points eventually at some point one of these guys has to run against a republican, president trump, right? i think it is very telling. almost none of these candidates on stage has ever run a credible and tight race against a republican for their current job. john hickenlooper in 2014 won by four points. the other closest were cory booker and elizabeth warren won by nine points but those were in solid blue states. and in presidential years or special elections. so that is very telling. you can t win this race unless you can talk to independents but also independent republicans. we talked about medicare for all. one of the things that didn t come up as much but did in the first night of the debates was the role organized labor plays in all of this. when we talk about the fact that unions particularly since the financial crisis, you have cities and states pushing through these austerity budgets, what does that mean? unions had to give up some salary for better health care so that is one
from closed loopholes or is that off hand? they need to cut. they re on solid ground in terms of wanting to cut. they voted for the sequester. that was a mistake. i like the quiet. reality check here, both the democrat and republican version are austerity budgets, the question to what degree. hopefully they do the smart thing administratively and give the power of cutting back to the agencies. these guys shouldn t be figuring what cuts to make. that s their job though. let the agencies figure it out. within their budget. they know better. tim cole who is on the committee, he had a good quote, he s candid reporters and close with john boehner. he wrote, they re not on the grand bargain scale but let s hit singles around here for a while. we don t need to swing for the fences. our batting average isn t very good, let s get on base. honest to god right. don t go for the grand slam when you re batting .018.
that they would allow this to just go forward and do a continuing resolution with the sequestration cuts. your thoughts. that s exactly what we re hearing. today we heard it from the minority leadership of the senate and also in the house. they re shrugging their shoulders saying it s okay because it s going to further reduce the size of government. wait a minute. exactly what are you reducing? you re reducing the military defense. you re reducing research for all of the critical things we need in our future from telecommunications, energy, health care. that s what s going to get reduced. it just it s really nonsense and it s terrible, terrible public policy. at some point, well, just take a look. the europeans have recognized that austerity budgets have not led to a better economy in europe. exactly. we re in the third year of an austerity budget and it is not growing the economy. it is shrinking the deficit, but
crs confirmed it. all the economists are unanimous if we re going to try to go after the debt, now that we have virtually 3% gdp growth, we want do it in a way that s least damaging to the economy. almost all of them agree the obama approach is the right approach. increasing the rates on the wealthy will have no impact on job creation or gdp growth. professor dyson, we found out today that the austerity budgets used in the eurozone have sent employment to record highs. unemployment in spain is at 25%. unemployment in greece, 25%. how is it possible speaker boehner comes out and promotes paul ryan s budget for 2011 and 2012 as somehow the answer to our fiscal problems? i mean, this is the indication that i m afraid that they re stuck in the mud attitude and their ostrich-like oblivion to what s going on in the real world will lead to disastrous consequences. i hope my good friend julian epstein is right crunching those numbers. the cbo, the cds, they re going
an appeal which is very unusual. rulings in britain are usually final. justice a landmark sentence for convicted war criminal and former president of liberia, charles taylor. he s been sentenced to 50 years in prison by a special international court. he s convicted of supporting rebels in sierra leon who slaughtered thousands of people during the country s 11-year civil war. taylor armed rebels in exchange for so-called blood diamonds. mitt romney unofficialing clinching the rop nomination for president. he won last night s texas primary putting him over the number of 1,144 delegates. beryl is once again a tropical storm, forecast to head up the coast of north and south carolina today. the storm has already dumped up to a foot of rain, packing winds of 35 miles per hour and could lead to dangerous rip currents and rough surf. chinese human rights activist chen guangcheng says his country fails to enforce its own laws and insists its abusive treatment of dissidents thr