>> i don't think anyone knew it would be bigger news than the vote count but the only folks who knew this is as far as i'm concerned is nancy pelosi and debbie wasserman schultz and it turned out to be the story and it should be because it is a major story of human spirit triumphing over evil. amazing. >> thank you very much. >> rachel maddow show is up next with guest host chris hayes. >> thanks so much and thanks to you for staying with us for the next hour. rachel will be back tomorrow. at this time on friday night, three short days ago, it appeared more likely than not that the united states of america was heading towards its first-ever national default. house speaker john boehner had just barely managed to pass a debt ceiling vote through the house of representatives, and that bill was then soundly defeated just two hours later in the senate. that was friday. what a difference a weekend

makes. late tonight within the last two hours, the u.s. house of representatives passed another bill to raise the country's debt ceiling, but this was a bill that enjoys not only bipartisan support but also by-cabinet support. the house passed a debt ceiling plan tonight that was crafted over the weekend by president obama and congressional leaders from both parties, it's a deal that raises the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion in exchange for spending cuts over the next decade. well, dig into the numbers of this deal a little later in this show. numbers that are in some ways better and in some ways worse than they first appeared, but right now at least it appears we're going to avoid the acute economic catastrophe, as opposed to a drawn out one, that a few days ago was starting to seem inevitable. now that it's expected to pass the senate and be signed by the president. a lot of people, a lot of

liberals started to look around and say how did this happen? how did we get here? as drawn out as the process was it didn't feel like a particular open or deliberate one, unlike the debate over financial or health reform. all of it was conducted with the specter of an impending doom floating in the air. opposed to having a national conversation about all the policies on the table, essentially one side, trying to have that conversation, while simultaneously dangled out of a window. there's always a threat that disaster was just a breath away. in fact, it almost seemed to me like our political institutions cannot function anymore, but for that threat of imminent crisis. the problem with that, as we learned hard over the last decade, is that situations of crisis are not situations that are most conducive to self

dampbs nance. in fact, throughout history crisis and self governance have been all but mutually exclusive. yet that's sort of how we've chosen to operate over the past decade. we all remember, of course, with the towers still smoking, the passing of use of military force against terrorists, this was something widely supported and passed under the specter of imminent danger, but it's been used to justify everything from torture to rendition to secret cia black sights to warrantless wiretapping. patriot act was passed in the same period. everyone felt another attack might be just around the corner. again, it was something that was largely lauded and widely supported and the civil liberty endangering affects of that legislation weren't visible until much later. skip aid head to the financial crisis, tarp, 700 billion dollars thrown together over a weekend, a three-page proposal. they said the world economy would implode on itself. armageddon would be ushered in unless it was passed. tarp failed the first vote and when the dow plummeted a

panicked congress reskon veened and passed it. at least in all of those cases there was some external crisis present. what we have seen from this particular republican congressional class is a novel mutation of crisis government which is not to react to external crisis but to create, even in crises, in order to there by restrict what the political system can produce. we saw this before the new republican congress was with ever sworn in. right after the 2010 mid-term elections, during the lame duck session of congress. republicans threatened any help for the unemployed at a time of 9. % unemployment and threatened to put people on the street on christmas eve if they didn't get their way. they essentially created this crisis in order to preserve the bush tax cuts that were set to expire that month. a self-created crisis, but it worked. in april, another crisis. a potential government shutdown.

all hands on deck. government workers were briefed on what to do to shut down national parks. senior citizens were sent in to a panic about what was going to happen with their social security and medicare benefits. all over a resolution to continue to fund the government that republicans were holding up. self-created crisis in which republicans managed to extract billions of dollars in spending cuts at a time when the economy desperately needs more spending. and now this, the debt ceiling fight. republicans turning what has always been a routine congressional action in to an imminent and dire crisis, pushing the country towards the brink of default. at each point along the way, the stakes get higher and higher. the state of the unemployed, the fate of everyone who works for the government or uses government services and now the fate of global financial markets. each time this create a crisis strategy has been successful, wildly successful. each time the republican demands

