votes, overwhelmingly democratic votes, to support president bush in that regard. i would hope that the republicans in congress will work in the same corporate of way with president obama to keep government open. we have come a lamb -- a long way down this past. i will not fill in the the history of that. i will speak briefly about last december when we passed the continuing resolution, cutting $41 billion. the democratic initiative, cutting $41 billion from the president's budget, only one republican in the house of representatives voted for it. a majority of the republicans in the senate voted for it. one in the house, and so the spirit of cooperation seems to be better if there than it has been here in this regard. let's hope that a sense of seriousness about what is at stake, cannot shut down a government, we cannot make these cuts that cannot undermine the education of our children, that jeopardize is the creation of jobs, that we in the middle class. there is a great deal at stake, and democrats stand together to work together to find common ground and higher

>> house democrats, senate democrats have moved in her direction. the bottom line is this, though, she voted against hr-1 as did every other democrat. that's the republican proposal because i think we're united in one thing. we should make significant cuts, absolutely. we need to. but, we can't cut into our seed core. we can't cut into things that help america grow and create jobs like education or cancer research or food safety, things like that. and i think what you're finding, chuck, is you're going to find a turning point here. now that every democrat has rejected hr-1 and clearly doesn't have the votes to pass the senate, the ball shifts to speaker boehner. we've put some cuts on the table. we're willing to put more. but they have not said a single place where they would move off hr-1 and now it can't pass. so actually the action in the next week or two will occur behind-the-scenes. speaker boehner will have to meet with this e78s freshman republicans. some said they won't bouj. if he won't he may have to make a coalition with the democrats in

democrats say they will come if you put tax increases on the table. i have had conversations with each of these senators on the phone. they assured me that everything is on the table but we will never agree to a tax increase. they sent me a letter. we have seen this before in 1982. ronald reagan walked into a room with the democrats and promised $3 of spending reductions for $1 of tax increases. they don't come any tougher or more serious or more committed than ronald reagan and his white house and the bill passed the tax increases were real. over the next five years after that plan passed, spending adjusted for inflation, spending went up more than it was scheduled to go up before. ronald reagan got taken and he referred to that decision as the worst decision of his presidency. in 1990, the democrats in congress came to president george herbert walker bush and he was a cheaper days. they say you get two dollars of spending restraint. ronald reagan got cheated out of $3. the $1 of tax increase, $80 billion of tax increases happened. spending went up a

host: next up, joe on the democrats' line in pennsylvania.aller: i'm a democrat but i am soon to become an independent. both parties are to blame for the position that we are in, but everyone seems to forget that 8 years in iraq has earned this nation down. last night on the pennsylvania megaball someone from new york won the lottery. it was $312 million. it would last six days to find the war in libya which we are getting out of. host: from what you saw and the conference did anything stand out? caller: king a little bit. these republicans think everybody can have a rush limbaugh show. i am not a socialist but if you lived through this life from fdr on, the liberals are to blame, but 3 businesses out of 100 will return a portion of the profits, a small portion the matter how much they are making. it is called good old-fashioned american greed. there were two people working at walmart taking care of 50 customers. everybody in this walmart has been cut six months ago from 40 hours to 28 hours. only partial benefits. that is the kind of country

democrats have put so far about ten on the table. i think the democratic goal is to go to about 20 and say that that's meeting the republicans and going as far as they can go without harming the economic recovery and harming job creation. tricky argument for the democrats to seen embrace any job cuts because they're trying to make the argument that republican cuts would cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. so then the question is, ok, so you're agreeing to some cuts. how many jobs are you going to cost? the president's theme right now is everything i'm doing is focused on increasing job creation so they're trying to draw a line in the sand somewhere to limit the damage. >> so all of the energy seemed like after the election in the republican side of the camp and you're describing democrats as rope-a-dope. sounds like it might be starting to work. >> they're in a somewhat better position than they were in november. the president is certainly in a better position. he cut that bipartisan deal with republicans in the lame duck session to

