0 sell pies and push the nra agenda. the beltway press takes their eye off the ball, complaining about obama and tiger woods. the least popular senator is desperately attacking ashley judd. and david corn, the co-author of "hubris" and co-author of the msnbc documentary tells me what was left out. >> i'm sure the administration cooked the books. >> good to have you with us, folks. thanks for watching. keep in mind when you hear the word "sequester," the sequester cuts were designed to be so bad, so terrible, that lawmakers would be forced to come up with an alternative plan. well, that didn't work. these cuts are on the verge of happening anyway. march 1 is the big date, a week from this friday. president obama responded with a real sense of urgency today. he made the strongest case yet about the damage these sequester cuts will do to the country's economy. >> these cuts are not smart. they are not fair. they will hurt our economy. they will add hundreds of thousands of americans to the unemployment roles. this is not an abstraction. people will lose their jobs. >> people standing with the president today are among those who will directly impacted by congress if they refuse to act. >> emergency responders, like the ones who are here today, their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. border patrol agents will see their hours reduced. fbi agents will be furloughed. federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. >> and it doesn't stop there. we're talking thousands of teachers who are going to be laid off across america. there will be cuts to primary health care for hundreds of thousands of americans. preventative care, like cancer screenings are also going to be hit and taken off the list. i mean cuts to the military are also going to be job killers because of projects. and the president isn't giving up hope. but it's time for congress, don't you think, to get to work? >> we got a few days. congress can do the right thing. we can avert just one more washington manufactured problem that slows our recovery. >> kind of feels like president obama has said all of this stuff before. well, that's because he has. four times in the past three months, to be exact. the republican strategy of obstruct and delay has really become so predictable. >> this is something within our capacity to solve. it didn't take that much work. outside of washington, nobody understands how it is that this seems to be a repeat pattern over and over again. >> they expect our leaders to succeed on their behalf. so do i. everybody here understands this. this is not a complicated concept. >> this is the new normal. republicans in congress continue to make artificial deadlines and refuse to meet them. they also lie about them. house speaker john boehner continues to claim the republican house is doing its job. >> for the last two years, the house has done its work. we've passed legislation to tackle the tough challenges. >> okay. let's take a look at these important challenges that john boehner's house has passed. they passed the ryan budget, which is far out of touch with mainstream americans. we made that decision back in november. the country does not want voucherized medicare. boehner's house passed 30 repeals of obama care. more out of touch nonsense that the country rejected. recently they passed a bill pretending to withhold pay raises from congress, but of course that's something they constitutionally can't do. and president obama says it's time to get serious. and it is. but republicans show no signs of seriously addressing the pain ahead for the middle class in this country. and it is about the middle class. and then there is simpson/bowles, which i think is a total fraud, and we shouldn't be listening to people who have, number one, retirement security and health care security for the rest of their lives. they're the wrong people to listen to. they're doing a lot of grandstanding. but they shouldn't get much attention. more commentary coming on simpson/bowles in just a moment. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question. will the republicans allow the sequester to destroy the middle class? text "a" for yes. text b for no to 67622. you can always go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com. we'll bring you the results later on in the show. joining me tonight, michael grunwald. he is a senior correspondent for "time" magazine, and author of "the new new deal: the hidden story of change in the obama era." great to have you with us tonight, michael. >> thank you. >> here we are, a week from friday and the big cuts are going to take place. four legislative days. of course you have to throw in the vacation that they're taking right now. can they get it done in that window? >> no, they probably can't. i imagine the sequester will go into effect. and then as people start freaking out and government services that they like start getting cut, then there will be some pressure to try to replace the sequester. >> so this was republican senator john barrasso who is on the leadership team talking about the guest their weekend. here it is. >> let me be very clear, and i'd say this to the president as i say it to you. these spending cuts are going to go through on march 1st. their taxes are off the table. >> okay, michael. how do you walk that back if you're a republican? >> well, probably you don't. and they've -- you know, remember, republicans