americans the hardest. senator bob corker with me, republican, member of the senate banking committee. how are you doing, senator? i m great. thanks for having me on today. bill: rolling the big boulder up the hill one way or another now. that s right. bill: why do you believe this plan is something congress could have acted on for two years? you say it s been on the table that long. bill, we had every option known to mankind and scored and discussed and congress showed lack of courage to deal with this. we laid out a very specific plan. i wrote an op-ed yesterday in the washington post. we sent out language to speaker boehner, to mitch mcconnell s office, to the white house and secretary
democratic friends have to reform entitlements. what will make us grief is not raising taxes, what will make us grief is not fixing medicare, medicaid and social security. house speaker john boehner said he would prefer closing loopholes and tax deductions rather than raising rates. martha: thank you very much. bill: the budget negotiations with congressional leaders started a few weeks ago with president obama barack obama calling for $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenue over the next decade. treasury secretary timothy geithner argues that you cannot raise enough revenue to reduce the deficit by only limited tax breaks as some republicans argue, some senior republican aides they say believe a likely compromise would generate about a trillion dollars in new tax revenue possibly by limiting the deductions. martha: part of this whole equation. any future spending cuts should