to help sort out the details in ryan's vision for federal spending, we are joined by robert greensteiner on budget and policy priorities; patrick knudsen of the heritage foundation; and steven dennis, a reporter for "roll call" who has covered the plan closely on capitol hill. steven dennis, let's talk about paul ryan's budget wonk. how successful was he at that? >> he was very successful. you know, he was the guy when the republicans were down and out after losing the majority in 2006, who helped them pick up the pieces, come up with a new plan to get behind and rally around. when they took back the majority and he had his plan, a lot of folks in his own party and in his own caucus, his own conference who were afraid of his plan, afraid of the medicare proposal, afraid of the deep cuts. and he got... he managed to get them to get behind his plan and rally around it. instead of having a budget passed by just one or two votes the way it normally is done politically because it's too dangerous to vote for real change and real pain, he got his folks to overwhelmingly pass it. they got behi

. >> ifill: robert greenstein let's talk through some of these starting with medicare. what he has plannedded to do. >> it would cause very serious problems. he would basically convert medicare for people turning 65 in the future into a voucher. now you could use it to buy private insurance or you could try to use it to keep traditional medicare, but if the healthier people went into private insurance traditional medicare would become more costly. that would be expensive. he also would end the provision of the health reform law, the affordable care act, tt fled inhe donut hole. so many middle-income seniors would have a higher drug price. one of the striking proposals is he would raise the age at which you could start to get medicare from 65 to 67 but at the same time he would repeal the provisions of the health reform law that set up these new health insurance exchanges for people to go into. so 65 and 66-year-olds would largely be left to try to buy insurance in the current type of health insurance market where people at that age ofn can't buy a policy. >> ifill: what

than $1 million would end up with more money in their pockets, or as liberal budget analyst robert greenstein "new york" magazine quote, it would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern u.s. history. so newt gingrich wasn't really that far off. it's a form of right wing social engineering. joining me from washington is msnbc policy analyst and "washington post" columnist, ezra klein and jonathan chait of "new york" magazine. gentlemen, great to see you both. >> good afternoon. >> ezra, i want to start with you. on saturday, you have been writing some great pieces about the ryan plan but you made this point which i think is getting lost in a lot of this debate over medicaid, medicare and social security. the real north star, you write, of ryan's policy record isn't deficits or spending though he often uses those concerns in service of his agenda. it's radically reforming the way the federal government provides public services usually by prooif tiezing or devolving those public services away from the federal government. tell us more about that. >