enters the fight for 2012, will he come forward with a plant which is as audacious as the one that the republican has put forward about tackling entitlements and moving from the fight over billions of dollars to the new fights over trillions of dollars. is that something the white house plans to do, come forward with a plan of the wrong? it is unclear at this point. certainly, we have seen what happened in this particular case where the white house had been essentially taking a hands-off approach and letting lawmakers on the hill essentially duke this out and then when it came down to the final few days and the last hours and the president rolled up his sleeves and got his hands dirty. we expect that perhaps the white house will use a different tone in the next round of legos stations. i can t say what the president. i have to jump in car close listen to harry reid. just a few minutes ago, this is a statement.
david gergen, the president sort of playing the role of mediator in chief, if you will pair can he continue to do that in this next budget battle to come? that is a very good question. i think there are two the questions coming out of this. one of them is what john king has been raising and that is will the trust deficit between the white house and members of congress within congress and democrats and republicans, will that be reduced or grow as a result of these classes. the question after the president gave gracious speech, as he enters the fight for 2012, will he come forward with a plan which is as audacious as the one that the republican has put forward about tackling entitlements and moving from the fight over billions of dollars to the new fights over trillions of dollars. is that something the white house plans to do, come forward with a plan of their own?
our long term debt and deficit are caused primarily by escalating health care costs that we see in medicare and medicaid that is putting huge pressure on the overall budget. na why that is why it is goio be important to have a conversation after we get the short-term budget done on how to tackle the problem in a comprehensive way, and that is not just going after head start or corporation for public broadcasting. that is not where the money is. what it means is that we have got to make sure that we are tackling defense spending, tackling tax expenditure and tax loopholes and that we are tackling entitlements, and that we are thinking about how do we, you know, really get our arms around those things that are driving the debt and deficit in a serious way, and in a bipartisan way.
escalating health care costs in medicaid and medicare putting huge pressure on the overall budget and that s why i think it s important to have a conversation after we get the short-term budget done about how do we really tackle the problem in a comprehensive way? and that means not just going after head start or corporation for public broadcasting. that s not where the money is. what it means is that we have to make sure we re tackling defense spending, we are tackling tax expenditures and loopholes. that we re tackling entitlements. and that we re thinking about how do we, you know, really get our arms around those thing that is are driving the debt and deficit in a serious way and in a bipartisan way. i ll make this last question.
to do it. it doesn t help to go back to what would mccain have done. what do you mean it doesn t help? that s the point of politics. it takes your eye off what is happening now. you can t admit that mr. obama made some mistakes. president makes mistakes all the time. clearly, clearly. john, let me answer your question for you. there would not be a difference. i want to say really quickly, we need to start talking about america s future depends on getting their arms around this. we talk about deficits. we talk about discretionary spending. the good point you brought up today is to the long-term health of this country, that s far less relevant than tackling entitlements. people need to understand this country will be crippled economically if we don t have leaders that start growing up and face that reality. peggy, stay with us. you two keep fighting.