cliff. how about the corporate cliff? four years ago, our corporations were way too heavily indebt and layer after layer of debt and take on the acquire other companies and spending too quickly give ten wall we were about to hit, and seems that ben bernanke personally negotiated the cliff. and hard to have a day where a company is not issuing new debt, and issuing coupons, and this is a change that is totally unheralded, but i am heralding it now. and nobody cares about the bond market, but it is huge. where is the corporate refinancing happening most aggressively? with the financials. our banks have amazingly strong balance sheets as is clear from the banks worldwide. especially as compared to the balance sheets of the banks worldwide. staying on the cliff walk. it is a cliff. yes, it is true, stockton just filed for bankruptcy and i have been to stockton and i played some minor league baseball there, and harrisburg, never there. but it is political chicanery, and it is waywardness that is unique to the state, but nevert

is this a fiscal cliff or a slope. what will the impact be? >> we have a panel lined up, jim nussel, chad stone with the center on budget priorities, and gentleman, thank you for joining us, chad i want to start with you, you're more in the fiscal slope as opposed to fiscal cliff camp i believe, is that factoring in an obama win, romney win, or is it irrespective? >> it's irrespective of who wins because it's about the changes. they're large, and if policymakers allowed them to all take place over the course of the year, we would have a recession. that's a reasonable prediction. it starts slowly because it comes out of weekly paychecks. it doesn't all come at once. it's not a whylie coyote moment, you plunge over the cliff. and the slope gets steeper. >> jim, does it slow the economy down ahead of time? what do you think? >> that's what my would be. i thought your opening presentation was excellent and it laid out a number of challenges out there that need to happen and all culminate at the end of the year. however, it's a political time table

when i looked up into the cliff, i saw stacks of rock behind a little spall of the cliff that had stuck out and i realized there was a granary up there. i immediately started for it, climbing hand over hand up the cliff base. my breath tasted hot with discovery. i had found a secret. in past travels i had seen many granaries belonging to the anastasi but they had all been broken open by pot hunters or even by the residents themselves. this one had been built so no one would see it, like an attic accessed through a hidden floor. the structure was rectangular, like a cupboard. i touched its face with probing, diagnostic fingers, measuring it my eyes. 3 feet tall, 2 feet wide and 3 feet deep. i got up on my haunches and lightly dusted off the granaries roof which was undamaged. for 3,000 years not a breeze had entered this chamber, not an inkling of light. what tightly woven baskets were here, what woven textiles, what stockpile of cobalt blue and honey-colored seed corn left many years before the boom of spanish rifles. with my fingers i traced through the dust of fallen rock debris on th

personal cliff.where household debt served as payments on disposable income far exceeded what people could bear. look at this chart. we are now closing in on levels or percentage of disposable income -- this is from the fed. we last hit 1994. we are about to experience a booming stock market and, of course, a booming economy. meanwhile putting more and more money in the average american's pockets. so much for the cliff that terrorized the stock market four years ago. another cliff. cliff mason is my head writer. so we areç touching every clif right now. cliff. how about the corporate cliff? four years ago our corporations were way too heavily indebted. layer after layer of debt. acquire other companies. given the wall the economy was about to hit. turns out ben bernanke neg yatesed the corporate cliff. you don't hear about a company paying off debt but new debt for coupons. the change is unheralded. i'm heralding it now. if so much happened to the bond market no one seems to care, but it's huge. whe

can we avoid the fiscal cliff and the lame duck congress?on't know how investors, i don't know how men and women in business are going to react to that, but i don't think they're going to be thrilled about it. and i think people in the senate, the house, may try to rush the process, but speaker boehner's probably right. it takes two to tango and you can't get it done unless he works with president obama on common ground. i worry about this story. i think it's got a disappointing theme to it. we'll see how it ends after the election. anyway, up next on "kudlow," let's go to ben bernanke. he says all the options are on the table when it comes to the u.s. economy, but the message from congress today was loud and clear -- less is more. take a listen. >> i wish you would take a third round off the table. i wish you would look the market in the eye and say, the fed has done all it can, perhaps too much. i wish you'd look at this president in congress in the eye and say, it is time to do your job. >> all right. well, the man who helped bernanke's f

