That is the change that were bringing about. When they introduce the 50 p they lost 7 billion pounds in tax revenue. Order. Youve been watching prime ministers questions from the british house of commons. It airs when live on cspan2 when the house of commons is in session. Watch any time at cspan. Org where you will find video of past prime ministers questions and other British Affairs programs. Next, Actress Ashley Judd talks about womens reproductive rights. Next a look at automatic spending cuts and then a discussion on the proposed merger between American Airlines and usair ways. After that a hearing on jobs and the u. S. Economy. You find washington and Silicon Valley are on two different planets . I think that is fair to say. I think the thais are getting closer. There is a lot more interaction than there was before puree good in many ways the folks in Silicon Valley did not care there was before. In many ways the folks in Silicon Valley did not care what was happening in washington. Follow the Technology Columnist as he tours the Consumer Electronics show monday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan 2. Now discussion about politics and public debate surrounding automatic spending cuts. This is about 45 minutes. Welcome to our sunday round table. We want to welcome will. He is serving as deputy editor. His political reporter. Thank you both for being with us. Thanks for having us. We were asking how you would define the sequestration. Meh. I am going to go with unnecessary. It is difficult to predict at this point of time. At the same time, it was designed to force congress to act, and congress has not acted. We are facing 1. 4 trillion dollars in cuts, and they are indiscriminate. They are not targeted, and that is completely unnecessary. Here are some of the words and phrases on a gallup poll. Not surprising failure, ok, expected, scary. The larger the word, the more often it was used. Disappointed, good, disaster, and bad. There seems to be a lot of negativity. I would like to know who says excellent. As the person truly understand what is behind this . This report is as the cuts will achieve the deficit goals set over the next decade, but it is too high, but it did not result in a grand bargain, but the president and congress agreed to. These cuts, we are going to see how severe they turn out to be in the next coming months. It is roughly a 2 cut from rising spending, so it is not exactly a real cut. I think we are going to see various gimmicks from government agencies. It could be washington for a few days. How severe this is going to be . I think that is an open question for a lot of people. This is a cartoon. It is one issue a lot of people have been talking about. It is the president in the oval office. Call 911. He is going to die. One aide says, it is just a paper cut. The other says, i think it is exaggerating. The sequester has gone to his head. Theres a lot of attention. The white house has been sounding the alarm for several weeks. You saw the president essentially campaign about it. He was warning about the consequences. Over the weekend and on friday i would not say they are walking into five. They were trying to say the impact would be more gradual and not a media because everyone poked fun and said the white house and Obama Administration made it seem the sky was going to fall on montforts on march 1. There were predictions for job losses. There were a lot of concerns over job losses, and these cuts were across the board, so you cannot differentiate between high priority and low priority and which ones have funding and you cannot differentiate between those the current trend and those but could not afford to be trimmed. One of the viewer says, why didnt the president take the opportunity to target the cuts when he was given the chance . That is criticism that he has trouble answering right now. There seems to be a distance the president has created between the problem and solving the problem. He talks a great deal about it, but it does not seem he has the same urgency in his words would imply. And when they were reporting sequestration could take months. There is no shortterm solution. It depends. The next pressing deadline is for the government, which expires on march 27. At the moment it does not look like there is an appetite to replace the sequestered. They could pair it with a temporary replacement bill, but the likelihood of the both sides coming together in the next three weeks to do it, it looks unlikely they will be able to achieve that. We could see this drag out into the summer. We could see debt ceiling negotiations. It is worth pointing out a pass the debt ceiling extension, so the discussion will start again in may. We could see this prolonged into the summer. But as when the effects will be felt more. The administration is not helping people are going to suffer, but in terms of matching the concert sequences rigid the consequences, they are hoping as people start to feel pressure, the republicans will come to the table. Why isnt john boehner being held accountable for rejecting 400 billion in entitlement cuts the president put on the table . One thing about sequestration is the fact that entitlements go essentially untouched, and it seems to have been the consensus in washington that we need serious entitlement reform. I think the question from the speakers office, the report should be Something Like these are not serious cuts. They are reforms and entitlements like medicare that are not so dramatic that pairing wouldwith a tax increase commo not be sufficient. Lets go through some of these numbers and put them in perspective, because if you go to usdebtclock. Org, it is 16. 