comes out and says i want less money for police departments but they re pointing out, folks, that crime is down. help us understand, hance nichols, is there a good sense of how this money is going to be spent if you re trying to make the case to the average american taxpayer this is why we need it and here s what it s going to go for, what s the answer? readiness. in one word that s the answer from the pentagon. they feel they have serious readiness problems, not enough combat brigades. they re actually functional, ready to go out and hit the ground. following up on robert s points on the numbers, they re talking about add 54 billion increase. we don t know what that s an increase from. if that s an increase from the sequester levels, the budget control act of 2011, i m going to be a little wongy with the numbers here, that only gets you to $603 billion for the fiscal year of 2018. what they want, at least capitol hill does, congressional republicans, they want to get all the way to
disappointed. that we haven t found a new partner to find common ground. bill: you had 21 republican governors seven years ago, now you have 31. you have a republican majority in the house and senate. by this measure have the policies of this administration failed? if you take a look at what happened over the course of last year, we made a lot of progress. working with a republican majority in congress we reformed the no child left behind bill to make sure our kids aren t being tested too much. we succeeded in reforming the imf contribution. we actually passed a budget agreement that funds our national security and economic pry overt $50 billion over sequester levels. we extend the debt limit to make sure we didn t risk the full faith and credit of the united
sequester levels and i mean it cuts everything from w.i.c. to subsidies for amtrak, to health care for veterans. it hurts not only the very, very poor, but the middle class as well. it raises taxes on the average american by $2,000 and lowers taxes on the very wealthy by $200,000. so we don t expect him to walk back from that. but, he has seemed to be interested in having a conversation about ending poverty and we certainly agree on that. so we see this as a tremendous opportunity to talk to a powerful member of congress, the chairman of the budget committee and potentially the ranking member of the chairman of the ways and means committee about more strategic ways to help the poor with job training opportunities, with economic development activities that are
bring down the deficit and still protect those investments that are good for the middle class and help more people work their way up. i think the one thing that we as a country will need to work on is to make sure that we get back, you know, we don t let the sequester levels stay in place, because they rob us of the future, that robs us in the investment in children, early childhood, higher education, and the research that, you know, creates the innovation of the future that we all benefit from. yeah, and the sequester is so front and center, it s, obviously, a big part of the pentagon budget that you guys also put out. gene sperling in the snow, you know what yogi berra said is true, everyone always talks about the weather, nobody ever does anything about it. thanks for coming out in the snow for us today. thanks for having us. absolutely. now, you have heard about the controversial bill in arizona, sb-1062. it would potentially allow businesses to discriminate against gay cit
yet another continuing resolution at the sequester levels and really stanched a lot of the human misery that the sequester caused. as you were just saying, is this a step in the right direction to avoid other potential crises as we re approaching the debt ceiling deadline? absolutely. and as we approach the debt ceiling crisis, my concern is that republicans will continue to use things like the unemployment insurance, things that we really, really need to not only help individuals but to help our economy. i want people to remember, when you have 1.3 million people unemployed and then 72,000 people joining the ranks of those folks that won t get unemployment every week thereafter, you re talking about 200,000 jobs that are going to be lost. you re talking about millions, billions of dollars being lost in the economy. that unemployment insurance