to try to avoid a fiscal cliff that would significantly damage the recovery. but second to maintain the chie t a sustainable fiscal path over the longer rm anthird, touseiscal policy effectively to have a better tax code, to make good use of government spending programs and make them efficient and fee on. k if congre doe those things, the ultimate benefits would be substantial. >>et bloomberg tele if i could follow up on peter barns question. listening to your answer here how becial would it be for the u.s. economy right now given some of thealk on capitol hill that they -- lawmakers in the administration deal with the issues perhaps temporarily kick the can down the road into next year, deal with it sooner rather than later would that limit some of the uncertainty in the short term or be beneficial given the state of the economy at this present moment? >> that's a difficult problem. i'm not entirely sure. on the one hand, little clarity would probably be helpful for the reasons i described because people are uncertain about what's going to happen and on the o

as the chairman has said, when we get to these cliffs, what is it at that cliff that we have to decide? zigler used to say why is it we don't utilize public schools that are already on bus routes, that are safe, that we can put people there and provide the kind of affordable daycare that is safe, fundamentally sound and would be helpful? take a look around. especially if you're a young mother and in the workforce, pursuing a professional career, take look around at what kind of daycare there is for you and then consider where you may have the means of the situation so many fellow americans that don't. i hope that underscores some of what you had to say, representative. >> well, thank you for that commentary, commentary, representative larson, because it is. i can tell you what the alternatives are to having $1,000 a month to pay for decent daycare. you know, you can have a loving mother or mother-in-law who will take care of your kids the two days of the week that she's not on dialysis. you can have a next door neighbor take care of your kids, and maybe this will be a good family, and

storm is actually a cliff, a fiscal cliff. that is the expiration of some tax cuts, some of which you'll know as the bush tax cuts, and some other benefits on midnight on december 31st if congress does nothing. i don't know about you, but i am pretty concerned about what this all adds up to. if you're not, that's good for america. you'll keep spending and if i'm wrong, then i'm wrong. i'll wear that. but i'm not running for office. my job is to arm you with the truth about what is happening in this economy. people's futures are at stake and now more than ever you need to be informed. joining me to discuss our best line of defense against this storm is stephen moore, editorial writer for "the wall street journal." diane swunk, mohammed alarian, investor with pimpco. let me start with you. romney-obama, romney-obama. it truly doesn't matter who is president. if they win, the things that have to be done to fend off the storm have to be done in congress. nobody seems to get anything done in congress. >> you are wrong on this. i th

we got to either run into the cliff or run off of the cliff or stop short of it and don't do anything about it. and i think that's the mistake. so i'm hoping, i'm still hopeful, i'm naively hopeful that the budget constraint, the fiscal outlook, the budget constraint, the fiscal cliff coming up, that it's all an opportunity to actually let budget, the budget outlook and budget process help make better tax policy. >> do me a favor for the tv audience and explain what you mean by the current baseline. >> the current law baseline assumes that current tax law actually happens. currently -- >> so it's silly. >> so currently the bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of this calendar year. they were previously scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, but were extended. so we are nearing the end, at the end of this year they're all supposed to go away. alternative minimum tax relief is another tax provision that is going to expire. and the payroll tax cut is going to expire. so those are just the tax portions of the fiscal cliff which when you throw in some sequestration possibility