have been met and with each success their insent vised to employ the strategy again. this has become the new normal in washington. what we get are all of these self-created crisises every few months and abnormal insidious means of producing public policy. joining us now is eugene robinson from the "washington post." msnbc contributor. good to see you. >> good to be here. >> am i being hyper bollic. is this new and distinct, this kind of brand of self imposition of crisis? or is in the way the system always works? it has certainly escalated, chris. look, this government, our political system has always worked best with a tight deadline. things tend not to get done until they have to get done. but, you are right that this is different. there was a famous quote from rahm iman yul when he was chief

of staff a couple of years ago to the affect of what a shame it would be to waste a crisis. the republicans have learned never waste a crisis, just make the crisis and use it to their advantage. they seem to be perfecting the technique. >> what episode of this -- there are two aspects of it. the substance of what the actual deal that was struck and passed by the house today is, and then there is a process by which it produced. i wonder, what do you find most ominous about how this whole deal went down? >> how much time do we have? if you want to talk process, look, if you reward hostage takers, they take more hostages. so, it's positive reinforcements for those who practice this technique of saying, look, we're going to blow the place up unless you give us what we want. that is disturbing because we were obviously going to see it again. in terms of the substance of the deal, you know, what was the administration's first position?

it will give us a clean bill, raising the debt ceiling, like we always do, and republicans said no. so, the fall back position was, okay, we can have some budget cuts but let's have new revenue, too. and the republicans said no. and in the end it turned out just to be budget cuts. now, the administration did some creative work in sort of undermining. >> fine print jujitzu. >> exactly. >> $350 billion of the $950 billion in the for sure cuts over the next decade are in defense cuts, which -- this is unprecedented whack at the defense budget and there are other things in there that are quite clever. but in the end, you know, is this a victory for the administration? no. is it a victory for the republicans, yes. >> i want to get to the question of what comes after this.

because whatever the substance of this deal, one of the things that i think is disturbing or worrisome is the fact at each point it doesn't seem -- the white house seems surprised all over again when this strategy is pursued the next time. the president was asked specifically in a press conference, you know, after the republican election by mark ambinder from the election, what are you going to do about the debt ceiling and of course they are not. responsible. what is the next irresponsib irresponsibleable moment will we continue to go through this. >> we will don't go through something like this in september. some sort of spin and drama in september. i can pretty much guarantee that. and, you know, one of the reasons the administration was so set on getting something at least that takes us past the election is that they did see they are going to hold us hostage on the debt ceiling again in a few months. they have certain ly learned

that much. but can they see the next thing coming? i'm not sure. >> gene robinson, pulitzer prize winning columnist for the "washington post" post and msnbc contributor. thank you very much. >> great to be here, chris. for one group of republicans this is an incredibly important vote, even if they are not voting on it. mitt romney. i'm looking at you. just ahead. one more thing about the crisis, perhaps the only good thing to come out of it with this vote. the vote in the house you hear applause. the same applause for 3:30 seconds. we counted it. because what the members are clapping for is this woman. that right there is congresswoman gging gg. returned to the chamber for the first time since she was shot seven months ago. gabrielle giffords's colleagues

couldn't believe it. he said it's ewe you, it's you. other members cried. congresswoman giffords travelled to washington to vote in favor of the debt deal. she said i had to be here for this vote. i could not take a chance that my absence could crash our economy. >> it provided the means and motivation to bring a critically wounded dock woman back to work among her grateful colleagues. host: could switching to geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance? host: do people use smartphones to do dumb things? man 1: send, that is the weekend. app grapgic: yeah dawg! man 2: allow me to crack...the bubbly! man 1: don't mind if i doozy. man 3: is a gentleman with a brostache invited over to this party? man 1: only if he's ready to rock! ♪ sfx: guitar and trumpet jam

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with zegerid otc, you get 24-hour relief. so, this is goodbye heartburn ? gone. finito. zegerid otc. two ingredients... ...one mission. heartburn solved. one of these by now routine, last minute crisis averting compromises, most people watching have two immediate questions, one, what the heck is in it? two, is it any good? now, sometimes we like to skip immediately to answering the second question because well, it's more fun and better tv than reading through the fine print. that instinct is compounded by the fact this deal is pretty complicated. if you're feeling a bit bewildered, i'm here to tell you, you're not alone. newspapers, blogs, websites, have even resorted to flow charts to explain it. i myself have spent the last day trying to get my head around it. it's not just one thing the house passed today.