getting people out to recall the fourteen democrats the so-called a war democratic senators who have gone on oil. how's that. koch brothers ever go yet there are democrats that are also eligible for recall in the state senate we're not hearing a lot about those recall efforts i mean i don't know if they're not going well or if they're trying to be really stealthy about it but fact is that they are refusing to provide any updates on how those recall efforts are going in and i think i suspect they know why and it's because of those democrats seven of them are in districts that obama won by bill get it including some of the bluest districts in the state interest not a lot of territory for them to pick up at his district the only one in single digits obama won by six points so you know in a worst case it's a fairly democratic leaning district now compared to those republican districts of republicans that are eligible to recall obama won six of those districts mccain were nine others republican or democratic this week so they may be. trying to get the signatures now a lot of territory for

our next big liberal and his guests all of you whether there's a democratic future for the middle east and north africa or the region will remain a hotbed of terror. came. along and welcome to crossfire gun control of l a world clamoring for change around the globe people are protesting against governments and tyrants can a self defined democratic west learn from the people of the arab middle east and how to create more just the side. kick. start. to discuss of more revolutions are likely elsewhere in the world i'm joined by brendan o'neil in london he is editor of spiked in paris we cross to john locke and he is director of studies at the institute of democracy and cooperation and in phoenix we go to rachel alexander she is coeditor of the intellectual conservative and another member of our cross talk team yell on the hunger all right folks this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime you want to read and if i could go to you in london first. we what we've been seeing in the arab middle east that say let's be very generous of the last two months do you think that the powers t

i blame the democrats. for all these years, they have promised and promised and bribed all the poor people into taking more money so they would keep voting for democrats, just like the union, but nafta did not send all the jobs overseas. it is because the unions priced themselves out of jobs. i am a poor working person. i do not expect the government to help me. they keep rewarding women for having five or six kids. they end up on our social security. that's an -- that is what they need to change, not old people on social security. host: another story in "the washington post" on the freshman -- the freshmen. joe is on our democrats -- joe is on the line for democrats from new orleans. caller: number one, we need to go to a 10% flat tax for everybody. there would be equity in the program. everybody would have an opportunity to contribute for the progress of the union. the lady who called about someone having babies -- you know, it always seems to point in one direction. everybody has babies out of wedlock. i

by the democratic house and democratic senate and signed into law by the democratic president with only one republican vote. we are now on the verge of an expiring c.r. and we are considering another version that extends the time to recover the differences by only two weeks. i take the chairman at his word that neither he nor the leadership is interested in shutting down the operation of the federal government by declaring a statement in these appropriations deliberations. i will concede that it's disconcerting to me and others on the other side to read the speaker's comments that would seem to imply that there's a strategy of passing shorter term appropriations bills further and further and further cuts. two weeks at a time. we were concerned by his statement that seemed to indicate a plan for a piecemeal approach to future spending cuts. he said, and i quote, if they won't eat the whole loaf at one time, we'll make the -- them eat it one slice at a time. i believe we need to set aside these political machinations and get serious about finishing up work on the fiscal year 2011 budget.

but all this talk about deficit is -- when we as democrats took the lead on for decades. do you remember, because many of you were here at the time, that when president clinton became president, he inherited an enormous debt he instituted pay as you go, he had an economic agreement passed in the congress and the deficit began to reduce, $5.6 trillion in surplus. another president bush took office, pay as you go went out the window. and again the turnaround into growing deficits. so for all of this talk about the immorality of deficits, where were you when those deficits were instituted in the late 1980's? some of you were here. in the 2000's, many of you were here. again we have to take our country on a path of deficit reduction. many of you were here when the tax cuts for the high end were implemented, creating no jobs except increasing our deficit, sending the bill to our children, and the credit to the chinese government. how about when we did the prescription drug bill, giving away the store to the pharmaceutical industry and the price tag to our children by increasin

i am a democrat and i support democrats. it makes it easier to get things done with people who share a basic political philosophy, even though we may not agree on every issue. my first choice is to get a democrat elected. and we will get a democrat elected in that district. redistricting is a more complicated subjects. we have a lot in california with the top two candidates will one off against each other and they could be even in the same party. we will select a democratically placement to -- democratic replacement to jane harman. i think elections are the key to our democracy. but they should be conducted an after they are over, we have to govern, not contain the election campaign. a contribution from someone like newt gingrich when he took over the house is that the election campaigns never ended. he and tom delay thought it was all political all the time. it was always for the next election. at some point, we have to say, all right, that election is over. we have to deal with each other. we can stop them. that does not s