we can make light of these things but the fiscal cliff is a real cliff. it would be very bad for the economy and very bad for a lot of things people care about if we let all of the tax cuts expire all at once and the alternative minimum tax and all of the things that are in the cliff, as well as this big sequester, so that making a framework agreement for say six months, you come back with a better, real tax reform and entitlement reform, and if you don't do that, the cliff is still there. there is a very real reason for addressing these problems and postponing or giving the congress more time like six months seems to me reasonable, after all, these guys did it in six days -- >> we rested on the seventh day. >> seems to me quite a reasonable thing to do. it's called kicking the can down the road. it shouldn't be. it is moving the fiscal cliff for a few months. it's still there. >> i'm not making light of it when i use the term stop sign or stop light. that was a statute that was passed that was designed not to have what occurs, occur. bob, chairman packwo

they don't train for taking polar bears off the side of a cliff every day.ovised and tied it up and started to lower her down. >> the rescuers successfully secure the polar bear with ropes and gently lower her. at this point bill has been dropped off by the helicopter and is sitting at the boat at the bottom of the cliff nervously awaiting the bear's arrival. >> i knew we weren't out of the woods until we had it down off that cliff. everything was looking very well that we were going to get that bear down and at that point we were thinking we'll get it into the boat. about halfway down, of course, that's when everything started to fall apart. >> the polar bear's enormous size and slick coat are just enough for it not to hold. she slips loose and slides down the cliff and precariously dangles by her foot 35 feet up the jagged cliff face. >> it seemed like everything was just in slow motion at that point. the feeling that, the worst thing that could happen happened. >> their plan unraveling before their eyes, rescue crews above and below try to recover and sav

there are cliff dwellings that you find up in the alcoves. this is out on the navajo reservation in southern utah. this is part of a structure that's about, i'd say, 300 rooms running along the back side of this canyon, a little village, small city, something. artifacts everywhere. one of the walls had fallen out, revealing the floor that had been packed in there, hundreds of years of people using the same floor just pushing down the dirt so that there are pieces of woven -- of braided string sticking out of the floor everywhere and arrowheads and broken pottery and i realized when i came up against the stack of this trash pile i put my head against it and looked along it. i could see it was covered with hair. people in that room had been combing their hair for hundreds of years and it had been landing on the floor. and then new floors are built on top of that and new floors and i ran my hand across, just barely across, the front of this and i could feel the hair of people who had been there and i was there with a navajo guy that i know who j

it's a big cliff. a couple hundred feet.o it's a do or die. >> for a few seconds tim straddles that line. >> i was really stoked going off of it, and i was really excited. >> like slow motion watching him fall from the sky. unbelievable. then watching him land, you know, i saw him land. i thought he was going to pull it off for sure. >> but tim doesn't pull it off. far from it. >> i knew as soon as i hit. i felt my face hit the handlebars and i knew something, my teeth were broke or my lip was cut off or something like that. >> tim landed pushed the handlebars down and the sled bucked back, bucked back forward, then tim got fully ejected feet over head, landed in front of the sled. >> and that sled is still running. >> it just mowed my butt down and gave me the biggest hematoma you've ever seen in my life. that's a giant bruise. >> for rob and the crew it's a scary sight. >> it was like losing my brother right in front of my eyes. i pretty much freaked out, hopped on my sled. >> tim is bruised and battered. >> i've never see

i want to ask you about the so-called fiscal cliff you have spoken to a number of times. a number of americans have a sense of it. when you line up the matters that we've got to confront in literally just a number of months, the question of tax cuts, the automatic spending cuts that are put into placely last year's budget control act, the payroll tax cut expiration, federal unemployment insurance expires, and a whole host of other challenges. can you assess, if you can assess it, we'd want to hear your assessment, of the impact on the economy just on one of those items, specifically, if the tax cuts for middle income folks were to expire. just that particular question. if you can make an assessment of that. >> well, the potential expiration, i'm not sure i can break it down to the different components but the potential expiration of the so-called bush tax cuts, 2001-2003 tax cuts is the single biggest item in the fiscal cliff. and would have, i think, if everything else held constant, would have an adverse effect on spending and growth in the economy that would be signifi