the debt deal is actually layered. there are things that happen needily and other things that happen over time. finally a bit of meta-legislation that attempts to control the process by which future deficit reduction will happen. think of it as three main components. first, the big kahuna. the thing everyone has been fighting about, the debt ceiling. debt ceiling gets raised enough to meet obligations until after the 2012 election. in exchange for this, congress imposes spending caps on discretionary spending. that part of the dugt doesn't include social security medicare, medicaid. you know, stuff like national parks, scientific research, education, highways, stuff like that. the spending caps start in the fall and they start relatively small and then get bigger. they are predicted to reduce spending by about $900 billion over the next decade. finally, congress creates a bipartisan joint committee.

this is the super congress or super committee you've been hearing about that will get together in november with the task of coming up with another $1.5 trillion in cuts. this is where both tax increases and social security and medicare cuts could come back into the deal, because that super committee, which will have an expedited process to vote on its recommendations can more or less come up with whatever it wants, but you're thinking what if there's no agreement for the super committee? that's not a surprising thought given what we've been through and there's reason to think they won't come to an agreement. so what happens then? if that's the case, then another round of automatic cuts goes into effect. this is the trigger everyone's been talking about, in the amount of $1.2 trillion, which will hit everything from the pentagon to payments to medicare providers. the thinking on the trigger here is that the second round of automatic cuts will be so unpalatable across the board, hitting democratic and

republican constituencies that congress will be motivated to pass whatever the super committee comes up with, but be careful what you wish for. anyone who thinks a body composed equally of democrats and republicans will produce anything other than a conservative agenda has not been paying attention. if you're sitting there saying to yourself how can this congress or three or five congresses from now, you're not alone. your name might as well be chris hayes, that's what i'm thinking too. joining us is ezra klein, msnbc policy analyst and the man i like to talk to when every sentence i have ends in a question mark. >> hi, chris, how are you? >> i'm genuinely trying to figure out this statutory mechanism here. obviously the congressional budget office scores these cuts for ten years. understood. how does this congress say what spending is in, say, 2017?

>> it doesn't, and one thing to always note when you see a bill like this, they keep saying discretionary spending, and the reason they keep saying discretionary spending is nobody knows what discretionary spending is. they don't like to say medicare cuts or social security cuts, people ino what those are. discretionary spending, nobody knows what it is they set arbitrary levels of discretionary spending to get them to a goal and put in place what they call a trigger or in this case they call spending caps, works like a trigger. that means if they go over their caps, there's an automatic set of cuts made across the board to discretionary spending. now, the next question, couldn't congress in 2015 or 2018 say we're not going to listen to the trigger, we're going to vote the trigger out of existence, they could. they have before. there was a trigger back in the late 80s, early 90s, they didn't let that go into effect. the trick of the trigger, can't -- it's got to be not to who thabl congress won't let it

happen but just bad enough it forces congress to do what it is supposed to do. >> if i were to ask you -- and i'm sort of putting you on the spot, what's the good, bad and ugly here? what are your headlines for each of those categories >> so the big headline news in this bill is how much it actually cuts defense. if you're talking about what's good, you can argue good both ways, but for many years -- defense has been off the table. you have made the point before, worst four words in budgets are nondiscretionary spending. pub what the republicans did is solve the problem -- how do you do a balanced deal if republicans aren't going to do revenues, instead of revenues, republicans will do defense cuts so spending cuts count -- if we do the trigger, spending cuts it would get cut by 600 billion dhz on top of the $350 billion already in the initial bit.

the ughingly, i'd say, is the discretionary, the nondefense discretionary. that is education, it is medical research. it's infrastructure, transportation. all that in the future stuff that the white house is talking about and that we need. politicians love to cut it because nobody knows what is in it and the programs generally speaking are smaller than medicare, medicaid and social security and so they don't have powerful con stitch wednesdaycys protecting them. so we're cutting more into the bone when we go into nondefense discretionary than when we end up with medicare, tax code, or defense. >> the other thing i want to get to here because i think the white house has proven itself very adept at rescuing non-catastrophic results of the deals by being clever with the fine print. the chronology of when these come in to affect are key. they are fairly back loaded, am i right.