the opposition party the democratic party forum in eight hundred forty by jumping out a second story window if aides were there would he be smashing of the windows with a door with a chair or something i mean isn't this a the larger question i guess is isn't this kind of an extreme measure and isn't making walker look. at the drama in the theatrical don't get in the way of but really if they care which is a state that is in dire financial crisis and a serious conflict of. philosophy here there's the public sector unions who really do i think probably believe that this is about what they're bargaining but i think that the taxpayers and i think governor walker realize that this is not about collective bargaining this is about the taxpayers' money this is about recognizing that public sector unions are not. these small sort of counterweights that big business and in fact they are very powerful that they have very large coffers that they are very influential in the political stage of the protocol is absolutely and so i think that we need to every democratic mayoral candidate are going to

unions are democratic institutions in the workplace workplaces are not democratic well actually that's not true i mean i feel that the union movement in america has been very anti-democratic for a long time people like their leaders the they vote on their own rules they vote on whatever they're going to ask for whatever they're going to give up its majority rule out of what you're going to you mean much more democratic you're giving states senators in wisconsin who are elected to do a job who flee for them because they're union members not as a matter of a union. but they're fleeing democracy to pay their union masters and on to vote for this wisconsin whether they're not a member of a union first of all and secondly i don't know that it has in a do it or you know. masters union message if you don't think that by the way to either show we call scott which we call david koch or scott walker's master well i mean you're of authority on poodles i'm just wondering i know you're unions gave four hundred million dollars to democratic candidates in the two thousand election cycle would you adm

uprising in the northern africa while the rest read this cover democratic values. steve before we went to the break i noticed that you are reloading your political pistol to fire back at ford so go right ahead. well you know for ford wants to cut social security and medicare and things like that you know the thing is a milka spends as much on defense as the entire actually more on defense than the entire rest of the world combined i i am in favor of a strong defense of former military man over but he knows that i used to be in the u.s. air force i was i was enlisted i want to merit have a strong defense we don't need the military that we have now how about an across the board fifty percent cut in our military spending let's see where that gets us in terms of budgetary situation and then let's go back and see if we need to cut folks for middle class people who are retired and need health care i don't think it's necessary i think when you thought when you cut what really is not necessary to keep americans safe i don't think you need to cut social programs after that

want some republican senators recalled and the republicans want the fourteen a wall democrats arrested which side went up and is union busting causing wealth inequality a recent study says yes and later do you want to be poisoned i don't think so but what if i told you that's exactly what some republicans are trying to let the chinese do to you. you need to know this the labor battle in ohio is largely lost last night republican senators in that state asked governor john k six plan to strip public workers of most of their rights even with six republicans voting against the bill casey got his bill through the senate chamber it was packed was full of teachers and firefighters to chant shame down at the lawmakers after the bill was passed legislation now moves to the state house or swift passage is likely and once governor casey puts his signature on it that the rights of more than three hundred fifty thousand state workers will be wiped away just like that back in wisconsin there's a tale of two political strategies unfolding the democratic effort to read. call republican senators is und

for republican members etr fox gave to democrats, msnbc talking to your base. and finally, i had read about more to talk about with republican gains this last time are not a result of people turning back to republicans. this was just the voters trying to put some balance back in the government. so it balanced government, divided government. this is the norm. almost two thirds of the time over the last 60 years shows we've had divided government. you can bring gridlock, impeachments, government shutdowns. under bill clinton also brought four years depending on how the party was. right now it's much different than its 94. 1994 was elected to congress by voters wanted to protect themselves from both clinton and elected me. two years later they elected clinton to protect them from me. it's one of the things that they don't trust either party at this point. they're kind of dancing. you have a totally dissatisfied electorate, but you have interest groups and outside media influences that are far stronger than they were in 1994. >> thanks, tom. after all that, he has

than i think the democrats have expected if if you had said a year ago that the democrats were going to vote to pass as much spending cuts as paul ryan the budget chairman in the house would have wanted people called you crazy but that's that is going to happen and now they're being forced into it so let's say that a government shutdown it does occur although it seems like it probably fall because they just keep passing these emergency stopgap measures who would be more to play. crowds already we've playing the republicans i think you know i think you blame the democrats a little bit more but i think that you know howard dean asked the other day when he said i think that the democrats should be quietly rooting for it i think. the democrats probably want to avoid what they realize that the politics of a government shutdown will be bad for republicans because people can understand that hey that we you know the government can shut down when the democrats run things it's only when republicans come to power that they shut everything down and let it go and right and so and so that logic yo