have you seen any evidence that the lack of progress on resolving the fiscal cliff issue is having an impact on the economy right now as it's slowing economic growth right now and job creation as you saw last year during this very same debate and if you're not seeing it and if you haven't seen it yet, when might we start to see it hit the economy and hurt the economy? >> well, i think it's still a bit early, but as we move forward in the year we do anticipate that the uncertainty with the so-called fiscal cliff will have economic effects. we heard anecdotes in the meeting about firms that might be governed contractors that were not sure about whether the contracts would still be in place come january and making employment decisions based on that. more generally, financial markets don't like uncertainty and particularly uncertainty of this magnitude and that i think will be a negative. so that uncertainty is there and that will be an issue. most importantly, though, is that economists get the policy right. i've talked about three elements for fiscal policy. the first is to do no harm a

avoid a fiscal cliff to damage the recovery.he effort to achieve a sustainable fiscal path over the longer term and use fiscal policy effectively. make good use of government spending programs and make them efficient and effective and so on. i think if congress does all those things, the ultimate benefits would be substantial. >> peter coke of bloomberg television. if i could follow up on the question of the financial cliff. how beneficial for the u.s. economy right now given the talk on capitol hill that the lawmakers and administration deal with the fiscal cliff issues perhaps temporarily, kick the can down the road to next year and end or limit the uncertainty in the short term and beneficial given the state of the economy at the present moment? >> well, that's a difficult problem. i'm not entirely sure. on the one hand, a little clarity would probably be helpful for the reasons i described because people are uncertain of what will happen. on the other hand, investors i know would like to see congress take actions that put us

it's the so-called fiscal cliff. the series of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to kick in on january 1st. now the conventional wisdom is congress will get to it after the election. by then we could be in a recession. your presidential candidates tell you they can solve -- really they can't. it doesn't much matter who you vote for for president. the president gets altogether too much blame and credit for what goes on in the economy. you can cast a ballot for somebody this fall who can control the weather closer to your home. your member of congress. congress writes and if you believe in miracles, passes the types of laws that can fight off the coming storm. no matter what president obama or mitt romney say, they can only do so much to make you spend money and help create jobs. but congress can and should ultimately the best thing can you do is cast an informed ballot this fall for your senator, for your representative, for state and city officials and not one based on whether you're a democrat or republic

nears a fiscal cliff is how they put this. looming tax increases, spending cuts, in peril economic recovery. we'll ask whether it's time for fed to act or whether you're optimistic about the direction of the country and like to leave things where they are. we'll hear from bill, a democrat. you're on the line. go ahead. >> caller: i personally think we have to totally re-evaluate our economy and really maybe our society. i think that we can't have continual growth on the planet that has finite resources. i think we have to change our goals and our outlook. i think it's going to take a complete reconfiguration of our economy, make it more sustainable, more compatible with nature rather than confrontational. i really think this is ultimately the way to go. >> thanks, bill. up next is from philadelphia. anna is an independent there. you're on the air. go ahead please. >> caller: morning. i think the congress could act right now. ron paul put together the -- >> anna, are you there? all right. let me move on to caller -- you're on t

. >> a big change coming to san francisco's famed cliff house as this owner prepares to alter the view outdoors. >> a rebound into warmer weather for your tuesday, details coming up. [ male announcer ] olympic tennis players bob and mike bryan do a lot of sending... and receiving. sending...and receiving. sending...and receiving. sending...and receiving. sending...and receiving. [ bob ] i got the tickets. [ male announcer ] and with citibank popmoney, it's even easier to keep sending...and receiving. let me get you back. no, it's on me. i insist. no way. yes way. well let me chip in. [ male announcer ] send money from one bank account to another, with citibank popmoney. easier banking. every step of the way. firefighters in eastern san diego county say they're making headway in putting out a wind driven wild fire that's burned 900 acres and destroyed one home. the fire which broke out yesterday afternoon forced the evacuation of 150 homes in a rural area near the golden acorn casino. the fire is still threatening 200 homes, and the fire is about 30% contained. south bay firefighters ar

