president's budget does, then interest rates could go higher. in a situation where we get our house in order and we do the deficit reduction we're talking about, i think the assumption that interest rates will return as gdp growth kicks in to their historic levels is a good, sound, conservative assumption. but i couldn't agree more in terms of the need to get our house in order, decrease deficits and get us on a sustainable path. >> i hope your assumptions are correct. i don't think they are. >> i thank all senators for participating today. i think mr. zeint for being here. you've heard we've got different view, strong views. that's a healthy thing. it's the strength of our democracy. we'll have a hearing tomorrow with the secretary of treasury. i hope colleagues with attend

and -- secretary of transportation tomorrow, secretary of transportation lahood tomorrow. >> is it possible some of our senators might have another question? >> i can't because havei have a presentation at caucus that i've been asked to do so i've got to close at noon. but we will have two more hearings this week with administration witnesses. there will be lots of additional opportunity and of course secretary geithner is coming so there will be lots of opportunity for additional questions. i thank colleagues .

there will be more work tomorrow on president obama's 2013 budget request. acting white house budget director will be back on capitol hill testifying about the white house budget plan. live coverage from the house budget committee begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern time here on c-span3. later in the day homeland

security secretary janet napolitano will be asked about her committee's budget. we'll talk to massachusetts attorney general martha coakley later tonight on c-span3. then a hearing on the use of presidential recess appointments. next c-span radio's "washington today" with news and events of the day from the nation's capital, including reaction to president obama's 2013 budget request. p. i asked a simple question. you're the director of the >> i ask a simple question. you're the director of the omb, does your budget --

>> our budget is a more honest budget. it looks at what's happening. >> will the witness not answer this simple question? i just asked a simple question. >> it's a more accurate reflection of what we're going to spend. >> will it spend more or less? >> just some of the exchanges earlier today on capitol hill as members of the president's administration provide details to members of congress on the 2013 spending blueprint that, exchange with senator jeff sessions, republican of alabama and acting director of office of management and budget, jeffrey zients. a new poll out showing rick santorum and mitt romney essentially tied in the race. this the latest from the abc news/"washington post" poll. also showing rick santorum is increasing his popularity, all

coming a week and a day before the next debate that will take place in two weeks before the next round of primaries in arizona and in michigan. a couple of new ads on the air in michigan. meanwhile the hill newspaper reporting negotiators could close the deal tonight that woks tend the payroll tax cut and extend emergency unemployment benefits and the medicare reimbursement rate for doctors. the sources according to the hill newspaper saying lawmakers on both sides of capitol hill showing, quote, real signs of progress on a package that woks tend the payroll tax cut without paying for it. that was a huge concession from house republican leaders and the negotiations that include senate republicans as well. let's turn our attention to the budget. among those testifying on capitol hill, defense secretary leon panetta, as well as the nation's top general, army general martin dempsey, both saying the nation can withstand the president's trimmer budget

saying it will ensure the u.s. has a presence world wide the blue jay blueprint is about $525 billion for military spending and another $88.5 billion for the wars in iraq and afghanistan. the president today assuring the chinese vice president that the u.s. welcomes beijing's rise in the world, offering a warm welcome at the white house today, despite sharp policy differences on issues like syria, iran and economic issues. let's begin with the exchange before the senate budget committee as senator jeff sessions taking aim at the spending plan that will increase the budget by according to the congressional budget office by $1 trillion this year. and for the foreseeable future, more with today's session from the white house budget director jeffrey zients. >> isn't it true that based that

the current law, which included the budget control act, the legislation that passed as part of raising the debt limit that your budget spends more money than congress proposed to spend through the budget control act process over the next ten years? >> as i said earlier, we have $5 trillion of deficit reduction. >> no, do you propose to spend more money -- >> i think what we have -- >> of the budget control act than the current law would cause us to spend? >> i think we have a much more honest baseline, a base line that has sgr, amt, not patched year over year. >> well, you don't pay for the str, the doc fix, that's mott paid for. let's go back to the simple question i ask you. does your plan spend more money over the next ten years than the agreement in current law that we

