editor of the military times newspapers, david bettertoe of the center of international studies, todd harrison of the center for strategic and budgetary assesses. , and jim of the heritage foundation. gentlemen, welcome to the show. >> good to be but. >> let's start with you, rick. what does the failure of skymen and what happens between now and january 13? >> the failure isn't surprising but it does mean there's no easy answer and no non- political way out of this any time in the future. the -- we'll return to bickering now and it will be bickering in congress between now and the november elections, about who is to blame for the fact that you don't have a deal, and they'll be -- each of the parties will come up with some plan of their own that won't be able to be passed and we'll just talk and talk about somebody really needs to do something about the deficit, nobody will do anything. >> todd, what exactly is the sequestration process? what gets cut? how fast does it happen? what will -- >> bottom line is nothing hams on sequestration. doesn't go into a enforcement until january 2013. so we'v

. >> reporter: todd harrison is the director of the budgetary assessment. >> when everything is free, people are going to tend to use it more than they would. everyone if they had to pay some nominal amount for it. >> reporter: lieutenant colonel sebesta says shedding pounds by surgery saves tax money by preventing medical complications from obesity. as for heather, she hopes bariatric procedures remain an option. >> what about my quality of life, you can't really put a price tag on that. >> reporter: it has now been several days since about a dozen members of congress began a very tough exercise. east bay congresswoman barbara lee is one of those living on food stamps for five days. that amounts to less than $5 a day. the congresswoman said she has had to shop very carefully and make her food last longer. but she said her hardship is nothing when you compare it to people who live in poverty every day. >> children go to school hungry, families, mothers and fathers try to figure out how they're going to take care of their kids and just survive through the day. >> reporter: our crew wen

defense expert todd harrison of cbsa tells us we could see more cuts to the joint strike fighter program. and we could see cuts of 80,000 men and women from the army. the numbers indicate the pentagon has choices. and a lot of room to move. after all, america already spends ten times more than russia on its military, six times more than the next superpower, china. but there's one thing that gives us pause. before you say, hey, it's no problem. go ahead and cut. according to a few sources we've been talking to, the defense industry employs millions of americans. 2 million or more just in the armed services alone. and, if you take away some of those jobs you could see a hit 16% to gdp. if you look at our numbers next year, that's half of projected growth with an economy struggling to grow. you can see that could be a problem. david gergen joins us, senior political analyst here. glo gloria borger is our chief political analyst. they'll be talking about this in cuts, for defense, it's going to be a big issue. it's not an easy issue. >> no oorkts not an easy issue, particularly for republica