. >>> now we turn to congressman charles rangel, a democrat of new york.ir, i put to you the question we started with, the clock is ticking to the new year. here comes the fiscal cliff. so what on earth is the speaker, mr. boehner and his boys, what on earth are they doing wasting time on these gyrations as harry reid referred to them? >> the best i can make out is that he doesn't have the votes to do what he would want to do, and that he's using these legislative procedures in order to test the moderates as opposed to those that prevent him from making any type of decent agreement with the president of the united states, and i'd like to add, and the american people. he has, unfortunately, in his party a group that he's dependent on if he wants to remain speaker that refuse, that refuse to the believe that obama has won the election. they hated had i am from the beginning and the election didn't cause any more delight in where we go from here. and so the best i can make out, he's trying to get enough votes to get enough support to free himself and to ultim

congressman charles rangel is a democrat from new york and he joins us live from capitol hill.d afternoon, sir. jay carney said today that the republicans' offer is, i'm quoting him, magic beans and fairy dust. speaker boehner says democrats like you are living in la la land. as one serving his 22nd term in congress, can you tell us, sir, who is living in an enchanted universe and who is operating on planet earth? >> well, quite frankly, the republican party is so confused that they don't truly realize that president obama won re-election, and there are certain parts of them that said, hell, no, they're not going to accept that. even mitt romney has gone off to shangri-la somewhere because of their refusal to accept reality. instead of just saying, as the president has said, that you can't get to $800 billion without hurting so many people, americans, and that it would be unacceptable, why don't we tell speaker boehner, first of all, that's going to be unacceptable by republicans and most americans. two, why don't you lay out the $800 billion? i for one, if you didn't care abou

to democratic congressman charles rangel. taxes are going up for the higher earners but the sequestration, if that goes in effect, it could do serious economic damage in defense industry jobs. >>guest: it is amazing how people have no confidence just when people say we have an outline and it looks like we are close do deal people are happy. the fact is we don't know whether we have a deal or not. but if the white house and the senate can leak out information to the press that we are close, accept that. the sequestration is a problem that we created and one that we can move on and deal with at another time. i hope this is the case. right now, people want to see their government work together and if we have that type of attitude rather than one of confrontation, there is no problem before us that collectively we cannot resolve. >> congressman rangel, this confidence in government question, why should americans be confident in congress, in you, when we have been down this road before in the debt ceiling fight of a year and a hal

. >> charlie is a democrat congressman from the state of new york, charles rangel, thank you for joining congressman. what gives? what gives? tell us about fiscal cliff. are you worried about the fiscal cliff? >>guest: you bet your life. people in my district are, small business people if my district are concerned about it. people have to plan not just for the bill of today but the bills and the tax responsibilities they are going to have if tomorrow. i listened to a previous guest, the people, the small business people in my community, 97 per science -- percent to not make $250,000 a year personal salaries so they are not affected by the top 2 percent. having said that, they want people to get back to work. people to have jobs to have incomes to buy from the small business people. blue are small or large you want to know which, how are the laws going to be, what are the tax lie bills going to be, and this congress owes it to the american people to tell them. >>eric: congressman, america has always been about hard working people earning, creating jobs, creating opportunity, passing a bet

dagen: democratic congressman charles rangel is sitting next to us to weigh in on this. tax hikes on billionaires. house speaker boehner is moving in the right direction. >> no questions in the right direction. there is a big gap between 250,000 then a million dollars. it is in the right direction. the speaker is not digging his heels. i was just wondering when they would stop and say, look, we lost the election. this is a major step towards that end. connell: does the president also compromise. i am getting higher taxes, i am raising revenue, let's make a deal. >> they said they refused to even take about increasing the rates. that is the big issue. we can talk about everything. we can put everything on the table. the problem you will have is it is easy for the two principles to say they have broken the steel wool back of the ballpark. now is the time for them to come together with offers that he can bring back to his republicans in the house and democrats can bring in the congress. dagen: a trillion dollars in revenue is the latest proposal. the president last offer wa