host: congressman chaka fattah is our guest. here is a tweet. derek, democrat in columbus, ohio, you are next. good morning. caller: good morning. i do not know if you want to call it a grand bargain, but it should be fair. i wholly disagree with your tax idea. i think it would be unfair for citizens to pay different rates. if you make more, you should pay more it should be about what is fair in this country. if you make more, you should pay more. there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. this government that was set up to take the -- take care of a least of us as well as the best of us. social security in medicare is now really the cause of the deficit. it is ultimately fair that the united states has always been borrowing money and there is been very few times that we have had a balanced budget. guest: i respect the fact that he may disagree but he may not fully appreciate what i am suggesting. i am suggesting a transaction fee in which the reality would be we would exempt families of $250,000 m below. we would examine transactions between

a pennsylvania congressman chaka fattah joins us and we will talk about his proposal to

and also, what say you about congressman chaka fattah's bill, the debt-free america act? do you support that bill? are you supporting the republican bill that is similar to his, modeled after congressman chaka fattah's bill? >> well, i'm not going to comment on a particular bill right now. let me speak to the broader point that you're asking about, april. this recession has been hard on everybody. but obviously it's harder on folks who've got less. and the thing that i am obsessed with, and have been since i came into office, is all those families out there who are doing the right thing every single day, who are looking after their families who are just struggling to keep up, and just feel like they are falling behind, no matter how hard they work. i got a letter this past week from a woman whose lost his job and the pavement finally found a job they felled and like things were stabilizing and six months later he lost his second job and now they are back looking again figuring out how they are going to make ends meet and just hundreds of thousands of folks out there who r

and also, what say you about congressman chaka fattah's bill, the debt free america act? do you support that bill? are you supporting the republican bill that is similar to his, modeled after congressman fattah's bill? >> well, i'm not going to comment on a particular bill right now. let me speak to the broader point that you're asking about, april. this recession has been hard on everybody, but obviously it's harder on folks who've got less. and the thing that i am obsessed with, and have been since i came into office, is all those families out there who are doing the right thing every single day, who are looking after their families, who are just struggling to keep up, and just feel like they're falling behind, no matter how hard they work. i got a letter this past week from a woman who -- her husband had lost his job, had pounded the pavement, finally found a job. they felt like things were stabilizing for a few months. six months later he lost his second job. now they're back looking again and trying to figure out how they are going to make ends meet. and there are jus