withholding tables in the way you described because a deal is forthcoming and doesn t make sense to reprogram that massive computer system to extend the tax cuts for the they ll wait until they have a definitive solution here? correct. okay. some other shorter term implications. doctors with medicare patients see payments drop in february and the irs commissioner warning if there s no extension for the amt patch there, 80 million to 100 million people could face problems doing their taxes. right. so first of all, what s called the dock fix, the fact is that if this measure is not corrected quickly, part of the fiscal cliff, doctors who serve medicare patients will see their payments go down something like 27%. i mean, this is one of those crazy time bombs that s in the tax code. that s patched every year. same thing with the amt. as i just mentioned, while the other tax measures, taxpayers
clearly i m not a great fan of the payroll tax holiday, but the middle class needs a tax break but at the same time we cannot forget that long term unemployment in this country is very, very high, and we also need to make sure we don t cut drastically the reimbursement rate for doctors who serve medicare patients. back to the budget for a moment, i have to say i thought it would have been a bigger number now that we will be winding down. i thought it would be six or seven trillion instead of four. when you saw that number, what was your reaction? the president s budget is a recommendation to congress, that is all it. we have to go from here and i agree with you, i think with the infrastructure that is crumbling, potential to create over a period of time millions of decent paying jobs, roads, bridges, rebuilding the rail system, water systems, et cetera, we should make a very very heavy investment and i think the president has put money in energy conservation and
clearly i m not a great fan of the payroll tax holiday, but the middle class needs a tax break but at the same time we cannot forget that long term unemployment in this country is very, very high, and we also need to make sure we don t cut drastically the reimbursement rate for doctors who serve medicare patients. back to the budget for a moment, i have to say i thought it would have been a bigger number now that we will be winding down. i thought it would be six or seven trillion instead of four. when you saw that number, what was your reaction? the president s budget is a recommendation to congress, that is all it. we have to go from here and i agree with you, i think with the infrastructure that is crumbling, potential to create over a period of time millions of decent paying jobs, roads, bridges, rebuilding the rail system, water systems, et cetera, we should make a very very heavy investment and i think the president has put
well, what i said the other day is absolutely accurate. i said for millions of americans, individual premiums will go up, because of government mandates and taxes. that is precisely what the congressional budget office that the president likes to cite said on november 30th. it is true that some people will get subsidies, but the rest of the people won t, and to give you an example, senator susan collins in maine said that because of the government mandates in this bill, 87% of the people who have individual policies in maine today will pay more under the president s bill. give half of them subsidies which taxpayers pay for, and still 30% or 40% are paying more for their individual policies. so, what people need to understand is this will raise their taxes, cut medicare without putting the money into medicare for millions, raise premium, and it will raise the deficit, because they are not counting doctors paying doctors who serve medicare patients, and this is like having a horse race
that $500 billion will be spent on new projects. the cbo says you are spending the money twice. you can either extend the life of medicare or you can use the $500 billion on the program. so there were a couple interesting points there as you noted as well. megyn: the president said he doesn t know how this plays politically but he says he knows it s right. how does this play politically? reporter: it doesn t play well. this process is going to be really ugly up on capitol hill. he did not use the word reconciliation, but that is the process going forward. you could see a lot of painful days up on the senate and house floor as they are trying to count seats. i don t know if the president swayed many conservative democrats with this speech today, but we ll see. meg bret, thanks so much. joining us now for response to