nearly 11 years after the murder of wall street journal reporter daniel pearl, there s a new break in the case. the man believed to have facilitated pearl s kidnapping has now been arrested in pakistan. back in 2002, pearl cousin kidn was kidnapped, tortured, and then killed. the suspected mastermind of the september 11 attacked was arrested and confessed, but he s never been charged. this morning, in front of a crowd of 150,000 people, pope francis was officially inaugurated as the 266th bishop of rome. he appeared in st. peter s square in an open air vehicle, spenting 15 minutes kissing babies and blessing the sick. in his homily, he called for catholics to be protectors of creation and god s plan. more than 300 world leaders attended the ceremony, including vice president joe biden. tomorrow s the first day of spring, but you wouldn t know it by the looks of things in the northeast.
money. frankly, neither side is talking a whole lot about that. and what the president would say, if he were here now, is that he, in december, put about $400 billion in cuts to medicare and medicaid on the table and john boehner walked away from that. where they would push back is, look, he has been trying to do something about spenting in a broader context. boehner walked away from that and everything has unraveled since then. there is tough questions for this president though if boehner were to say yes i will take those medicare changes, would the president take a few steps back and say whoa, let me change it or we sign on to it? that s something we don t know yet. bill: okay. but i think that the issues are separate issues and correct me again if i am wrong. you have the federal budget that mr. obama wants for next year. i think it s $3.2 trillion, right? um-huh. the republicans don t want it that high. they want it to come down 10% or whatever. that would be, i guess, crazy
money. frankly, neither side is talking a whole lot about that. and what the president would say, if he were here now, is that he, in december, put about $400 billion in cuts to medicare and medicaid on the table and john boehner walked away from that. where they would push back is, look, he has been trying to do something about spenting in a broader context. boehner walked away from that and everything has unraveled since then. there is tough questions for this president though if boehner were to say yes i will take those medicare changes, would the president take a few steps back and say whoa, let me change it or we sign on to it? that s something we don t know yet. bill: okay. but i think that the issues are separate issues and correct me again if i am wrong. you have the federal budget that mr. obama wants for next year. i think it s $3.2 trillion, right? um-huh. the republicans don t want it that high. they want it to come down 10% or whatever. that would be, i guess, crazy
and figure out what needs to happen so we do the right thing in the right way rather than the right thing in the wrong way. everybody knows we have to reduce spending. and we have to decide what spending we are going to reduce. at this point the spenting will be across the board in defense and non-defense discretionary. if that s the only choice, it s better than not getting the spenting under control. bill: nancy pelosi says it s a false argument to say we have expanding problem. the president said something similar to speaker boehner. of course, we have spending problem. bill: speaker boehner has been on the opposite side of that for years now saying the president got cold feet when it came to getting big deal and not forced into sequestration. i think the president had a great hunt in october and early
mitt romney summed up the gop primary season in a quote to donors. we had 20 republican debates that was absolutely nuts. and the tone was set early. in the august 2011 debate when the candidates were on stage showed their intransigence on raising taxes. watch grover norquist as people go to work here. let s listen. well, i m going to ask a question to everyone on the stage. say you had a deal, a real spending cuts deal. 10-1 as byron said. spenting cuts to tax increases. speaker, you re already shaking your head. but who on this stage would walk away from that deal? would you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes you d walk away on the 10-1 deal. whoa. joining me now is review that list of greatness and other highlights and lowlights of the primary season michael steele who never had a year like this.