6 trillion dollars, so we have added significantly in the last two months to the debt. We are talking about 85 billion in budget cuts. That is only about 2 of the federal budget. We hear about the potential these cuts will have across the country through september. I think that is what the debate is about. Both sides do not like these cuts, and that is important to point out. It goes by two away when they were designed, and they were designed to be devastating. Nobody would want to see the deficit trimmed in this way. I know it is divided equally between defense and domestic spending. This impacts military readiness. You hear a lot about defense cuts and and the furloughs, and on the domestic side it is everything from nutritional assistance to other lowincome programs and rely on government spending. They do not have the funds to be trimmed. I do want to say one thing about why speaker dinner is not being held accountable when he was offered some entitlement reform. It is going back to fiscal cliff negotiations. I was curious to see if we had a reaction to the idea that the offer put forward by the white house was the one to one ratio requested in terms of revenue to spending cuts and included not just medicare and other cuts, but was unpopular with a lot of democrats. That is where there are some questions to be raised around republicans saying who is the president is not willing to compromise, and some of them say, why can we change the c. P. I. . The speaker walked away knowing he could not get the majority of his caucus behind that going towards tax increases. That is what it comes down to, the reality of politics. I think speaker brainer would have taken that deal or a deal similar to it. There is a political question of forcing something to your own body, and there is a lot of republican resistance to the tax increases. We welcome the Radio Audience as well. Rich is joining us from Virginia Beach virginia. Good morning, republican line. Caller how are you today . Guest very good. I am upset by the folks who are supposed to be representing us. I think they forgot who they represent. They seem to want to make cuts that are going to affect us, but nowhere have i heard anyone say anything about cutting their aid for other countries around the world. I did not hear countries sending money to us. However, the new secretary of state said, we need to start sending aid to other countries such as syria. I think they need to face reality. If we do not have funds to pay the taxes, maybe we need to cut back on helping other countries until we do. That is about all. Thanks for the call. I think you raise a good point. That is something to be looked at. Coming from a realpolitik stance, and in build up a real friendship that makes other countries dependent on us, which we can use as negotiation down the line. If there is somewhat a lack of accountability of where the money goes and how often the money winds up in the wrong hands. I am generally pro foreign aid. I think pros outweigh cons, but these are the kinds of cuts we need to be looking at now as we move into the future. We need a discussion to make the hard choices about what gets cut and what does not. This says the Mainstream Media continues to play the pipeline of sequestration, talking points, and the blame game. Have you seen this . I would not necessarily agree with that. I think the blame game was two sided. The republican strategy was to emphasize this was the obama s idea, theon costs ide budget act was a resolution to the debt ceiling crisis, and republicans have amended its that spending cuts must be included to extend the debt limit. In terms of the media, i think there has been scrutiny over to what extent the administration is telling the truth about what the consequences would be. You just saw the white house was pushing on how the white house could make it seem as though the sky was falling. They went after him for a briefing with arnie duncan, the education secretary, where they talked about a pink slips going out to teachers and it was found to be not entirely accurate. There is Fact Checking going out on both sides. The question the media had, we know the president s strategy. It was unchanged. It was a little more confusing for people to try to understand the republicans opposition. It seems to be no tax revenues under any circumstances. Its both sides talk about compromise, if that is the position, there will be no compromise. I do not believe that. I believe most American People see it that way. They support a combination of cuts and tax reform. It looks like they have to reach a longterm scheme. John quotes the president from a while ago. I will veto any opportunities to get rid of spending cuts. He says sequestration will not happen. That turned out not to be the case. Even in washington we can lose sight of how inefficient our congress can be. It did come to pass. This is the question of who is responsible for i have gathered it is not really a question anyone in the country really cares about. They are blaming all of the leaders. The real question is if this is going to be below by four republicans or for democrats. Low back for republicans or for democrats. Our phone lines are open. You can join us on facebook. You can send us an email or send us a tweet. To follow up on one of the questions the president received, he met with reporters. To understand this is a republican problem and not when you bear responsibility for. Give me an example of what they might do. I put forward a plan that calls for a serious spending cuts, serious entitlement reforms, goes right of the problem that is at the heart of our longterm deficit problem. I have offered negotiations around that balanced approach, and so far we have gotten rid of because of what Speaker Boehner and republicans have said. What more do you think i should do . I just want to apologize. If people have a suggestion, this is a roomful of smart folks. Your reaction to that e . Change feminin it was a little testy from the president. I think his reaction in recent weeks seems to be the media seems slightly less enamored with his strategies than they have in the past. I think it is an awkward thing to ask a member of the press what should i be doing more, but as the president rightfully pointed out, you can sit down and negotiate with congress. You can sit down with john boehner. You can talk to him. He goes around. He makes speeches. He goes on radio show and says the republicans are just about raising taxes right now. There