>> they are very back loaded. one catch to that. there's 20 billion -- >> 22 billion. >> 22 billion i believe. the one catch is this does not extend unemployment insurance or payroll tax cut. put those together. they were in the 2010 tax deal and continue until the end of the year. the bill says nothing about them. if you don't extend those, you are looking at a $150 billion cut in the economy in 2012 compared to 2011. add them together and you are at 200 billion. that's a big reduction and not just spending but targeted government support for recovery. that's a big deal. but aside from that, what is actually in the spill specifically is back loaded to cut toward the end of the ten-year window instead of the beginning in order to protect the recover but not to support the recovery further. >> i guess the final question is, is there any light on the horizon in terms of addressing exactly the thing that you just mentioned in terms of unemployment and the thing we

have been banging on here at this anchor desk of the network and the nation and the blog that a complete reluctance, inability for washington to deal with the obvious problem for more stimlative measures for demand and supporting people who are unemployed. >> what kills me about the deal. i can't believe it when i step back and look at it. we did it so stupidly. there's a clear deal here. there are two perspectives on the economy. one you need more deficit reduction in the long term. and more support now. any economist will tell you this is not hard. a lot of deficit reduction between 2015 and 2025 and a fair amount of support in the next couple of year until unemployment gets below 7%. we did not do that. we did not do much deficit reduction in the long term and no stimulus and look to be removing now. so we got a deal that is the worst of both worlds. there are things that is not as bad as it could have been but

that is not high prize given how bad the economy is. >> worst of both worlds is the district of columbia. >> raze klein, thank you for coming on. >> thank you. >> as promised michele bachmann voted against raising the debt ceiling. but does courting disaster translate in to votes in iowa? it just might. that's ahead. letters and pac. that's about 34 million pounds of mail every day. ever wonder what this costs you as a taxpayer? millions? tens of millions? hundreds of millions? not a single cent. the united states postal service doesn't run on your tax dollars. it's funded solely by stamps and postage. brought to you by the men and women of the american postal workers union. ♪ excuse me? my grandfather was born in this village. [ automated voice speaks foreign language ]

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republican leadership in the house was so proud of itself today for reaching a deal on the debt ceiling, it's planning to give itself the rest of the summer off. no really. reportedly cantor's office announced the house will adjourn tonight and not return until after labor day. five weeks. see you dudes in september. this leaves a whole lot of stuff unfinished, including reauthorization of the federal aviation administration. you know, the guys in charge of overseeing the safety of all those planes whizzing about overhead thousands of feet in the air carrying our loved ones. nbc news is reporting the same republicans who claim this is about reforming air service just rejected a democratic proposal to make huge cuts in that service and a kleenex tension of faa authority. so the partial shutdown of the faa, now in its tenth day will last at least 45 days or more. now, remember that all of this is happening in the middle of a

deficit fight as well as an economic recovery that is seriously stalling. congressman pete defazio pointed out today, far better than we ever could, the decision to keep the faa shutdown is a decision that's both dangerous and costly, really, really costly. really, really costly. >> at the least, at the least, they could have extended the federal aviation administration authority. so we're walking away from $200 million a week, that is in taxes, that would come from users of the system. 4,000 federal employees have lost their jobs or are laid off, collecting unemployment. republicans don't care about federal employees, put that aside, but 90,000 private sector construction workers and small businesses are unemployed because we brought all the safety and security improvements across the entire system to a screeching halt because we're not collecting taxes. which the airlines are now

capturing for profits. could that be in here. that would put 94,000 people back to work. that's not in here. that's too much to ask. it's really crazy. >> congress doesn't get back from vacation until september 6th. but tomorrow night, right here, transportation secretary ray la hood will be rachel's special guest on the faa shutdown. i will be tuning in for that. every day, all around the world, energy is being produced to power our lives. while energy developement comes with some risk, north america's natural gas producers are committed to safely and responsibly providing decades of cleaner burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources within self contained well systems and using state of the art monitoring technologies,

