he allowed john burton to talk him into running for the state legislature.essful effort for the state assembly. he went on to become, obviously, a supervisor in the city and county of san francisco. and in those days it was a different city. it was dramatically different. there was no such thing as a so-called progressive, david campos. there was no such thing as somebody in that category. george moscone, philip burton, represented that which we all now richly enjoy. george went on to become a state senator. and in that capacity, scott, it was george moscone who shepherded the bill that removed criminal penalties between consenting adults in this state that cost people their positions as teachers, as doctors, as nurses, as lawyers in those days. it was a bill that we orchestrated together. and george did what has never been done since, and that is cause the senate to hookup in a 20 to 20 tie in the late dimely was flown in from colorado to break the tie to give us that bill. that set the stage, scott, for all the things that have occurred in this state, and

john avalon. >>> former white house deputy press secretary bill burton and co-fonder of priorities usa, a pro-obama super pac, joins me along with tim carney. bill, the vice president came out yesterday and said, we're going to use executive order if we need to. that really riled a lot of people up. executive order, you guys aren't going to get it done, we're going to do it. we just heard john avalon say, look, those ideas are plaur, a lot of republicans agree with them, you can't do it by executive order. >> i think he's just talking about the possibility that there are some things that maybe you can do through executive order and it's part of the, you know, big menu of options that are out there. but the truth is, if there's going to be real reform, if there's going to be real restrictions, you have to do it through congress. otherwise, you know, what you do could end up getting gummed up in the courts, and it could have no effect at all. >> that's got to be frustrating, though, that every time they try, there's always loopholes put in. i guess loopholes aren't everything from the tax code on, bu

bill burton is with us, senior strategist for priorities usa action, co-host of "early start" john bermanout the flu a little bit because tons of people are sick, it's taken the country by storm, landed thousands of people in hospital, being blamed for dozens of deaths. the cdc will be out with new flu numbers this morning and cnn's medical unit getting an early look at the numbers. they suggest some activity might be going down a bit. chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta joins us from atlanta. what do we expect to hear from the cdc later this morning? >> elizabeth cohen has been working the numbers overnight. we expect something we've been thinking about, the widespread nature of this flu has grown from 41 to 47 states. we sort of knew that was going to happen. that means how many different places within a state are actually documenting flu? but the good news in this, i think, is of 29 states before that were reporting high levels of flu activity it's down to 24 states now so at least in a little bit of relief there potentially as you say, soledad. they're calling it an epidemic

john boehner. unfortunately, obama has been playing a waiting game on fiscal issues ever since he became president." "outfront" tonight, former white house deputy press secretary, bill burton. great to see both of you. bill, there were some pretty harsh words here, tough words. obviously, david ignatius saying, here's how the president could turn it around, but pretty frustrated with his leadership on fiscal issues. and of course, we just had a deal that ended up boosting spending and slashing revenue, which is not sort of the whole goal, right? so what do you think about david ignatius' point? the president needs to be bigger and come up with a plan? >> well, it's hard for me to see how somebody on the left, anybody who supports the president, could be disappointed with the deal that the president just got. think of what just happened. he got republicans to vote for a tax increase for the first time since 1990. he saved unemployment insurance, extended it, without having pay-fors in it. extended the earned income tax credit, extended the wind energy tax credit. and even got the rates back to where he wanted to get the rates. now, we're in a divided government. you're not