into the white house. secretary geithner and others to warn them, basically to scare them that the cliff is coming. to tell them that things have gone backwards in the last 24 hours. what we see here is speaker boehner saying this isn t on us. we re trying. both sides are going to say that they re trying because you talk to people up there. they re increasingly convinced on both sides there s going to be no deal. i can tell you excuse me in the white house they re extremely concerned about what the economic and market reaction to that. it may be that a deal is close enough, that it will be okay, but they re very concerned. it s a big risk. for the first time you re hearing republicans say, you know, let s go over the cliff. let s wait until people get their first paychecks. when there s more withheld, when they don t have the payroll tax holiday, then people will be screaming for tax relief. that s a huge risk because andrea, as you have reported again and again, all the signs are
and speaking of the secretary of state who you say would be willing to stay on until a successor is confirmed, hillary clinton, now, a week ago, there was an extraordinary video at the savan forum here that looked like a campaign video with endorsements from, you know, all sorts of people. tony blair and benjamin netanyahu, and it s very clear that her popularity is extraordinary. what about hillary clinton as the candidate in 2016 and joe biden has made it very clear he would like to run, so is this shaping up to a battle between biden and clinton? i know it s very far out, and you know politics better than anyone. it is very far out. the fact auz know she s got all this going for her right now. well, conventional wisdom generally gets disproven, but as the secretary clinton knows better than anyone, but there s no question, she has been on a roll for good reason. she s been extremely successful as secretary of state. she is someone who is known and
withholding tables, at least for some period of time, so if we were in the middle of negotiations and it looked like they were going to conclude, then the secretary could do exactly as you say, and that would mean that taxpayers wouldn t immediately see more money withheld from their checks, which is exactly what they would see if we went over the fiscal cliff altogether, you know, for the full year. so better than 50-50 chance that you are going to get a deal, congressman? yeah. no, i think so. it is a better than 50-50 chance, and there is a very good chance that we would be able to avoid a lot of the fiscal cliff. as you know, republicans have talked about the very least extending the middle class tax cuts, taking up that piece of legislation. it would be better if we could deal with all of the issues as part of an agreement, but even republicans, lots of them, are
here s how this would work. the george w. bush era tax rate on the upper income americans is 35%. clinton era 39.6%. do you think the democrats and republicans will agree to go down the middle there with about a 37% tax rate on the top 2%? alex, the fact is they ve been talking about these issues for more than a year since those grand bargain talks between speaker boehner and president obama in 2011. and we know the shape of a likely deal. it would be exactly that. about a 37% tax rate hike for top earners in this country. we know that secretary geithner and president obama have spoken of being open to that idea. and john boehner did himself yesterday, although after he did so in a question and answer period with reporters he then put out a statement saying he wasn t really meaning to open that door. but we know the parameters of a deal. it likely will include some kind of tax rate hike, although not to clinton levels for top
secretary geithner said obama is willing to do, if we go over, we can expect to lose 1 .$8 million. if we do what the president wants, which is to raise taxes on the small businesses, we will lose 700,000 jobs. or if we do what republicans want to do, keep tax rates where they are, we lose zero jobs. so your point is go over the cliff and lose $1.8 million, do what the president wants and lose 700,000 jobs or do what the republicans want and lose zero jobs. our goal is trying to get closest to losing no jobs. but the problem is you are not get to go the zero jobs promise. you don t have the numbers. that s your problem. you don t have the numbers or the momentum. how are you going to turn that around? well, you are right. and to pat s point earlier in your program, look, i wish we controlled the house, the senate and the white house. i wish the republicans had complete control because i think their policies are most