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you have been quoted coming out your caucus as calling this agreement a sugar-coated satan sandwich. was that your quote? is that how you feel about this deal. >> very accurate quote. if i were a republican i would be dancing in the streets. i don't have any idea what the republicans wanted they didn't get. >> not exactly a secret. not everyone left is happy with the new deal struck over the weekend. to not have republicans destroy the economy. there's a lot not to love about the deal. what might be hardest for liberals to swallow about the compromise of the pub ub cans is there is no revenue in it, no taxation in the deal. the president himself said he would sign a bill -- would not

sign a bill unless it was balanced. >> let's live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. let's ask the wealthiest americans and biggest corporations to give up some of their breaks in the tax code and special deductions. this balanced approach asks everyone to give a little, without requiring anyone to sacrifice too much. i told leaders of both parties that they must come up with a fair compromise in the next few days that can pass both houses of congress, and a compromise that i can sign. >> of course, the deal we got has no balance, and it is getting signed. this isn't new, of course. this anti-revenue, down with taxes thing, it's a trend. it's been going on for decades. what's is at the heart, a movement to destroy this country's social welfare system by starving it of tax dollars. taxes aren't just an end in and

of themselves. no one wants higher taxes, because, hey, taxes are awesome. no. taxes are a means by which government pays for goods. they get us roads, parks, schools, sewers and running water. if you stop paying for the government to provide public goods, then not surprisingly what tends to happen is the quality of the public goods decline. you get public mess and with this deal, republicans say hey we will destroy the economy and democrats say we will give it to you how you like it and republicans say good negotiating with you. this deal calls in to question whether our political system has totally lost the capacity to raise revenue to pay for the vital public good. if you think i'm being hyperbolic here, hold on there is a chart coming up with your name on it. in the beltway of bipartisanship

of ronald reagan and o'neill, the white house economist points out, yes, the tax cutting reagan agreed to a deal that was more than 80% new rev new, 80% taxes. a deficit reducing budget bill passed in 1990 under the first president bush, just under 40% taxes. then in 1993, bill clinton and the democratic-led congress passed a budget bill to cut the deficit. that was 60% taxes. and now to our most current balanced budget deal. earlier this summer, when the crisis of the looming debt ceiling was only just beginning to roll off the assembly line of republican shenanigans, the white house was pushing a deal that involved a three to one compromise. three dollars of cuts for every one dollars dollar of tax increases. if the republicans vote to not blow up the economy the white house would give them a deficit deal that is only 25% tax

increases. that's the lowest one so far on the chart. you can witness the blue shrinking. republicans themselves had advocated this year, a deficit reduction plan that was 15% revenue. so, where does that leave us? let's not destroy the economy by blowing it up through the debt ceiling deechl how much of that deal is revenue? zero. zero percent. there's no revenue. it cuts the deficit by $2.1 trillion with no guaranteed taxes. no concrete evidence that taxes will be part of raising all of this extra money. the white house will say, don't you worry. we will have the hammer in our hands, the expiration of the bush tax cuts, which are a significant chunk of revenue and that's true, but we have been here before. they had the hammer of the expiration of the bush tax cuts in the lame duck session and failed to use them to raise

revenue. part of the problem is that democrats and liberals have sounded almost like republicans on taxes. always boasting about keeping taxes low and promise nothing one who makes less than $250,000 a year go up and that's not true. or it shouldn't be. taxes are going to have to go up. period. taxes, right now, is a percentage of gdp, are at a 50 year low. one of the things that characterizes a country with poor governance is an inability to effectively collect taxes to fund the state. we have seen this in action in greece. this agreement today called in to question whether or not we're on a slippery slope that leads down that same path. joining us now is congresswoman jan gentleman could you ski.