used to be inherited this economy that was in absolute free-fall. we were losing 800,000 jobs a month, and he passed this $800 billion stimulus that the next quarter you had the biggest improvement in jobs in 30 years. and he continued to quietly push stimulus throughout the next couple of years while he had a democratic congress. and that's why we avoided the fates that you had in great britain and spain. since then -- >> well, isn't -- >> a stalemate. >> isn't that what simpson/bowles is throwing at us right now? what has pretty much taken place in europe. >> absolutely. >> could we stay out of a recession if we were to adapt simpson/bowles? >> well, we might stay out of a recession because the economy is a lot stronger than it was in january 2009. but there is no question that at this point there is still slack in the economy, and this sort of austerity would hurt. remember, the argument for austerity was that if you do stimulus, if you run big deficits, you're going to have runaway inflation, and you're going to have exploding interest rates. that's been proven wrong. where you have low inflation and historically low interest rates. right now our problem is jobs, and there is no question cutting that sort of spending is going to hurt jobs. >> michael grunwald, good to have you with us tonight. thanks for being on "the ed show." erskine bowles and allen simpson introduced a new simpson/bowles deficit reduction plan today, even though nobody asked them to do it. the new simpson/bowles is worse than the old one. there is only $600 billion in tax savings less than what they proposed before. now there are cuts to medicare, medicaid and social security benefits. the ratio of cuts to new tax revenue is three-to-one. who voted for that? today bowles and simpson were interrupted by protesters as they tried to pitch their new plan. this is a proper response to the latest simpson/bowles proposal. >> pay your fair taxes. pay your fair tax. >> some cuts don't yield. expire. we're not going down a tax path that we've never been before. >> the obama white house does have a list of prudent cuts that could be made. >> elizabeth warren has prudent cuts. but the kind of cuts, we should be cutting subsidies to big oil. >> totally agree. >> big pharma. we should be increasing "robin hood" financial speculation taxes on the corporations. we should be closing loopholes and deducts for the very rich. the frame of our debate in this country is not a reality-based discussion. as michael grunwald said, you look across the ocean, the bleeding, the generational loss as spain suffers 26% unemployment. and in our country is similar. >> this is exactly what boehner is going for right now. they don't want -- they've said taxes are off the table or increased revenues are off the table, no matter where you go to get them that is a heck of a place to be considering that you got kicked in the election. >> if we do have these cuts go into effect after the first of the month, there is going to be a really rude awakening for the republicans. >> yeah, i think so too. >> that will move from an abstraction to this is what these crazy -- >> pay the price politically? >> they better, to make sure that the american public understands. this is the republicans' fault when these cuts come through. >> the president needs to use his bully pulpit to take on these bullies, and to really speak to what the priorities of these republicans are. >> yeah. >> because you see it so clearly. and no investment in health care or education. let's protect the top 0.1%. >> if it wasn't going to hurt people, i would almost look forward to this happening. >> no it's cruel. >> it's cruel. >> it is cruel. and they were all rejected in the election. >> in the election. >> all of the plans that boehner is talking about was totally rejected by the american people. >> yep. >> they had their chance for him to say the senate needs to go do their work is a cop-out. >> it's cruel. 2014 is coming up. it is cruel. it's damaging the very ones who have already been hurt so much. and it's a hoax because it won't work. >> president obama needs to hear from the public again. this is when people need to connect with their representatives and senators to make sure that the simpson/bowles doesn't even get into the equation. because that's not what we voted for in this country. we're a center-left progressive country right now. and the time to move forward is right now and not allow the republican obstructionists to get in the way. jonathan alter, katrina vanden heuvel, great to have you with us tonight. thank you so much. remember to answer the question. share your thoughts on twitter and ed show on facebook. we want to know what you think. so here it comes. the godfather of the conservative movement is offering a whopping yesteryear $10,000 offer to save the republican party. you can't make this stuff up. that's next and a lot more. stay with us. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. to prove febreze can keep this car fresh, we loaded it with fast food, sweaty hockey gear, and a smelly dog cage. and parked it at a mall. in texas. for two days. then put a febreze car vent clip on the dash and let in real people. it smells good. like laundry fresh out of like the dryer. yeah. a man fresh out of the shower. nailed it. oh yeah. proof. febreze car vent clips keep your car fresh. another way febreze helps you breathe happy.