was a deal to raise revenues, and that was made a few months ago. That was a huge moment for the Republican Party to agree to any kind of revenue raising, but right now this is the sequestration deal our representatives in Congress Worked out, and this is the one we have to live with. Two takes from the press coverage. This coverage of the flareup between bob woodward and the white house evolved into granular parsing of words and implications. She says there is pressure the white house feels when dealing with the Obama Administration, and the former white house advisor says it can backfire. Good he points out that it continues to reside in the basement along with respect for congress. There is a picture of president nixon and reference to his own enemies list during his tenure as president. This question is highlighted by the incident why bob woodward. At the same time, most people who read the email exchange concluded in no way was it a threat. They focus on the wrong side of things. The reality was this is the practice of many at the administrations, many of those prior to a. They wanted to try to explain what their perspective is or why they believe they are not representing what the story is. I do not believe any administration should be telling reporters what they should or should not right. I do not believe that was happening here. I do not believe they were being told how to record this. It is a question of the fact that it is about presenting both opinions and making sure both claims are fact check. The Obama Administration is warning about the consequences. The press is free to see if they are accurate. Do not just take the report they put in your hands. Republicans are saying the president is paying money to buy video games. As the with the government is spending money on salmon and and why would they do that is that what the government is spending money on . Why would that do that . You should not accept the administration to tell you how to do your job now. Ron is the deputy editor. Sequestration has materialized because the twoparty controls congress. Welcome back to the issue of the press in a few minutes, but lets go back to fill in florida. Good morning. Good morning, steve good morning to your guests. The word i have is misdirection of the American People. You mentioned and Woodrow Wilson earlier, and you also showed the debt clock of 16 trillion dollars. They are directly related. Bemis direction is the national debt. Where do they come from belmont they are keeping their eyes out for that. There is a great short video about conquering the spirit of debt. It is about 45 minutes. It explains how this government gets its money from a Private Banking cartel called the federal reserve. The government just spends and spends and puts us in debt and then youve got people coming home from work and half of them plugging into msnbc or Huffington Post the other half goes to fox news and yet theyre talking points and in the morning, you turn on cspan and you have a republican line and a democrat line. They just repeat what they heard the night before. I am talking to all americans right now. Wake of the heck of because the fact that we are going back and forth with each other is were all getting screwed. It is time to grow up and wake up. Thank you very much. Host let me put his point on the table. This is from Ann Mark Williams says on all these points, your thoughts guest we will see exactly where the blame winds up for sequestration once we start seeing the effects. You will see longer lines at airports as tsa workers are furloughed. In terms of where the blame goes, it is hard to say right now. It could go right or left the Republican Party is in such poor shape and there messaging is in such poor shape, there is little room for airport for president obama and the democrats. I dont think he has been handling of this process very skillfully. He has been going around the country saying doom and gloom is coming on monday and large segments of the press which are often sympathetic to president obama, are ridiculing him both in the newspapers and the opening in journals and online and on twitter. It was in the president went a little bit too far with his warnings and people were not buying i. It. Host lets go to fred joining us from pontiac, mich. , democrats line, good morning. Caller good morning, might one word would be predictable because it seems like whatever the president does, the republicans in congress will rebuff him. You can use the analogy of lucy with the football and she pulled it away from charlie brown. How many times can you offer compromise when they keep saying no. Guest if republicans effectively declared any tax revenues of the table, it is unlikely there will be any compromise in washington on any of these fiscal debates. I mentioned the deadlines earlier but the feedback from the callers and readers emphasizes the frustration with washington right now. Sequestration was probably one of the ugliest showcases of politics in terms of the blame game, so much time was spent pointing figures to determine whose idea sequestration was when the reality was everyone agreed to end the majority of them voted for and the president signed into law. Americans dont care whose idea it was. They want to see both sides come together and come up with a solution even temporarily to avert sequestration. That could have been a temporary replacement package. Perhaps the president could have met with congressional leaders. That meeting on friday that he had seemed more of a a getting together of leaders on the day a suspect sequestration. It was less than an hour. That could have been a couple of weeks ago but during these meetings, the question remains will they be able to negotiate . Speaker john boehner has been asked about the issue of tax revenues and he said no and the president has said any long term approach must be a combination of spending cuts and tax revenue. It was the republican position to close the loophole floated by ms. Brown may flooded by mitt romney floated by mitt romney. The white house strategy is to turn thei