what was the deciding factor for you. >> it gets down to what you were talking about. the fact that the cuts come from the people who have already sacrificed so much. middle-class people, our senior citizens, poor people, all the people that we should be protecting and not a hair from the head of a millionaire or billionaire, as you said, not one penny from the wealthiest americans. but, you know, you asked the important question, are we capable of raising taxes? and if you ask the american people, do you want higher taxes, they say no. do you want a balanced budget, they say yes. but if you say, would you prefer to raise revenue, to have higher taxes, especially for millionaires and billionaires, from rich people, or to cut medicare, social security and forget it. hands down. people do not want those things cut. i dare say, if you say do you want clean air, clean water,

food inspection, they say of course we do. that's what we expect. we want police. we want teachers. we want all of those things. so the phone calls that i was getting today, 20-1 in my office. i heard others saying 100-1 not to support this plan. >> god bless evanston, illinois. i want to ask you about the sort of expiration of the bush tax cuts in a second but i want to ask you a question. if the vote was tied today in the house and you had not voted yet, and they were holding the vote open and you were the deciding vote, would you have voted the same way as you did today? >> i probably would have changed my vote. i will be honest with you. although i have clearly said i would have liked to seen the president invoke the 14th amendment. but you know a what? people have voted against debt ceilings before to make a very clear statement that, you know, we don't want to have a deal

that is a bad deal. the president himself did it. but we never obstructed actually raising that debt ceiling. there would have been a lot of pressure. >> there would have. it strikes me, in some ways, and this relates to the expiration of the bush tax cuts and i'm not saying i would have done any differently in your position, but this strikes me of the asymmetry that gets us in to this position. because i think if i ask that same question of a lot of freshmen in the tea party about the earlier bill they voted down they would have said, hey, screw it. i would have voted no and damn the consequences. if that is the dynamic when we come up to the exspir ration of the bush tax cuts, what says that is going to be different? >> no. i absolutely think that at that point the -- we can mobilize people and that's wa we will be doing this summer and that's what we will have to be doing going forward saying, if we are going to create jobs. if we are going to grow the

economy. if we are going to address the real crises of a disappearing middle class and a disappearing american dream, then we cannot let the wealthy get away with absolutely no skin in the game whatsoever, including the corporations, who are getting tax refunds instead of paying any taxes at all. i really think that we are going to be able to build the momentum that is necessary to say, no. you are not going to continue to take it out of the middle class. we're going to have the president with us, making those speeches, on the stump, as he begins in ernest his campaign for the collection. i believe him when he says that we are not going -- that we will let those tax cuts expire unless there's some serious tax reform. and i certainly would recommend and introduce the bill by fairness and taxation right that taxes the millionaires and

billionaires more. >> i really appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you, chris. can you get to the white house by just saying no? all the time. that's next. ding zone. it organizes all your spending, including your pnc debit card, credit card, and your bills. so you can view them by category... or by month. you can set a budget... and it'll even alert you when you're getting close to the amount you've set -- and when you've gone over. spending zone is built to help you keep better track of your spending. experience everything virtual wallet has to offer at pncvirtualwallet.com. pnc bank. for the achiever in you. [ engine revving ] [ male announcer ] 125 years ago... we invented the automobile. ♪ and 80,000 patents later, we're still reinventing it. ♪ it's no coincidence that the oldest car company has the youngest and freshest line in the luxury class.

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you are looking for the soul of the republican party these days, you have to look in to two places. this is the part of the republican party we have been hearing so much about over the last couple of years, the tea party. it is truly a poxcy for the base. people who believe in small government, lower taxes, fend for yourself america or at least says it does until a politician suggests cutting medicare. the base is where congresswoman michele bachmann lives with the rank and file who had enough of whatever, or something. she left her presidential campaign in iowa today so she could vote on captiol hill against raising the debt ceiling but the phoned the folks in iowa and called for a show of hands. >> let me ask you this question, raise your hand. do you want me to vote no on raising the debt ceiling? raise your hand? very good. tell me the results.

i can't see it. but i know if you are raising hands is like the rest of the country, it is a very strong no. >> the second slice of the republican soul belongs this year, at least, to one willard mitt romney. the billionaire son of a governor who made his money laying off american workers and laying off jobs and wants to joke about being unemployed. he is the 2012 candidate of the plutocrats, the fat cats, the rich, the other half. like they are the top one or two percent. and mitt romney is their guide. they give him oodles of money to show how much they care. the republican coalition has the base and the plutocrats and once in a blue moon we see them at odds with each other. this happened when congress and

the white house bailed out the banks. the great men of wall street unanimously wanted the bailout because it saved their hides and the base hated it. and guess what, wall street won. wall street won because wall street wins. as long as the plutokrats and base agree, they are a unified force. when they differ bet on wall street. i always believe we get a deal to raise the debt ceiling. wall street was not going to let congress tank the economy. goldman sachs does not want america to default on its debt. that was probably never going to really happen. i will admit that i underestimated the extent to which the balance of power shifted. it makes sense that michele bachmann would oppose raising the debt ceiling. she knows her supporters to thank them for raising their hands even when she couldn't see them. so through the weekend she was raising money all for a promise to not raise the debt ceiling.