reached just last august? >> the base line here is -- >> yes or no. >> i think what we have to focus on here is the bottom line and we're taking deficits down to 2.of gdp. >> i asked a simple question. you're the director of the omb. does your budget call for spending -- >> it's a more honest budget. it looks at what's happening in a business as usual basis. each year we're passing the a.m.t. -- >> will the witness not answer a simple question. i just asked a simple question. >> it's a more reflection of a -- >> will it spend more or sfles. >> it will spend less money because of the deficit reduction and a baseline that we flebts the current policy. >> because a deficit reduction that can only be assumed that's caused by increased taxes. but let's go back to that question.

when you -- your budget proposes eliminating the sequester, the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts we all agreed to last year, difficult as it was, that's in $1.2 trillion increase in spending, is it not? >> no, it isn't. >> why is it not? we agreed to current law is the cuts reduced the projected spending rate by $1.2 trillion. you eliminate that. that means you intend to spend that, do you not? >> i think this is a very important point. the president is not proposing the sequester go away. the sequester is a very important forcing function for to us do deficit reduction. so the sequester will be replaced with a balanced approach to deficit reduction. >> they're replacing the sequester -- >> the sequester itself is bad policy. it's bad policy on the defense side, $500 billion of

required -- >> we've looked at the numbers and your budget increases spending by $1.5 trillion more than the budget agreement last year and it's in a lot of different places. you do make cuts in some places out there but your net is to increase spending more than the current law and that is not the path we need to be on and the increase in taxes you propose, almost $2 trillion is used to pay for that spending. >> there will be 2d trillion of deficit reduction from the bca. you've brought up taxes a few times. we absolutely believe in a balanced approach. >> let me ask you this, if you are incorrect, if you are incorrect in saying you do not increase spending more than current law, would you consider resigning your office? >> let me go back to the balanced -- >> if we look at the numbers.

are you that confident in your -- >> i'm confident that with our baseline, which accurately reflects current policy and business as usual, that we have deficit reduction of more than $4 trillion. and we do it in a balanced way. for every $2.50 of spending cuts there's a $1 of revenue. that's a good, balanced approach. >> mr. zients, there is no spending cuts in this budget. this budget increases spending. surely you know that. it increases taxes. so to say you cut $2.50 in spending for every dollar in tex increase is beyond the pale. >> well, we have $260 billion of cuts from health care, we have $270 billion of cuts from other mandatory programs, we have savings from oco that cbo scores. in total it's $2.50 of spend being cuts for every dollar of

revenue. that's a balanced approach and it's the approach we should have. >> mr. chairman, this budget taxes more and it spends more. it does not alter the debt course of america and i am disappointed that we can't get an honest response to these difficult questions at this important time in our history. >> just a portion of the hearing earlier today before the senate budget committee. you are hearing from senator jeff sessions, the republican of alabama and acting director of the office of management of budget. one of a number of hearings today and all week as members of the president's cabinet appear before various congressional committees outlining the president's 2013 spending plan. you heard senator sessions go after the omb director on the issue of this budget and the ongoing discussion about taxes. there was also the ongoing discussion about payroll tax kud

for middle-class families and individuals. the deadline is at the end of the month, february 29th. if congress fails to approve it, it means the taxes for many americans will go up. if you earn about $50,000 a year, would you pay an additional $40 per paycheck. the president using that argument as he spoke to reporters over at the white house about the need to keep the tabs cut in place through the end of the year. there appears to be a compromise between democrats and republicans. paul cain is writing about this for "the washington post." here now is the president at the white house. >> last december when we had this same fight, your voices made all the difference. we asked folks to tell what it was like, what it would be like if they lost $40 out of every one of their paychecks. because we wanted to make sure that people understood this is not just an abstract argument. this is concrete. this makes a difference in the lives of folks all across the

country in very important ways. tens of thousands of working americans flooded us with their stories and some of them are here with me today. and their feedback's been pretty unanimous, allowing this tax cut to expire would make people's lives harder right now. it would make their choices more difficult. it would be $40 less for groceries to feed your kids, it would be $40 less for the medications you depend on, $40 less to cover bills and the rent, $40 less to take care of an elder parent or to donate to a church or charity. and when gas prices are on the rise again because as the economy strengthens, global demand for oil increases and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time. one local entrepreneur named