this season's fiscal cliff. how real is the threat? while tests before congress, been bernanke warned of the con sequences of such a fall. >> a severe tightening of fiscal policy at the beginning of next year built into current law, the so-called fiscal cliff would, if allowed to occur, pose a significant threat to the recovery. uncertainty could, itself undermine business and. >> the fiscal cliff is the combination of several policies all set to go into motion at the end of the year. among other serious, the expiration of the bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, meaning an income in income tax brackets and sec westration of over $1 trillion in 10 years starting with 86 billion in 2013. the results of last year's negotiations allowed us to raise the debt ceiling type of what's the impact of a fiscal cliff? a tightening of as much as 5% of our gdp. to put this into context, after the cat glyphic of 2008, gdp dropped 8.9% meaning we could be close to the levels of the great recession. if we hope to avoid going over the cliff, some compromise

plus how much should you fear the fiscal cliff? we're breaking down how wall street is bracing for the worst. more halftime when we come back. you have to dig a little. fidelity's etf market tracker shows you the big picture on how different asset classes are performing, and it lets you go in for a closer look at areas within a class or sector that may be bucking a larger trend. i'm stephen hett of fidelity investments. the etf market tracker is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades today and explore your next investing idea. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] d

>> you know who else is worried about the fiscal cliff?ernanke, he said it an hour ago, you'll hear it next, stay with us. olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards >>> well it's all about bernanke today, but it's a big deal when the shift away from the latest move to another topic about ben bernanke. >> yeah, i'm surprised he answered the question. this is what we talked about when they allow tax cuts to expire. spending would go down simultaneously, here is what he said. >> as we move forward in the year, we do anticipate that the association with the fiscal cliff will have economic effects. we hard anecdotes about firms that might contractors that we're not sure about whether they are in place coming in january. more generally at this magnitude, and i think it will be a negative. >> i'm surprised he answered it. >> i don't think congress is going to do anything about it until after the election. you think -- you think they have to do something or there will be a massive market selloff, there is no way they're going to deal with the fisc

i would not call it a fiscal cliff, but employers are holding back.this uncertainty is really causing it all. >> you're on record saying you don't necessarily support closing tax loopholes this year, and yet you say you want to simplify the tax code, that goes hand in hand with loopholes, right? >> what i want to do is lower rates, and close loopholes, so i want to use those loopholes to really get a progrowth tax agenda going in this country. not to off set what may be coming, the $1.2 trillion in the coming years. that would not be a good approach, but if we can get a overall tax overall, we know that with our budget it's 1 million jobs in the first year, that's the direction we need to go getting a progrowth jobs creating economy back in the united states. >> as you well know, senator mccain was hoping to use those loophole closures this year to try to save enough money so there can be fewer cuts in defense spending which is part of the fiscal cliff we're talking about. you don't think that will happen though? >> i think the best thing we can do is

so oddly the bigger impact from the fiscal cliff could be more felt in 2012 rather than 2013. so ultimately, i think most people believe that the can will be kicked down the road -- obviously you're probably going to have to do that in a lame duck session in congress in eight weeks. >> another big story this week was china cutting interest rates. i thought was interesting. first time since 2008 that china actually lowered interest rates. it helped start a rally in stocks on thursday. where do we go from here? is this all central bank -- china cutting rates or ecb or the fed? >> i think so. europe is clearly already in recession. the u.s. in my view is a nominal gdp terms very, very weak. china has something the other countries don't have though. it has money. and it doesn't necessarily worry about a return on capital. so the fact that inflation is moving now to china means it wouldn't surprise me if you saw more fiscal stimulus within china to get people working. in my view china actually isn't that big a worry. >> but you are bothered about europe. >> very much so. >> tell me