mitt romney is the candidate of the plutocrats of wall street and they wanted continuity for the economy, they wanted stability and didn't want the u.s. government to default on a debt. this is what wall street got from the candidate of wall street. quote while i aproesht appreciate the extraordinarily difficult situation president obama's lack of leadership has placed republican members of congress in, i personally cannot support this deal. given a which side moment are you on between the plutocrats and base he threw in with the base. only after he realized it would pass but that is mitt romney for you. >> the co-author of bush's brain which is still the definitive book on karl rove. mr. slater. thank you for making time tonight. >> great to be with you, chris. >> were you surprised by the romney statement? was it surprising he came out

against the deal? >> it is vintage romney. hee able to say something politically on the other hand, his wall street supporters know that he is one of us. he will be there at the time. your info is exactly right. you have two factions who are competing for the soul of the republican party. the tea party or the teavangelicals and plutocrats on the other but they are on different fields. the tea party is on the political field where servitude and bold colors and purity is what counts as part of their rhetoric. the pluto toecrats and romney really are playing on the policy side where compromise is king and ultimately that's what you have to have when your goal is not sending things over the edge. let me say this whole conflict in the last few weeks raises the question in our democracy, can

you have a successful politics and that's what the tea party has been the last two years, a successful politics that ultimately makes it impossible to govern? that's a profound question. i think in the long run it's hard to imagine the impossibility of governance being a sustainable kind of politics but in the short run it is reaping its benefit i think you are seeing that in the skittishness of the other candidates today. rick perry, of course your texas governor, he says he doesn't say anything explicitly but he quotes, supports cut cap balance approach. that's it. one sentence line. what do you make of that? >> that is politics. that is the message. you don't talk about do i agree with what portions of the boehner bill or the bill discussed now. that gets you in trouble. all you do is cite a big theme. cut, cap, balance. that's a dog wis toll the tea

party con stitch wednesdaycy that says i'm on your side. he never had to say whether he would vote, pass, sign or veto the bill today. what he did say is i'm with the guys who are running the political side of things this year, as i look to the primary states, iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, florida and so forth. >> what's so interesting about this. i think i'm sort of obsessed with this one poll that asks people do you want your elected representative to stick to principles or compromise to get things done there's a remarkable result. democrats say 2-1, i want to compromise to get things done and republicans say i want them to stick to principle. you see this in the dynamic. how much is that shaping the sort of contours of the policy position they are staking out in the republican field? >> it is. i mean basically when you have a constituency on the republican side that will speak so 0

clearly and eck press itself so clearly, i want to stand on principle even if it means running the country over the cliff, even if it means you are back to 1964. what happened today when you had a sense of compromise would have been equal to rockefeller agreeing with barry goldwater and joining. that's almost what you have right now. but it is not surprising. >> goldwater gets the last laugh in that encounter. wayne slater, senior political writer for the dallas morning news. thank you for dropping by. >> great to be with you. recall elections are rapidly approaching. the ed show will have the latest developments after this show. and here the best new thing in the world today benefits tens of millions of women. and come to think of it, men. good news up next. [ melody ] the bar is raised for everybody in an ap class,

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this is what people think of what has been happening in washington over the past few weeks. so word cloud based on the single word responses people gave to the "washington post" and pew research center when asked about their characterization of the budget negotiating. pretty grim. there are times when the government does something good. crazy as that may sound. like today, when it does the best new thing in the world. thanks to a decision in washington, d.c. today, tens of millions of women, who already have health insurance this this country, will no longer have to copay for their birth control and other preventative services. the department of health and human services deciding that, under president obama's health care act, insurance companies can no longer charge women for, among other things, all fda approved contraception including

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