terry. he's right here. he told us that $40 would cover the gas that gets him to his day job, or alternatively the internet service that his small business depends on. so he'd have to start making a choice, do i fill up my gas tank to get to my work or do i give up my entrepreneurial dream? $40, he wrote, means a heck of a lot. means a heck of a lot. that's what this debate is all about. this is what's at stake for millions of americans. this is why it matters to people. it matters a heck of a lot. and i'm asking the american people to keep their stories coming. tell us what $40 means to you. if you tweet it, use the hash tag $40. call, tweet, write your congressman, write your senators. tell them do not let up until

this gets done. don't let taxes go up for 160 million americans. don't leave people without a lifeline in terms of cutting off their unemployment insurance. when a plane is finally lifting off the ground, you don't ease up on the throttle. you keep the throttle on full, you keep going. and our plane is up there but we're not at cruising altitude yet. extending this tax cut and unemployment insurance is the least what we should be doing for working americans. it's just a start. we need to rebuild an economy where middle-class folks can focus on more than just getting band folks who want to get into the middle class to get into the middle class. we have to build an economy where the middle class thrives and more persons have a chance to earn their way into it. an economy built to last.

>> the comments of the president in the eisenhower executive office building earlier today. his bush for extending the payroll tax holiday through the end of this year. joining us live is paul cain. thanks as always for being with us. >> hey, no problem, steve. any time. >> where do things stand? we're getting word there is an agreement. we heard from house republicans they're not going to insist democrats find way to pay for this tax holiday, which as we heard from the president will mean on average another $80 per month if you make $50,000 a year. >> i think yesterday's news that came out was that republicans had sort of given in on the three pieces of this legislate of package that obama is in search of and the republicans had basically given in to democratic demands on the payroll tax holiday. that's the $40 every two weeks that obama is talking about, you know, more than $80 a month for the average worker.

the other two pieces are also important. and it looks as if the negotiators, not the leadership that have been fighting above the all this, beneath the surface there have been negotiators, senator max baucus, and house member from michigan. you'll have to -- if all three of those come together, as it appears that they're doing, you could have this package possibly voted on by the end of the week by both chambers. but john boehner, speaker, has to brief his rank and file on this tonight and give him a sense of where things stand as

long as they get a green light, i think you'll begin to see this package come together. once the republicans gave in on the tax side of it, all they are trying to do for the last few days is find the appropriate amount of offsetting cuts for the other two provisions, which were much smaller so it made it easier to find those provisions. >> and yet as you know one key player in this process has been senator mitch mcconnell, republican from kentucky, the senate republican leader. he's been rather coi as to how he's going to proceed on this. >> today he did a press conference as he does every tuesday, after a luncheon meeting with senate republicans. he got asked several different ways how he stood on the idea of letting the payroll tax get through and he just really wouldn't answer the question. and at one point asked a different way how he would respond, he just said, you know, i'm not going to respond to

that. i've already been asked that one way or another by several other people. another reporter chimed in, tried a different way and he basically said no and gave the questions to any other reporter on any other topic. the presumption is, however, if this is moving in the direction forward a deal, generally deals don't happen in this congress unless mitch mcconnell signs off behind the scenes. if mcconnell was vehemently opposed to where things were headed, i think this would probably be falling apart rather than coming together. >> so what's changed most notely within the republican caucus because we kept hearing last december, we support the tax cuts week want to figure out a way for them, that resulted in the compromise extending for them two months and now it appears as if democrats are going to be getting this without any way to pay for it.

