had yesterday, just more of the same. it s time for the president, if he s serious, to come back to us with a counteroffer. not a no on the rates going. up thing. john boehner didn t answer the tax part of the question at all. he talked about the phone call. it was pleasant. he didn t say we did not allow tax rates to go up at all. you see the deal that s taking place. a lot of the players i talked to think something like this is going to happen. the final rates raise a bit giving democrats a win. giving republicans a win. maybe they will be 37%. maybe 38%. that won t raise enough revenue so it will be combined with policy to cap tax deductions for the rich. that won t take effect right away. it will be phased in. it will probably include an
yarmuth. about a week ago you were on with my colleague and said you were growing more pessimistic about reaching a deal before the back and forth we have seen. how do you feel right now? well, i m still pretty pessimistic about a deal and optimistic to at least avoid the tax part of the cliff. i get the sense that a growing number of republicans are willing to let the senate bill come to the floor here in the house. which would get almost every democratic vote and a fair number of republican votes. as long as speaker boehner doesn t require there be a majority of his majority to pass that bill, i think we can get that done. i have a sense that s kind of a way we re moving. as to spending, and some of the other matters, i think that s going to be something where the can s kicked down the road in to next year. that seems to be the common theme today. i ve watched your colleagues on our air and read comments in different newspapers. it seems that that s where we are right now. get th
regards to not a great deal of specificity. that s right. and these he s got, they have to get concrete. offer/counteroffer and so on down the line. but it s a political dance. see, the dilemma here and this is why we may well go into january is that it will be much easier for speaker boehner to have the taxes voted on then when his caucus is voting on theoretically a tax decrease because, of course, on january 1, all the taxes go back to the did you just say go off the cliff, did you just say you think we d go off the cliff? i think there s better than 50/50 chance that we ll be into the first week of january before the tax part is resolved and i think that s largely because of the practical problems that the speaker faces. democratic congressman peter welch, thank you for spending so much time with us on a saturday, sir. thank you. coming up, we ll bring you the latest on an apparent
are going to do. jay carney says they have a plan on the table to achieve savings in medicare and medicaid. as you know, the big part of this story developing is top democrats like deck dur begin in the senate are saying they don t want to don t want to deal with changes to medicare and medicaid. so you have republicans like john boehner the house speaker saying you can t just make tax changes in the short term and promise down the road you will cut spending, you will reform medicare. this is where the debate is headed. both parties are split even more than we have seen with this development. you have the white house suggesting they want to deal with the tax part of this. and the republicans saying let s see the spending cuts. megyn: i don t see what would make the republicans in terms of just a sheer bargaining power.
it is a conventional wisdom you can t do tax reform fast enough to be part of an initial deal. i would like to think you could. it s clear what the choices are. but the regular is probably going to have to prevail there. to me the question is what is a two-part or three-part deal? what is done in the lame-duck session? i think there s a higher likelihood that the lame-duck session does something to kick the cap down the road to deal with at least the tax part of it. what about the sequester, that s harder to do. the big question will house republicans including the leadership go forward with a deal, the first part of a deal or second part of a deal, pre-tax reform, that involves raising the debt ceiling and that involves putting off the sequester cuts. things house republicans were not willing to do in the first round. they insisted we re not going to raise the debt ceiling or taxes. will they do something for the promise of tax reform they can