only one was a democrat, that being in the assembly. and this conference committee then passed this amended vegz version of this bill, and under this conference committee, they were able to pass it over the objections of that democrat, and then send it directly to the senate floor. and they said they were able to do this because they were in special session and had good cause. now the democrats are crying foul saying there wasn't adequate notification of this meet so they're saying it's a violation of the open meetings law. but the republicans say it's been all squared with all of their legal authorities, and that under this rule of good cause in a special session, they were able to strip the appropriations out of the original bill, and then vote this through, and basically then taking the collective bargaining language and passing that last night and again today in the assembly. >> lehrer: by taking the appropriations out, that meant they did not need a quorum required when it was in that, correct? >> that's-- that's-- that's what they

democrats have the senate, the democrats have the white house. nobody wants to shut down the government. but one thing is non-negotiable, as the speaker said. we will not pass bills that don't create savings for the american people, create confidence for american job creators so we can start creating more jobs in the economy. that simple. >> chris: senator durbin, in the time we have less, less than a minute, we'll try again with you. you are at this point, $10.5 billion. the white house and senate democrats. are you willing to accept more in cuts than $10.5 billion? >> i can tell you personally i'm willing to see more deficit reduction but not out of domestic discretionary spending. when you are cutting education, innovation and infrastructure, you're not dealing with the reality of this recession. paul xandy told us we'd have people out of work because of the deficit. >> chris: you're saying $10.5 billion in domestic, non-defense discretionary spending, that's it? >> i think we pushed this to the limit. to go any further is to push more kids ou

you have support for protest choice democratic candidates. if republicans or others of vote against funding for planned parenthood, you still -- will there be repercussions in the 2012 elections as do you support? if scott brown sticks with you guys on defending funding for planned parenthood, does that mean you don't get involved with his eventual democratic opponent? how'd you make the sale and how you will you be involved in the next election? >> through our action fund, we advocate for health care for women with everyone, with democrats, independents republicans. i believe myself that support for family-planning. support for government not getting into the private medical decisions of women is not a partisan issue. the irony of all this is that so many planned parenthood's were started by republicans. the goldwater family in arizona is one. there was a day in which women's health care was not considered a political issue. unfortunately, times have changed. i think we are seeing help -- women's health care used as a political issue. >> you

present as one of the filibustering democratic senators chris larsen said about the move last night it obviously wasn't about any kind of financing it was an attack on working families and senate minority leader mark miller said in thirty minutes eighteen state senators undid fifty years of civil rights in wisconsin. and needless to say governor walker reignited the labor protests in madison last night and today we'll take a look at some of these things. to top it all off the republicans did last night was probably illegal they may have violated the state's open meeting laws which require the legislature to give a twenty four hour notice before any new sessions or convene the democratic minority leader in the state assembly house status the white house and peter parker tried to make this point known last night was largely ignored by republican senate majority leader scott fitzgerald take a look. chairman this is a violation of law this is not just. you know this is the chairman this is incredible the state assembly did their part today and wrapped up passing this illegal bill all ma

democrats and reformers is it. well we know something about the opposition we know some of them are judges some of them are teachers some of them are businessmen some of them are defected generals from the. army so we know something about them but what we also know is that they want to they want to get rid of qaddafi they want to have a different political regime in libya and their demands are legitimate ok well if i can islam if i can stay with you i mean so would you throw in the democratic term democratic because you just mentioned a lot of people that want to get rid of gadhafi ok fair enough i mean getting rid of gadhafi you saw on many people's agenda here but is that in the name of democracy or is it just a land grab opportunist or oil realignment eccentric setter i mean again you know the labels thrown out there a lot but is there any substance to it. well these are two different issues the first issue is is the intervention about land to grab an oil and. other european or western interests is the intervent