>> they got pummelled so badly, the republicans looked as if they were blocking the tax cut for the middle class. there was a real shift inside their own thinking here. a chief of star to a freshman republican who over that weekend, right before christmas, on sunday he had been telling me about how they were ready to fight, fight, fight and by that friday when they had completely given up and given into the democratic demand, he also said to me, he goes, well, i think we just learned our limitations. they don't control the whole place. they can't get everything they want, and i think there was a real, you know -- they touched the stove on -- right before christmas, and he they got burnt and they realized that for the first time. >> in fact, you write in the

"washington post" that it was speaker boehner's worst political crisis of his tenure. >> yeah, without question. there were divisions within the basic ranks of the house republicans. there was open public division between mcconnell who signed off on doing a short-term deal and certainly eric cantor, boehner's number two, who was the most public opponent of a two-month deal. then there was boehner sort of sitting in the middle wobbling back and forth very unsteady. and he eventually made the call. you know what, guys? we're going to punt on this for two months, and they're making the call again to sort of punt on the payroll tax here. i think they just want to get this beyond that. they want to get this behind them and then try to focus the

rest of this year on issues more on the wheelhouse. they sort of got out on the tax issue, which is a very odd position for congressional republicans to have been considering they're such the party of low taxes for the last 30 years. instead this time around they fell on the wrong side of it. >> let me follow-up and remind the audience we're talking to paul cain who joins us live and he writes for "the washington post." with this issue behind congressional democrats and republicans and extension and the medicare doc fix and extension of unemployment benefits, where do the republicans go, most notably house republicans? >> they really want to go to -- they want to finally promote an intense jobs agenda. they feel a lot like 2011 was a year spent chasing after debt and deficits. while they think the help needs to rein in the debt, they feel

like their message trying to create jobs got lost in the shuffle. they call this the energy and infrastructure bill. it would lead to more drilling for oil and natural gas. that keystone pipeline that people fought a lot about in december. it's included in this bill that boehner is bringing forward as well as a lot of infrastructure projects. now, this bill is no slam dunk to get through the house. it has its own problems because there are a lot of conservative that is still see it, even though there are no earmarks in this bill, they see it as a big bill. they have some problems here. they have regional issues because it doesn't fund the act all that well, so the northeast corridor republicans, which a bunch of whom won in 2010 there

they're hesitant to support it. boehner has a lot of worked to just the next few days to get things cooked fully. you'll see more efforts on some tax proposals that they want to get back to, just sort of business tax cuts, those sorts of things that are more about bread and butter for families rather than the sort of hard-to-envision $15 trillion, $16 trillion federal debt that people just -- while they're worried about it, they don't go on to bed worried about it every night like unemployment and such. >> paul cain is joining us live on capitol hill. thanks very much for being with us. >> anytime, steve. >> this is "washington today" on c-span radio heard coast to coast. in the next half hour more on the budget and taxes and the defense secretary testifying on capitol hill defending cutbacks for the pentagon budget. in the next hour a look back at the 2006 senate race in which rick santorum lost. the impact that may or may not have in the 2012 presidential bid showing that rick santorum

is either dead even or ahead nationally in a poll that came out over the weekend showing that he is in the lead in michigan, a key state for rick santorum and mitt romney, who was born and raised in michigan. the washington times has a story about a visit here by the chinese vice president who today was welcomed not only by the president but vice president joe biden and secretary of state hillary clinton. a lot of policy differences including differences over syria, iran, and economic and trade issues, but the associated press pointing out that the u.s. today reiterated the long-standing concerns over human rights which obama described as a critical issue and said the two countries need to work together and the u.s. welcomes beijing's rise in the world. this visit is coming on the 40th anniversary of president richard nixon's historic trip to china back in february of 1962.

secretary of state hillary clinton hosting a luncheon for the chinese vice president. here's a portion of what she had to say. >> it's an honor to welcome all of you to the state department this afternoon. it's always good to have vice president biden here, and we are particularly pleased to have our very special guest of honor. i'd also like to recognize the talented chef who has prepared this delicious lunch for us fusing the flavors of chinese and american cuisine. [ applause ] [ speaking in foreign language ]

>> this year marks the 40th anniversary of president nixon's historic trip to china. we are very pleased that dr. kissinger is here with us, who along with him was instrumental in transforming the relationship between our two countries. [ speaking foreign language ] >> today cooperation between the united states and china is imperative to address the many vexing challenges we face to proliferation and climate change to pti