forget europe, greece, spain and all the rest, charles schwabs says it's the cliff making folks nervous, should we pay attention to what's in our own backyard. thank you for joining us. >> liz, i'm so happy you focus on this, we have focused on this a lot on this program, and the fiscal cliff we refer to is the expiration of the tax cuts and spending programs at year end. if nothing is done about this all of it goes away and it will squeeze americans. >> yes, what i was most heartened by with bernanke's testimony last week. i'm not a real bear for the ultimate impact on this, you have numbers as high as 4.5% gdp, i think the chance of us going over the full cliff is very low. not only with the presidential election but the senate and the house that brings that number down. it takes a big chunk out of gdp, but the hope is of course that the folks in washington can jump in the sand box and play nice for a change. >> larry, what do you think about that, will we see an agreement? if we don't, we'll talk about dividend taxes going up from 15% to 43%. >> the first thing i will say is i don't

at the end of the year. >> let's interpret a cliff. massive tax hikes that show up in 2013 going forward. you either want that as one side does and you have obviously the implications on the economy where you say the u.s. economy's extremely fragile, we can't have any of it. and, yes, i do think some sort of deal will happen. in terms of the market, the time horizon is maybe days and weeks. so december or maybe even november that is so far off from people's minds right now where it's more europe and the global economy. >> you agree, rick, that essentially what's going on with the fiscal cliff is like let's just deal with it later. we have a fire to put out now as peter said, europe, economy, fiscal cliff, et cetera. >> i don't think tax hikes are good for an economy that's just chugging along. but i think the fiscal cliff is much more than just waving a wand and having the current tax code remain even if it's only for part of the public. i think the real issue is i think the public is getting sick of the uncertainty of what the tax cod

i'll get to the fiscal cliff in a second why we invited you both on.pond to something you said about living sociable and groupon. why did you stop using them? what was your complaint? >> we used them once when they first came out. what's happening is you get 3 coupon people in and they don't stay. so the purpose of it is you want to bring people in, you want them to interact with your restaurant. those that are coming in strictly come in with the coupon and you're not seeing them. we're just developing -- doing a different strategic, working through engaging our customers through social media, facebook and our website and bringing back our loyal customers by sending out menus to the neighborhoods and find out that's working fours. >>> fiscal cliff, you're up. you name it. has it impacted half moon negatively? >> something has. we're dragging a little bit, we're down a little bit from last year. really, it has more to do with inventory. we came out of a warm winter, cooling spring, early easter. it's been very hard to get inventory right. i think that's

if congress wants to do something helpful, fix the fiscal cliff. compromise and get it behind us. >> thank you very much. steve, jared and jim, we appreciate it. another programming note for monday when larry returns, marco rubio of florida will be his special guest. very interesting booking there. coming up next, the father of our country, george washington's 223-year-old copies of the constitution and the bill of rights went up for auction today and they went for a lot of money. the full details and the unlikely buyers -- maybe not so unlikely when we come back. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 there are atm fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and the most dreaded fees of all, hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, you won't pay fees on top of fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no monthly account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and we rebate every atm fee. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck tdd# 1-800-345-2550 because when it comes to talking

. >> we've been covering this fiscal cliff a lot. on my program, on cnbc, basically looking at this issue where at year-end, tax cuts will expire, spending programs will expire, the need to raise the debt ceiling will be an issue. bernanke's urging congress to avoid these severe fiscal tightening in the near term. do you think anything happens before the elections? everybody's talking about this. >> sadly, i don't think so. i mean, we have washington in office, i would say the chances are 100-1 that they're kind of successful in dealing with this. the big implication of this, though, is that for defense companies and health care companies that face the sequestration of the spending, they're going to have to allow, because of work rules, they're going to have to let employees know by september that there's a significant possibility of them being laid off early in next year -- in 2013. so oddly the bigger impact for the fiscal cliff could be more felt in 2012. >> wow. >> rather than 2013. so ultimately i think most people believe the c

