what do the republicans and folks like allen simpson hope comes out of a showdown over a debt ceiling limit. >> they want president obama to buckle, to give up over key programs, social security and health care. the wall street boys will have the most to lose. the economy will be sitting here. what may not be is goldman sachs, morgan stanley, and the other wall street banks. at the end of the day, those guys stand td most to lose. if president obama just stands tough, i promise you, the wall street boyce will be screaming at the republicans. i have a feeling they are going to jump out of the car. >> dean baker, economist and codirector of the center for economic and policy changes. >> thanks for having me on it. >>> independent senator, bernie sanders of vermont is joining us. senator sanders, thanks so much for joining us. >> good to be with you, chris. >> senator sanders, you have he can actually zero republicans in the senate that joined the democrats and yourself raising the debt ceiling back in january. we are going to see this vote come up again. what is your sense of what the s

mess with social security, a sentiment not lost on the plan's co-author, former wyoming senator allen simpson. >> we are going into a witness protection program. >> reporter: it will be a major challenge for this bipartisan commission to reach an agreement on deficit cuts of this magnitude. the final report is expected by december 1st. betty? >>> looks like it is going to be a tough road ahead. whit johnson in washington, thank you. on the "cbs moneywatch" stocks in asia shifted higher this morning. ashley morrison is no new york with much more on that. good morning, ashley. >> good morning to you, betty. asian markets inched up today, japan's nikkei added nearly half a percent to a four and a half-month closing high and hong kong's hang seng gained nearly 1%. today wall streets gets earnings from viacom and wednesday. -- disney. wednesday, stocks finished up after a rough start, the dow adding ten points and the nasdaq gained 15 and change. the market was helped by general motors, turning a third quarter profit of more than two billion dollars and should help attract investors as the company

. >> reporter: after ten months of searching for ways to eradicate the debt republican allen simpson and democrat err skin bowls are convinced the nation is approaching a crisis point. bowls was president clinton's chief of staff. simpson served in the senate for 18 years. in february, president obama appointed them co-chairs of a new fiscal commission made up mostly of current members of congress to propose the painful solution congress has avoided for decades. >> we're not going to get the support of the hard right or the hard left, just not going to happen. >> reporter: because the plan takes dead aim at sacred cows like social security, reducing benefits for all but the lowest income americans, trimming the annual cost of living increase, and slowly raising the retirement age from 67 to 69. the two men also proposed freezing federal pay for three years, cutting the federal workforce by 10%, and raising an extra $960 billion in taxes over ten years by doing away with a raft of popular deductions. and the mortgage deduction, you eliminate the earned income tax credit and the child

whennerskin boles and allen simpson announced that 75% are coming from cuts and 30% from revenue, welle of us think that is not a good balance and in terms of social security, they claim that 57% comes from cuts, but the social security subcommittee of the ways and means committee says it is actually closer to 76% of the changes from social security come from cuts. >> but congresswoman, with all due respect, don't you to start somewhere? the american people had an election and they said they want the deficit taken care of and fix and this is not a proposal to privatize social security in any way, and it is a gradual raising of the retirement age, so why not say, instead of being reflectively negative, why not say, okay, let's talk about this if we also talk about x, y and z. >> well, first of all talk about $700 billion if we do extend the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest, and the same people who seem amendable to the ut cans in social security want to see us extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. we are concerned that for older americans who have an average income of $18,00

republican allen simpson and democrat erskine bowles are the co-chairs of president obama's debt commissionig us out of this mess. they went on the record. mr. bowles first with you. is your recommendation binding in any way? >> if we get 14 votes it has to go to the senate and the senate has to give an up or down vote then to the house. only if we get 14 out of 18 votes. >> greta: great idea. this plan is a winner with your work you can sent it to capitol hill and it runs into a wall, right? >> won't be any question about that. we don't hold any false hopes. i tell you one thing, we are pleased at the general reaction of the public that finally somebody quit bsing them and put something on the table that slaughtered every sacred cow in the field. they are tired of the politician who sits here or with you, then you ask them directly what would you cut in spending? well, waste, fraud, abuse, foreign aid and earmarks. great, that will get you 5%, now what are you gonna deal with pal? well let's see the lawrence wel k society thing in north dakota, forget. you got to go where the meat is. medi

