darren gersh spoke with maya macguineas, one of the organizers of the campaign. darren began by asking her if the business leaders are making a difference. >> i think the whole campaign is making a difference in that what we actually have is now over 300,000 citizens, 2,500 small businesses, well over 100 c.e.o.s and partners across the country who are basically trying to deliver a message that is different. and the message isn't take this off the table, take this off the table, take this off the table, at which point you have nothing left on the table and we can't fix the problem. but it is, we want the country to come together. we want them to come up with a plan that is big enough to fix the problem, and we want them to do it in a way that is bipartisan. on the business leaders, they have, up until this moment, not been that involved in the issue. last summer, when we had the debacle about the debt ceiling, einsmall i think small businesses and large businesses realized they couldn't function in this kind of uncertainty, and they wanted to make their voices he

we'll talk to maya macguineas, head of the campaign to fix the debt. mark zandi of "moody's "analytics. and our own john dicker sen. captioning sponsored by cbs from cbs news in washington, "face the nation" with bob schieffer. >> schieffer: and good morning again. treasurer treasury secretary tim geithner laid out the emotion's opening offer on how to fix the debt. it wasn't what the republicans want to hear. basically geithner said no waw to cut a deal without raising taxes on upper income americans. even though, he said he's optimistic some kind of deal can be reached by the end of the year, and he said 98% of americans will not see a tax rate increase. here's what he told us when we sat down with him. >> i do think we're going to get there because the only thing that stands in the way of an agreement that's good for the economy is if a group of republicans decide they're going to block and increase in tax rates on the wealthiest americans. i think it's unlikely they will choose to do, that of course, because there's so much at stake. >> schieffer:

maya macguineas is going to be with us.ater we will turn our attention to a new movie on the raid that killed osama bin laden and talking with linda robinson who is an author as "washington journal" continues. it is monday, december 31. .e'll be back in just a moment [video clip] >> as president obama begins his second term in office, what is the most important issue he should consider for 2013? >> so tell us. if you're in grade sixth through 12, make a short video about your message to the president. >> it's c-span's student cam video competition with your chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. and there is $50,000 in total prizes. the deadline is january 18. for more information, go to studentcam.org. >> a lot of people will say that ever since the apollo, the space program has been a jobs program. how many jobs can we get in your district, in your state? the space shuttle passed by one vote because it was passed all around the country. we had people working different places. i can tell you some pretty brutal stories ab

we continue our focus on the fiscal cliff, we talk with maya macguineas, of "fix the debt", as her group meets with lawmakers to talk tax and health care reform. also tomorrow, toll brothers reports earnings, and pandora, the internet radio site is also out with quarterly results. and finally tonight, we want to remind you about a special guest on "n.b.r.," later this week. "n.b.r." founding co-anchor, paul kangas will join us on thursday night, december 6. we'll talk about the markets, and he'll answer some of your questions. that's thursday, december 6. you can submit your questions on facebook or twitter, at "bizrpt." >> tom, the questions are just flowing in, we have enough to fill a half hour with paul. so i think it's going to be really a lot of fun. >> tom: it will be. lots of questions about stock market technology. one asking paul, will the dow hit 8,000 or 18,000. also some maritime matters, what sailor paul has done throughout his career and a little bit of conversation about the boat business maybe. >> susie: yeah, he served in the coast guard. we have lots to talk with paul

maya macguineas. i have seen a few of your events. it seems that some of those events you have had have not been as much as displaying the bipartisan you are speaking about this morning. i think that's a good thing. a lot of what you are saying makes very good sense right now. and my other comment was there is no argument that there has never been such a non-governing congress. in the last two years, there's never been anything like the debacle that's going on. you really have to look at the reason is, mitch mcconnell set the tone when he said that his main goal and objective was to make president obama a one-term president. host: thanks for the call. our website, fixthedebt.org is our website. guest: i'm not sure which events you've seen, lamar, but we tried to do everything we push out in the public and privately as well in a bipartisan way, because i am a diehard political independence. i don't think either side is right or wrong. much more important than that is if this is how you have to have a national discussion. there are goin

maya macguineas joins us and has been right on about all of these issues. good to sigh again. >> thank you so much. >> i want to begin this and play a sound bite from the president earlier today. see what you think. listen to this. i'd like to get your reaction, maya. >> i will not negotiate around the debt ceiling. if you go to wall street, including talking to a whole bunch of folks who spent a lot of money trying to beat me, they would say it would be disastrous for us to use the debt ceiling as a cudgel to try to win political points on capitol hill. >> what do you think about that, maya is the debt ceiling issue? in 2006 president obama called the debt problem a failure of leadership. what's your reaction to what he said today? >> well, the debt ceiling in the past has been used as something akin to a speed bump which kept reminding us, listen, we're borrowing too much. we need to put our fiscal house back on track, and we would sort of use it occasionally to nudge us in the right direction. i think things changed when we actually started talking about

i'm maya macguineas, i am working with the campaign to fix the debt, and i'm the president for the committee for a responsible federal budget, and i'm really excited to join a phenomenal panel that we have with us today to help the campaign fix the debt which is, um, a large, nonpartisan coalition that is focused on helping members of congress come together to put in place a comprehensive debt deal. so i'm very delighted that today what we have is a diverse and very experienced, um, group of panelists to talk about two major topics; tax reform and health care reform. all in the context of how are we going to work together to put in place a plan that would be able to tackle the nation's fiscal challenges. we will hear numerous different opinions, we will hear plenty of disagreement, and i hope we'll hear a lot of ideas about how to generate different, um, useful reforms to the budget that can help get a big deal put in place. and none of us should forget that what's going on in the political system is incredibly challenging, and members of both parties are working very hard to come up with a

a plan put forward by marty feldstein and maya macguineas that some have cited, to cap the value at 2 percent, that also would raise about $500 billion to $600 billion. if you just applied it to households above $250,000 and if you protected charity that idea would also raise in the neighborhood of $400 billion to $500 billion. other proposals would retroactively eliminate municipal bonds, all of those types of things. so at the end of the day, that's why where the president is coming from is a combination of those rates -- having the tax cuts expire, doing tax expenditures -- tax expenditures can play a role, but they can't make up for the revenue that you would have gotten through rates. host: we have been focusing on different aspects of the fiscal cliff. we want to look at capital gains tax and the estate tax. what is the estate tax? guest: it goes back to history -- it was put in place to prevent the united states from developing an aristocracy. a tax on estates that are passed down to heirs. republicans called the death tax. they have characterized it as a bad thing. it has a lo