joining me now is democratic congressman jason altmire from pennsylvania. sir, we appreciate you being here. i appreciate you will be leaving congress. you will not be able to vote on whatever is finally presented but i'm curious, does the senate deal have the potential if it gets through the senate to pass the house? >> i think it is going to pass the house. as i understand the parameters of the deal, the house i think would get a majority vote, probably substantial majority. i think it will pass the senate. it might still happen not tonight but tomorrow. that would still be the current session of congress. we're not getting a bill to the president tonight just because of the logistics of drafting the bill, presenting it to the senate and bringing it to the house but i think we'll get it done tomorrow. so we will have avoided a catastrophic event for the economy but we still could have done better with the timing. adam: let's point out some of the details what's in the work in senate. we understand the deal, at least for taxes which mitch mcconnell, said,

jason altmire, what a great job he did thanking his staff.y friend, russ carnahan, from across the river, the mississippi river, thanking family, wife, son, staff, for the work we do here. many go unappreciated too much. but mr. speaker, i did break the code on why we're here so late today. i know a lot of people want to know. we can blame jay pierson for that. jay is retiring today. this is his last day, and we wanted to smack sure we got the last ounce of flesh and blood from him. so if the american people want to know why we're here, it's jay pierson's fault. it is speaker -- he is speaker boehner's floor assistant. he keeps with him jefferson's manual. he's been seambant of the house of representatives for 34 years. he's a truly dedicated public servant. i thank him for his friendship and his support to this body and especially to me personally. now, mr. speaker, i also want to take time out as i do to speak about democratic movement around the world, especially in the former can'tive nation, eastern europe, and remember those who are jai

i want to start with jason altmire, who has talked to these issues many times and wants to present to us our view as democrats. jason, if you would take the floor and speak to these issues. mr. altmire: i thank the gentleman from california for his continued leadership in bringing these discussions to the american people and i look forward to hearing from my friend from new york and what he has to say. we have talked about time and again about the importance of what we are trying to accomplish in this house in protecting the medicare program. i represent a district that has 135,000 medicare beneficiaries. it's actually the fourth most medicare beneficiaries of any congressional district in the country. so the people that i represent have a strong interest, as does every member of this house in making sure that medicare is preserved, it's protected and strengthened and it's always going to be be there, not just for the 135,000 beneficiaries that participate in the medicare program today, but for generations to come. and we aren't going to stand here as democrats or republicans or any p