the owner of cliff house says he hopes to put up more turbines if this test is a success. ktvu channel 2 news. >>> the effort to stop a new muscular from being painted on a library has worked at least for the time being. work on that new muscular was set to begin last week but the law states the artist or next of kin of the original muscular must be given 90 days notice before it's destroyed. the artist arch williams died back in 1996. his sister has now been notified and is asserting her rights to that 90-day notice while she and her supporters try and stop the project. >>> the san francisco ethics commission will begin its hearing tomorrow evening on whether suspended sheriff should be removed from office. the commission held preliminary hears earlier this month. he was suspended after pleading to a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment of his wife involving a new years eve argument. he says the incident shouldn't disqualify him as sheriff. >>> in sacramento lawmakers and the governor are still at odds over changing the state's welfare program. governor brown wants to

a fiscal cliff. we'll let him explain. plus greece really needs to get its act together. come on, guys. i'm not sure how much more of this we can watch. greek politicians now brawling on morning television, taking swings at women. tell you what's going on here a little bit later in the snow. first let's get to the news live at 5:30 a.m. here at 30 rock in new york city. another day of brutal killing of civilians in syria and another round of condemnations from a united nations that can only condemn. with the reported massacre of another 80 civilians this week, international envoy kofi annan is warning of an all-out civil war there. we'll have a live report in just a moment from nbc's amon mohadine but first a look at the latest on the ground from syria and some of the images in the report are graphic. >> lying for the world to see, the victims of what amateur video appears to show as a massacre in the village of kobair and surrounding areas. among the dead, women and children, even entire families were killed. we reached a human rights activist in syria in contact with ey

it was -- what i thought something had to be done on the fiscal cliff before the election. apparently nothing has to be done until the first of the year. >> republicans were quick to tout clinton's original comments. david axelrod says despite the so-called controversy, if you want to call it that, the former president remains a crucial asset to the campaign. >> i'm not asking for an apology from bill clinton. i have deep admiration from bill clinton and i watched this parade of republicans saying oh, you know, we ought to listen to bill clinton. they should listen to bill clinton. bill clinton understands what it takes to gre this economy. he understands that we can't cut our way to prosperity. he understands that we have to bring these deficits down in a responsible way. there's no separation between him and this president. they have the same understanding of how you grow the economy. >> you want him to go out there and campaign? >> i think he's a tremendous asset to us. i have no compunction about that. >> we move on to business now, where fed chairman ben bernanke says

to be honest, this cliff is like we're on the top of mt. everest staring down a 29,000-foot crevasse. at the end of this year the bush tax cuts will expire and tax rates will go up. if you pay 10% now, you'll pay 15%. if you pay 35%, you'll pay nearly 40%. at the same time, payroll taxes will go up on everybody. six million americans will lose unemployment insurance. and the so-called sequestration cuts, the $1.2 trillion to cuts in services and defense, they start too. if congress doesn't make a deal, the economy will go back into recession. as our economic strike team member jim biaco reminded us, the debt ceiling has to pass congress on that date too. so the secret talks include some of the patriots that want to do a deal like republican tom coburn and democrat mark warner who have been telling me for a while that they're working on a deal. but there need to be a lot more elected leaders who understand the urgency of this moment and are willing to compromise. chris van hollen of maryland is the top democrat on the house budget committee.

a fiscal cliff. >> neil: delaware senator are chris kuhn says we are not headed towards a fiscal cliff be that as it may, what do you make of the argument there was a great rush to get the bill done, maybe for all of the right reasons but not nearly the deal to ever cut spending. >> two things if i could, neil. there wasn't a great rush to get the bill done. talley came out of the senate committee last november and it has been grinding along between the senate and the house for several months. i am glad that the house and senate were able to come to an agreement and pass the transportation bill. because i think we do need to continue to invest in improving our roads and highways. is a contribution to our economy that will help not just put people to work in the short-term but also make us more competitive. but i agree, neil, there are many of us, republicans and democrats in the senate and the house who think we also have to come up with a bold balanced plan to reduce spending. we do have significant changes in tax rates, in spending, automatically kicking in in january, the so-called