whatever and if they get that kind of cover from the president's commission with bruce reed and allen simpson endorsing it and the president endorsing the tea party people can find common ground for long-term debt solution. i think you can get a majority. it's a delightful umbrella to get out from under the umbrella. it will take a lot of heat and a real proposal and there's a hope for once in the next five or ten years they can get under an umbrella and say we're going face the heat on this thing and get debt reduction in the long term. >> i'm a little less optimistic because you have to have tax increases and spending cuts and not sure too many republicans or democrats are going to agree with that. >> the social security commission ran by allen greenspan and tommy o'neil is telling the story his father was at the white house, tip o'neil and they went for a walk on the south lawn and built the deal. in that case it was more taxes and more of a democratic solution because the republicans lost the '82 election. this time because the democrats lost the 2010 election they have to tilt toward the

already a former gnat republican, allen simpson who's on the panel says he needs to go in to witnessction because of this. they need 14 members to sign on to even move to congress for debate. it doesn't look like they have the 14 commission members a this point. >> thank you. >>> federal workers have the day off and many are talking about comments by john boehner. >> another controversial subject. the ohio republican is talking about a pay freeze for federal workers. >> we say there ought to be a freeze on the hiring of new federal employees and, frankly we ought to freeze the pay. it's gotten to a point where the average federal worker makes twice as much as the average private sector worker. >> reporter: our partners at "usa today" report more federal workers are making $150,000 a year these days. we got reaction from some federal workers. >> you are working for america. so i don't see what the problem is. >> i want to serve the american public and i work very hard for what i get. my count parts in the private industry make more money than i do. >> reporter: what do you think? are

i like allen simpson. he is a fine man, but i know a lot of retired senators, senators who have left here and been defeated or voluntarily retired and that is who they associate with. people live in gated communities. bare upper income. they are not associating with ms. miller and the families that make 40 and 50 and $60,000 a year. they are associating with people like us, making $200,000 more year. that is who they associate with. i know all these elderly people and they have got the condo in miami and then they have got someplace else up north for the summer and they have got a gated community. that is who allen simpson is thinking about. but that is not the bulk of americans out there. that is a thin veneer at the top the average benefit as you pointed out is about $14,000 for social security. i doubt that anybody is going to be living in a gated community. so again we have to get back to just who we are talking about here, who are we talking about? who are we talking about? mr. eisenbrey you say also

i mean, explain to me what you think went on in this commission and allen simpson and irrelevant kin bowls, what they had to do to face what is coming. >> they had to provide leadership. you know, the biggest deficit that this country has is not enough leadership to help people understand what the real situation is, and i think they demonstrated that leadership. now, the tough part starts. it is going to be very difficult for them to get 14 out of 18 votes from the commission members as they stand, but you know, whether they do or not, you have these recommendations around the table, you are going to have the bipartisan policy recommendations on the table, the peterson pew recommendations from yesterday and others and ultimately the president is going to have to lead. >> rose: do you think the president is prepared to lead? >> i do. the question is will he? i mean he clearly has got to change course, based upon the midterm election result he has the ability to lead, but there are no easy choices here. , you know, there is only one person in the country that can take the lead on that,

let me play for you what allen simpson had to say this morning on "morning joe." >> you can come in here with your no taxes. i think grover norquist will be irrelevant in a year because if he's calling this a tax increase, he's in disney land. >> they haven't come to an agreement on tax increases and i think this is where a lot of the democrats are getting upset with the president. they're saying we've got to stand our ground on this. we have got to do just do tax, extend tax cuts just for the middle class and let them expire for the richest americans. >> sure. i mean, i think that that is what the, that's the democratic age agenda. that's what the president would like ideally. it's a game of brinksmanship. i agree with jamie's point -- >> who is pushing to the edge right now? >> i think what we have seen judging by the past two years is that the republicans are willing to push it harder than the white house has been and so far politically, i'm not talk about in terms of pall aets, but politically being the party of no has worked for the republicans and what the republicans have found, a

is the ability to simultaneously alienate both the political left and the political right, then allen simpson and erskine bowles have passed that test with fwliing colors. >> lehrer: they were on the program last night. >> no, they-- they had to do it. because the skmition not going to agree on anything. and they forced the debate. david is absolutely right. by doing this they preempted the debate and forced others to address this. the two things about it i think that are crucial, jim. first of all, people have been hiding saying we're going to balance this budget by hitting them. rich people, taxes, whatever, closing loopholes or we're going to hit the fed, taking way the benefits from these freeloaders. he has basically said it's us, okay. >> lehrer: this isn't them, it's us. >> and they've laid out the plan and if you want to argue with parts of it, okay, fine. but you better come up with where you are going to get the money. and i think that's crucial. the other thing they've done is they have asked for shared sacrifice. and since ronald reagan beat jimmy carter. jimmy carter lost in 1980