what are senate democrats saying

it was about 83 democrats that voted against it. democratic leadership was split.uest: i think that speaks to their personal divisions. i think nancy pelosi is certainly someone who comes from the left upper caucus. she always has been. the position for people on the left was that this kind of a spending cut was too much. the position for -- the position for the people in the center -- steny hoyer represent a lot of government employees. i think you will see a lot of house democrats, when faced with voting against the continuing operations of the government, will not want to do that. 331 votes is more than three- quarters of the house. host: jim, a republican in alabama. good morning. caller: good morning. your reporter equated not increasing the debt ceiling to defaulting on the national debt. i believe that is correct. we cannot authorize any new borrowing. guest: it means we are not authorizing new borrowing, but because of so many things that are on autopilot with borrowing , it's not likely that you will see a congressional action that will cut spending and ra

by the democratic house and democratic senate and signed into law by the democratic president with only one republican vote. we are now on the verge of an expiring c.r. and we are considering another version that extends the time to recover the differences by only two weeks. i take the chairman at his word that neither he nor the leadership is interested in shutting down the operation of the federal government by declaring a statement in these appropriations deliberations. i will concede that it's disconcerting to me and others on the other side to read the speaker's comments that would seem to imply that there's a strategy of passing shorter term appropriations bills further and further and further cuts. two weeks at a time. we were concerned by his statement that seemed to indicate a plan for a piecemeal approach to future spending cuts. he said, and i quote, if they won't eat the whole loaf at one time, we'll make the -- them eat it one slice at a time. i believe we need to set aside these political machinations and get serious about finishing up work on the fiscal year 2011 budget.

the governor of wisconsin rams through an anti-union bill with the democrats out of town and protesters jamming the capitol. >>> extreme debate. a capitol hill hearing on radical islam doesn't go the way the chairman planned. it turns emotional and angry. >>> record-breaker. more rain, more massive flooding in the northeast with another c: round yet to go. >>> bully pulpit. the president takes a stand on an issue that affects far too c: many kids, and he says he was one of them. >>> and education nation. could this be the future of learning? 2,000 free online lessons showing the way. "nightly news" begins now. captions paid for by nbc-universal television >>> good evening. that rumbling you hear is coming from the state of wisconsin where the governor says he will sign legislation into law as soon as possible that would strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from the state's public workers. this is being called one of the strongest blows to the power of unions in years. it was passed by the state senate last night with very few people present and with all the democrats out of tow

in this country, you have republicans fighting democrats, democrats fighting republicans. a family cannot work on a budget when tt is going on. they want to buy candy over here and candy over there and at the same time cut out of the unnecessary stuff like medicaid and medicare we have to give away as much as we can to people who do not even need it. host: we will leave if there. guest: if you go back to the first chart, it gives you a sense of all the different programs that have led to these deficits. what you will see is -- president obama did not walk into the white house with a healthy economy before him. he inherited an economy that was vastly indebted and growing even worse. o he had the biggest recession we have seen since the great -- he had the biggest recession we have seen since the great depression. as you can see from this crt, we were going to continue forward in some pretty aggressive ways into deficit spending. the bottom of the chart would be a balanced budget, if you were at zero. as you go up, you see those things that are contributing to the size of th

now look i don't like finding fault with my democrat friends. i don't like finding fault with the president. i don't even like finding fault with secretary sebelius but to be honest with you what she said is, if you read through the language and you read what she said you're still going to have to meet all the onerous provisions of this bill. you can't do it. that's the problem. >> woodruff: coming through loud and clear, senator orrin hatch, thank you very much. >> brown: and finally tonight, a very unusual window on events in iran. in tehran today, the state prosecutor announced that authorities have cut all outside contact with the country's two senior opposition leaders. houssein mousavi, the former presidential candidate, and mahdi karroubi had been under house arrest after urging supporters to attend rallies several weeks ago. their whereabouts now is unknown. all of these developments are being closely watched by two young men here in washington, who've become stars in iran. >> brown: welcome to the world of a weekly mix of western attitu

it's new jersey democrat rush holt. holt, a physicist, beat watson in a trivia faceoff last night on capitol hill. there's more on our science page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: hope for mankind. and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at the supreme court arguments in an anti-terrorism suit brought against officials from the george w. bush administration, i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. hope for makind indeed. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> you can't manufacture pride, but pride builds great cars. and you'll find in the people at toyota, all across america. >> okay, listen. somebody has got to get serious. >> i think... >> we need renewable energy. >> ...renewable energy is vital to our planet. >> you hear about alternatives, right? wind, solar, algae. >> i think it's going to work an a big scale. only, i think it's going to